I would note that Mahmood’s political trajectory and radicalisation was entirely predictable for those of us who paid attention to her handling of anti-LGBT campaigning back in 2019…
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/shaban...
Tell the kids that you’re going to get the cabinet office to launch an inquiry into bedtime
This is such a good point and I think is really revealing of how few STEM grads there are in our political media.
At what point during Numerical Solutions to Differential Equations or Advanced Cosmology should I have expected to listen to someone bang on about the evils of wokery?
I love this. More buildings should have interiors designed by some kind of game of Mad Libs.
Still finished the game of course, even if I had to limp it.
Partial calf tear refereeing my last rugby game of the season the day before flying to America?
I’d call it a pain in the neck but that feels anatomically wrong.
This is a very real and significant trend.
The (understandable) focus on protecting young people means that politicians, the media and civil society have largely been blind to the incredible extent to which swathes of older people have been radicalised online in the last decade.
Frank Herbert I apologize for ever doubting you
At this rate I give it three weeks until Vance gets excommunicated and we end up with the dumbest Anti-Pope in history
I feel like liberal Catholics have had language for a long time that lets them disagree with the Pope without sounding like morons and conservative Catholics are like those big Galapagos flightless birds and never developed this ability.
ALTRAD I did not even know that I was supposed to have oversight of my Government. It was Olly Robbins who came to ask me what to do about Mandelson. I told him to ask the PM. He said that it was me. The staff did not warn me - VAHAAMAHINA ON CONFUSION IN THE FRENCH RANKS it SPORT
Had to dig out a classic format for this
Not sure if it’s new news per se - but if the No10 Comms Director was told this in September, then you’re basically left with two options:
1. Starmer knew at that point and did nothing
2. No one in No10 investigates or tells anyone about anything
Screenshot
We’re not quite into misled the House territory but we’re getting very close
When I was at the BoE, we had “Stress Testing Strategy Division” where the story went that the unnecessary “strategy” was added purely to avoid an unfortunate acronym…
Quite striking how many of this government’s crises have involved people who should absolutely be talking to each other refusing to do so
[foreign office 2025]
CIVIL SERVANT: Prime Minister we have news on Mandelson's vetting, it turns out-
STARMER: no don't tell me, I want it to be a surprise when the scandal comes out in 8 months' time
CIVIL SERVANT: I really insis-
STARMER: god forbid we have any MYSTERY in our lives any more
This the key point. If FCDO did overturn the vetting without telling anyone it was because it had already been announced. Which was a ridiculous thing to do.
I’m sorry, but there’s only so many times you can be “furious” with your subordinates before you become the problem
It completely ignores the existence of the Newham independents, who are quite likely to win the entire mayoralty and a large number of council seats
As a Newham resident, I am absolutely dying at this
bsky.app/profile/step...
I said “how bad can it be?” and went to check.
Reader, it is baaaaad.
Imagine going back 20 years and telling people that the Republican Party would be at war with the Catholic Church
Probably the number one driver of delivery problems for this government is Starmer being either unwilling or unable to provide a clear judgement on disputes between departments.
A 2022 tweet from @agraybee Every lifelong Catholic I've ever met is like "I think we're supposed to give this food to poor people" and every adult convert is like "the Archon of Constantinople's epistle on the Pentacostine rites of the eucharist clearly states women shouldn't have driver's licenses." 7:48 PM.Jun 17, 2022
This remains undefeated:
The final boss of moronic podcast bros explaining things
Fundamentally, if you cannot make a sincere argument for a policy position, you should not hold it.
This feels like an essential principle of government.
I was thinking this morning how both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan would have been delighted to see a Westward-looking, centre-right party defeat a pro-Russian autocrat in a former Eastern Bloc country.
I know that the world has gone mad, but this is something I could never possibly have conceived of even a few years ago
Alternative joke: No Scotland No Your Party