People misunderstand fanaticism. It is not an irrationally strong form of belief. It is an intensely cloaked form of cynicism.

I think “populism being used correctly” is our real substantive area of disagreement. Even if your heart is in the right place, populism is talking down to people not lifting them up.

Honest, substantive discussions about priorities and trade-offs might come back in fashion sooner than you think!

Thanks I will give this a read with an open mind.

So in your view rent controls maintain a system of theft? I can’t tell if you agree with Zack or not now.

I’m fine with capital leveraging scarcity for profit when it comes to Pokémon cards, but it’s not beyond us to legislate and make it unprofitable to do the same with housing.

Who is aggrieved specifically?

Tenants have every right to be aggrieved at the state of the UK rental market. Do the Greens under Zack seek to build on the Renters Rights Act 2025 or repeal and replace it? I can’t divine any critique or prospectus from “renters or landlords, which side are you on?”

What coalitions is it sabotaging?

I voted tactically in 2024 desperate for a Labour govt and been bitterly disappointed since. I’m sick and tired of cheap populism in all forms, and refuse to play along just because someone closer to my politics is doing it. Maybe the Greens don’t need ppl like me?

Whose loyalty is this testing?

Nobody’s, which is why his framing was redundant and I gently pointed out Lab and ZP have previously been in very different places on rent control. Most people don’t have immutable positions on this and are open to discussion. “Which side are you on?” Isn’t useful.

I agree in principle that landlordism is theft, but I don’t think it needs to be with enough cooling of the property market. Britain has been hooked on rising house prices far too long.

My sis lives in Berlin where in addition to Mietpreisbremse tenants are legally protected from sudden eviction (min notice rises w/length of tenancy). With indefinite rental contracts as default as in NL, protection from insecurity due to income loss comes via insurance as with a mortgage.

Opposing demands don’t make binary framing useful. Renting securely and affordably happens in comparable Western European nations. Zack's post says zero about policy, it’s a loyalty test. Hardly coalition building. It’s Faragist to use conflicting interests to weaponise grievance.

I agree rent controls are a necessary policy that should happen. A positive Green case for it would get a sympathetic hearing from many within Labour, and do more to foreshorten our horizon to a just housing market than this Faragist binary framing. The neverending election campaign is so tiring

In 2015 when you stood for Clegg’s Lib Dems, rent controls were in the Labour manifesto. The electorate favoured your coalition partners’ EU referendum. Parties (and people) switch sides for political expediency all the time, taking your medicine from the voters being one of the better reasons.

Would be great if the in May elections bloodbath reshuffle we could get a Health Sec with media literacy and critical thinking skills. Compassion would be a bonus at this point.

Streeting said he had not seen the reports. He went on: double quotation markI’ll be honest, when people would pop up on social media laying those sorts of charges, they tended to be the sort of people who appear in your timeline trolling. And I just didn’t think it could be credible that [Mandelson] would have had that kind of relationship. Asked to explain this more, Streeting said the original report was not “a big story at the time”, and he had not read it at the time. This showed how Mandelson was not being held to account, he said. double quotation markSo, the FT did a report, but I don’t remember seeing it in other newspapers. Mandelson still had a podcast. He was appearing regularly on really big news programmes. And so, to be honest, the only time I remember seeing stuff, Mandleson/Epstein, you just think, ‘I haven’t seen that from a credible news source, he hasn’t been questioned, I think that must be overblown’. Asked if he questioned his judgment now, Streeting replied: “Of course, absolutely.” He said there has been a political failure to ask Mandelson full questions about his ongoing relationship with Epstein. “It is also, I think, a media failure,” he said.

Radio 4: Wes Streeting does not consider the Financial Times “a credible news source”, blames “media failure” for his misunderstanding of the Mandelson / Epstein relationship.

Maybe he should reassess the credibility of the Cass report, in case the media have failed to help him interpret that too?

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From the latest issue (sorry no refunds). shop.viz.co.uk/viz355bs

The “poor wee Scotland colonised by the English who did the evil bits of Empire” strand of Nationalism is the most foul self serving lie of the Indy debate. Modern Scotland was built on colonial extraction, appropriating the subjugation of peoples you robbed, enslaved, and murdered is beyond crass.

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My dad wanted an outlet to talk about his memories & projects, so we did a podcast! Relaxed chat & nostalgic meandering. If you wouldn’t mind giving it a nice rating and review, it would make him so pleased. 🙏

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It's so important to torture children into suicide because they've made us uncomfortable, or aware of our own failure to self-actualize, or of the insubstantial nature of social laws we've hurt ourselves trying to obey.

No it isn’t. It’s a fucking performance art shitpost from the guy who returned to Newport wearing a paper bag on his head. Christ. This isn’t even an interesting question.

The only thing uniting all UK political parties in 2026 is the desire to fritter away any advantage or impetus on the quest for social media approval. No matter how good the communicator in person, they all end up saying dumb shit for internet points

The Face Reader - not Han Jae-rim’s best but certainly interesting!

Sometimes you've got to write it down. #dreamtweet

Just caught Kuenssberg's intro of Piers Moron as the TV was being switched off: 'broadcaster and mischief-maker.' Illustrating everything that is wrong with current affairs media in this country.

Please, please everyone humour me
The word aitch does not begin with the letter it represents any more than m is mem or n is nen
H is AITCH and when I hear government ministers talking about the HAITCH ESS 2 railway project. I realise the time has come to speak out. To shout out in fact.

Launching tomorrow, 'Too Hot For TV' a brand new podcast looking at the expanded media of your favourite franchises.

Everyone has better things to be happy about than this, but I watched #Stan&Ollie last night: Steve Coogan and John C Reilly as one of the most fondly remembered comedy duos of all time. It's a lovely film, with great performances and a genuine friendship at its heart. Just not Stan and Ollie's.

There's nothing for you here!

It's a good job Walliams wasn't a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef otherwise the BBC would just transmit it.

As Christmas looms ever-closer, we remember that Jesus was born in a stable, fled as a refugee, grew up in provincial obscurity amidst working folk, denounced wealth, called for radical acceptance of those on society’s margins, and was tortured to death for it.