Pippa Crerar unquestioningly skeeting the government line and obvious lie that Yvette Cooper only became aware that Mandelson failed vetting yesterday.

Paul Brand unquestioningly pushing the obvious lie from "those loyal to Starmer" that he'd never have waived through Mandelson's vetting.

Duncan Weldon seemingly taking the obvious lie that Starmer didn't know about the failed vetting at face value.

When does this level of public self-debasement technically become a kink?

Not once in the 80s, 90s or 00s do I recall a politician urging the public to embrace email, mobile phones, texting, two factor authentication, online banking, air fryers, or to replace all their cassette collection with a CD collection.

So forgive me if I smell a rat.

I think the preceeding bulletin on the radio, highlighting the precarity of the BBCs funding model, might help explain why senior editors are prepared to do Reform's bidding and keep migration in the headlines in the run up to the Local's. Pre-emptive compliance and all that.

The idea young men aren't represented on these marches is obviously ridiculous.

The thing that articles like this always obfuscate is that young men are the *2nd* most progressive cohort in the UK, not far behind young women. The biggest divide is between a minority of young men who've had their brain-rotted by YouTube, and the rest who see the world much like the girls do.

Jonathan, can you re-do that first graph as if non-dom status didn't exist, as it doesn't meaningfully in the US? Do you think their power and malign influence on UK society stops because theyre not tax registered here?

What amazed me was Will's reluctance to even try to grapple with the corollary of his position: "Of course they know, and many of them care, but they're all just too crap to do anything about it."
FWIW, I think he's full of shit, but at least be consistent!

Most people who disagree with this have some abstracted hypothetical in their minds, as opposed to the real and existing version of Zionism thats genociding and warmongering with abandon. And they can cling to this abstraction because they're racist.

Keir Starmer: Where Did It All Go Wrong? review – is the PM just useless at politics or is it something more sinister? Westminster insiders try to get to the bottom of Starmer’s awful unpopularity and frequent blunders – but fail to consider less palatable possibilities

Credit to @jackseale.bsky.social for being perhaps the first mainstream journalist to even acknowledge the possibility that the reason Sir Keir Starmer has reneged on every promise he's made is because he's not a particularly good or honest person.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

You truly love to see it.

Every Wednesday is Ass Wednesday in my house, pal.

Did they have an espresso machine? If not, a missed opportunity IMHO.

Yeah, thats a weird take. GM has like 4 or 5 Universities and is a major cultural hub. Buttfuck, Alabama it ain't.

The reptile house/coffee shop crossover feels underexplored as a genre. More please.

Binturong? More like Binturight!

I was fully 35 years old before I saw one for the first time at Longleat. Ridiculous that a land mammal that big can exist and I had no idea about it.

Shituation room.

A better bet, eh? Better for whom exactly?

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy.

Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

Classic "better things aren't possible" stuff here. A lot of these apprent complexities, risks and hidden costs, boil down to protecting the interests of the people currently winning. Won't somebody think of the rentiers?!!?

*wouldn't

Its literally a bulwark against a more progressive paradigm. Token lefties are easily consigned to the opinion columns while the editorials cling ever closer to some masiticated post-blair 'progressive centrism'.
"Would be be where they were if they believed anything else" etc etc.

Totally. Status anxiety and perceptions of negative direction of travel (as opposed to absolute deprivation) are everything. They pretty much defined the brexit vote for e.g.

Its also just really really shitly done.

No, but theyre overwhelming the block who's perceived political preferences are catered to most eagerly by both main parties over the last 3 decades, be it immigration, law and order, tax, etc.
No group is homogeneous. Doesn't stop doesn't stop politicians treating them so and acting accordingly.

His voice and the wide open wah-wah pedal are almost indistinguishable in pitch and tone.

This divide has been apparent for years and years, and suggests proximity to the employment market is really key to having any kind of grasp on reality at all.

Wondering if there's a name for the paradox where the voting preferences of the cohort that would benefit most directly from the founding of a National Care Service have for so long prevented it happening.
Inverse care law, but for old reactionaries.

It's my most objectionable/indefensible hot take, and I stand by it.