Laurie Penny, from the Conservative Party conference a few weeks ago (that is to say, before the wheels fell off). The unfortunate Toby Young, a living monument to the English Art of failing upwards, is on one of their panels, and seems distressed to be the most liberal person here by far, making an asinine… Continue reading A long, slow death
Tag: Politics
Leadership stakes
Marina Hyde: The good news: Johnson’s on the way out. The bad news: look who’s on the way in… “Suella Braverman: Literally might as well run for leadership of Starfleet. Or Mensa.” Harsh, but fair.
The Dalek Invasion of Westminster
Hard to disagree: I miss the days when the only reason a British PM had to suddenly replace 40 ministers is because they were disintegrated in the latest Dalek attack.— James Davis Nicoll (@jamesdnicoll) July 7, 2022
Levelling-up
Spotted in the Guardian’s letters, a reader gives the government credit where it’s due: I am pleased to say I have spotted the first concrete evidence of the government putting its levelling-up agenda into action. While viewing information on my NHS app, I found the guide to foreign travel under Covid regulations, with the following… Continue reading Levelling-up
Good Law?
The Good Law Project poses a simple question about how senior UK government ministers have used their personal email systems for official business in recent years: [Why…] would Ministers choose to use personal accounts rather than official channels? They seem to believe this is a loophole to avoid scrutiny. If politicians think they can evade… Continue reading Good Law?
Luck
Tony Blair can only wish he had such good luck… Domestication is key to the rebranding of Bush as a “good” conservative. His interview on The Today Show was conducted in part by his daughter Jenna, who is one of the hosts of the show. She explained for the viewing audience that although when her… Continue reading Luck
In the long run, we are all dead
Tim Hartford on why the UK is braced for a grim Christmas: Late in 2019, the British people decided that Chaos Kong would make a good prime minister and elected Boris Johnson by a large margin. Johnson has now decided to make a virtue of his own recklessness. After initially claiming that the shortage of… Continue reading In the long run, we are all dead
Rescue at sea
Part of me thinks it’s a shame that the RNLI didn’t increase the default preset donation figure on their web site’s donation page from £20 to £50, because they could have really cashed in after Nigel Farage’s comments this week as people reacted by rushing to the RNLI web site and looked for the quickest,… Continue reading Rescue at sea
Punchline
From Dirty Feed, a magnificent, thoroughly documented deep dive into the history of one of the greatest punchlines in the history of British television: Sad to contemplate that none of the three actors involved is still with us, but what a memorial to their work together on a programme that shaped a generation’s view of… Continue reading Punchline
Joking. Not joking.
Horrifying to contemplate how big a round of applause this would get at the next Conservative Party conference if it was delivered by the right member of the Cabinet: This kind of stuff, filmed in 1980s & early 90s, if released today would be trending on here for days. He died 2014 aged 56. What… Continue reading Joking. Not joking.