How Long…? Episode Two, coming Thursday!

Clive is of course correct, and the key thing here is not that Watson has succumbed to temptation: he was a bullshit artist and a crook ten years ago too. This is just what the system looks like when there is no longer any need to pretend these people work for you, not their future employers.

Tom Watson’s move to Palantir is the latest sign of how far the rot has spread in UK politics | Clive Lewis

When a former Labour deputy leader joins a firm built on surveillance and military targeting, it deepens public cynicism – and democracy depends on trust, says Labour MP Clive Lewis

theguardian.com

What I reckon.

A new long read that took a lot for me to write.

Me, Kate Middleton and the medical meat machine

Why women in the healthcare system will always feel like chopped liver.

juliaraeside.substack.com

Ed Sheeran has strongly held moral convictions, but they go to another school.

Just a reminder as the new academic year kicks off - the UK government has deliberately, ruthlessly, throttled the recruitment of international students, solely to pander to racists, and the resultant 25%+ fall in numbers can and will only accelerate some universities into bankruptcy.

They all do this: they leave the BBC talking about how glad they are to be free of the corporation’s stifling restrictions, and then it turns out all of them have the same boring-as-fuck, driving gloves Tory opinions about everything.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · last mo.

‘Can I just shock you? I’m actually very right-wing.’

We’ve got to the ‘attacking the RNLI for not letting people drown’ stage of radicalisation without the media offering one shred of reflection over whether they may be responsible.

It’s not a mistake. The problem here is not a failure to understand. They all know, very well.

This has been presented to the public as Sensible, moderate, centrist, common sense politics.

The black outfit mask guys have had years of politicians fighting each other to win their approval, with all-channels unanimity that they are justified and correct. The granny and the vicar have had a decade of incredibly hostile screaming hatred from the very top of politics and media. Thus

Centrist Dad Pinup Marina Hyde making it unequivocally clear who she is.

The media could have not platformed Nigel Farage and discredited him 15 years ago. Instead Farage got them what they wanted - Cameron agreeing to a Brexit referendum, Labour and the Tories dragged to the right. Now they want two party politics back with the Tories in power. He’s served his purpose.

Channel 4 reporter: Hello. I am Mr. Alias and this is my extremely suspicious comically large donation that i can only make in the form of a bag of money with a dollar sign on it. every other reform guy: seems legit! let me tell you every single way in which i and my boss have broken the law

Thrilled that Valerie Cherish is finally competing on drag race.

this, more than anything, is why the elite have continued to back him even as he plunges into historical levels of unpopularity “we can be complete assholes without consequence” is the best thing that ever happened to them and they will fight to the death to protect that right

Better Things Are Possible@internethippo.bsky.social · last mo.

Trump's main contribution to our culture was showing other rich guys that they can be as odious as they want if they don't back down on their own volition. Much like a lot of laws, social opprobrium just doesn't apply to them

Also since Orr is an academic at Cambridge who has actually been caught lying I look forward to the month of hounding on a deeply personal level and strokey chin pontificating about whether any white men should even get to be professors

Ah smashing, someone has decided to do the latest round of Noticing. Bring it.

Hey! Us guys at Cheese n Pickle have got a brand NEW podcast series JUST FOR YOU! How Long? With @jnraeside.bsky.social & @jondrytay.bsky.social boggling at the passage of actual time. It’s very funny and will boggle you too, if you too think 1996 was about 15 years ago. pod.link/6805050407?v...

How Long?

Listen to How Long? wherever you get your podcasts!

pod.link

Absolutely incredible that all of this is being done under the narrative of "independent review of studies." The studies find significant benefits and no harms! Children are not being rushed into irreversible procedures! An entire government and media apparatus buying in an urban legend

Comjng September 1st. Let me and @jnraeside.bsky.social make you feel old. Like, subscribe, share!

There are exceptions but I’ve found the lads are mostly thunderstruck at the most predictable shit imaginable; bizarrely confident in people of limited ability; wholly unable to understand members of the public who don’t behave or react as expected, and unable to think outside their own experience.

That feels absolutely right to me, and I’ll go you one further: increasingly, and for the last five years in particular, legacy media no longer seems to *understand* the world. They can’t explain what’s happening to themselves and each other, never mind to the public.

Jonathan Shainin: Legacy media no longer explains the world

Podcast Episode · Media Confidential · 17 August · 39min

podcasts.apple.com

Such an important read. We’re through the looking glass when the official position on bullies is that if you stand up to them, you’re the problem.

Robin Ince@robinince.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It’s been very odd biting the bullet & revealing details only my closest friends knew about was going on around monkey cage over last few years - and now I wait for the next lot of attacks but I also know there will be solidarity www.patreon.com/RobinInce/po... www.patreon.com/RobinInce/po...

Well, I could go on like this at length, but I won’t. I’ll just say that it didn’t used to be like this, and it’s like this now because of a surprisingly small number of people whose names you’ve probably heard before.

Since episode one of Ann Droid, the popular Italian dessert tiramisu has a permanent new name in this house.

I think what's happened here is the press immediately recognised the obvious truth of what Hannah Spencer said but their idea of fairness/compromise is to still go in two footed on her, a vile 'leftie', and then circle back and pick up her points a few months on without acknowledging they were hers

Podcasting is Praxis@praxiscast.bsky.social · 2mo ago

That's weird, because a whole discourse happened where we were all told drinking was super normal and anyone asking questions was a gross communist who didn't understand? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

mermaids, stonewall, the girl guides and amnesty international were all my last territorial demands in europe

Holl🌞@willows-song.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is why you dont try to compromise or concede anything to these horrors

I like a good dunk on the Telegraph as much as anyone, and don’t understand why it still carries any credibility when it’s been a fash rag for years, but it’s only fair to mention that this isn’t an op ed. Moore is a wine writer. She writes articles about wine.

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I always wondered what it would take for the Telegraph to decide there might be a downside to climate breakdown. Well, now we know. Even so, this article manages not to mention it.

It is putting it mildly to describe these people as a death cult.