worthy long term reforms?

This is just so shameful. Labour overtook the Tories in the polling average before the end of 2021 and had a consistently huge lead from autumn 2022. How dare they say “oh, we were so busy planning to lose that we forgot to plan what we’d do after winning” about an election in 2024?

This is the worst answer she gives in the interview for my money. The instinct, when confronted with a hard trade-off on the matter at hand, to say “well, this wouldn’t be a problem if we fixed a separate huge expensive problem” is one I’d associate with tankies on Twitter, not the head of the EHRC.

The chair of the EHRC, our national human rights institution, centring arguments around polling and political popularity on a human rights issue seems… Not good www.politicshome.com/news/article...

The case for a national rollout of weight-loss drugs – @marthadacombe.bsky.social on how the NHS's sluggish pace is failing the poorest. www.arguably.uk/p/britain-ne...

Someone thought it clever to hide the 4.7bn black hole away in Treasury notes. As a result that’s all the media are talking about. Not the merits of the plan, or the need for a national debate on durably spending more on defence, which I tried to talk about with Cathy Newman on Sky News last night.

For a long time the complaint from people like Goodwin was, 'Migrants and refugees need to integrate properly into British life'. We're now well past that and into the open racism stage.

we can all breathe a sigh of relief: the Scottish Parliament website gender search functionality has been partly restored. please stay tuned to BBC Scotland for a future write-up of how it doesn’t call any trans MSPs men and therefore is unacceptable

think it’s so funny how many different demographic breakdowns you can look at and the Lib Dems just get like 10-15% in all of them

I am not an AI hater but I think it’s really dumb for news organisations to put AI summaries of their own articles above the actual text, especially when those summaries can easily be wrong. (Pat McFadden has never been Energy Secretary!)

Aside from the terminology thing (which is just mad logic), the idea that my right to be gay depends on it 'not being a choice' makes me uneasy. By all means use that as a campaigning argument where you have to, but let's not internalise it ourselves!

I can see the case for a DIP before a new PM if (1) it got defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 and made the NATO summit easier Or (2) was an actually workable plan that was fully paid for and made tough decisions that the new PM could blame on his predecessor. This is neither.

liquid Starmerism: going out on a big announcement about tough choices the party has to make, but the amount of money announced is somehow both more than he’s actually funded and less than it needs to be. he’s competitively useless

Quite a few people in the Cabinet have IMV disgraced themselves in a way that should make Andy Burnham go 'nope, sacking you' and Reeves is very high up that list. Present at the scene of the crime almost as frequently as Starmer himself!

(have seen a few comments to this extent and: actuaries earn a good salary, some very good, but if she “retired” at 35 I doubt it was mega money)

If I were trying to make a moral case about how refugees risk being displaced into the dark economy and exploited by traffickers, I probably wouldn't then introduce a £10,000 tariff to let them take up legal work and gain residency.

the two genders

hate when you can see new folk myths forming in real time. have seen a bunch of people making the claim addressed in 2) below about Pete Buttigieg which no good faith reading of his comment would allow

I like Simon Jack so this is not a reflection on him, but I think the months ahead might prove testing for commentators only able to see economic policy through the prism of fiscal decisions, bond market reaction, repeat. ....

Yeah this is essentially the same philosophy, but delivered without contempt for the electorate and with a principal who actually wants to do the job. Will perhaps get us out of the ditch but doesn't fix the underlying issues.

beatings will continue until morale improves

She wanted to be in this war and argued that the only reason Keir Starmer didn't want to is that he was in hoc to British Muslims. Not a serious person.

Folks.

browsing this year’s classic fm hall of fame (it was a round on pointless this week) and it’s an interesting view into where people encounter classical music: - very famous orchestral works - community choir classics - film music

me when I can’t read

All Stars 11 bracket 2: - April Carrión is so hot - Salina EsTitties was a bit robbed not to go through (should have been top two in week 2 as well) - but her scattergun strategy didn’t help lmao

if the Miliband Foreign Secretary rumours are true (reasonably big if) then it’s another thing to make me think the Chancellor will be Yvette Cooper/Heidi Alexander/Shabana Mahmood rather than one of the frontrunners

What's remarkable here is that Phillips is claiming that starmer was a disaster because he didn't govern by opinion poll and focus group enough. He wouldn't put it like that, but his argument is "these right wing policies polled well in isolation but Starmer betrayed the nation by ignoring that"

at first thought and taking “everyday life” seriously: my keyring still has a bottle opener on it from freshers week 2012. hardly ever use it, not least because it’s rubbish, but it is occasionally handy!

Andy Burnham choosing his Chancellor:

I'm pro air-conditioning, but I do feel like the intensity of the AC debate has got a bit out of hand. London has had an average of six days a year with temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius (86F) in the past decade. Chicago has 30+ days at 90F (32C) a year. There's a reason Brits didn't have AC

“if we’d voted for Jeremy Corbyn there wouldn’t be any war with Russia” “because Ukraine would have won, right?” “…” “because Ukraine would have won, right?”

linguists will be studying Susan Boyle’s vowels in her version of Just One Cornetto for centuries to come

A lot of discussion of Burnham bringing back Purnell discussing the potential risks of Flint Capital's clients (very fair!) But not enough of the fact he seems likely to bring back Josh Simons who nuked his own career by trying to shop a journalist to MI5

Good column and I agree with Robert that Miliband is the choice Burnham would make if he is confident. This quote from a minister stood out - it’s luridly over the top. These people need a reality check.

I know failing to adjudicate in disagreements *between* departments has been a recurring theme in Starmer's premiership, but this failure to adjudicate in one *within* a department (in which, let's be clear, nobody comes out looking good) is further proof that the heat is getting to everyone

It is *extremely* weird to push out a contested long-term investment plan after announcing your resignation. It is even weirder to do so when your succsssor's team has briefed out that they would rather you didn't publish it. What does Starmer (or Jarvis) think they're accompolishing here?

Me: Okay, there's been a thunderstorm, the heatwave should be over now. (New health bar appears) (The sun is now named 'Sol, Starflame of Regret') (Objectively the greatest piece of classical music ever recorded starts playing).

Jonathan Hinder made a snappily edited video about how Labour lost its way post 1980 by embracing identity politics. When faced with the most basic scrutiny of this position, Hinder immediately deploys identity politics as a defence

So unwritten that of the five prime ministers to inherit a majority in “mid-term”, only one of them called an election before its due date. Why are some political journalists so uninterested in history?

it’s a mug’s game guessing who will be chancellor but I think Yvette Cooper is underpriced.

Same with the North Sea. If Burnham approves Jackdaw and Rosebank as part of a ‘pragmatic’ reset he gets a couple of hours of credit and then the attacks start to scrap the ZEV Mandate or ditch the clean power goal or cut fuel duty or just whatever the next vibes-based attack line happens to be.

I wrote about the continued appeal of dirtbag politics, from the left to liberals, and how only a politics of grace and edification can save our liberal democracy Dirtbagism delenda est www.liberalcurrents.com/the-dirtbags...

Having thought about it a little bit. My personal, practical suggestion to amend the draft Conversion Practice bill would be to amend the healthcare provisions to have the exception apply only to properly regulated healthcare providers, operating according to such standards.

And meanwhile people are worrying about the economic consequences of Ed Miliband becoming Chancellor…

I know I keep banging on about how Anas Sarwar needs to resign, but it really is getting silly that he's apparently claiming he intends to contest 2031 as well. Was one thing for fatally wounded Starmer to be claiming he'd stand if challenged; you have to say that. Sarwar lost the actual election!

the decision to allow an exemption for unregulated healthcare providers seems hard to justify.

I've spent years working towards a ban on conversion practices, hoping to see a bill published. Today, I just feel so profoundly sad. As many others have noted, the draft has a carve out for "healthcare" so broad it makes a mockery of the idea this is a 'ban'. 1/2 www.gov.uk/government/p...

I don’t think it’s great that people are flirting with Holocaust denial

pleasantly surprised to see a Cabinet member willing to be robust on this. hope it’s a sign of more to come.