TFL could have a *very* ill-judged "Don't be a Gooner" campaign.

A friend of a friend got a tattoo of "88" in a place not routinely covered by clothing. They did it for personal reasons and in full ignorance and were both horrified and quick to book a cover up when someone told them.

Incidentally, this has reminded me of when I got blocked on here for arguing with the David Graeber Institute that "Logistics Manager" wasn't a "bullshit job". I hope every one of them is waiting on a vital package from Southern Texas.

All this speculation about the potential horrid things the airspace closure around El Paso could signifiy, and all I can think of is the logistics managers having the *worst* day and week of their lives.

Loss to Reform - 700k Loss to Green - 800k Loss to LD - 1m Loss to Don't Know - 1.3m Ref gain from Cons -1.7m Ref gain from non-voting - 1.7m. "Someone who is good at winning Reform votes please help me, my party is dying" (all figs to Summer 2025, ripped from @dylandifford.bsky.social)

Think British politics generally is very bad at realising there is an entire content nearby to learn stuff from. Especially true on the right.

Waiting for Substack to launch an option where they send you hard copies of the top articles of the month, perhaps glossy bound with some nice pictures and adverts.

Was amusing when I was in the ME for work, and as soon as shopkeepers (mostly from South Asia) learned you were English they'd go "Ahh lovely jubbly" but it was totally lost on colleagues who were too young to grow up with Only Fools and Horses.

Well, that's the casting for "Dorian Gray: On Ice" sorted.

More Stuff and Fewer People to Share it With rules everything around me sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2025/04/more...

Yeah, British politics is simple. You just need to improve public services without any meaningful tax increases, reduce immigration without any labour market impacts, and deliver growth and you'll be hugely successful.

Cycling, a bit like guitars, has the problem that while the obsessive buy more than one*, most people don't. (the optimum is N+1, n being the number you have right now)

The inevitable end of seeing "free speech" as the right to be heard, not a limit on your ability to censor.

Most criticism of the OBR comes down to politicians having a lack of faith in their ability to make sound arguments for their policy proposals This is something I’ve often thought applies to all parts of the political spectrum @sjwrenlewis.bsky.social makes this argument better than I could

Think modern right wing culture, especially the American version, is so rooted in insecurity it can only snipe and has no positive vision to create.

Plan? No plan, only plot

Tend to think this stuff helps Farage by creating something he can cordon sanitaire against, helping Reform claim to be the normal bit of the right bloc.

Reading the "90s theme" for ice dance specifically mentioned grunge, disappointed not to have seen any Olympians skating to a Nirvana medley.

It is I think an underrated parliament how very few people have actually worked recently (last 15 years) in professional services. The work-life balance thing comes from the fact households are working much more than in the 70s.

Tom Young, to Lord Melbourne: "Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worthwhile to have been Prime Minister of England."

Is anyone else's TV just playing Swan Lake on every channel?

Starmer has to survive 38 days to have had a longer tenure than Rishi Sunak. If a successor were to be in place by 13th July, we'd have had 7 PMs in a decade, which, by my reckoning, is the most since the 8 of 1827-37.

It's late 2026, and due to a series of clerical errors, the new leader of the Labour Party is Alicia Kearns.

Coming last in Your previous Slopestyle. 🤝 relationship A couple of disappointing rails and then a crash

Tell you one thing about McSweeney, he's probably not going to write 10k word blogs about how he was right all along.

Toora, loora, toora, loo-rye-aye

A friend was investigating an insider trading case and was reviewing company IM logs between the people involved. The last message in one batch was "We probably shouldn't talk about this on here, it's almost certainly insider trading".

I also liked the briefing to the Guardian that actually, Morgan now thinks that Wes Streeting isn't a very good health secretary. So many 'why don't you realise this stuff is a self-own?' moments these past two years.

Read this hours ago and the proposed podcast names are still rattling through my mind.

One of the problems with elections is you tend to judge them in binary win/loss terms, not a measurement against most likely predicted outcome.

The Tories' undying optimism over the past three years, continuing through their worst-ever result and subsequent all-time polling nadir, is perhaps the weirdest of the many weird things currently happening in British politics. How many comebacks have we been days away from now?

Oh so you want puns…

It really embodies the very specific ways that some people in politics are a) bad at their jobs and b) too online that you can be supportive of 'the Labour government 2024 to 2026, and McSweeney's role in it' and use these words *at all*, not least in many ways: that's what they're doing!

Is McSweeney a hydra?

If you are using the phrase "full speed ahead to uber-woke, net-zeroist, rejoinerism", especially if you are of the left, a loved one should take your phone off you and send you to Baden-Baden or somewhere for a month.

Mor-gone McSweeney? Is this a thing?

By the way, that's how our schedules look like. So you'll have clearer picture of the situation in Ukraine. #Ukrainianview

i forget who made it but it cracks me up lol

She got about six seconds in, crashed out and is currently crying in agony as they try to put her on a stretcher.

People often jump to saying online propaganda is either the work of radicalised actors, or else Russia. In practice, it’s amazing how often the answer is much simpler – someone is chasing either (a) clout, (b) money, or (c) both.

My Instagram ads are getting weirder

Interview with her was a good example of the insane temperament you need to be an Olympian. Injuries so bad she could barely go on walks with her kids. Retired, had an operation that fixed it... Then decided to go back to competing.

If anyone who follows me knows of any decent support groups near Manchester for + people with early onset Alzheimers + *and* the youngish adult children that care for them then LMK

Yeah, but it could radically change our opinions of Jim Callaghan.

Imagine making "Save Big Dog" look dignified.

Per @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk: 'Reform has gobbled up a large chunk of the right-leaning youth, this is reallocation within an already shrinking bloc [...] rather than a far-right surge, the youth vote in the UK shows a remarkable opposite trend: a surge of progressive voting, including among young men'

The combined right bloc vote is still 2/3rds of what it was in 1997 among 18-25 year olds, never mind 2010.

The untold story that is told constantly and isn’t really true

A lot of "pro-natalism" is just an attempt to sanitise people's existing politics. If you are serious about it, you'd be talking a lot more about maternal health care, better jobs, and healthier relationships.