you probably need to be of a certain vintage to understand the absolute hilarity of ken starr being in the epstein files

Just as how when she brought home a letter from school warning they had a case of nits I instinctively started to scratch my head, my daughter telling me earlier that a kid in her class was sent home due to Covid has me convinced my muscles are starting to feel all achey...

Sunak pretending to be too busy to chat to Tony Blair. I assume the excuse he shouted out as he rushed past is the same one he gave to Badenoch explaining why he won't make this year's conference.

However bad things get for this govt at least they'll never get "having Helen Whately represent you on the radio" bad

Starmer should just be good natured, with an edge, about the Burnham stuff. "Being PM is the greatest honour a person can have so of course others aspire to the role but as Andy was only re-elected as Mayor LAST YEAR I'm sure he has other, more important, stuff to be focused on right now"

Why is Starmer announcing the Digital ID thing tomorrow? Isn't this the type of thing you save for your conference speech?

My immediate take on a digital ID scheme is that I didn't think my local town's Facebook group could get any more mental but I'm absolutely sure it will do.

Who on earth are the people who are currently supporting Badenoch's Tories but would switch to Labour if Burnham was leader?

No

Burnham flashing his ankles to the SW1 press in the week before conference is now a well-established tradition. Wonder if this year's celebration will end, as previous ones have, with him asking "why are they so mean to me?" after No 10 finally snap and brief out what an unhelpful prick he is.

I wonder what high-profile Reform defector Nadine Dories thinks of this?

Sisyphus but it's a cup of herbal tea instead of a boulder and a loud, concerning, clattering noise, emanating from the kitchen downstairs, caused by one of the cats being an utter dickhead, every time I try to take a sip.

This is why Farage will never be PM. He's too afraid of losing the chunk of his base vote who are anti-vax conspiracy types, unashamed racists, other assorted lunatics that he'll repel the broad coalition he needs for serious and sustained success.

Factchecking Trump serves as much use as factchecking someone who's taken too much acid. "...but despite such claims experts remain sceptical that time is a spiral, emanating backwards from our future collapsed sun, and maintained by a race of highly intelligent seahorses."

Reform gave everyone in the media a nod and a wink that there was going to be another high profile defection at Farage's press conference yesterday and there wasn't. I wonder how many times they can pull that trick before the irritation starts to show in journalists' coverage

Well, if it’s 23 September... YES, THAT’S RIGHT! It’s the 71st anniversary of the hunt for the Gorbals Vampire, in which hundreds of children aged from four to 14, armed with dogs, knives and sharpened sticks went looking for an urban myth

The concept of The Rapture, where the believers get taken up to heaven and everyone else gets left behind, is less of a Christian idea and more of an American one.

My main issue with Chris Mason isn't bias (or his terrible haircut) it's that he isn't very good at his job and has mistaken "analysis" for "describing things as if talking to a dog who might understand simple English" (while having a terrible haircut).

Interesting to see Duncan Trussell who, since forever, has flirted with cult aesthetics, indulged in conspiracy theories and treated stuff on the internet as gospel, is now freaking out as he's been accused of being in a cult, that's at the centre of a conspiracy theory, people read about online.

Linehan is a special case but there's a certain type of comedian, comic writer who as they become progressively less funny with age decide the problem is actually with everyone else.

Sunday is surely the peak day for the population of small market towns. You finally get to swan around with the dog in that Barbour jacket, thrown over an old jumper, and Hunter wellies and do the whole bed hair thing. Then buy some croissants and coffee at Gail's for breakfast for £37.

The amount of puns in political coverage headlines has increased in inverse relationship to how funny the actual news is.

I did something to trigger the YouTube algorithm into bombarding me with videos on simple tricks to improve yourself and when you tot them all up how do you fit your qigong exercises, your squatting, 10,000 steps, making turmeric milk, chia seed puddings and a pre bed meditation into a single day?

Halfway through a 7 mile hike in the rain and a car pulled over and the two 80 year olds inside asked if I needed a lift and I had to explain that it wasn't through misfortune that I was out in the middle of nowhere in the pissing weather but that I'd actively chosen to do this.

Not sure why the Lib Dems even need to cut through now. No one is talking about them as the space they occupy isn't being contested. With things as they are Ed Davey should just take every weekend off and wait for the electorate's moderate nature to gift him his biggest haul of MPs at the next GE.

I'm not sure what people are fighting over. The only thing of any real value is Corbyn's name recognition. Trying to create a Corbynite party without him as at least a figurehead is largely doomed. Trouble is with his organisational skills, a party *with him* as main figure won't fare much better.

As part of an overall health kick I'm forgoing alcohol for a bit so met my aged drinking partner for a coffee instead today. My main takeaway from the experience is that anyone who finds sitting in a coffeeshop enjoyable has deep psychological issues and needs urgent medical help.

This is the type of picture people take when they're with Tom Cruise. At a premiere. And standing up next to a barrier while he, humouring you by smiling for a selfie, is safely on the other side of it.

A theme of current politics is that single issue political parties are much easier to run than parties trying to build a broad coalition with serious positions on multiple issues. This sounds glaringly obvious but strangely there are people paid to do politics for a living who don't seem to get it.

Has The Times decided to go back to an old byline pic for Seb Payne? Wonder if it was their choice, Payne's or just the sheer number of phonecalls from distraught readers?

This is like one of those photos that gets posted in paranormal Facebook groups along with a story that says "Nobody saw the Hat Woman when we took the shot, we only noticed her going through the photos later and thought it was strange. But then within 6 months everyone else in the picture was DEAD"

"Look, the money is simply *resting* in Karie's account while we set-up new banking arrangements and I'm sure she can update us on where we are on that once she's back from her tour of 5 star hotels on the continent"

Googled to see who had conducted this interview and said "of course" out loud when I discovered it was Freddy Gray

The direction of travel has been clear for a while, an increasing tendency for people to see the internet as the real world and the areas outside of a screen as places you visit to gather content.

Strangely Google tells me Starmer is 5'8" and Charles is 5'10"

Miriam Cates wondering if the Conservatives are "too broad a church" suggests she doesn't know how to read VI polling

politics in the UK right now has a very "someone just got arrested for talking about Gaza in the Charlie Kirk Memorial Free Speech Zone" vibe.

subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz348bs

Feels like in lieu of having a personality Kemi Badenoch decided to always be the most bracingly right wing person in the room, then politics changed, and now she's trapped unable to criticise people who literally want to deport her.

Something I try to do on social media is subtly drop in facts that appear to be about my life but are actually about Graham who lives at the end of the road so if anyone tries to dox me they'll just get him instead. I've really thought of everything with my red Corsa and new build house at number 37

Bless. www.politicshome.com/news/article...

As someone who's never bought the maximalist US interpretation of free speech it's interesting to see people discovering more nuanced takes when they suddenly realise - hold on - you're saying people could incite violence against me!?! Type of stuff people usually get in 6th form citizenship classes

Another anti-abortion politician moves to Reform. Hmmmm

It was glaringly obvious that something like this would happen and I'm convinced any project attempting to unite young progressive leftists, the StWC and Gaza motivated Muslim voters is doomed if they want to campaign on more than half a dozen issues.

Surely the most shocking news to be reported today was that Number 10 had a Director of Strategy.

Think in time both Reform & Kruger will come to see his defection as a mistake for at least 2 reasons. Firstly Kruger is clearly someone with an ego, who thinks highly of himself and his output and he's just joined an amateurish one man band. Secondly, his politics are too weird. Even for Reform.

Every year I think there's something morally virtuous about holding out until October at least until I turn the heating on and every year I fold at some point in September.

If I were Kemi Badenoch I would go out and make a speech that absolutely destroyed Danny Kruger, it would be quite easy to do, but it seems she's decided the best way to compete for votes with Reform is to never upset anyone associated with the party.

Using the map function on your Meta glasses to drive somewhere new but have to pull over every 15 minutes as Facebook keeps on showing you a reel of puppies falling off sofas.