Alistair King

(Reading this back to myself, I worry it makes me looking like I have more than one wife: a British wife, a Swedish wife and goodness knows who else. I don’t, just for the record.)

It’s often the little things that make me chuckle… like - and I don’t mean to keep periodically showing her up by drawing attention to her tiny and rare slips in English because she’s amazing and her language skills are second to none - my Swedish wife referring yesterday to ‘Tottenham Spurs’.

Hard disagree. Prawn cocktail crisps, for example, are delicious but the overlap in flavour between them and an actual prawn cocktail is fairly loose.

Tips, please, on explaining to this greedy one-year-old cat and his brother the concept of the clocks going back and the implications it has for not being woken up so early for breakfast.

So Sarah Pochin MP has apologised, I hear, but only for poorly phrasing her unhinged opinion. That’ll do, I’m sure. #ThisIsReform

Would Tonk be your second given name or the first part of an unhyphenated double-barrelled surname? If the former, go for it; if the latter, I wouldn’t recommend it because Honky on its own isn’t a great given name IMHO.

She’s talking about adverts. ADVERTS! You don’t watch TV for the adverts. If you don’t like seeing non-white faces, boycott the products or services those adverts are promoting or turn your head away from the screen until your programme restarts if your brain is sufficiently withered. #ThisIsReform

“46% of Labour members” DON’T back the party’s current stance, having backed Bridget Phillipson, though, Radio 4 newsreader; 46% *of the 17% who voted* apparently do, or at least favour Phillipson over Powell. That’s 8% of the membership.

Morgan McSweeney frantically googling "rulebook how suspend membership Labour party"

Good that Lucy Powell has won the Labour deputy leadership contest. Far too early to say if she’ll help turn things round but she has a better chance than Bridget Phillipson did.

Reminds me of the New Year’s Eve episode of Peep Show…

Jeremy: Tonight, it’s not about the bitches, it’s all about the hitches.

Mark: The Hitches? You think we’re Peter and Christopher Hitchens on a big night out? And I suppose I have to be Peter.

4/4

His point, I suppose, was on how we noticeably improve lives and demonstrate that we’re behind it.

He finished by emphasising the importance on defining policies and indicating what the party’s (progressive) values are.

The plan is clear, even though this is hard. Government IS hard.

3/4

And on that last issue, he emphasised how, along with related issues, it needs to be handled humanely (and, I’m inferring here, be seen to be handled humanely).

Shame he didn’t mention things like the environment, but that doesn’t mean that work isn’t being done on it.

2/4

This is despite a lot of good things he listed having been done, and it’s compounded by comms failing to paint a coherent picture.

It was also interesting that, in the three key areas he identified as needing focus, he rightly put cost of living and public services ahead of small boats.

1/4

Very good #r4today interview with Blair chum Charlie Falconer.

He’s right. A change ticket wasn’t wrong. But if the public has suffered too long a period of no change under the Tories, they will, fair or not, get impatient with Labour after a year and a bit of perceived no significant change.

(See also Radio 4 newsreaders and ‘billion’ in relation to massive, national, publicly-funded infrastructure projects and the like.)

… egged on my Claudia drawing out and emphasising the word ‘thousand’ like it’s a number that would generate an E on an old Casio calculator. Mate, ‘thousand’ is the *lowest possible* number you could say after you’ve passed 999, unless you say nothing at all.

This reads like we’re supposed to think it’s perfectly normal to do this sort of thing naked and it would more appropriately start: “Not really my fess, more one of the phenomenon of reflection, but…”

Only ‘might’, I note. This evening’s enjoyment is GUARANTEED. Top night, that.

We’re both on to something.

BREAKING: Tiny little dog found in cucumber in North London kitchen

Probably not the most pressing question of the day but how did Michael Knight manage to get away with having no number plates?

Yeah, I guessed so...

None, really, in isolation. But I’m not sure the overall set is fully joined-up and coherent. I’d have no hesitation in voting Green, though, if they were the best tactical option. And, while this is sacrilege to say as a Labour member, I think there’s a lot to be said for a progressive coalition.

Agree with your first sentence and, to an extent, your third. Not sure I agree with the second: while he *does*, in my view, take less firm a line with Trump than I would like and care too much about the right-wing press, I think his main flaw is his obsession with wooing Reform-leaning voters.

Fair enough and thanks for directly answering my question. I don't share your view that we've reached that point yet, much as I dislike the point we *have* reached, but you seem sincere in your view, so I guess it's not irrational from your POV to risk a Reform government by not voting tactically.

This is exactly right, I think. Farage himself would hate the responsibility of actually officially governing. Far more satisfying for the odious **** to create chaos from the sidelines for the past 10 years and more.

Rotate Donald Trump's hideous head just over 90° and it becomes Reform UK's hideous arrow logo. This sort of thing is never coincidence.

Honestly, in their own depressing ways, they really have, and I think you're right in a big part of the root-cause.

3/3

That said, she looked mildly ill at ease, so maybe my approach to this sort of thing - weak smiles, muttering, piping up if I'm spoken to but not before - is better.

(Both of the names in this exchange have been changed to protect the idea that I'm not some sort of journalist.)