Steve Williams

You'd hate to be that guy, whoever he is

Imagine what an idiot you'd have to be to have made such a man a candidate for a winnable constituency!

This three-hour documentary about libraries will make you want to spend all day in one We spoke to legendary documentarian Fred Wiseman about his latest film, Ex-Libris

Very sad news about Frederick Wiseman. I must have mentioned this before but he was very gracious to agree to let me interview him for fucking Shortlist of all places:

www.shortlist.com/news/documen...

Speaks to the incentive structures on the 'populist' right, a reputation as being 'the one who knows things' is worthless. Better to demand that problems are solved by magic, that's what the masses want

'It's not like he's being some contemptible toady' . . . just more like he's sat in an empty room at the end of the furthest hallway wondering why he never gets a read receipt on his emails

Standard depressing role for the UK of undermining any likely project by insisting the Americans be a part of it as well I see

They're phenomenally lucrative businesses, so if this was a great idea and easy to do surely somebody would have had a go already?

All guesswork at this stage but my initial guess is in the short-term it will hurt Reform, as a result of coverage showing them arguing, highlighting how right-wing they all are, and possibly q's emerging about how Lowe was selected.

The sky

Absolutely sick of it

Re the screenshot in this bleet, it's always interesting to see when 'communalism' is an issue in British politics and when it isn't

He appears to think that not promising to do ethnic cleansing is 'running a moderate safe campaign' . . . most delusional people on the Internet

Government abandons plans headline

evergreen headline for this government

Funny. Keep the manager until long past the point at which relegation is certain, but decide to sack him because you're a bit embarrassed about how you got eliminated from a cup competition you had no chance of winning anyway.

'To be clear: my disdain for DJs is not an exhumation of the racist and homophobic "disco sucks" campaign'

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER (woke editor insisted - please read):

My own answer is the Meat-Shaped Stone from the National Palace Museum in Taipei. It's a piece of jasper from the qing dynasty that looks like pork belly.

David Cameron lecturing a DJ

Obligatory:

The hill I will die on: The only DJ with a proper job is the one who plays at the pub that changed me

Quite a 'twee Britannia' cover but my recollection of the content is that he spends quite a lot of time talking about how shit a lot of the country looks

What America did through ideology, the UK does in order to get a budget projection that we don't even really care about

I like to imagine he occasionally insists on doing it himself, just to *feel something*

At least we have no evidence of him being bad at 'drafting a minute', since (you'd hope) he doesn't have to do it any more.

Everyone rightly finds the 'competence gap' between this tweet and the reality funny, but it's worth stressing he is *particularly* bad at some of these specific claimed skills, eg he can't set priorities for a team, and is (in)famous for a disastrous interview ("they do have that right").

UK politics since the crash has been about the electorate - in however chaotic and inchoate a way - trying to 'take back control'. Farage is the latest vessel for that urge, and if you think the Conservatives and Labour have failed . . .

It's <10 years since an election with the highest turnout since 1997 and the highest 2-party share of the vote since 1970. You can't simply recreate those conditions, and there are reasons to believe the fragmentation trend is real, but if offered a clearer choice voters might behave differently.

The bit that stands out here is 'I feel like Conservative and Labour are too much alike.'

The most straightforward conclusion is he was just good at faking said 'visceral hatred'

One thing I will say about this film is 'Madam Emery' has the most violently offensive wallpaper ever seen on screen

Went to a 'mystery movie' for Valentines which turned out to be 'the Umbrellas of Cherbourg'. Judging by the dozen or more who bailed, safe to say the 'musical in which every line is sung' is one genre that's fairly inaccessible in 2026

Interesting thread. Ultimately don't think this re-creation of the BNP from first principles will go anywhere, and frankly is more likely to harm Reform than help, but it will undoubtedly be frightening for millions in the meantime.

I have not seen a single shred of evidence - nothing at all - to suggest that British rightists of NF's generation are persuaded by 'natalism' discourse. These guys came up in the Thatcher/Reagan yrs when *generosity* to mums was the scandal, and they're not of the age or disposition to think again.