Phil Burton-Cartledge

The Unreality of Tory Economics How was your lunch time? I spent mine catching snippets of Mel Stride's speech at Tory conference. He's the shadow chancellor in case you've...

Have the Tories cobbled together a ladder that can get them out of their hole? If Stride's address is anything to go by, my advice to the Tories would be to start furnishing the pit. They are going to be there for a very long time.

What Americans die from and the causes of death the US media reports on Causes of death in the US in 2023 Heart disease (29%) Cancer (26%) Accidents (9.5%) Stroke (6.9%) Lower respiratory diseases (6.2%) Alzheimer's disease (4.8%) Diabetes (4.0%) Kidney failure (2.4%) Liver disease (2.2%) Homicide (<1%) Terrorism (<0.001%)| COVID-19 (2.1%) Influenza/Pneu monia (19%6) Media coverage of these causes of death in 2023 in... The New York Times The Washington Post Fox News Heart disease (2.8%) Heart disease (2.9%) Cancer (4.1%) Cancer (4.7%) Accidents (5.9%) Cancer (3.8%) Accidents (6.1%) Accidents (9.7%) Suicide (4.1%) Suicide (3.3%) COVID-19 (6.0%) COVID-19 (7.9%) Suicide (3.8%) COVID-19 (5.3%) Drug overdose (7.5%) Drug overdose (9.8%) Drug overdose (9.5%) Cancer (26%) Accidents (9.5%) Stroke (6.9%) Lower respiratory diseases (6.2%) Alzheimer's disease (4.8%) Diabetes (4.0%) Kidney failure (24%) Suicide (2.1%0) COVID-19 (2.1%0 Homicide (42%) Homicide (52%) Homicide (46%) Terrorism (18%) Terrorism (12%) Terrorism (11%) Homicide (<1%) Terrorism (<0.001%) Note: Based on the share of causes of death in the US and the share of mentions for each of the causes in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Fox News. All values are normalized to 100%, so the shares are relative to all deaths caused by the 12 most common causes + drug overdoses, homicides and terrorism. These causes account for more than 75% of deaths in the US. A "media mention" is a published article in one of the outlets which mentions the cause (e,g. "influenza) or related keywords (e.g. "fu") least twice. Data sources: Media mentions from Media Cloud (2025): deaths data from the US CDC (2025) and Global Terrorism Index.| CC BY

Nice chart from @ourworldindata.org showing the contrast between what Americans die of (heart disease and cancer) v what the US media reports on (homicide and terrorism). This naturally leads to it being trickier to build a fact based world view
ourworldindata.org/does-the-new...

This isn’t a picture of Mel Stride and the shadow chancellor being misidentified on ConHome feels quite indicative of where the Tories are at.

Kemi Badenoch's Attention Seeking Do you remember the Conservative Party? For much of this year, they hung around like a half-remembered memory. It's difficult to recall when...

"Along with Labour, Badenoch is using the small media opening she has to reinforce racist and anti-immigration politics. Their rhetoric is the background to increased racist attacks, the justification of more state violence, and an authoritarian charge to the gutter that only Reform can win."

North Northants Conservative party veteran quits over ECHR stance Scott Brown says he leaves the party with

A Conservative councillor has quit the party "with profound regret" after Kemi Badenoch said a future Tory government would withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

He says it's a "fundamental departure from the principles that have long defined our party"

We've got an ageing society. Come here and help us cope with that. In return, we'll demonise and threaten you and quite possibly leave you destitute. Do we have a deal? Great. 🤝

He might well have been!

When Will the Lion Concern Himself Joking memes make light of the uncomfortable reality: everyone's got a little of that post-COVID brain damage these days

Nobody has Long COVID, but everybody has brain fog, cognitive decline and memory loss. I talk about the overwhelming scientific evidence that COVID damages the brain, and the overwhelming social unwillingness to acknowledge it in my latest:

www.thegauntlet.news/p/when-will-...

I'm in awe at the absurdity of this woman.

BBC Laura Kuenssberg Show Accused of Anti-Green Bias After Cancelling Zack Polanski Interview The new Green Party leader was the only major party leader not to have been granted a conference interview on the flagship BBC show

The BBC has been accused of “extraordinary” anti-Green bias, after the party says a long-promised conference interview with new leader Zack Polanski was cancelled by the Laura Kuenssberg show just days before going to air

Every major political party leader, aside from him, was interviewed recently.

Thanks Scott

Kemi Badenoch's Attention Seeking Do you remember the Conservative Party? For much of this year, they hung around like a half-remembered memory. It's difficult to recall when...

"Along with Labour, Badenoch is using the small media opening she has to reinforce racist and anti-immigration politics. Their rhetoric is the background to increased racist attacks, the justification of more state violence, and an authoritarian charge to the gutter that only Reform can win."

Kemi Badenoch's Attention Seeking Do you remember the Conservative Party? For much of this year, they hung around like a half-remembered memory. It's difficult to recall when...

"Along with Labour, Badenoch is using the small media opening she has to reinforce racist and anti-immigration politics. Their rhetoric is the background to increased racist attacks, the justification of more state violence, and an authoritarian charge to the gutter that only Reform can win."

The only Tory that has dared challenge this kind of politics is Gavin Barwell. And even he has been quiet about the dangerous drivel coming from his own party.

This is what the Conservatives and Reform want to bring to the streets of Britain

Obviously no brief for Badenoch, and *of course* there's plotting afoot. But this is just about the weakest sauce stuff I've read for a while.

The example I always use is that governments everywhere have just accepted the massive rise in phone scams as something that can't be helped, but demand we trust them with micromanaging the country's demographics

Jim Murphy makes millions through lobbying firm after Keir Starmer came to power

Former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has made millions of pounds through his public affairs firm since Keir Starmer came to power

The problem is the Tories stopped being a centre right party in 2019, and there's little sign of any dynamics that can move it back in that direction.

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

Nice encapsulation of Cory Doctrow's 'enshitification of the internet' thesis. In our Radical Abundance book we argue this is part of a wider trend of private provision becoming increasingly shit or being withdrawn entirely for some. We call it Bullshit Abundance

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The msm pursued the Rayner story in such detail it forced her resignation . Now there’s a much bigger scandal concerning Farage of possible treason it’s like they’ve forgotten how to spell investigate & corruption. It’s not only Farage who has a Russian problem, if our msm protects him we all do .

Kemi Badenoch's Attention Seeking Do you remember the Conservative Party? For much of this year, they hung around like a half-remembered memory. It's difficult to recall when...

"Along with Labour, Badenoch is using the small media opening she has to reinforce racist and anti-immigration politics. Their rhetoric is the background to increased racist attacks, the justification of more state violence, and an authoritarian charge to the gutter that only Reform can win."

Badenoch's intro video is scenes from the Robinson march interspersed with footage of migrant boats.

That current and former Tory MPs are defecting to Reform, I think this is going to be a long wait.

584 people watching the Tories' live stream of Kemi Badenoch's speech. It's a good job that's no indication of the roots she and her party have in everyday life.

I quite liked it. The Murray is also on the list!

How does she think this is going to help her or her party?

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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