Can't tell if it's funny or grim that some politicians and papers have moved swiftly on from calling for the UK to enter the stupidest war of this century, to talk about badgers on £5 notes.
Serious people, as ever.
They should put a monkey on the £50 note and a pony on the £10 note to confuse the hell out cockneys.
Once again, the culture warriors deeply misunderstand the deep underlying psyche of the British people. The British people were offered nice animals and they overwhelmingly favoured nice animals.
It's no longer OK for you to sit in the house of Lords because your dad did.
But if your mate put you there?
That's fine.
Neither of these really feel like democracy to me.
Telling how confident Starmer now feels in owning his Iran decision. His best outing against Badenoch at PMQs in months. KB not alone in shifting her position. Many of those in the press and politics demanding war and condemning Starmer loudest have been far quieter since the inevitable chaos began.
When I said 'Kemi Badenoch is so partisan, under her the Tories would oppose puppies and kittens if Labour said something nice about them', I didn't mean it literally.
Doubt much of the electorate have noticed but the mess Badenoch and Farage have got into over Iran shows just how beatable they are.
He’s not playing chess literally. He’s not playing chess figuratively. He’s not playing chess on any level of abstraction whatsoever. I doubt he can play chess.
😂🤣 Badenoch and Spurs … the gifts that keep on giving!
Badenoch said if she was prime minister HMS Dragon would have left a week ago. Presumably with its doors hanging off and with no weapons onboard.
No principles, no morality, no information, no expertise, just endlessly appeasing Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and assorted billionaires and foreign oligarchs or chasing the next headline, until suddenly colliding with reality. Bang, oof.
www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/new...
Farage and Badenoch are absolute clowns: startled by the entirely foreseeable series of events they failed to foresee. A demonstration of their total lack of judgement.
These discussions would be much enriched by recognising that the social sciences also exist & that 'critical thinking', while central to Humanities, is not their exclusive preserve. Also staggering is the lack of interest in undertaking systematic research on learning impacts across all subjects.
The Iran war should be a lesson for Keir Starmer's Government. If you take a clear line on an issue where the public agree with you then it's your opponents who end up having to back down, not you
FACTS:
Net Zero barely nudges your bill.
Fossil‑fuel wars send it through the roof.
So when Farage and his ilk slags off renewables while fanning conflict, remember who actually hikes your costs.
With every passing day, the decision of Starmer and his cabinet a) not to join the Iranian war b) to delay access to bases looks wiser and wiser. Trump’s press conference last night shows he has no real idea what the objectives are and its duration is arbitrary.
Great.
Does FIFA do a prize for economics
Ed Miliband, famously closing coal mines as a 14-year-old minister in Thatcher's government during the miners' strike
Strange. You'd think that the British people would be persuaded by such compelling arguments as 'we don't have a plan for regime change but a friend of a friend does' or 'Keir Starmer smells!'
someone at the pentagon frantically typing “Claude, open the strait of Hormuz for me, quickest possible strategy, make no mistakes.”
A reminder that Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch and the entire Conservative-supporting press have spent the past week lambasting Keir Starmer for not joining the Iran war.
Here's what has happened since then to public opinion
NEW on Wonkhe: Ahead of this week's Digifest, Michael Webb and Rebecca Flook confront the complex values systems behind general purpose AI technology buff.ly/FpuWv43
What inspires someone to pursue physics for life?
From discovering general relativity to the encouragement of mentors, women in our community share the moments that shaped their journeys.
This #InternationalWomensDay we’re celebrating women advancing physics and inspiring the next generation. 🌟
The search for me in Clacton enters its 87th week.
Britain is in a deep structural economic hole thanks to austerity, Brexit and global shocks that is nearly impossible to get out of. It is rather unfair to expect government to reverse those long-term drags on national prosperity, but it needs to start explaining to voters why we are where we are.
This reminds me of when lobby journalists tried to start "Is Keir Starmer spending too much time abroad at meetings and summits?" as a supposed criticism of his leadership rather than... a reflection of the world as it is.
Starmer’s position is entirely consistent with what he wrote about Iraq in 2003, a fact of enormous inconvenience to just about everybody currently criticising it. Happily for them, just like the entire bloody Chilcot Inquiry it is apparently very easy to ignore.
