Marc Cooper

Capitalism: the belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.
(borrowed from John Maynard Keynes)

A short lexicon of politics A brief guide to understanding political terms.

New substack: a portion of a dictionary of politics: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/a-short-le...

I honestly believed the Royal Society was beyond reproach. It's such an important institution in my head-cannon. Its beginning sparking the Industrial Revolution (see Humphrey Jennings).

I do hope Paul Nurse – who strikes me as a very fine fellow – can sort it out.

This is great, and much misunderstood

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

I suspect you have to be quite racist to stand out as "the racist guy" at a boys public school of the 1980s.

UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded

This is scary. "Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

One of the most common replies in any discussion of universal basic income is "but how do we pay for it?" and not once do those same people ever question the costs incurred by not doing UBI. We spend $1.5 trillion every year on the costs of child poverty alone. Poverty ain't free, folks. WE ALL PAY.

For All Mankind (film) - Wikipedia

I'm clearly older than you, but that's what we saw back then – I'm sure it's on YouTube. Better still, dig out For all Mankind (music by Brian Eno).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All...

Which bit of Magna Carta is supposed to guarantee trial by jury?

Chapter 39 famously says no free man will be arrested, imprisoned, etc., 'except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land'.

That final 'or' clause means Magna Carta does NOT guarantee judgement by peers.

For anyone interested in the facts behind the OBR Budget leak, the OBR themselves have published a 17-page report on it.

obr.uk/docs/dlm_upl...

So we're rejoining the single market and customs unions, then. Great!

I really wish we'd stop calling them climate "skeptics" or "vaccine skeptics", if you jump off a cliff we don't call you a "gravity skeptic"

God, yes. Though Brendan Gleeson is seared into my brain as his character in The Banshees of Inisherin – love that film so, so much… and the donkey.

The real BBC bias story, narrated by Anna Ford

Fuck knows, Paul. Can't believe what I'm seeing.

This stuff is honestly so far gone now, it would take a political generation to rebuild. And none of the incentives in British politics are taking us that way.

On incompetence Much of our political culture is fundamentally incompetent.

New Substack: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/on-incompe... Parts of the Labour party and BBC simply don't know what their jobs should be.

Society of the spectacle.

I read today that the BBC's "code" is over 400 pages long. If that's the case, then no one can understand it. Something that size is not remotely a useful guide to anything or anyone.

c/w the interpretations of religious scripts and the rules of golf that are far larger than their source.

I agree with @arusbridger.bsky.social about BBC governance. Although v hesitant about another rearrangement, the single corporate-style board is massively flawed, not least because there needs to be some distance for the governors/board members from editorial decisions

Detail from the BBC's 23/24 Annual Report, showing that that arts output was cut, more than other genres.

Page from an Ofcom report showing that in 2023 the BBC significantly missed its Ofcom target of new arts and music programmes.

Tips for the next DG:

1 - Don't stake your future on impartiality. Perfect impartiality is impossible. Focus on accuracy and accountability. Let journalists and producers do their job. If they get it badly wrong, sack them.

2 - Reverse the deliberate, prolonged cut to arts programming.

Sobering news for a lot of top Democrats, tonight, as they realize people would prefer they actually fucking do something.

And in any case, 3d-printing sharp objects – or even firearms – is bordering on trivial now.

A wonderful article on Royal privilege & the colossal resources of the British monarchy. Resources that in my own opinion should be national not private assets. It is time for the Royal Collection of art in particular to be in public ownership & used for the nation's benefit.

Little dog with big hipster beard

Makes his own kimchi and likes the warm sound you only get with vinyl.

That hurts. I mean, you're scoring goals – just not enough in this case. I'd take the +ve.

There's hope while there's goals.
— Plato, Olympus AFC, 400 BC

Oh, I agree. But they do have a technical purpose. One thing they do is control the proroguing of Parliament. See Trump currently, in effect. And see what Liz didn't do when Johnson prorogued illegally. In Ireland, that power is invested in the President.

ime, because a lot of folk think the alternative is a president. Then they point to the US. Very few folk know of alternatives to the US system – which, again, few understand. Point to the Irish system, and most folk look blank.

We are very, very stuck.

Three main things, imo:

1. Capitalism – the reward function is money, so money is the goal, which is orthogonal to "society".
2. Lack of discussion about the kind of society we want to live in.
3. FPTP - which is combative rather than collaborative, and tends to authoritarianism.