The Web of Evil

We might ask: how did we wind up with successive governments that have no useful ideas, and no identifiable skills beyond collaborating on terrifying all-channels hate campaigns and absurdly fraudulent PR wheezes with the world’s most poisonous media outlets? Well, how indeed!

But at root, they’ve faced the same problem as Johnson’s Tories: there was never anything *there*, there was only ever them feeding newspapers and broadcasters drivel, and the press stampeding that shit onto TVs and into print. After that, they were dogs that had caught cars. Clueless and useless.

George Eaton @georgeeaton.bsky.... • 19m The lesson of Morgan McSweeney's downfall - a campaigning project was never developed into a governing one.

Morgan McSweeney kept winning: in opposition, he devised the strategies that won Keir Starmer the Labour leadership and his party the general election; in government he won an internal power struggle with Sue Gray. But it was precisely victory - and fame - that left McSweeney exposed. Advisers who become the story - as Alastair Campbell, Nick Timothy and Dominic Cummings can testify - never outlast their masters. As much as the Starmer-McSweeney relationship was deemed to invert that hierarchy, the latter's resignation statement served as a reminder of it. "When asked, I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice," wrote McSweeney of the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. But if the advice was wrong then so was the decision - and it is Starmer bears responsibility for that.

It’s no mystery: all the things they’re good at - hounding and battering colleagues; flag-billowing conference speeches; ultra-belligerent denunciations; wacky crackdowns - are achieved by sucking up to the press for their roaring endorsement. That doesn’t work for governing, or having good ideas.

‘Take the vaccine, please,’ Dr Oz urges amid rising measles cases in US Health official’s endorsement comes as South Carolina faces hundreds of cases and US risks losing elimination status

It was the fuckaroundest of times, it was the findoutest of times

Starmer outsourcing the decision to sack or not the guy he outsources his decisions to to the guy he outsources his decisions to is the biblically accurate Starmer

the problem is not that it is expensive: it is that it is a collective action problem. If action in Somerset or the UK on climate affected climate damage in a 1-for-1 way in Somerset or the UK, then there would not be a public policy problem

Incredible how all these guys were at it.

*Receives confidential info*
"Oh wow, I can't wait to tell my good friend Jeffy The Kiddie Fiddler!"

Is it a good sign if your director of communications resigns the morning before you're due to make a big speech asking everyone to please let you continue as prime minister?

I have today been informed that, despite personal assurances to the contrary, the Green party have once again used my image and misrepresented my words on a second leaflet circulated in Gorton and Denton ahead of the by-election. I have now lodged an official complaint with the returning officer.

has anyone seen anyone from the UK press report on the epstein files actual victim stories or are their stories still all just on crowdsourced docs & youtube videos & posts like a fesshole story

amazing that every time i bring this up people are unaware of it. he really got away with it

Sorry, but I keep thinking about this (I know things have moved on). At least say 'I was lied to' (unarguable) rather than 'I believed the lies I was told', which sounds hopelessly naive at best, an outright lie in itself at worst.

Jacqui Smith defending Keir Starmer

The fact that Smith can say Starmer is committed to tackling violence against women & girls after giving the friend of convicted paedophile a top govt job underlines her own political & moral bankruptcy. What people have to do for a peerage.

Of course, the REAL reason that genAI has become so widespread, so quickly, is that it LETS YOU CHEAT.

It's a labour-saving device that hides the saving. It's "care less, do more", for environments where, as we see with the Epstein emails, caring is something you make the little people do.

In the middle of a moral panic about sex trafficking so intense that I can't advertise a book about medieval history online and no one can access prom anymore, Labour's best and brightest are desperate to get on TV and let you know actually it is fine if rich people do it to poor girls.

The remarkable thing is Labour have basically made 'anti-child poverty' and 'climate change' the two core missions or this Government and...

... basically refuse to talk about one or them. Genuinely bizarre.

Seriously, there are people on here who think a numerical reduction in immigration will reduce Farage’s appeal.

Immigration *never* caused the harms Farage ascribed to it. It was all a xenophobic lie. The actual numbers never mattered.

300,000 children face 10-year wait for settled status under UK plans, says IPPR Thinktank analysis says proposed ‘earned settlement’ changes could trap families in prolonged insecurity

Good to see some Labour MPs showing a backbone, but the problems with these proposals on settlement aren't limited to being applied retrospectively: they also favour the well-off, discriminate vs disabled people, women & people with caring responsibilities and are probably unworkable

Creating a substantial class of people who may never be able to settle, or who only do so after half a lifetime, is in no-one’s interests, leaving people open to exploitation, disadvantage and insecurity and reducing social cohesion. If anything, settlement should be easier, not harder to obtain.

The great Ministry of Defence-to-Palantir pipeline Senior defence officials are moving into Palantir roles as the company secures ever-deeper footholds across government

A senior MoD official helps shape defence strategy, then joins Palantir.

Months later, Palantir lands a £240m MoD contract without tender.

No laws broken – just the revolving door doing what it does best.

Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.

The social relevance of the Turning Point USA half-time show in comparison to the Bad Bunny Super Bowl performance is roughly equivalent to the cultural footprint Allen & Rossi left when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show with The Beatles.

I have appreciated Amanda’s efforts here so I’m disappointed she’s wrapping things up by spreading misinformation. I can assure you as someone whose neighborhood has been crawling with ICE in recent days that we are not in the “aftermath” of anything.

oh this is just sad

It seems like the lesson of the last decade is that being any kind of crank has a zippering effect where you end up a crank on *everything*.

both the president and literally everyone else understand any statement of a moral principle -- any moral principal -- as a denunciation

i just saw someone say "Kid Rock makes music for the people who have tattoos of their kids but not custody" and hol up i need a minute

Here’s the estate that Kid Rock grew up on, by the way.
www.realtor.com/news/celebri...

Honestly, it has to be a weird time to be a figure in pop culture due the president being Literally The Worst. Like, Elmo can say sharing is good and somebody in his X mentions will say “Elmo, you rotten son of a bitch. This goes against everything President Trump stands for.” And that’s not wrong.

I don't know why conservatives complain about Bad Bunny singing in Spanish. They never listen to lyrics anyway. They think "Born in the USA" is an upbeat patriotic song. They played "We will rock you" on Trump's rallies to rev up the crowd. Trump jerks off two invisible dicks to YMCA.