James Buchanan

I’m not leaving because life is unaffordable. I’m leaving because you won’t talk about the two reasons it’s unaffordable: Brexit and old people (pensions and healthcare). And because you’re pandering to the prejudices of the worst people in the country.

It’s great kit! And I like the ladled on “Sunday in hell” references, although I know others don’t. I do think it would make sense in other sports though - maybe the world needs a big earnest middle class sport brand. I could totally imagine rapha cold water wetsuits, running shorts etc

They might be better off accepting the hatred and launching a running, or even tri range

Oh, I think they did a lovely job of translating all the old cycling codes for a new audience. If it were a bigger sport, or if you could wear cycling kit casually, then they could have carried on growing. Unfortunately though, having created the market, the likelihood is they now watch it fragment

Hopefully also get rid of pre-payment-meters by offering weekly direct debits and other financial services designed for low incomes

Brideshead

Yeah, the point isn’t to persuade them. It’s to remind everyone else that their views and behaviour are unacceptable.

Most of the time, some categories are pretty stable and others are changing a lot. The trick is knowing which one you’re operating in.

People that focus on advertising / media can mistakenly assume that changes in their world imply fundamental changes for every business.

I think you’ve just discovered there’s a difference between bridging social capital (I know reform voters, and probably don’t talk politics with them) and bonding social capital (I am close friends with reform voters).

Do you mean “know” or “friends with”?

I agree with you on know. I don’t on friends with, for obvious reasons

Ironically, I think u-turning on winter fuel was their biggest failure. But I accept that’s not a popular position.

Do you think that being seen to do something they found uncomfortable on immigration will help them get support for this deal?

Sure but you do have a risk of moral hazard. Also, if you link it to duration of employment, then you distort the job market by getting people to stay too long in roles.

Agree. It reminds me of the punchline - “well, I wouldn’t start from here…”

Yes… but while there are huge differences within the groups, there are also some differences between the groups

The case for talking about generations does not assume everyone had the same experience or liked the same things. No one in market research uses it like that, I think only journalists do

Oh, so many tradeoffs. But it does really really suit keir starmer if he can pull it off.

What do you think of Janan Ganesh article this weekend? Beat populism by emphasising order - that way labour gets to offer strong borders + improving nhs.

It’s bad when people take loans that will constrain their lives for years and get little benefit from the courses.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to wonder how many people should go to uni. Other countries, including progressive Nordic countries, have far lower numbers going and seem to do ok.

It reads like a non-fiction satire that’s almost too on the nose but not quite. I’m really enjoying it

That’s a brilliant chart, thank you

I might be missing something obvious but that fieldwork goes up to 15 years old and doesn’t seem to include a 15-16 year old group.

I’m assuming your 15-16 year old stat comes from the “internet matters” report from 2023.

Sorry if I’ve misread the tables.

For comparison, I doubt 81% of mp’s believe it’s always wrong to share nudes

In the same sample, 10% of girls had “a positive impression of Andrew Tate”. It is hard to interpret this stuff.

Also, teens seem to have a reasonably robust view of good and bad internet behaviour - eg 81% of those surveyed agree that it’s always harmful to share nudes.

Man, there’s so much he would say about it. One thing that I find striking though, he has a very well developed sense of the incentives people have to get attention / views etc. Based on him and his friends, I’d say they’re pretty media literate.

Love this. I spent an hour or so discussing moral panics with my 13 year old boy yesterday, reassuring him that every generation of adults finds something to worry about.

Amusingly (to me at least), 19 years ago I wrote my msc dissertation on the importance of moderation, education, and norm enforcement in making online political discussions work properly. I guess this is what it feels like to be enforced :) I will reflect.

Maybe I’ve got this wrong, but I replied to someone else’s comment about how labour could have appealed to their base if they had taken a different approach. I wasn’t trying to reply to you.

Well, there’s at least one person, with seemingly poor quality info, that managed to interpret it that way. I would love to see research on how many others did.