The best things about the 'good old days'? None of us had heard of that oily twat Farage

mostly the fact that they were young and (relatively) carefree

Starmer/Labour's main failing was to not realise that the legacy and billionaire controlled media was always going to hate them and that they should have used that colossal majority to do something genuinely radical despite them, rather than trying to curry favour with watered-down versions

I knew I detested the phrase 'side hustle'

As others have noted, we're not finished with him yet. But we'd like to see anyone in the US getting started.

I suppose we could give them binning the Rwanda scheme, too, though that should have been the first move for any government not solely motivated by performative cruelty

I'd agree with your first sentence. I thought at the time that New Labour was just electable Tories but it was still an improvement on the real thing. I didn't vote Labour so I didn't choose this.

We're doing pretty poorly by most other metrics and seem to be heading towards a government that wants to import the worst of the US model. There are better examples elsewhere in Europe right now.

Well, yes. One of the King's brothers has been stripped of his role and titles. I'm not a fan of the monarchy but agree with the OP that we seems to be doing more here about Epstein's mates than the US is.

Ob la di ob la da

plus of course helping his commercial/office property landlord donors onside

he never does because there isn't any

and it's aimed at stoking the prejudices of his retired base that mostly never got to enjoy the benefits that 'computers' can bring

Treat yourself to an 'oops'

But apparently there was 'nothing bad' about him in the latest tranche, so we should all move on

"Never gonna let you down, never gonna give you up" Damn, see what you've done

Breaking down trust in public institutions is part of the libertarian far right / Trump / broligarchy plan though TBF Trump is more a pawn/useful idiot in this than a prime mover

I would also add that there's never been a better time to take up caffeine

Not so much that they turned out to be Nazis but that they were easily led in that direction through existing distrust of big pharma and imposed lack of agency in lockdown. @naomiaklein.bsky.social describes this brilliantly in her book Doppelganger

a truly decadent society. Or maybe one that just cannot face the reality it's permitted to take shape

One king to anoint them all
One king to frame them
One king to betray them all
And in the darkness blame them

[with apologies to JRR Tolkien]

yep

Fluffing the prejudices of those who for a variety of reasons couldn't benefit from the possibilities of modern IT

They're more afraid of Trump

It's an unholy mixture of psychopathic hatred and 'how dare they be in power' affront in the majority of the domestic legacy media and deep-pocketed disinformation, bot and troll farming from outside the UK in social media

All while giving a free pass to the people who shat the bed so badly that no version of Labour had a decent chance of fixing it in a single term? Okaaaay

They've become addicted to the drug of constant political upheaval and the 24/7 pursuit of clicks, in addition to the 'politics as a race' approach

Including recording greetings to 'Hugh Janus'

He knows that none of his spawn are up to it but can't bear the idea of power going outside the family business

Gotta pay for that scale of brown-nosing somehow