Altreik

I hope they mentioned rainbow warrior! One of the weirdest subplots of French history since the war

I find it really annoying when you meet someone (such as a friend) for a coffee/drink and they keep going on their phone for no obvious reason- it’s polite if you do it more than once to give a reason or at least allude to why

It’s so bizarre especially as with the exception of Europe Major continued Thatchers 1990 project- but the party would have been a lot healthier if she had lost in 92

What did they expect to happen if she stayed??? It’s so baffling as by the end she had clearly lost her political touch and gone mad- hence her losing a leadership race she clearly should have won

Men’s trouser and blazer sizing is the moment why I realise my father would go out of his way to get custom made suits on the very rare occasions he was able to visit other parts of the world- these clothes should be custom made!

I had this last summer- most shops have basically stopped selling men’s chinos that aren’t super tight, short or casual- I ended up having my best luck in second hand vintage stores (which requires a whole morning I know!)

It’s becoming so widespread and I suspect linked to the wider issues around socialisation e.g people not knowing how to behave in cinemas, people instantly escalating complaints over very small matters etc

How come? Did Jenkins have quite poor personal ratings by 1983?

Especially as most right wing donors tend to have made money in property- a sector that Brexit didn’t really batter (compared to others)

No Bakerloo line extension, no Orbital, a third runway west London hates, no DLR extension and cuts to policing on top of Gaza, the two child limit and the greens!

YC as Home Sec does seem to lack a reforming streak on issues that would involve her giving away power- I actually think some crank will do well in the 2028 mayorals if Labour don’t care more about policing (and London in general)

Curious for your thoughts on the Met- they for reasons unclear are cutting police numbers and station opening times and it seems strange the HO/Mayor are not jumping up and down to try and sort it or even reform the current weird system of dual accountability

Yeah a lot of it is about the visibility and lack of action- I don’t expect the police to be able to stop someone say lamping someone outside a pub on a Friday night but I do expect action to stop what is essentially organised crime stealing from shops, vans etc

Some of us had to live through this hippy shit the first time

This is true- people think the Labour right/blairite history is essentially ‘Roy Jenkins liberals’ when in fact we are being ran by the Callaghan/Bevin axis

Wilson said in cabinet it would cost the party 5 million votes!

I wish I was joking in saying I genuinely struggle to afford the amount of money new games cost too- no idea if this is actually inflationary but it’s hard to pay £80 unless I know I’m going to let it be my life (see RDR)

And despite the right wing Labour revisionism they were prepared to be bold- increasing national insurance and a windfall tax on utilises were both policies modern blairites would moan about!

The one area Blair is miles ahead of is party management and a case of what a Labour social economy looks like- there was a very keen sense that Blair and Brown knew who their voters were and knew the trade offs they would need to make

I do agree but I think it’s still understated just how much the earth was salted by the Conservatives- so many areas of public policy were left to wither and die so the government is essentially firefighting or finding the levers of power aren’t attached to anything

The Government broadly seems to have a corporatist/german type ‘if only we get more people in a room’ we can solve this crisis

And believes that expanding trade union rights is key to improving productivity- but I do agree that both of these have the problem in that I don’t know what they expect to do to improve the services nationalisation rail brings

I think this is a bit unfair in the sense that the government has made two rather ideological changes; clearly sees a bigger role for the state (rail nationalisation for example)

But then I am a hypocrite in that I strongly subscribe to the view that the elections in both Illinois and Texas in 1960 were hardly fair- and I have no evidence other than the form of both states democratic machines.

It drives me really mad as the myth is so often used to justify vacuous or glib politicians being idiots, or really superficial behaviour.

I don’t think they are creating policies, and equally I think the Thatcher Government was worse than this one- and neither the Truss or Sunak ones were particularly great.

It’s like the Thatcher quote on buses isn’t it?

I have family members in their 50s and 60s who exclusively get their news via Instagram or podcasts

As you’ve said before it really is a repeat of the 1950s socialists who called the TV the idiots lantern and wanted to ban ITN.

A weird paradox (and something the GOP worked out quickly) is that it can sometimes be electorally successful to be a strong partisan even in states that are close