๐จ๐จStart Your Week๐จ๐จ
Trumpโs war in Iran continues and Britainโs right-wing gang are desperate for Starmer to get more involved. Why are they cheerleading what could be another drawn out conflict in the Middle East? @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @jacobjarvis.bsky.social discuss โก๏ธ linktr.ee/bunker_pod
Yorkshire, black, pease, rice.
๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅNEW๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ
As Trumpโs ill-defined Iran conflict unfolds, is it game over for the so-called Special Relationship? Are there any good choices left for Starmer? @mattgreencomedy.com, @jonnelledge.bsky.social, @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com & @rafaelbehr.bsky.social discuss
โก๏ธ linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...
Thanks to @vennart666.bsky.social for introducing me to the unique moves of Luigi Primo, the pizza throwing wrestler
Are you Mark or are you Wayne? Pick a lane, dude.
[more US politics analysis to follow]
You are absolutely right, of course. I was riffing vaguely about culture, political priorities and not thinking properly about actual institutions.
On Starmer, Iran and the impossible dilemmas that arise when your closest defence and security partner is also a rogue superpower www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Not me. Working fine.
โฐ START YOUR WEEK โฐ Will Trumpโs attack on Iran topple the regime or set off a regional war? Plus the fallout from #Gorton&Denton and more.
โฐ With @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @jacobjarvis.bsky.social โฐ Out now everywhere โ linktr.ee/bunker_pod
@benansell.bsky.social has written superbly on this phenomenon in politics
Very much this. Westminster relying on muscle memory of two-party politics is in no fit shape for politics as it is now playing out in the country.
Tomorrowโs #WeeklyWrapUp is out early! We take a closer look at Trumpโs barmy State of the Union, Labourโs SEND reforms, the latest from North Korea, and a fleet of AI-powered hoovers with @rafaelbehr.bsky.social & @jacobjarvis.bsky.social
๐จ Listen everywhere now linktr.ee/bunker_pod
I donโt live in London anymore but still consider myself native Londoner, like emigrรฉ fondness for the Old Country, and I wholly approve of this long-overdue move.
Column. On the nationalist core of Faragism and why it doesnโt need conspiracy, transaction or even knowing complicity to serve a Kremlin agenda. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Or political gangsterism. Hybrid of ideology and raw greed.
Column. On the nationalist core of Faragism and why it doesnโt need conspiracy, transaction or even knowing complicity to serve a Kremlin agenda. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
ะ ะฐะทะณะพะฒะพั ะพ ะฒะฐะถะฝะพะผ! Reform UKโs education policy, what it reveals about the character of Farageโs politics and where it inevitably tends. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
๐ณ NEW EDITION ๐ณ Nobody wants a wider war in Europe, but we might get one anyway. How can we prepare our military and wider society to deter Putin โย or maybe fight him?
๐ฒ Ed Arnold of @rusi.bsky.social talks to @rostaylor.bsky.social & @rafaelbehr.bsky.social
๐ฒ Listen: linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...
!! โฆ ah
Scholar sacking, as indicator of guard rails down, was big factor in later market reaction to mini-budget, or so bond analysts told me. So much higher order of significance on that front alone.
BBC didnโt have to concede those points. I wouldnโt have been surprised by boilerplate โbreaking news, we just give both sidesโ rebuttal. Seen plenty of BBC correspondence over the years and tone of the email definitely chastened by standard of these things. Hope it has some lingering effect.
BBC Verify also analysed several videos from the scene, concluding that none of the available videos showed Alex Pretti holding a gun in his hands. Although we continued to reference these videos regularly in our posts and key points, after further review of the page as a whole, we acknowledge that once we had this analysis, we should have placed more consistent and explicit emphasis on the fact that it contradicted the accounts given by the federal authorities
Although we later obtained and published the family's full statement on our second live page, we also acknowledge that we were late in publishing the full statement, which included strong criticism of the administration and accusations against the agents who shot him, as well as clearly disputing the suggestion that he was holding a gun when he was shot.
In short, while pointing out that breaking news with conflicting perspectives involves publication of competing accounts, pending clarification, BBC accepts it was slow to adjust once it became clear that only one side was engaged in to truth. Key paras in long email here โฆ
Day after Alex Pretti killing I complained to BBC about presentation of White House statements and evidence as equivalent. Duty of balance doesnโt extend to complicity with clear lies, I said. BBC could and should report WH making false statements as a *fact of the story*. Today I got response โฆ
Where does this leave coconut milk?
And milk of human kindness?
This. Also, I gave Starmer much benefit of the doubt in print. Maybe too much; striving to analyse ways in which he could succeed - how it might work. But you have to recognise the data that tell you he is failing.
It is cope to believe this is all confected. My whole job is talking to MPs and ministers, I talk to a dozen different ones every day, I spend the week in Parliament in the same corridors, same coffee queues. Sometimes even I have been taken aback by the strength of feeling about the need for change
"History is women following behind with the bucket."
So Morgan McSweeney has been replaced by Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson. Antonia Romeo is about to take over from Chris Wormald. Steph Driver may return to fill Tim Allan's vacancy.
Sense that now there's a mess to mop up, get the women in
Havenโt yet seen a nerdy piece situating current political crisis in a mathematically predictable recurring pattern of chaos and corruption under headline โMandel-rot Setโ (with suitable illustration) and I think that is a missed opportunity.
As something of a specialist in mitigation, โActually I took my children with me to Paedo Islandโ is not what I would open with.
On Labourโs certainty that Starmer has failed and paralysing fear of what a leadership contest actually involves www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
