Andrew Shimmin

I think they've done it themselves already

The Book of Esther

Good thing they didn't have to put Norman boots on the ground or engage in a savage and brutal campaign of repression to secure their position.
What do you mean, harrying?

So Shrewsbury Town are on the best run in English football 🙂.

You are right, I missed Argyle. Sorry!
Still, three teams in four leagues!

I think only 2 teams have won all of their last three league games in the top four divisions of English football. Man City (PL) and Shrewsbury Town (L2). None have won their last four. Is this unusual? Should this encourage us about the competitiveness of the leagues?

Don't make me post the drought map, David

Naturally, I refuse to check if this is true, for verisimiltude.

"The stupid person's idea of the clever person" (which I think, despite being claimed by lots of people recently as about Boris or whoever, is actually Elizabeth Bowen about Aldous Huxley?)

These people helf-remember things they read, and spout them to sound clever without bothering to check if they make sense (saying this on the takes-one-to-know-one principle).

Yes that's the one! It's a lovely spot and well worth a visit.

You did 🙂. I thought I was going mad when you repeated it, and was feverishly checking all the match schedules...

I am 15 mins is, but does @maxrushden.bsky.social keep saying Liverpool were going to face Arsenal next?!?!?

Imagine. We might have been spared an appalling PM and one of the worst periods of bad governance we've ever experienced!

An observation -- not a new one, but still: When people on the right sneer at "moral vanity" and "moral preening" and "moralism," they are talking about what, until very recently, they themselves regarded as a simple and necessary recognition of right and wrong.

I meant only that in the order of succession, if the Dems take control of one of the houses of Congress, there might be one sane person.

Not before this time next year, and only if we're very lucky in the midterms.

Why is Donald Trump changing his mind every five minutes and saying completely mad stuff an embarrassment for Keir Starmer? It feels like it should chiefly be seen as an embarrassment for the United States.

We had endless articles and TV clips about Biden's mental capacity but silence about Trump's obvious unfitness when he says he's going to start a war with Denmark over Greenland because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize.

None of those things are going to happen. All the rest of them despise Vance. They'd need to take him out too (as complicit?).
Then we'd get Johnson. And then Grassley, Rubio, Bessent, Hesgeth, Bondi.
How lucky are we feeling?

I've always thought he absolutely deserves a bank holiday, but sadly no one wants one in late January....

The Republicans can't say it because to break ranks on this would attract the wrath of the Trumposphere (and they're all cowards anyway or we wouldn't be here).
Dems won't say it because they don't want Vance either.

Absolutely no

Still not over him leaving LFC, then?

What have you got against Hakimi?!?!

Scrutiny, absolutely yes. Criticism where due, absolutely yes.
But let's not be naive about how social media works and affects our politics.
The net result of all the criticism and no praise is voters think they're worse than the opposition (even if that's not what you actually say).

It's not just Reform that are the risk. People switching to Green, Lib Dem, nationalist parties, whoever, are (in a FPTP system) potentially unintentionally helping Reform.

No, probably those voters won't. But it's the overall tone. There are thousands of people attacking the government, from left, right, centre. That's a lot of attrition! And no one is defending them. If voters hear only bad they'll think "twist then".

But we need to be realistic - the internet is real, and powerfully affecting the political mood. Nuance doesn't cut through. Saying "they're rubbish" all the time signals to voters to twist, which if you think the alternatives are worse, is pretty reckless.

Whereas, as you said yourself, they'd all be worse...
It might be frustrating that the nuance of the position isn't getting through to voters, but it isn't.