I used to love "gritty" cinema and TV.
Something flipped in my head during Covid, and the Denouement of Trump Presidency 1.0.
Since then I want my entertainment to be pretty much uniformly uplifting to distract from reality.
"None of that fits in a victory video, no matter how many totally badass clips from movies and video games you include. And none of it can be resolved by having your press secretary announce that you’ve decided you’ve won:" - terrific piece by @eliasisquith.blog:
I remember when ‘Brexit Means Brexit’ became a way for silly people to insist that they supported something they could neither justify nor explain. Obviously the context is very different, but something similar is already happening with the ‘war’ in Iran. And it’s mostly the same people doing it.
I think it will do terrible with judges, and extremely inconsistent with audiences; but with quite a few high scores.
A lot of people give up halfway when making a massive corridor. But I'm in it for the long hall.
Apart from less fan noise I think I've barely noticed the uptick from my PS4 pro to the PS5.
In old age, I don't have cutting edge eyes anymore, so cutting edge graphics is lost on me.
Play on my Ally running steam OS more than PS5 or Series S
'How can I reduce the political benefits of sacking him even further? I know, I'll deliver a speech suggesting that I wish he were still working for us and steering us, and hope that someone leaks it.'
Seems genuinely odd to me. Given the staggered release schedule it's surely not competing with the attractiveness of their console offering.
The conversation costs compared to potential revenue must be pretty small surely given 9th Gen consoles basically have PC Architecture?
Appeasement gone the way it always goes
Oh now I get it. Dubai is Golgafrinchan Ark B.
Will never not irritate me that deciding to do bad policy to avoid having an honest conversation with the public is framed as the "tough" or "difficult" choice.
@samfr.bsky.social wrote a good article a while back on thia
About the different concerns on immigration between those wanting "control" & those mostly just concerned with no foreign voices or brown skins in the country.
The former Labour can productively appeal to in my view. Latter not so much.
Now I'd probably heart bleed on that because of who I am. But I think that's a way of dealing with issues without fundamentally breaking your voter coalition.
Say on immigration they need to drop the performative cruelty side. That's a losing argument for them as for people that appeals to Labour will always come short
Hard but fair should be labour pitch. Comfy with immigration if managed. Hard on rule breakers and deporting those failed quickly.
There's a whole range of public policy compromise choices on social liberalism between trying to appeal to the left most flank of the greens, and let's see if we can out Fash reform on immigration.
I expect a labour gov to be to my right on social issues but not to make me actively despise them
Also to note - Mahmood is essentially saying that immigration policy should be made entirely for political reasons and those reasons should be what they think their ideal type working class voter believes. Quite literally a policy of pandering.
I think essentially, even now enough of Labour’s lost voters say they are open to a return. Do I think a fresh leader who disavows the blunders and goes “we need to seize our European destiny” can repair enough of the damage for Labour to survive as bloc leader? Yeah, absolutely.
End of the day, if you're using threats of violence to bully people into accepting your hateful policies, does it really matter if the violence in question comes from you?
Is it sectarian when Reform talk about Judeo-Christian heritage? Is it divisive when Starmer talks about becoming an island of strangers? Is voting on religious lines an issue when Kemi declares her ethnic emnity towards Nigerian Muslims? It is weird to be so fixated on this discussion suddenly!
Very clear that for Starmer, 'sectarian voting' is when British Muslims don't vote Labour, and for many others, it is just when British Muslims vote.
They might as well call it Operation Tiny Penis. Pathetic.
As ever, I don't imagine myself representative of anyone but me. But if I'd had a vote in Gorton I'd have agonised, then done whatever felt most likely to stop Goodwin. After Starmer and Mahmoud's responses I now feel quite motivated to vote *against* Labour?
A Labour leadership with both says "you must listen to these voters who don't share your values and take them seriously" and "you must NOT listen to *these* votes who *do* share your values - their preferred party should be dismissed as extremist" is headed for electoral disaster, and deservedly so.
Labour HQ
"Best way out of this hole is to keep digging."
Repeating myself I know, but - I think it's a bunch of people whose big political success was reforming the party/a CLP. In that scenario, driving people away is brilliant! Not your problem any more! That... model does not work in other contexts. MPs and voters still exist and get to vote.
Ahh yes, it's the time honoured 'sorry you're not clever enough to see what a big mistake you've made and what stupid voters you are' strategy.
Never fails!
You got to feel for Matt Goodwin.
Sorry missed a word. You got to feel contempt for Matt Goodwin.
The weird thing is Labour could, if it played its cards right, hope to win at least some Green voters back. The same is not true of Reform voters.
guys, these are the people you’re supposed to be *winning back to Labour*, I don’t think saying “oh they’re all either rubes or reactionaries” is a great play
Sectarian.
The sheer contempt and entitlement in that word.
Thousands of Muslim voters just voted for a white, (I think) working class non-Muslim woman because they feel abandoned by Labour and agree with her views on a huge foreign policy issue and on immigration policy
