Starmer had in fact suggested Matt Cardle, thinking surely that must reflect popular appeal
11.03.2026 19:22
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Starmer had in fact suggested Matt Cardle, thinking surely that must reflect popular appeal
Kemi Badenoch SLAMS Keir Starmer for suggesting Zeyn for the £20, later revealing under questioning she has somehow conflated Zeyn with Zeyne
Just hearing that Ed Davey is outraged that Harry Styles isn't on the tenner
"yes, I get it, the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was very good"
Spain really seems to be the post child for heterodox inflation policy, with a focus on supply-side measures, price regulation and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels. www.euronews.com/2026/03/11/s...
80s singer Thomas Dolby on raising queer kids: "the eldest is trans, the middle is a lesbian, and the youngest is a drummer"
The 3 genders
*six months later* he got Churchill back on the BoE £5 note, in exchange for tightening benefit sanctions
LABOR BEEEEEEEEEEEEF
If you buy my score for Everybody To Kenmure Street then i won’t have to be in financial arrears with my pals in mogwai and…….myself?
Comes out this friday.
Save me from embarrassment and ridicule.
rockactionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/everyb...
Brother, you already *were* a ghost. Up there, screaming — along with all of them. Scaring each other. Haunting each other. It's the living who are ghosts. The dead are silent. They don't rattle windows or write letters in blood. The living do. Leave them behind. Rest.
I mean, I liked the 2012 Olympic ceremony well enough, but it's a bit of a shoogly peg to hang an imagined community on.
and another side to all this is we have been here plenty of times at least since devolution around the need for a "progressive patriotism", etc, but all of that has looked either as clumsy and uncomfortable as the "squeamishness", or has descended into appeasing the chauvinists. So what then?
(also didn't want to call that an exclusively English far-right chauvinism, because I've definitely seen or experienced Scottish or Welsh equivalents of The Flags or nativism)
(and even that "squeamishness" quote isn't discounting English identity as inherently regressive at all, based on a plain reading)
I don't think it necessarily extends to Englishness, but disentangling the two can be tricky. And we do have to come at this from the context where a quite aggressive chauvinism is driving the far right, I mean, that's where the quoted "squeamishness" is coming from at the end of the day.
chart showing Welfare spending as a share of GDP (left) and in real terms (right), by category, outturn and forecast: UK
How has last week's forecast affected the outlook for welfare spending?
There has been little change, and considering spending as a share of GDP it does not look out of control.
Find out more 👉 buff.ly/DqulMy0
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Is fuckin' cursed
You could even get cute with it and have a nature scene representing a famous poet or author, as with the old Clydesdale £5 note:
ah, a congressman made this claim in the congressional record! now just to check the source of his claim
oh
oh no
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...
"the polio fraud"
Once got into a debate around this and the evidence given as proof was incredibly weak: second-hand or well after the fact reports - and the most plausible report was of people spitting on a demonstration of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
There has been a lot of bullshit since ofc, but god the amount of egregious crap that was thrown around - I still recall the stuff around housing benefit (that didn't make sense if you actually knew how housing benefit worked), "taking the poorest out of tax", "cutting the cost of politics"
Between "workers and shirkers", the stuff related to "worklessness" around the "squeezed middle", and finally "alarm clock Britain", that whole period just a grim time for our political class coming up with various ways to blame the unemployed and the disabled for the financial crisis.
You could probably relate it more to Miliband's "squeezed middle" stuff at the same time, but that was also entangled with "we didn't go far enough on benefit reform" stuff, and you *really* have to push hard to make these comments fit that Procrustean bed.
*"workers and shirkers" rhetoric, that is.
But now – working hard? What does that get you? Because talk to anyone here and they’ll tell you. The people who work hard but can’t put food on the table. Can’t get their kids school uniforms. Can’t put their heating on. Can’t live off the pension they worked hard to save for. Can’t even begin to dream about ever having a holiday. Ever. Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry. I don’t think its extreme or radical to think working hard should get you a nice life. And if you’re not able to work, that you should still have a nice life.
Especially since in the very same paragraph of her victory speech talking about this, Spencer remarks that people unable to work should also have a nice life.
saying "working hard should get you a nice life" is exactly the same as the "workers and shirkers" is an impressive failure of comprehension, even by the standards of Our Fearless Press
30% real-terms pay cut since 2011.
Vice-chancellors attempting 15,000+ job cuts since last September.
UCU & sister unions are fighting back - submitting our 2026/27 pay claim to UCEA demanding fair pay, protected jobs & an end to casualised contracts.
www.ucu.org.uk/article/1443...
And sure, maybe you actually are in a constrained space where there are no good options. But a government is still responsible.
