Tom Clarke

Please God get rid of Netanyahu. I know the alternative isn't great but it's better than more of him with Ben Gvir and Smotrich.

This is the correct combination to persuade British voters. Euro is much more of a public opinion barrier than FoM. samf.substack.com/p/the-route-...

Beyond "people have opinions over upcoming films *all the time*", or of films based on the reviews that have come out, I'm always reminded of @dsquareddigest.bsky.social's comment "You know who did read the article in all its nuance? The sub-editor who summarised it in the headline."

This basically bsky.app/profile/nich...

😭😭

This is an incredibly shortsighted position. There will be a rightwing government in Britain again one day*, and it is really bad that whatever happens, it is not going to include anyone who regards the convention rights as non-negotiable! *2029

Very late to this, but this is an excellent framing, both as a sense-check to 'are you developing AI psychosis' but also for 'are you, Stephen Bush, wasting compute and AI tokens on trivial inquiries?'

He was very good in person with his trans fans too. Growing up going to SF cons, I met many trans people before I even knew what trans meant. I gave my parents very little they needed to accept in their child, so they had lots left over for everyone else. 😉 www.thepinknews.com/2021/08/06/t...

She was murdered by transphobia 😥😥😥

Underlying problem is that they have driven themselves totally crackers and so can't actually see what they're saying anymore?

Subscribing to jonn's substack is basically the equivalent of giving to a donkey sanctuary at this stage. Help bring life to jonn's golden years. (Sadly donations are not yet tax-deductible. We're working on it.)

I realise i talk about this a lot, but I find it genuinely staggering that basically nobody outside of this website talks about how Brexit and the Lib Dems have broken the pipeline of middle class liberals voting Tory. It's totally destroyed the Tory vote under 40! And nobody seems to care!

Sorry it’s just intolerable that Labour MPs can now get away with quite literally posting that trans people make them uncomfortable *because they are trans* and our expectations are so lowered that we just don’t expect any action to be taken at all.

“I was concerned about a trans person being there” so we actually have a word for this stance but you’re not going to like it

This seems obviously correct. I don't think giving royalties to PA is a good idea, or a constructive way to help Palestianians. Members of the organisation have undertaken serious criminal acts. But to call them, and Rooney, terrorists is to abuse the term.

Yeah. I'd say the cross-party decision we're going to treat foreign care home staff like shit and asylum seekers as rodents is one of the political issues I get most exercised about at present. But I would never describe immigration as one of my most important issues, that just isn't how I frame it.

It's also just a free opportunity if you are the Conservatives to look like you are moderating on literally every other issue to just go 'yeah, that guy is a loony tune. His party is divided on an issue the overwhelming majority of people rightly think is settled'.

This stuff is no different from 'having mad ideas about trade', there isn't a magical way around it that doesn't involve head on going 'that's nuts'.

I think this was very apparent during the Brexit negotiations. Large financial institutions - with real economic weight - generally would have preferred to stay in the Single Market. But some very prominent Brexiteer hedge funders preferred a harder Brexit. The HFers often had more access.

I don’t really care what is in people’s hearts. I care about what they say and what they do. I want to make homophobia and transphobia so shameful and taboo that bigots dare not express or act on it for fear of dire social and professional consequences.

My theory is that the stubbornness, brittleness etc all flows from the fact the vote was in fact quite close. If it had been 60/40 there's room for magnanimity, worrying about losers' consent etc... but 52/48? Show weakness and it might slip away, somehow.

A much-needed - and typically brilliant - counter(blast) to the current common wisdom. I've read so much motivated reasoning from Tory-inclined commentators and out-and-out Badenoch fan-boys (and girls) over the last few days that this was a real breath of fresh air.

the casting on Celebrity Traitors is great isn't it? I do love the way they decided "no, this will be better if everyone likes each other"

Dear tv and radio producers. Thankyou for the invitation. But, no, I do not want to appear on your show to defend the idea that I am English, after 50 years of living and working here, because the increasingly feral right want to turn this into a "debate" and you cannot see how you're being played

This prompted me to go back and check the claim that "On current DWP forecasts, from the 2024 election until 2030, Labour will have increased working-age benefit spending by a further £51.6 bn/year." It appears to be equally fictional/spreadsheet error. Correct figure is maybe £36bn..

I'm not sure, that doesn't sound like the sort of thing Kemi would do.

Also, being polite shouldn't be a conscious decision. You should naturally say "please" and "thank you" and you should instinctively hold doors open for people. These things should be second nature and you should do them without thinking.

If you want to make the (correct) point that Kemi has never done the reading, it's a Kemi Badenoch speech, don't worry, another example of that will be along shortly.

Excellent thread this:

Anyway. I don’t want to say I told you so. I just, with slow, miserable regret, remind you that some of us saw this coming. And now it’s here. Wearing the clothes of a compromise. But we should call it out for exactly what it is 👇🏼

My sister would hit me so hard I'd wake up in the morgue.

Green Party of England and Wales turning itself into a pariah among Greens internationally

The open secret re: the Greens is that the UK has a tiny set of full time rabid ‘left-wing’ antisemites who move from org to org trying to turn them into full time monomaniacal antisemites like themselves.

As a Jew I think what the Greens have done is appalling. As a political commentator I think Andy Burnham is a lucky man.

all this conference chat is reminding me of the list I wrote a few years ago of all the stupid things that happened to me at conference: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/19-anecdot...

When we moved flats, had a big glass desk, only good for “your living room is also your study and you want a stylish desk”. Needed the hinges taking off the door to go. 3 flights of steps. Too big for lift. Tried giving it away free. Nothing but crazies and idiots. £10. Went immediately.

The proposers of this motion were given every opportunity to change the language. The fact that they did not do so is testament to the fact that they WANT this definition to be as broadly general as possible, and define as many Jews as possible as suspect.

The "zionism is racism" motion that has just passed on the Green Party's conference floor is truly gross, and deeply racist. The party's MPs deserve some credit for opposing it, though they should've done so more stridently and sooner. This is now a millstone around the party's necks. Deservedly.

What's fundamentally hilarious about this, given the motion, is that this statement taken literally reads: "They argued that racists wouldn’t have to leave the party if the motion passes"

Yes. I keep reading pained and earnest explanations of how this targets and marginalises Jews across the board, written by people who somehow don't realise this is literally the point.

oh Matthew no #CPC26