June politics thread

Next week he’ll be burying his grandmother again.

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Very much mask off at the Telegraph

That’s just … What the hell?

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That’s Priti Patel and the Home Office officially breaching human rights protections. Again.

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Could’ve gone in the ft BBC News thread, I suppose, but it’s (very much) not news, so here we are:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/alun-cochrane-9jun21

Despite their bad reputation, Alun Cochrane is fine with being a “Centrist Dad”.

Join Alun for this recording of his stand-up special for Radio 4 in which he examines the state of political discourse in Britain and tries to find his place on the ever-evolving UK left-right political spectrum.

Alun has never considered himself an offensive comedian but now finds himself to be one of the few pro free speech comedians. How come he feels right wing in comedy dressing rooms, left wing in general society and comes out as totally centrist on those online “what are your politics” tests?

Alun wants to find out if his politics have changed or if the world has just changed around him and left a reasonable man feeling like an extremist. He is pretty sure he isn’t an actual baddie. He spends his days writing jokes in Where’s Wally? pyjamas alongside his gluten-free dog. Does that sound like an extremist to you?

It’s been done to death, so how is this sort of thing still getting commmissioned?

But that’s not really what jumped out. It’s the way it’s presented in such a try-hard and disjointed tone. And the trotting out of tired lazy cliches.

“Find his place…”, “…left feeling like an extremist…”, “…gluten-free dog…”, “…finds himself to be one of the few pro free speech comedians”.

What?

Examining “the state of political discourse in Britain” and “the ever-evolving UK left-right political spectrum” is fair enough. But like this?

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because he’s a knob?

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And because his politics haven’t changed since he was a student.

Britain to adopt the euro

More than 80% of potential voters questioned by ICM believe that Britain will adopt the single European currency in the next 10 years.

That is despite the fact that the population is deeply divided on whether or not they personally favour euro membership.

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From a BBC piece published on 4th June 2001

@moderators could we rename this “May/June politics thread”, or sutin.

Fucking Didsbury

20 quid says they didn’t mean Didsbury. Probably meant Chorlton.

Focusing on the inclusion of Didsbury feels a bit off to me

It is but when you think of all the media types that shuffled to Didsbury when the BBC moved up to Salford 10 years ago it was obviously going to be picked up.

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Well… I presume by “focusing on the inclusion of Didsbury” we’re chiefly talking about the reaction from the Gaurdian and on Twitter here. And I’m not inclined to take that as being representative of anything much of worth.

Resultantly, I don’t think the people ‘focusing on a focus on the inclusion of Didsbury’ are making a point that’s as perceptive as they maybe think they are.

Beyond that bubble of pointless infighting, I think there’s just a recognition that the Mail has stretched beyond its usual bullshit go-to reference points and into a whole other level of ‘the fuck are you on about’. Which was probably intentional (possibly fishing on the basis of @Roughyed’s observation) to get some outrage going on twitter that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred if they’d stuck to the usuals.

But we all know this just the regular rollout of the same old shit. Was Trump and London fairly recently, wasn’t it?

I looked up their Glasgow no-go area there, it was 30 seconds around the corner from me, in a street I (a white person) walk up and down about 20 times a week. If it does become a no-go area they’ll have to move the train station entrance, the logistics don’t bear thinking about.

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Oh look

where’s this (dont want to read the mail)

They mention the central mosque and the Islamic centre on Niddrie Road (next to Queens Park train station). Didn’t read the article in-depth, but it seems like they’re not really calling it a no-go area, more just saying that there are Muslims there doing Muslim things and everyone should be terrified.

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Harding as the head of NHS, is it