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Sam Freedman Profile picture
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24 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Not only is the latest episode of Succession brilliant but is also named after one of my very favourite US politics books "What It Takes" by Richard Ben Cramer about the 1988 election.
Tom's description of a private conference of Republicans as a "safe space where you don't have to pretend to like Hamilton" is just perfect.
Also if Matthew Macfayden doesn't win all the awards for his portrayal of Tom in this season there is no justice.
Jeryd Mencken is a horribly chilling, compelling, character. Almost too close to the bone. If the Republicans had a attractive smooth talking tea party ethno-nationalist like that not sure how the Dems would beat him.

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More from @Samfr

Sam Freedman Profile picture
23 Nov
So many tweets that Johnson's speech yesterday was a deliberate "dead cat" act yesterday to distract from something or another. It's just not how politics works you can't control narratives like that, you don't know what the press will choose to run with.
(Even assuming he wasn't just being typically incompetent and buffoonish. Which he was.) Surely the Paterson thing should have made people realise politicians don't self-immolate deliberately to distract from other things?
The only genuine dead cats are daft opposition attacks - like the drunk Gibraltar MPs the other week.
Read 4 tweets
Sam Freedman Profile picture
22 Nov
Boris hasn't suddenly become bad at PM he was always terrible at it, just for some reason people now feel much more comfortable pointing it out.
His speeches have always been rambling incoherent nonsense with weird asides about random shit. He's never had a functioning No. 10 operation. He's never been interested in detail or policy.
A man twice fired for lying. Warned in a different job for threatening violence. Investigated for corrupt behaviour in every office he's held. Who repeatedly cheated on and then left his wife. On what conceivable planet was he going to be good at running the country?
Read 4 tweets
Sam Freedman Profile picture
22 Nov
I've written about the crisis in social care - which goes well beyond today's unhappiness with changes to the cap on costs. tortoisemedia.com/2021/11/22/soc…
I started to research the social care sector after the charging announcement in September and became increasingly disturbed at how broken it is and how little has been done to fix it over many years.
One thing I hadn't clocked was quite how poorly paid social care workers are. I knew it was a low paid sector but not that the average salary was well below supermarkets. And that there's almost no premium for experience. No wonder there are 150k vacancies - and rising.
Read 5 tweets
Sam Freedman Profile picture
6 Oct
Reflecting on how depressing conference season was. No ideas at all from the Tories - just post hoc blather about shortages = high wages. And from Labour a list of vague pledges and low-level detail policies within any kind of coherent narrative.
With the exception of a significant Labour pledge on climate change no one seems to have any kind of macro view on the big challenges facing the country.
There was very little mention of the short term problems - especially from the Tories - shortages, energy prices, inflation, crumbling welfare state, NHS overwhelmed, schools struggling with Covid aftermath. But nothing at all on the long term.
Read 7 tweets
Sam Freedman Profile picture
6 Oct
Shocked to see Boris Johnson is using alliteration, long words, bad French and daft puns to hide the fact he has nothing of any substance to say.
Remarkable that someone with such a standard formula - honed over a decade plus in public life - can be seen as in anyway authentic.
And there's the reference to Latin. God this is tedious.
Read 11 tweets
Sam Freedman Profile picture
5 Oct
Manchester has a prestigious university and Oldham doesn't. Next.
You can talk about FE as much as you like but while nearly all high status jobs require a degree elites are going to flock to the best unis and then stay there as long as there are employers and decent transport. Education level is the big national divide now.
We've gone from 5% of the population going to uni to 50% in two generations. It's had a bigger social impact on the country than anything else that's happened in that time IMHO.
Read 5 tweets

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