Step 1.

Demand Lineker's head Step 2.

Declare victory in Right Wing press.

This is a brilliant article... opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starme… "Again and again, people said they were voting Tory because they were fed up with the whole Brexit thing – by which they meant all of the political debate at the time – and they just wanted it over and done with..."

No less than three Straw Man arguments in a single paragraph.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/… Such a lie: "Starmer is shouting through a megaphone at leave voters but dropping discreet, eminently missable hints for remainers."

Ruling out SM, CU, FoM, rejoin ref, PR/electoral reform, working with other parties, & backing anti-immigration policies,is not "dropping hints"

Great podcast on latest research into narcissism:

Grandiose narcissists don't exist.
Narcissism is driven by insecurity: it's a mal-adaptive response. Narcissists respond to rejection with more "flexing" narcissistic behaviour rather than less.

youarenotsosmart.com/2022/11/27/yan… Pretentiousness = narcissism (research looked into people who were *performatively obsessed* with "the arts" - rather than genuinely enjoying the arts.)

1/

"What is the root cause of why the UK can no longer have nice things?"

What do you mean nice things? 2/

"You know - well funded public services, living standards like our neighbours, prospects for our children, rivers and beaches free of sewage, decent social care - like other European countries."

1. This article is staggering.

6 years on it's remarkable how delusional and in denial brexiters still are. (thread)

https://twitter.com/NewStatesman/status/1538138923939110913

2. Only 26% of the UK voted to exit the EU.
"Spectre of Brussels" - Pejorative, gratuitous and unjustified - also assumes what he's trying to prove.

"influence of the European Court of Human Rights"

ECHR is not part of the EU.

This is mind-bogglingly stupid.

Brexit is a failure but the Tories plan to make it the centrepiece of their GE campaign.

Labour won't speak up against this because reasons.

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1507361024311242772

Essentially the Tories are trying to capture the authoritarian vote because that's enough to win under FPTP due to regional distributions

This thread is about Russia but the underlying point about hacking the system could be about anywhere....

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1507074861633519628

2/ Developed countries maintain sone semblance of order by convincing the vast majority of the people not to hack the system (to do as they are told, not cheat the rules).

Even in these countries the degree of hacking and cheating can be extraordinary.

1/ What caused Putin to invade Ukraine? There are various theories - one is that Putin went insane: Isolated during Covid, Putin spun-out, penning increasingly rabid essays driven by megalomania.

(Thread - podcast recommended listening at the end) 2/ But what if there is method to the madness? The content of Putin's essays - espousing Russia's right to imperial greatness, Putin's ethno-nationalism, his rage against liberalism and democracy, reflect exposure to ideologues and ideology.

1/ Thread on understanding the authoritarian disposition:

The authoritarian mindset is present in ~33% of the population, split roughly equally between right and left.

It is 50% inheritable, 50% from other factors. 2/ Crucial interview and scientific basis for understanding the issues:

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

1/ Personal Astrazeneca vaccine clot reaction (VITT) update: It's 2.5 months since the vaccine caused extensive pulmonary emboli (clots in lung blood vessels). The vaccine causes an immune reaction where antibodies against platelet factor 4 (PF4) cause platelet aggregation. 2/ Normal platelet levels are 150-400. The platelet aggregation caused my platelet count to drop to about 70. I got characteristic petechial rashes on wrists and ankles, and a huge bruise, possible bleeding into ankle (thought I'd sprained an ankle), chest pains from clots...

1/ If Hancock stays the only reason will be because the Tories have calculated there is no political cost (in polling and future elections) in keeping him.

And that will be a savage indictment of their target voters who now purely use Brexit identity as a voting heuristic. 2/ "This research adds to the considerable literature that has cast doubt on the abilities of voters to make these base evaluations of incumbent performance [about the government]"

I guess Dunt has "a friend" who went to another school - who had an affair But if they lied about speeding then they that would be consistent immoral behaviour. One thing to speed - another to lie about it and to not admit it was wrong when caught on camera.

Economics review their forecasts of impact of Brexit: Conclusion - they underestimated its impacts.

ukandeu.ac.uk/economic-impac… "The austerity measures implemented by the coalition government from 2010 brought about significant spending cuts and a significant demographic
realignment of public spending. Public spending per person fell by about 23% in real terms between 2010 and 2015
warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/econom…

1/ Two interesting AZ vaccine nuggets I got yesterday - one from a civil servant, one from a private GP (not my own).

i) The UK gov were considering pulling the AZ vax completely a few months ago. 2/ ii) On hearing my story a private GP said there are loads of people who have presented with side effects of AZ and been told to go home, following which they have died from clots without medical care.

This is my experience of 3x recent A&E visits. The government is running the NHS into the ground.

In the classic neoliberal playbook, after crippling this key public serrvice they will argue that only private companies can fix the NHS.

https://twitter.com/fascinatorfun/status/1406379981471686664

This is so true: A&E first visit: 4x other patients waiting with AZ headaches.

" The essence of emergency medicine is identifying the needle in the haystack. If the haystack is getting bigger, it becomes progressively harder to find that needle.”

I am in A&E.

9 days after first dose of AZ. Splitting headache all day. Worse lying down. Nausea. Rang 111. Ambulance took me to hospital. After 7 hours they found my D dimer is high.

Now getting a CT scan of my head. Worst headache of my life. Odds of a clot are 1 in 80,000. Survival rate is 75%

1/ I had a long debate yesterday which boiled down - to whether Johnson was a key man dependency for the authoritarian populist hegemony we face in the UK. 2/ ...Whether if he hadn't been there the 2019 election would have gone differently or whether the referendum result might have been different.

1/ Labour's pivot, and I would argue their strategy on Brexit since 2016 has relied on assuming Different Interpretations of the same Rorsach ink-blot test.

They want remainers to see a Labour party that is still "Open" and leavers to see a New Labour party that is "Closed" 2/"Labour, and Starmer, seem scared of saying what they think, and yet still pay the price of what such voters infer from their silence without reaping the full benefit of support from those who would agree with what they dare not say, were they to say it" chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2021/05/labour…

1/ " In the landslide defeat of December 2019, both sides sought false comfort in tinny excuses, in booing Jeremy Corbyn or hissing at treacherous frontbench remainers. This was not analysis but score-settling, yet it has shaped Starmer’s first year. " amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 2/ "The new leader has spent every minute of airtime showing the public that he is not-Corbyn and not-Johnson, and not-remain and not-opposition-for-the-sake-of-it. He has taken barely a second to define what he is."

Behold! the Gargantuan Brains of the people of Hartlepool

https://twitter.com/jacqdodman/status/1390929010541174787

"Hartlepool has voted by a landslide for a Conservative who, by her own admission, has spent more time in the Cayman Islands than in the town she will from next week represent at Westminster."