tjmarsden.bsky.social
Long term lurker, might actually post the odd thing here...
1,074 posts
75 followers
192 following
Discussion Master
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Nastiness applied to a deviation from the assumed norm, indeed.
I've drifted to the anti side on this. As you say, a spherical AD policy in a vacuum radiating dignity evenly in all directions, maybe.
But if in 2029 the government only has this to point at when asked what its done for the disabled?
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I'm wondering also about the change that comes after, as social and political technology catches up again such that we don't have the Thirty Years War every time someone prints a leaflet.
What that looks like, though, well even if I knew, it isn't time yet...
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Takes me back though, good old running through fields of wheat...
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I'm more and more coming to the conclusion that indirect election to executive office is fine, as a rule parliamentarism beats presidentialism.
For this one, makes more sense to empower the councils. I'm not yet convinced there's enough stuff that's too local for Holyrood but too big for councils.
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Asymmetrical mishmash cutting across council areas and MPs constituencies, recipe for infighting and bickering, creates yet another office but brings little to no concrete benefit wherever it operates.
Arguably works OK ish in Manchester due to excellent leadership, poor to awful everywhere else.
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You are technically correct, which is of course the best kind of correct.
Figure it boils down to parliamentarism beats presidentialism, but that probably doesn't fit on the signs or in the chants.
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He's not really any sort of politician at all. Starmer would make a better civil servant.
While the opposition is so poorly led he's safe, of course. Which just makes the minimal scale of his ambitions that much more disappointing.
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This is a very alarming story, that is certain. But surely one of the things human brains have evolved dealing with is superficially well-informed sycophancy saying what it thinks is wanted?
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Specifically in the current struggle for control of the Kremlin-on-the-Potomac, sure, Putin has won. Although it might be better to see it more as a crushing defeat for the US than his win.
Putin still hasn't beaten the rest of us, after all.
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Situation normal...
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Yeah... Game theory mentioned, crank alarm set off.
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I don't know, I'm sure any kids really are good for, oh, at least eight hours of content per season over a seven season run...
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It's incredibly frustrating because they've got so much room for some ablation due to electoral punishment, from a seat count perspective.
Of course from a votes cast perspective they don't have very much room at all, so I see why they and we are stuck. Still incredibly frustrating...
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I don't know. I'm sure it's bad, but is it bad enough?
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It's an interesting problem - what happens if we replace a right wing party that has repeatedly proven capable of absorbing liberal factions, with one that has no desire to make the attempt.
For sure, the 'natural party of government' status isn't necessarily inherited automatically, by anyone.
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Ah, sorry. Yes, back to them taking the place for granted, as far as I can see.
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What was keeping it SNP for so long, do you think? Just selective demotivation perhaps, looks like a lot of low turnouts in earlier regular elections?
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That's what I mean by not wanting to over-interpret...
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Don't want to over-interpret, and I'm so biased it isn't even funny... But I fear this just creates a mirage for Labour and the void where the Starmer project would be to walk towards.
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The government contracts probably have to go sooner or later anyway. All the rest, the optimum case is Trump tries, and it all descends into the most expensive litigation in history.
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Just as well the Durham Miners Gala is self funded.
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Looks like Chancellor Merz got lucky, not too many custard pies thrown in the Oval Office, and those that were will likely be drowned out by this.
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Always slight baffling, Scotland should have governments it usually doesn't vote for, to make sure England doesn't have the ones it usually does vote for...
And then there's the subset that imagines Scotland hanging on davits off the side of England, an auxiliary craft for use in case of emergency.
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To pick up the Labour angle there, the argument is that over many years the party took its traditional base for granted, assumed they had nowhere to go, and lost them.
To decide this means the party should take its current base for granted as they have nowhere to go? Definition of madness...
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Fundamental problem is it costs energy. You can use clean energy to do it, sure, but you're always better off using that to displace carbon intensive energy in the first place, rather than to clean up after the carbon intensive energy.
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Doesn't get much more one-sided than 2015, true.
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Setting aside referendum votes (glorified opinion polls, bah humbug etc) the biggest electoral mandate is John Major's 1992 win, setting a record for the largest number of votes cast for a political party that remains unbroken.
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Irony - adjective, similar to or possessing the characteristics of iron...
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And on the pedestal these words appear: 'This is an ex-parrot, it has ceased to be'. Nothing beside remains...
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Corporate involvement was always a kind of canary in the coalmine...
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Best prediction so far for what Farage will do in power is, trigger a Liz Truss type meltdown of the economy while his cabinet and party descend into chaos with regular resignations and sackings. All lasts about a year before it fails to pass a budget and loses a confidence vote...
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This sort of polling is mostly useless. If policy was to just hand BAE a pile of cash and hope, that'd be bad policy, but people do want security and will usually prefer to pay less.
Needs leadership to persuade people to do the thing we'd rather not, to get the result we know we need.
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I'm sure if you polled them on whether they wanted the results of that increased defence spending, that is, we remain secure and the deterioration of the international situation is slowed or perhaps reversed, they'd be broadly in favour.
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A couple of years back I thought, maybe the major social media will remain a source of perennial disappointment for the people who define the general vibe on it... Not my best prediction.
And now we have the infinite slop generator to add to the old fashioned ways to steer the conversation, too.
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Verb the noun!
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It's such a generic, obvious question for that topic too - you can just say you're concerned with making sure penalties fall on the purchaser and move on. Not this absurdity imagining people descending into the prostitution mines.
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It slightly confuses me how people so catastrophically stupid manage to navigate the day-to-day mundanities of life, let alone function in public office...
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This is what I liked about the Emperor as not seen in Andor.
He's not threatening because he's an evil space sorcerer, really. He's threatening because of the unimaginably vast structure he operates very much at arm's length, which will do terrible things automatically, just working towards him.
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Ah, memories of Dark Forces... nostalgia is to be enjoyed in moderation, though so I won't ramble on about it.
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Absolutely, the longer it runs, the less narrative freedom it has. But you can still do as Andor managed, let's do [genre] but in our setting, what would that look like?
The sequels were, let's do a star wars, what do we need, OK, trilogy, swords, sorcery, a planet-buster... Paint by numbers.
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This makes sense. The originals dressed up in a type of sci-fi aesthetic and worked as a kind of gateway to sword and sorcery as a genre.
The setting, any setting really, is best as a gateway to other things. Where I think the big franchises go wrong is they end up as gateways only to themselves.
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If he was just a bit more inclined to do the regular parts of the actual job too, he'd probably still be PM today...
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Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?
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I'd missed that, interesting. I've read in a few places talk of a kind of tug of war over the King on this issue. If uneasy lies the head that wears one crown, I can't imagine the stress that stacking up fifteen of the things causes.
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Interesting times for the monarchy. I suppose the thing with monarchies under personal unions is that they are on a pretty inexorable trajectory either towards unification or to separation.
It'd be so much more convenient if the laws for succession were just subtly different in different countries.
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Sent to earth for a high purpose, and that purpose is, conveniently, free agricultural labour. And, like twenty regular people's worth of it too!
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These days, for one reason or another, are we not all the bald angry guy...
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Interesting. Dug into the full results, too. Those show total very + fairly strong attachment to the regions everywhere of at least 50%, and except for the East Midlands, considerably above it.
Good enough for regional devolution, maybe?
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But you have to understand, the election is only in four years...
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The one I know a little bit about is the German states, which are fairly symmetrical in terms of powers except for some merging of local government functions in the city states. Unfortunately its not really heading in that direction in England, with the metro mayors and combined authorities...