Inverted

So the two biggest political groupings in the country right now are viciously pro-austerity Remainers, and No Deal supporters. At least we've found one unifying issue for the country: 80% of the country is in agreement that the disabled and mentally ill need to keep being driven to their deaths. Encouraging stuff.

I'll be curious to see if Keita starts next season as a mainstay. Robertson had a similar process of being warmed in during his first season and he's never looked back from there.

Farage has blacklisted Channel 4 from his events for its investigations into his finances. Wow I'm so happy Farage is here to fight our PC anti-free speech culture.

I think City draw some kind of residual meaning and identity from Liverpool, even if it is only by playing the villain to them.

Next horror from the director of Hereditary:

I think the broad thrust of his argument - that Germany's attitude to the crisis was unconstructive and that the public in Germany (much like the public in Britain) was too easily convinced of bogus deflationary economics - is correct. And that's a point that too few people acknowledge about the Greek crisis. But yeah there's plenty of other places to get the non-Schäuble argument besides Varoufakis, and from people who have less of an axe to grind.

Enormous credit to Sarri. Had to deal with some amount of shite and ultimately he's had a pretty much ideal first season. Winning the Europa would be a great bonus.

Sounds like something has went awry. Guaido calling for more protests, maybe he didn't get as many military defections as he was planning for?

This man died yesterday. Despite weighing little more than 6 stone, using a colostomy bag, and being almost unable to walk, he was determined by the Department of Work and Pensions to be completely fit for work (he scored nothing on any indicator of disability used by the DWP), and so instead of the roughly £120 a week he was probably entitled to, he had to live on £70 a week, whilst attending weekly job counselling and presenting evidence that he was job seeking. He had to discharge himself from hospital to go to court for his appeal, where a judge took one look at him and decided the DWP was obviously wrong. There is no economic necessity behind this, and it isn't a freak occurrence - it happens daily up and down the country and only some of the cases get picked up on by advice services who can take it to court. We are one of the richest countries in the world, but our benefits system has been designed to terrorise and humiliate the sick and needy, and even those on the brink of death. The next time somebody complains about "handouts" and "scroungers" - this cruelty is the result of those words.

Just finished this, which though not very accessibly written, was a thought-provoking challenge to a lot of what we presume about the origins and universality of human rights as a concept. Now starting with something I've been meaning to read for ages - a classic account of not just the only successful slave revolt in history, but also one of the most important and overlooked revolutions in history:

The primary thing I always think about the Eton mob is that for all the resources pumped into their education, they often seem quite thick. It seems that for people growing up in that kind of environment, the development of the ability to self-promote without shame or doubt, and to bluster through any real scrutiny, is given much more priority than the development of deep knowledge or critical thinking abilities. It's like school debating: you get given a topic on short notice, and you do a tiny bit of research, but fundamentally the way you win is by bluffing over your lack of expertise and by confusing your opponent. This intellectual weakness is normally covered up with a superficial knowledge of the Classics and an ability to hit out with pithy references to Greek or Roman mythology. I would exclude Rees-Mogg from this characterisation though. I don't think Mogg is stupid at all, although he is enormously socially and emotionally stunted. He is intelligent in pursuing his own interests, and in covering it up. He's very good at dressing up his position as a ruthless financial speculator and agitator behind his image as the naive, philosophical upper-class eurosceptic. He is socially "stupid", but he's self aware enough to realise that being perceived in the way he is actually a useful distraction in many ways. If people are too busy making fun of your nanny and the way you speak and dress, you can get away with more behind the scenes. Edit: To touch on the previous discussion: If I had the choice I would still choose to send my kids to a state school, unless it was a total shithole. But if you're well-off enough to send your kids to private school then you're likely going to have a decent state school nearby. I'd only consider a private school if I really thought the kid was seriously lacking intellectually or in work ethic - specifically meaning that they'd seriously struggle at getting the grades to get into a decent course at a decent uni. If they're bright and reasonably dedicated, they'll learn much better in a state school, they'll easily get the grades to get into a good course anyway, and they'll also come out much more socially rounded as well.

If there's another referendum I honestly think the hardcore Brexiteers will see it as a huge opportunity to get a no deal scenario.

The Tories have already took away the carrot for 90% of the population. There's only the stick - as shown by the increasing numbers of homeless. The rich are left overincentivised because they're under no pressure to innovate and reinvest, because they're free to hoard their wealth and circumvent tax. Because the job market is so saturated with job seekers that you can offer any wage you like under any conditions. And it's so easy to get returns by investing in London that the idea of getting involved in enterprise in the regions is comparatively pointless. The free market only works when both sides have choice and information. When one side is completely unskilled, and has been told that they need to accept the first job offered to them or be completely cut-off from any income, and they're already short on 3 months' rent, that's not a free market. That's called monopsony - a buyer's market, and the unemployed are left selling themselves not because theres any carrot on offer, but because the stick is right behind them ready to make them homeless in a moment. Please just say you're comfortable and don't give a shit about the rest. I can respect that. It just comes off as disingenuous when you try and talk about this stuff like you've got a wider reason for your beliefs.

That investment in job creation and education, and the enforcement of liveable wages, is the best way to get people into the workforce, as opposed to pushing swathes of incapable people onto the job market, chasing small amounts of insecure, unliveable work at pain of homelessness. That our economy is fundamentally unbalanced towards an unstable financial sector concentrated around London, and that without improved infastructure and without incentivising the creation of new industries in the regions, that wealth will concentrate in London and the bulk of the country will stay stuck on the post-industrial shitheap. That lower-income households are extremely disproportionately burdened by excessive rents and utilities overcharges, and that expanding the housing supply and establishing public control over utilities will create a great deal more economic freedom for those on lower incomes. And that all of this can be funded by enforcing tax laws properly, as opposed to turning a blind eye and allowing money to be unproductively sucked out of the economy just because half the government are tax dodgers.

Not sure what the surprise is, I thought it was tradition for the Paras to use civilians as target practice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/stories-44798649#click=https://t.co/a50GgI9LdM Turns out that a far-right terrorist who was narrowly prevented from assassinating another Labour MP was also a convicted paedophile. Cant say I'm surprised.

May's speech is really just "let's talk, but if you don't back my Deal it's still No Deal, but it will be all your fault". Most of the media seem encouraged by the announcement but tbh I can't see as anything else but a bad sign. The Tories are behaving as if No Deal is imminent, and they've started working to prepare the groundwork for the post-disaster political battle.

Can't wait to be fucked by mainstream growth-oriented economics. The only question is if the Tories will preemptively wreck the country and plunge hundreds of thousands more into poverty with No Deal just to purposelessly hold onto power for a few more months.

I really liked Get Out though it was maybe overhyped, but I can also get why the hype occurred. Plus, I think that everyone always expects horror to be shit and then any decent horror movie gets overhyped. Happened with The Babadook which I personally thought was average. People also raved and raved about the Conjuring, which was really good, but not like an all-time great horror movie. Oddly enough, I felt like Hereditary got unfairly ignored after an initial pre-release buzz. The fact that Toni Collette hardly got nominated for anything was absolutely bizarre.

Because most Tories would probably prefer to keep May for now. So forcing a vote wouldn't do anything most likely. But May absolutely needs the rebels' votes to pass her Deal. And she's already aware that her chances of being there for the next election are slim. So it's not much of a concession for her to make, to give her deal a fighting chance. And the Deal is basically her only chance of having any achievement to show for her premiership. Besides the porn ban.

The country voted to leave the EU. May's Deal accomplishes that. Any deal we agree with the EU will inevitably be almost entirely to their liking because they are enormously more powerful than we are, far better led, and incomparably better prepared. The alternative is to leave with No Deal, for which there exists absolutely no mandate. She's a corrupt bitch pushing bullshit as has always been her profession, be it for the tobacco industry or for the Tory party. The only new deal we could get would most likely be one which leaves us even more closely aligned with the EU than May's does. The EU is prepared for No Deal, they wouldn't be happy about it but they've come to terms with the possibility and have rightly decided that it's better than abandoning their foundational principles for our sake. We are not prepared, and we have not yet fully grasped the consequences, mostly because the consequences for us will be an order of magnitude more severe than they will be for the EU.

The "Change Party" has made its first statement as a new party - to express its strenuous opposition to a General Election. Do they not want... things to change?

I didn't mean exactly that the ERG is to blame for MV3 not passing, but more generally that if the ERG was sincerely committed to Brexit, we could have left the EU today. Today was especially bad because on one of the most dangerous moments for the Brexit project they still couldn't even present a united front. Instead they've overplayed their hand, continually let zealotry and power squabbles get to them, and unless we sleep walk into No Deal, Brexit is not likely to occur soon. And as for Labour, I don't really give a shit. Labour is the opposition and has offered its own account of what their Brexit will look (or would have looked) like, and that was reflected in the Indicative Votes. In fact had the Labour whip been followed the Customs Union motion would have passed. If the people wanted a strong Tory government capable of passing its Brexit plan despite massive defections, they should have voted one in. Instead, they voted to deny the government that ability. If the people who wanted Brexit, from the senior leaders to the individual voter, had the will to make it so, we would be out. But deep down, they either aren't keeping up with events, or their hearts aren't really in it, and it's up to the rest of us to sort out the mess as painlessly as possible.