Does Tilly like music? Ok Go! do great videos involving that kind of thing if so.
14.03.2026 15:59
๐ 1
๐ 0
๐ฌ 1
๐ 0
Does Tilly like music? Ok Go! do great videos involving that kind of thing if so.
From a dangerously inauspicious start, Britain's performance in the Second World War was ultimately highly impressive. A sprawling empire was mobilised in pursuit of war with great skill and ingenuity, even if this was to be its last great hurrah. For better or worse, as Churchill discovered in 1945, peo-ple's expectations of what the state could deliver for them had been transformed. The political economy of modern Britain had 20
The reason Churchill lost in 1945 was that the state could not compel people to fight for their country (the Second World War was the first fought entirely by conscripts) and then return them to the unemployment of the inter war period.
Here is my best Habermas story.
I am grad student waiting in LONG line for Habermas talk. There is a tall man waiting in front of me. Line moves so we are eventually visible to organizers, a woman looks over & makes horrified face. Runs out: "Prof Habermas! You don't have to wait in line!"
Habermas has been an intellectual influence for me in recent years. Wiith his passing the lights of European democracy must remain undimmed.
I am just going into a performance of Dvoลรกk's Requiem by coincidence. To his memory now.
Here's to the lifeworld.
www.reuters.com/business/med...
like this makes me so angry I canโt even verbalise it. Iโm furious. Raze the system to the ground it cannot be fixed
๐คฎ๐คฎ๐คฎ๐คฎ on multiple levels
That's funny, I could have sworn he said something about not needing Royal Navy vessels because the war was already won.
You broke it Don, you fix it.
In honor of Habermas, a meme I made
George Galloway: โI have been assailed all day by a โchildrenโs book communityโ so vile and vicious Iโm amazed they even let them near kids #redmoluccaโ. He was retweeted five times. An account named @winnie_the_pooh, not believed to be connected either to the Disney corporation or the estate of A A Milne, responded with one word: โTosser.โ and was RTed 213 times by the time this well-worn screenshot was taken, perhaps more afterwards
Well, if itโs 14 March, that can only mean... naturally: the ninth anniversary of one of the finest exchanges from The Old Place
Once we've abolished the Home Office, the DWP is next: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
The NHS workforce (as I'm sure you know) is 77% female so the DoH has signed a contract with a company whose stated goal is to *dis*empower the majority of NHS staff.
Over 90% of tribunal appeals succeed. What does that say about the decision-making process being used?
As w noughties disasters over ATOS & Work Capacity Assessment (again w appeals mostly succeeding), deeply depressing to see Labour cling to failed processes & add more hurdles to back off demand.
Parkin's spelling of MITEY has permanently entered my lexicon, and also OUTRAJUS which is how I like to think he would have spelt it....
If you want to watch a deeply moving thing, have just been sent a clip of the end scene of 'Billy Elliott' - his father so proud and nervous, in floods of tears, and that utterly triumphant leap at the end. Am emotional rubble rn.
The Matt Damon/Bill Murray episode is a. Completely hilarious and b. One Norton has said he was actually relieved when it was over - they *arrived* tipsy and well....
Booze definitely. Norton has an acute understanding of what makes celebrities tick, I think. He was on a chat show himself saying celebrities might be guarded, but they are also *incredibly* competitive so he marshalls that to encourage them to spill.
In England a driver can be speeding, using cannabis and a phone, overtake another vehicle, mount the pavement outside a school playground and kill a 4-year-old girl while uninsured โ and receive just 3 years 10 months for causing death by careless driving.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I love Claudia, but think they've given her Graham Norton's format (which is a LOT harder than he makes it look) without the trick he often has of a couple of people on his sofa being from the same film etc which gives an instant source of anecdotes. And slightly less starry guests.
This is a fantastic piece of writing: it's about food, but also so much more than food. The issue of how change is experienced by the people it affects is particularly striking - education types might find it interesting for that reason in the context of how parent-school relationships are managed:
Toast crumbs and bedsheets do not mix with comfort.
Phil Woolas, MP for Oldham East+Saddleworth 1997-2010, has died at 66 after a long period of illness brain cancer. Unseated in election court verdict against his misleading content of his 2010 constituency campaign. It is the only case of that happening post-1945.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Don't get me started on the non-binary of Hormuz.
I was just thinking - what if a claimant left due to sexual harassment, or injury, or childcare impossibility or the thousand other reasons that don't fall into either camp? And it's such a waste of resources....
Meanwhile ofc, claimants are pushed into further poverty and stress. But never mind, at least the DWP gets to look tough and that's what really matters. <ends, exasperatedly>
So no wonder so many people have their sanction overturned when a Mandatory Reconsideration is issued or it goes to the First Tier Tribunal. The DWP forces responses into a false binary and then is shocked, shocked! when people appeal.
Basically, if a claimant leaves a job without good reason they can receive a higher level sanction for up to 91 days. However, when their job coach refers the decision-maker there are only 2 choices: that the claimant left 'Voluntarily' or due to 'Misconduct'. That's it.
Every time I think I've reached the final layer of the mille-feuille of WTF that is DWP decision-making, process and in this case system architecture, the little scamps surprise me. On the basis of what a friend has just told me, it's not wonder so many people successfully appeal....
"Another example was Mahmoodโs claim that if her โearned settlementโ proposals are not implemented 'we will see a ยฃ10bn drain on our public finances and further strain on public services..this is a mix of the deliberately misleading and the completely wrong."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Greens, full of good intentions, truly believe that destroying capitalismโs dark satanic mills would make people happier. Britons would have more leisure time to walk upon Englandโs mountains green. Their worries would be over, because the state would provide for their needs.
peak Economist, surely
