Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 3:53 pm I don't often say this about Gove, but I'm willing to take this at face value. Bloke who's split up from his wife goes out, enjoys the sauce a bit more than he remembers and doesn't want to go home.

I'm inclined to believe this, we're witnessing the start of Pob's midlife crisis in real time.

I think Gove has decided to turn his back on frontline politics so he can return to his old job as a journalist. Johnson is due to have a cabinet reshuffle quite soon and Gove has probably already told him he will be stepping down at the time of the reshuffle.

I'm not sure. Could be demob happy. Could be just that he got carried away one night, forgetting how bad hangovers are. He's not the best placed for the leadership, as I said before, but would be surprised if he's going to give up. He's only 54. As Geoffrey Cox has shown, you can still do a lot of stuff while remaining an MP. He ought to hold his seat easily next time too, even with heroic tactical voting and Lib Dems running on "houses but not there".

satnav wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:23 pm I think Gove has decided to turn his back on frontline politics so he can return to his old job as a journalist. Johnson is due to have a cabinet reshuffle quite soon and Gove has probably already told him he will be stepping down at the time of the reshuffle.

I reflect that Gove has a fair degree of intelligence.
Much of the unpleasantness that follows him reflects his unwavering commitment to culture-war issues.
If he were to step back and "do a Portillo" - combing is journalistic skills with some cultural aspect - he could almost be likeable.
I can't see it happening, he seems like one who's addicted to the us and them hurly burly.

His high spirits are understandable though.
Free from the carnal demands of Sarah Vine, live must look very positive.

The culture war thing - I remember listening to him on the radio in late 2013 talking about plans to commemorate WW1, and he was framing it as a just war, us vs the evil Hun, and time to get rid of what he was calling the "Blackadder myth"; and I thought "this sounds rather aggressive and unnecessary".

OK, the actual commemorations turned out to be rather more nuanced and tasteful, but it just struck me as odd that someone senior in government was actually publicly going there and using the centenary of the war as an excuse for a bit of lefty (or anyone not a jingoistic war nut) bashing.

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 10:17 am The culture war thing - I remember listening to him on the radio in late 2013 talking about plans to commemorate WW1, and he was framing it as a just war, us vs the evil Hun, and time to get rid of what he was calling the "Blackadder myth"; and I thought "this sounds rather aggressive and unnecessary".

OK, the actual commemorations turned out to be rather more nuanced and tasteful, but it just struck me as odd that someone senior in government was actually publicly going there and using the centenary of the war as an excuse for a bit of lefty (or anyone not a jingoistic war nut) bashing.

It's all they have remaining.
The Thatcher revolution ran out of road well before 2008's "Revenge of the invisible hand".
Almost everything that could be privatized has been, and we're seeing the 20-30 year logic of that in a youth housing crisis, and failing infrastructure.
The "good jobs" never emerged to replace managed industrial decline.
Even folks who went the self employed route find themselves working insane hours to sustain their Joneses lifestyle.

What remains, and what they have in common is the ability to stir shit around wedge issues and mutter "Here's what the left would have done", like some Frankenstein hybrid of Jim Bowen and Ayn Rand.
That's how you get talent vacuums like Mogg, Truss, Johnson, Cummings and all the little people from the Taxpayer's alliance.

Always campaigning, never governing.
It's the recurring theme of both Animal Farm and 1984.
"In the dark future there is only culture war".

Portillo is an interesting comparison. Like Gove, Portillo as a politician in his prime was a culture warrior. There's not much culture war in old trains, and he comes across all the better for it. He's a very bright man- see the Hugo Young Papers- brighter, than Gove who used to flounder on Newsnight Review. Nonetheless, Gove could do a Portillo-like job, for sure.

I think there's a great deal of Culture Wars in Old Trains, but Portillo has chosen to do modern ones.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:09 pm I think there's a great deal of Culture Wars in Old Trains, but Portillo has chosen to do modern ones.

Gordon and Henry were always bickering over who'd pull the express.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:04 pm Portillo is an interesting comparison. Like Gove, Portillo as a politician in his prime was a culture warrior. There's not much culture war in old trains, and he comes across all the better for it. He's a very bright man- see the Hugo Young Papers- brighter, than Gove who used to flounder on Newsnight Review. Nonetheless, Gove could do a Portillo-like job, for sure.

Portillo's humanity shows in his going one step beyond Toby Young and reconciling with his father's memory.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:30 am
It's all they have remaining.
The Thatcher revolution ran out of road well before 2008's "Revenge of the invisible hand".
Almost everything that could be privatized has been, and we're seeing the 20-30 year logic of that in a youth housing crisis, and failing infrastructure.
The "good jobs" never emerged to replace managed industrial decline.
Even folks who went the self employed route find themselves working insane hours to sustain their Joneses lifestyle.

What remains, and what they have in common is the ability to stir shit around wedge issues and mutter "Here's what the left would have done", like some Frankenstein hybrid of Jim Bowen and Ayn Rand.
That's how you get talent vacuums like Mogg, Truss, Johnson, Cummings and all the little people from the Taxpayer's alliance.

Always campaigning, never governing.
It's the recurring theme of both Animal Farm and 1984.
"In the dark future there is only culture war".

I've heard/seen it theorized that the political left latched onto identity politics in the early 90s because they had clearly lost the economic argument to Thatcher and it was the only viable ground to oppose the government from.

Interesting to see the shoe on the other foot. Particularly as they are the current governing party.

Observed elsewhere, on a thread asking if Michael Gove is all that bad:

Probably not. 'The Gammons', predominantly working class, aren't renowned for assuming the moral high ground.

Meanwhile, 'The Progressives', the Latter Day Saints of hypocrisy, purport to supporting the Working Class whilst simultaneously demeaning and despising them with poorly disguised rancour, particularly when they have the gall to ignore their betters and vote the wrong way.

That phrase 'Gammon', the phrase that drips so deliciously with the acrid blood of poisonous derision, it didn't just invent itself.

Boiler wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 12:04 pm Observed elsewhere, on a thread asking if Michael Gove is all that bad:

Probably not. 'The Gammons', predominantly working class, aren't renowned for assuming the moral high ground.

Meanwhile, 'The Progressives', the Latter Day Saints of hypocrisy, purport to supporting the Working Class whilst simultaneously demeaning and despising them with poorly disguised rancour, particularly when they have the gall to ignore their betters and vote the wrong way.

That phrase 'Gammon', the phrase that drips so deliciously with the acrid blood of poisonous derision, it didn't just invent itself.

Gammon is a word, not a phrase. Ye fuckin' toilet.

Dickens, no?

Someone bought a book of cool quotations it seems.

This pretty much Gove, his Game of Thrones stuff seems to be similar, the dad who thinks he is cool type stuff.

He is more genuine than blokey Johnson hard working man of the people.

MisterMuncher wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:36 pm Gammon is a word, not a phrase. Ye fuckin' toilet.

No no,

'Gammon', is a bigoted and racist slur, used by those who really should, and purport, to know better.

Oxford’s Irish vice-chancellor: I’m embarrassed to confess we educated Michael Gove

Speaking on a panel alongside vice-chancellors from across the world at the Times Higher Education’s World Academic Summit, Richardson said: “Michael Gove, the British cabinet minister who I am embarrassed to confess we educated, famously said after it was pointed out to him by a journalist that all the experts opposed Brexit, he said: ‘Oh we’ve had enough of experts.’

“With the vaccine, it seems like the public can’t get enough of experts. Many of our scientists have become household names. We have demonstrated through the vaccine work and the development of therapeutics and so on just how much universities can contribute and that’s enormously helpful to our cause.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-sty ... -1.4663018

In fairness to Gove, the experts he was talking about were a fairly narrow group, economic forecasters. In equal fairness, economic forecasters have done pretty well with Brexit. Apart from the Treasury's scare forecast (they did two, the other much better), for which they may have been leaned on by a pal of Gove.

Something I've noticed in years of trying to clue people into information literacy is that while people don't mind learning about technical information (in which I'd include medicine), many assume that anything everyday (including the Internet and politics) is simple and easy to understand.