[Youngian]

Here’s how you do it Dickie

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nquisitors

Without opening the link that must be John Crace’s Talk TV interviews. Bloody hilarious and thought exactly the same.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... lectricity

Marina Hyde on prepayment meters and British Gas being wankers.

“It’s not how we do business,” explained the firm, faced with an overwhelming stack of evidence that this is indeed how they do business.

“If every single mum that starts getting a bit teary you’re going to walk away from,” reasoned one, “you won’t be earning any bonus.” How can it not be the way you do business, if doing it is literally incentivised?

Admittedly, it’s not how British Gas present the way they do business to the outside world. The firm’s website and social channels confront users with a perky message: “We’re tooled up to help bring bills down.”

I know it involves taking a vague interest in how people actually live, but you’d think it was even more of a priority for someone in our own government to say that poor people really, really shouldn’t have to pay more for electricity via prepayment meters. If they can’t even get a grip on that part of the problem, let alone the iceberg it’s the tip of, then mounting evidence suggests it might be time for a number of parties in this story to concede: “This actually is who we are.”

[soulboy]

Tooled up? Do they bring Big Vern along on their B&E sprees?

[davidjay]

Tooled up? Do they bring Big Vern along on their B&E sprees?

They may as well. Bailiffs, litter wardens, security guards, railway revenue protection, TV licence, car park scammers. Wannabe night club bouncers who lack the intelligence to join the police and will do anything to earn that extra quid.

[Samanfur]

I've currently got an online subscription to The Times (they had a £3 for three months offer). I've read the original report.

The somewhat sadistic head of the squad that the undercover reporter was out with was a former policeman.

[soulboy]

A nice landing for Rotten Rozzers. Just who you want going into the home of vulnerable women who are up to their eyeballs in Provi loans.

[davidjay]

It really is the sort of job where wanting to do it should disqualify you from being employed.

[Samanfur]

The fact that his face is unobscured in the undercover footage that I've seen circulated suggests that he's been dealt with.

But that's just one bloke amongst too many.

[kreuzberger]

Nesrine Malik today.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ir-starmer

Beautiful clarity of mind.

[kreuzberger]

John Crace thinks that he is parodying Anderson and his public.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-anderson

That's no parody.

[Abernathy]

Too true, man.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... d-election

Rupert Murdoch's getting married, again. Here's Marina Hyde to celebrate the nuptials.

Who wants to hear about stolen elections when there are stolen hearts to celebrate? Let’s tell this week’s happy stories first: at the age of 92, Rupert Murdoch is engaged to be married for a fifth time, on this outing to one Ann Lesley Smith, 66. We await the official engagement portrait. (Murdoch was, of course, first painted in 1533 by Holbein, stretched across the base of his celebrated work The Ambassadors)

I can’t help feeling that if Madam’s husband-to-be were truly to concede the existence of God, it would surely only be as a regional manager in his Churches division.

So if you thought this week’s most preposterous spectacle was Boris Johnson arguing that a man of his character would never lie, here’s a strong rival: lawyers for Rupert Murdoch’s empire arguing disdainfully that media interest is not the same as public interest.

Ms Smith last wed a very rich man when she was 48 and the gentleman caller in question was 75 – he vexingly died a mere three years later after heart trouble, plunging her into an unfortunate legal battle with his children, who claimed she had indulged in “financial elder abuse”.

Lovely couple, they seem ideally suited to each other.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... court-utah

How the other half live. Marina Hyde casts an amused/exasperated eye over that court case.

[Bones McCoy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... court-utah

How the other half live. Marina Hyde casts an amused/exasperated eye over that court case.

The septics have their odd court dramas, but they've got nothing on Wagatha Christie.

[Youngian]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... court-utah

How the other half live. Marina Hyde casts an amused/exasperated eye over that court case.

So the plaintiff has to establish that Paltrow is a shit skier while Gwyneth needs to convince a jury that this silly old sod shouldn’t be skiing at 76.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... oliticians

Marina Hyde on "In the real world..." bollocks. I hate this tactic, so I'm glad she's addressed it.

It is a question as old as failing government itself. Yet, crucially, it is something that you – a person, in the real world – are not cleared to answer yourself.

As we've seen (see Matthew Gooodwin thread) anyone can be an elitist these days. It's perhaps the one bit of positive social engineering the government has done.

People, so people were told, actually didn’t care about the thing they could be heard appearing to care about on phone-ins, vox pops and across their social media.

Oh you rarefied old elitist, you. NO ONE cared about their mortgages. Real-world people were absolutely mystified and outraged by Truss’s subsequent ejection from Downing Street.

This is because whenever a politician does something bad, real people in the real world are completely relaxed and simply want them to be getting on with something different.

Real-world people want the government to piss down their back and tell them it’s raining.

Expect much more of this.

Far be it for me to speak for all “real people”, but as a single real person I have to say my overall impression is that the only people who don’t actually live in the real world are the politicians who deploy the device. Instead of listening with any kind of humility after the rolling binfire of the past several years, they seem to have adopted a tactic of telling people what they do and don’t want.

Bravo!

[Spoonman]

Everyone lives in bubbles to a greater or lesser extent, shielded from what goes on outside it either by wilful ignorance or by a lack of time, energy, interest or understanding from many others that they don't generally interact with.

But for such an occupation or lifestyle that should lead them to greatly expand their own bubbles, conservative politicians in the UK along with their client journalist lapdogs, have only been too proud to deliberately contract their own living bubbles and pretend that it's still expanding greatly. They've gaslit themselves.

[Andy McDandy]

As said before, the habit of MPs surrounding themselves with SpAds who act as gatekeepers and shields, keeping anything they don't like at bay, and increased security around politicians in general (although that's understandable with Cox and Amess), don't help matters. With the media though, it seems increasingly common to pretend that your rivals either don't exist or are a shallow parody of themselves.

[Youngian]

He’s always been a curmudgeon so well suited for a Meldrewesque pundit role. And he’s not a prize twat like Quentin Letts or Clarkson.

[Abernathy]

I wonder whether the fact that Chiles' partner Katherine Viner is the Guardian's editor has anything at all to do with the paper continuing to indulge this frightful, meaningless crap?

See also: "What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"