It would be entirely unsurprising given his job, career, raising kids etc if Starmer hasn't been to the cinema in literally years. He may not even particularly like it! So why not just...say that. Far more authentic and relatable than these desperate attempts to appear "normal".

Appreciate the answer. It was genuine curiosity rather than an attempted gotcha! The network effects make it very hard for an individual organization to act alone, but do you think there's ever a point, anything Musk might do for instance, where you would collectively have to say "nope"?

This will sound snarky and I don't really mean it to, but how come you and TAW are still posting over there?

Yes, it feels as if there's a lot of colouring more neatly within the existing lines, not seeming to realize he can draw a whole new picture if he wants.

Appreciate the response, I'm a big fan of what you do more generally. On this subject, I think groups like BFare get too much attention and more could be done to discuss the benefits of new infrastructure - much of the country would kill for this investment. But I recognise that's a subjective view.

I remember in the election campaign when Sunak said Labour had no plan, and I thought "What silly electioneering! What else could they have been doing with their time? Of course they'll have a plan!" And ummm yeah.

It's not like other centrist parties across Europe and beyond have tried exactly this, and it's gone terribly. Hell, if they want to be parochial about it, they're just repeating all the mistakes the Tories made.

Can they really not see that by claiming this is an existential national issue they boost the far right? They are essentially telling people who might have vague concerns about immigration "You're right to be worried! In fact, you're not worried enough!" And who will those people turn to then?

Bang on. Nothing wrong with sucking teeth and saying "You had some cowboys in here." But they didn't do anything useful with it (like tear up that silly tax pledge). And it wasn't accompanied by a sense of hope. Instead from the beginning, it's been "Everything is terrible, nothing can change"

I really don't recall it getting much attention at all beyond people pointing out it was a hostage to fortune. To say it defined the election - which was really almost solely about kicking the Tories out - seems bizarre.

Love how mindless nostalgia is now triumphing over the right's long held "The '70s were awful, Britain was dying, then along came Maggie" version of history.

I mean, in the early 90s, Blue Peter did famously distribute instructions to children on how to build a concealed rocket launcher out of yoghurt pots and aluminium foil

Seeing as, unlike "ancestral voices", Blue Peter actually exists, clearly far more attention needs to be paid to the radicalising influence of the here's-one-I-made-earlier crew.

I just can't understand what they were hoping to achieve. Genuinely half wonder if they were drunk and just went on a rant. They surely can't have thought about this for more than two seconds and come to the conclusion that it would help.

So depressing! Phonics is like magic, seeing them put together letters to make words, then use what they know from those to read other unfamiliar words. This seems more like just learning patterns and guessing?