Mark
worgztheowl.bsky.social
Mark
@worgztheowl.bsky.social
Recovering showbiz hack. Now in pictures/video. Up for LaserQuest with Andy C.
Pinned
After JD Vance disgraced himself, and the British Trumpists did the same. Feels like a good moment to reshare this Substack on how MAGA can create a new progressive British patriotism.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Punny jokes aside, this is another example of her being very America-brained. American evangelical Christianity has to some extent been taken over by 'prosperity doctrine' types who preach this stuff. Whereas the traditional churches like C of E and mainstream Catholicism, very much not.
November 28, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Mark
Also the Romans literally had a welfare system that included cash transfers for poor children. (And subsidised grain for low income workers...).
There was no state. Who does she think crucified him, an anarchist collective?
November 28, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Just a profoundly unserious person.
November 28, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Reposted by Mark
Nice to see that the Desert Fox is now working for DPD
November 28, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Always good to see David Coburn back in the news...
Another senior Reform Party leader is caught taking money from the Kremlin. "Speaking outside his château in France, Coburn, a leader in Nigel Farage's Reform Party, answered 'no' when a BBC journalist asked him whether he had ever been paid to give a speech to promote pro-Russian campaigners."
Former Brexit Party MEP denies taking payment from pro-Russian campaign
A prominent former MEP for Nigel Farage's old party denies taking bribes in a pro-Russian campaign.
www.bbc.com
November 28, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Or you could just put your prices up a few quid.
Melissa Layton covers her mortgage and expenses by letting her flat through AirBnB when she is away. She feels a tourist tax will penalise people like her

#Read more: trib.al/9yg1WMf
November 27, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Not joking, but can you imagine a Jack White, Eminem band. It might actually make rap/rock listenable!
Jack White brings out Eminem
November 27, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Quite the thing to see Pollard making a 'weaponised' charge when it was (rightly) seen as wrong as a defence of Corbyn.
These lads are going to get in trouble for making all of their journo colleagues look like gormless fucking idiots, quite frankly
November 27, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Anyone on any live BBC show should just say 'And Donald Trump is the most openly corrupt president in American history' after whatever they've said.
Rutger Bregman: "Donald Trump is the most openly corrupt president in American history”. A key line from the Reith lectures, which BBC excised without the author's permission. And now BBC is telling its journalists they may not quote the line anywhere. A shocking lapse in basic journalistic ethics.
BBC tells staff they cannot quote Trump line removed from Reith lecture
Journalists not allowed to repeat Rutger Bregman’s corruption claims against US president in coverage of edit
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Obviously they're not doing this but it would be quite the 4D chess move to get net migration down to the numbers people say they want, only for everyone to realise it needs to be higher and for pro-immigration policies to become popular.
The government figuring this out slowly over the coming two years is going to be quite something to behold.
I think the government meant to cut net migration but have accidentally overshot the target by a lot. They haven’t realised this yet.
November 27, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Mark
or they could just make the journalists inhale helium before they repeat the line
NEW: BBC tells staff they cannot quote Trump line removed from Reith Lecture

BBC News article & Media Show prevented from repeating Rutger Bregman’s corruption allegation in its coverage… of whether the BBC censored his speech!

BBC/Trump fallout continues

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
BBC tells staff they cannot quote Trump line removed from Reith Lecture
Journalists not allowed to repeat Rutger Bregman’s corruption claims against US president in coverage of edit
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:39 PM
This is completely insane. What on Earth is going on at the BBC?
November 27, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Almost every US fire department puts out videos at this time of year saying "don't do this you absolute morons there's a fair chance it will burn down your house".
In a Thanksgiving speech to troops, the vice president said anyone who said they liked turkey was "full of s***."
JD Vance Says He’s Going to Deep Fry His Thanksgiving Turkey
www.newsweek.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Mark
Related: smorgasbords are always ‘veritable’, and nothing else is
Update: just heard on the guardian politics podcast that ‘smörgåsbord is probably the wrong word cause it’s not very Christmassy’ which begs the question WHAT DO BRITISH PEOPLE THINK THIS WORD MEANS???
Everyone in British political punditry has decided to use the word smörgåsbord a lot lately and, given that it’s a word that includes two vowels that don’t exist in the English language, I find it a poor choice.
November 27, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Reposted by Mark
💔 In Ternopil, people continue to bring flowers, candles, and toys to one of the destroyed buildings.

As a result of the deadly attack, 35 people were killed, among them seven children.
November 27, 2025 at 10:58 AM
The interesting thing about this is not that you'd have criticisms of it - the BBC has often put on historians with their own, often contestable, views, because it's what makes their shows interesting - but that you want to silence someone. Don't like it? Don't watch. Write a review calling it shit.
1/5 It was entirely predictable that The Telegraph would jump on @DavidOlusoga’s Empire series to fight its right wing culture war for control of our public history. Let’s see what they’ve done:
November 27, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Still convinced Sophia Money-Coutts is a Martin Amis character.
There were no clues until Sophia Money-Coutts called Tarquin the labradoodle to heel.
November 27, 2025 at 10:34 AM
It is odd to think but without various other Kremlin-friendly people around him, primarily Vance, Trump could maybe be appealed to, to support Ukraine purely out of vanity.
November 27, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Mark
Do we or do we not live in a country where these awful people got their way at almost every major decision point of the century so far? We do! Is it good? No, it is a national calamity. Are they sorry? No they’re not, they’re *absolutely furious* that they haven’t got more and worse.
November 27, 2025 at 8:52 AM
It is very, the death of text based media as everything is vibes now and being economically left-wing on the nitty-gritty while being very illiberal is very unexciting as a statement of values. It's unheroic.
I also think that part of this is the weird disappearance of economics from our national debate.

It just... doesnt seem to matter that much to many people
Starmer and Reeves run probably the most economically left-wing government of past five decades and yet bleeding support to its left thanks to dumb strategy www.economist.com/britain/2025...
November 27, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Darkly funny that despite being fairly ineffective, the government's right-wing critics may dig it out of a hole with those who are broadly sympathetic to the idea of Labour but very disappointed by them, by attacking them in ways that can be seen in positive terms.
November 27, 2025 at 9:55 AM
I would also not sign a Hundred contract, as it's the shittest, most pointless, competition ever.
November 27, 2025 at 9:52 AM
The great and righteous point in here is why tech bros keep designing AI to do things it is terrible at and destructive over things it is good at and genuinely useful. They hate art and are suspicious of it as something you can't just do by spending more time, money, or compute on it.
This week, a very quick take on what the Budget says about the state we are in...

...but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI. Buckle up, etc.
The Bullshit Maximiser
This week, a very quick take on what the Budget says about the state we are in; but mostly, a not-at-all quick list of all the reasons I despise AI.
jonn.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 9:50 AM
I don't think it does if you read comments below most of this crap. It does have a media class who get furious about it, often because often are, errr, asset rich pensioners.
This country seems to have a bottomless well of sympathy towards asset rich pensioners and only contempt for anyone under 50 who is putting half their income into paying their landlords fourth mortgage and a big chunk of the rest into skyrocketing bills.
Look it’s never nice to find yourself in a position of having to move when you don’t want to but given that due to the volatility of the London housing market I have had to move FIVE TIMES since 2020 I’m struggling to feel very sympathetic towards people whose ’problem’ is a paid off 2mil property.
November 27, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Surely Sir Keir's greatest achievement in office.
If you want some good news this morning, I showed my three boys the PM doing the six/seven thing and now they have all stopped doing it.
November 27, 2025 at 8:41 AM