Captain Starlight

21/08/80 - Full Circle Likely this morning, a photo-shoot takes place for Radio Times, with Andrew Smith (writer) and Matthew Waterhouse (ADRIC), both aged 18. #DoctorWho1980

I’ve secured a bullshit public sector job and it’s torture. I finish my tasks for the day at 9:20am and just sit in a deafening open plan office with nothing to do besides job hunt.

Jacob Rees-Mogg says that the Boriswave of 1 million is a 'drop in the ocean' compared to EU migration. He ignores that the Boriswave was net 2.5 million from 2021 to 2024, not 1 million. This consists of a net gain of 3 million non-EU nationals, net loss of 371,000 British nationals and a net loss of 110,000 EU nationals. He also says that the borders were opened up because they thought 'British people didn't want to work anymore' after Covid and that the UK needed a 'large number of immigrants to keep the economy going' and that this turned out to be 'wrong' as we now have 9 million economically inactive adults. I wonder if the two might go hand and hand. Anyway, at least they've stopped arguing the Boriswave was mainly Ukrainians and Hong Kongers.

I wrote about my love for the film Master and Commander, in honour of Trafalgar Day this week spectator.com/article/in-pra…

Owen Jones has, for the last three years, revealed himself to be a man of enormous courage, integrity and truthfulness. No one should think for a minute that his relentless defence of Palestinian rights and historical truth is easy or comes without heavy personal costs. Throughout the genocide in Gaza, Jones remained a tireless bur rigorous and supremely decent voice. I suspect part of what initially moved him was the strong displeasure in being treated like an idiot by the official propaganda – a noble motive in itself – but there is no question he has been genuinely touched by the images of suffering arriving daily from Gaza. And yet, how does his intellectual fixation on a battle between left and right help us understand the horrors of Gaza, or move us to stop them? My impression is that the opposite has happened. People look at what is happening in Gaza and ask themselves what a person on the right or on the left should think. In many cases this is ideology. In most, simply careerism and group association. Jones shows how limited the perspective really is. How about, like the author himself, asking how a human being should feel? How about returning to the world of facts and feelings rather than our endless Marvel franchise? newstatesman.com/culture/boo…

Growing up in Oldham, in sixth form we would go to the pub during free periods as they wouldn’t really care about our age and we could have a pint or two. There would always be a Pakistani couples sheepishly sat in the corner drinking cokes and kissing or cuddling. I asked why once and was told that it’s because all of the taxi drivers in the town are Pakistani, they all talk to eachother, they all know eachother, they all see eachother every day at the mosques. If a girl was seen walking around or holding hands with ‘so and so’s cousin’ it could cause an outrage or some clan conflict and so they would go to the places in town they knew they wouldn’t be caught/seen. It isn’t surprising at all that these taxi networks are being used to facilitate abuse, this is well known. But it needs to be acknowledged that if a few of them know, all of them know. Every driver, every family.

Emily Thornberry gushing in her welcome to a visiting contingent of MPs from the Bundestag, telling them: 'Germany is, and always has been, a key ally...'

After a plodding start, Badenoch has found her mojo - taking on those who question her Englishness.

The small boats crisis has gone on longer than WWII. I will always regret that I could not solve it. We have to show people the journey is pointless. Rwanda was criticised as a fantasy, but the real fantasy is thinking you can stop the boats without it. For some time I had said that if forced to choose between membership of the ECHR and our national and border security, I would pick the latter. During my tenure, attempting to leave the ECHR with only two years left in the parliament and with no mandate to do so would have been a recipe for constitutional chaos. You couldn't resolve all the issues thrown up by leaving in 24 months with a fractious parliamentary party, a sceptical House of Lords and limited diplomatic capital. Other countries can read our opinion polls. With the help of KCs, we'd done extensive work on leaving. The plan was to say in the election campaign that we'd seek radical reform of the convention and the court, and leave if that could not be achieved quickly. Like so many things in that campaign, it didn't go to plan, and we dropped the idea after Nigel Farage entered the race, for fear it would be dismissed as a panic move and make it harder to focus the election on tax and the economy. With a mandate, a majority and a five-year term, it would be very different, and worth doing. My Sunday Times column today looks at how 👇 thetimes.com/comment/columni…

So happy RTD effectively got fired. He fucking lost the plot.