Phil Tinline
@philtinline
Author, THE DEATH OF CONSENSUS (The Times Politics Book of 2022) GHOSTS OF IRON MOUNTAIN ("riveting" - New Yorker) POWER FAILURE (Future Governance Forum) Last on Radio 4:
This morning's Politico London Playbook newsletter is 'presented by TikTok'. So there's a cheery message from the sponsors about how TikTok is great for society...but then this:
Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: The horror! The horror!
So as with this morning's one, you get the awkward spectacle of them reporting on tech firms juxtaposed with messaging from...another tech firm.
In the UK they send out a daily email newsletter called London Playbook which is tbf quite useful & widely read. Lately it's been 'presented' for a week at a time by vrs tech firms, inc. Plntr and Instagram. (This week it's Amazon.) They get to insert a para about why what they do is good.
Nice mention of my Radio 4 series in the Telegraph today. Next episode coming up at 1.45pm.
Er, you can stop your boss demanding you use AI, by changing who employs you. (Which you could do much more freely if you weren't dependent on employment for decent healthcare.)
Sometimes research just straight up smacks you in the face. From the start of Susan Lawrence Davis's 'Authentic History' of the Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1877 (1924):
Am I missing something, or has the Politico pun tombola finally exploded under the relentless pressure hose of News?
Bleakly revealing that McFadden's response to Simons' resignation is all risk aversion and processology - two of the reasons the government is in this mess: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Will the UK radical right break thru? While we wait...my book on how the US right got lost in its own nightmares is out in paperback! With thanks to: @fotoole.bsky.social @jamesrball.com @rickperlstein.bsky.social @oliverbullough.bsky.social @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social @notjessewalker.bsky.social
Never ceases to entertain me that they named that after the British version of The Day After
Reform's generous donors have kindly funded a leaflet explaining that Ed Miliband is behind the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. And that what Britain needs is that guy who thought the Truss-Kwarteng budget was brilliant.
Not sure if it was meant to, but this bit of political theatre outside DesNez today really reminds me of Joy Division's Closer
Oscar has nipped out, we think to speak to Larry off-record and find out what's what.