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#1

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 08:59:10 AM

Why not? It is a disability that has the propensity to trigger offense, why shouldn't there be a warning on that? It isn't like you fall down a slippery slope if you warn that there is someone who is prone to involuntarily saying the n-word when they see black people that suddenly you have to warn people if someone is using a wheelchair.

Fair - my understanding is that basicaly this type of Tourette's is that part of the tic is saying socially unacceptable, taboo, obscene things. And may be part of accommodating and understanding people with that disability is a pre-warning of some sort. You may be right and I take the point on the slippery slope but there feels to me something slightly uncomfortable about warning people about a characteristic about another person that they've no control over. I think it probably is something they should have done, but it feels slightly weird.

As a total aside he had other tics shouting "shut the fuck up" and stuff at people during the event. But while it's not funny, I did laugh reading that one of his tics on the night was shouting "fuck you" as they were awarding the Best Children's and Family Film

I saw them engaging in the same behaviour again this morning on BBC Breakfast. They mentioned that Dawn Butler was asking for information on BBC on how this happened. They said that a guest at the awards had said something inappropriate while Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage. Maybe I missed it but I didn't even here that is was a racially abusive term and instead they quickly went to a clip of some man talking about how mortifying it must have been for the man with tourette's. No one speaking for how it would feel to be the target of such abuse.

Feels like, yeah it was bad but he didn't mean it; in fact, think how bad he feels, get over it.

Yeah and as I say I think there is a difference between the people running the live event in the room. Alan Cummings maybe didn't quite deal with it perfectly but I think did handle it pretty well (and maybe, as we've said, the warning about someone with this type of Tourette's should have been given before the event). It's a rare example of where I think "sorry for any offence caused" is kind of appropriate.

But then there is absolutely zero need to actually broadcast it - and as you say I think you do need to make it clear what the abuse was (without replaying it - again zero need for that).

#2

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 08:25:16 AM

It was not shot with direct sound so even the "original" Italian was dubbed; Bud Spencer did not dub himself since his dialect was deemed too thick.

Extremely popular in France as well; I remember watching it on TV and loving it.

#3

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Duque de Bragança - Today at 08:13:15 AM

if we have any young readers present

Unless we have kids from some of our regulars lurking here I find that increasingly unlikely

I still remember the day Portugal, and Spain for that matter, entered the EEC. 

#4

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 07:59:22 AM

The Labour manifesto also helped the Conservatives. Gerald Kaufman famously called it the "longest suicide note in history" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_longest_suicide_note_in_history

Given that it incorporated leaving the EEC (European Economic Community if we have any young readers present) I felt obliged, like many, to vote for a different party despite despising the Conservatives. It had other failings, principally it was too socialist for the country's taste and too isolationist for many socialists.

Yeah I think that's true. The bit I'd add which is the bit I wonder about is the SDP - and how small parties are able to actually break through or not. In late 1981, the SDP were consistently coming first in the polls and occasionally even polling at 50%. By spring of 1982 (before the Falklands) they're back down to about 30%. I know psephologists have done lots of work and say that the SDP took about equally from Tories and Labour - but that still feels wrong to me so I acknowledge that it's true and also not I suspect a lot of the SDP-curious were basically people on a journey away from Labour in 1983.

Also as, I suspect, one of Britain's only Roy Jenkins fans I think in retrospect he was probably not the right kind of person to lead a break-the-mould, insurgent party

The other thing which is interesting just because it ties to Mandelson and why he was so important is the actual campaign. Generally I don't think election campaigns matter - they normally confirm what was already happening and very rarely (but sometimes) do they actually shift it (2017 was an example). But 1983 is important because I think after Saatchi and Saatchi did their ad campaign in 1979, 1983 is the first election campaign where the Tories basically get PR professionals to run it. It is all the stuff we now recognise - party leader in a high-viz and a hard hat doing events that can be packaged into a set of clips on the evening news. But at the time it was ground-breaking (for British elections). Labour were still very much running a traditional 20th century campaign of public meetings often with hecklers (as was traditional) and that looked chaotic. It was not producing content ready to be packaged for TV.

Mandelson had, like many on the New Labour right, been a communist in his youth. But by the 80s he's working in TV and a Labour councillor in Lambeth fighting against the hard left, leading one of the "loony left" councils of the 80s. He becomes Kinnock's director of comms in 1985 because he is a Labour person who understands TV - he knows what they need, which for the Labour party is basically like discovering fire. It's slightly wild that it's only in 1985 that they realise they need someone who understands TV but that is his entry point at the top.

I also think that Reform may have shot their bolt though. Rupert Lowe and his Restore Britain party is outflanking them on the right. As a response, or possibly to keep money flowing in from right-wing American donors, Reform has gone large on anti-immigration policies that show precisely who they are https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/22/reform-uk-ice-style-agency-end-leave-to-remain-zia-yusuf

The possibility of filthy ICE-style thugs patrolling Britain's streets will delight the true believers but maybe give the "we need a change" folks pause for for thought.

I'm not sure how it'll play out.

I think there's many parties that have tried to occupy that space of the radical/far right in the UK and the ones that have had any success have one thing in common which is Nigel Farage as their leader. I think part of that is that there is a discipline in how he positions himself which is in effect as a one man cordon sanitaire. He doesn't have a no enemies to the right approach. So in the European Parliament he spoke admiringly of Marine Le Pen but refused to have any formal links or be in the same party with the FN. Similarly after the Brexit vote he stepped down as leader and they went very right very quickly and started cooperating with Tommy Robinson etc - Farage loudly resigned from the party which was a precursor to setting up the Brexit party. Despite Steve Bannon and Elon Musk pushing Tommy Robinson as the voice the working class Farage won't have anything to do with them. I don't think any of that is necessarily because of principles, I think it's a political calculation that the political downsides of cooperating with Le Pen or Robinson vastly outweigh the upsides. So I think in part having Lowe - with Musk's enthusiastic backing (as he thinks Farage is too squishy) - being further to the right might actually help Farage.

On the other hand as you say it might push them into stuff like this. I think this may also be part of the challenge of moving from a one man band to a party. That you have Yusuf doing this type of positioning, or Jenrick sharing his speech with George Osborne (you can take the boy out of the Cameroons...). Farage hasn't ever really managed to build a party with other people.

All these Reform and Restore Britain parties. I wonder if Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen could be persuaded to form a new party, Redecorate Britain, that could somehow weaken Reform's vote even further.

Or Restore (the Stuarts):

#5

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Syt - Today at 06:40:02 AM

Very much. Both on video and on TV. I always thought the dubbing was silly and over the top, but an Italian once told me it was pretty close to the original, which is both awesome and terrifying

#6

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Norgy - Today at 06:35:03 AM

They were insanely popular in West Germany, weren't they?

The movies were typical what we rented on VHS.

#7

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by garbon - Today at 04:20:44 AM

That's fair. I think it is so difficult. If he wasn't asked to leave then he probably chose to leave halfway through the ceremony where the biopic of his life was being awarded. To me that doesn't feel like he was prioritising himself - although I suppose you could almost see it the other way in that. I think he's said he's "deeply mortified" and you can almost see from the disability perspective that that is the experience of the disease and he left.

To be clear I wasn't taking issue with him personally nor was I accusing him of prioritising himself. Rather that the BAFTAs/BBC prioritised him and his disability.

Totally agree on the people at the event although I slightly wonder the extent to which they did or should have warned people (particularly hosts) that there's someone with the type of Tourette's where they say taboo, obscene, socially unacceptable things as part of their tic. But then I don't know - I mean it doesn't feel right that you have to warn people there's someone with x disability in advance.

Why not? It is a disability that has the propensity to trigger offense, why shouldn't there be a warning on that? It isn't like you fall down a slippery slope if you warn that there is someone who is prone to involuntarily saying the n-word when they see black people that suddenly you have to warn people if someone is using a wheelchair.

On the other hand the BBC excuse that they just didn't hear it because they were working in a truck is risible.

I saw them engaging in the same behaviour again this morning on BBC Breakfast. They mentioned that Dawn Butler was asking for information on BBC on how this happened. They said that a guest at the awards had said something inappropriate while Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage. Maybe I missed it but I didn't even here that is was a racially abusive term and instead they quickly went to a clip of some man talking about how mortifying it must have been for the man with tourette's. No one speaking for how it would feel to be the target of such abuse.

Feels like, yeah it was bad but he didn't mean it; in fact, think how bad he feels, get over it.

#8

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Jacob - Today at 02:40:29 AM

Saw this on the internet the other day:

Denmark and Norway combined account for an incredible 407 medals at the winter Olympics.

#9

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Syt - Today at 02:14:19 AM

if we have any young readers present

Unless we have kids from some of our regulars lurking here I find that increasingly unlikely

#10

Off the Record / Re: Hungarian Politics

Last post by Tamas - Today at 02:02:48 AM

It would be such a powerful message to the world if Fidesz got trounced thoroughly. I'm wondering if maybe they're just putting the effort you mention up as a front while they pillage everything they can access and send it offshore?

Oh yeah they have been stepping up the pillaging but it is hard to notice as it's been going on a massive scale already for a decade.