You're not being jaded. I've just left the teaching profession after 18 years because I can no longer in good conscience work within a system that is so broken. Where are the policies to fund and fix CAMHS, SEND provision, and make sure schools are part of the solution and not the problem in relation to the child mental health epidemic? Where is the money going to come from to fix the courts and justice systems, NHS, education, social care and child protection services if we don't have full reform of the tax system? I originally trained as a Citizenship teacher but now I would find it really hard to teach young people about how the UK's political and governmental systems are supposed to work, since their experiences here in Bradford are so overwhelmingly of the families trying to get state support in times of dire need and it not being available even when they are legally entitled to it.
Why don’t broadcasters and journalists ask the politicians about Europe, trade , housing? It seems our journalists are happy to play along with this weird campaign. The obsession with tax, but not the public spending plans is also very odd.
Re. the election commission coverage: yes, it all feels rather… fake. Full of fake outrage, fake facts, and fake stunts. Farage claimed the reason he resurrected was because the election was so boring, and so he might as well Trump it up a bit. The only thing that has cut through for me so far was (Sir) Ed Davey’s reverse ferret from “Look at me, Mum!” photo ops to a surprisingly moving and believable snapshot of life with his autistic son, and the value of carers. Strange days.
Listening to the two mini episodes of Page 94 about the Paul Foot award entries has been a pretty good guide to the issues that politicians ought to be talking about. What are their plans to fix CAMHS and the legal system? The social infrastructure that is crumbling just as badly as our physical infrastructure? Labour does at least have broad policy for paediatric services but given how frequently this topic comes up amongst my peers, I'm surprised youth mental health services is not more of a doorstep/TV chat.
Re election coverage: yes. Have been struck by the level of partisan coverage but more than that, by the ranting of supposedly impartial-ish observers. Ian Dunt and Kenny Farquharson both spring to mind as do many of the supposedly editorial pieces in The Times. One expects it in The Times to some extent but recent coverage is redolent of The Telegraph or The National in Scotland. The Guardian is little better but that has been apparent for years. It's the overall impression that so much content now appears to be an extension of social media "and another thing..." type posts. It's become less factual. As you say, Helen, there seem to be a number of journalists standing as candidates. It's as though journalism and social media have mated and produced Victor Meldrew.
“the women you know are moms and shy and weak. you can feel the weakness emanating off of them. they do have passive endurance, of lifestyle martyrdom, of quietly putting up with so much. that’s a type of strength, they say.”…. Really? In 2024? This might have been the case in the 1970s but doesn’t really fly as a description of today’s women. And do boys really get all the encouragement? I think many boys feel that they are constantly harassed for not behaving like girls in school. Which is one of the reasons why so many end up angry & bewildered & attach themselves to loathsome hyper masculine influencers like Andrew Tate. This is not a sign of strength & certainly not something that girls should wish to emulate. I welcome the fact that women are so much more assertive and look forward to a world in which boys feel that acting out a form of synthetic hyper masculinity is not considered necessary. (Author of The Trouble With Boys 1994).
That bit really pissed me off. Maybe Aella's mum is weak and passive, but my own mother and grandmothers were not like that. None of the mums I currently know are like that. I don't think Aella has children and probably isn't friends with many women, especially women with children. I think it's a very regressive and, I'm being generous, uninformed view of motherhood. Has she never heard of tiger moms or the lengths women will go to to protect or give advantages to their children?
To be slightly controversial, I think women become more powerful and assertive once they become mothers. What can be more powerful than shaping the next generation of humans?
But where? And how? And what does “planning reform” mean? What’s the strategy to head off every opposition party running NIMBY local campaigns against them if they do? Hopefully there’ll be more detail in the manifesto but at the moment it’s a very vague aspiration among many others, when in my view it’s THE issue that would unlock growth.
I think that if even a minister as effective as Michael Gove (who IIRC got the free school legislation through using some incredible chicanery) couldn’t get planning reform through, it will be very hard indeed.
I think it's a least part nimbys to the left of them nimbys to the right of them - I am certain labour leadership gets it - bur it plays out I don't know - will only be helpful to have that big majority- and AR is leading on housing so that could be helpful
Anyway on a separate matter I am now addicted to Clarkson's Farm which I never in a trillion years would have watched but I follow all your recommendations (Empress was another zinger).
I too have been finally persuaded by Helen to watch Clarkson’s Farm and am now hoovering it up. The thing currently annoying me most about the Clarkson persona (he is apparently playing) is the lazy journalism. He always goes for the most obvious insults and cliches. Fine, insult left wing people, have at it. But come up with something more interesting than “stinky armpit brigade.” When I ran a publishing company in the 00s fashion journalists had a blanket ban on the phrases “that’s sooo last season” or “X is the new black.” I feel like I want to give him a similar list of lazy cliches to avoid. Insult me better, Clarkson
“the Pokemon evolution of Owen Jones from Labour activist to Green activist” is absolutely perfect, capturing so well how we would all be much happier if he were confined in a little shell.
Totally agree about partisan journalists and the campaign issues that dare not be mentioned meaning so far this campaign is not facing up to the deep structural problems we face …
Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! My husband keeps shouting at the telly. Why don't any of them mention how that's going or how we should mitigate some of the economic effects.
Like Michele Grant, I was surprised you don’t think Labour have been talking about housing. Angela Rayner has been talking a lot about planning reform to do that.
The pic of you and Mr Hislop looks like one of the meeting pods in W1A!
"as a girl, like a young girl, maybe you get the impression that boys are cool in a way girls aren't."
I wonder if this is just reflecting the reality that no teenager feels that they are 'cool' - that it's a quality that can only be observed, not possessed...
For my part, I had the sense at 15, 16, that girls my age were cool in a way that boys weren't. They could get into clubs, they had older boyfriends who could drive them to gigs out of the no-mark town I lived in, they somehow seemed more sophisticated, more adult...*
* of course this probably wasn't the reality of it either - 1) only some girls, and 2) those older boyfriends, if they weren't outright creeps/people with an unhealthy interest in young girls, were, at the very least, bored 20 somethings who hadn't been able to get out of the town and had nothing better to do than date 16 year olds...
Owen wants nothing more than for Labour to lose otherwise then the last 40 years of politics will be total and complete proof that his vision of how politics works and how to beat the Tory’s is 10,000% completely and utterly wrong
1983, 2017, 2019 they tried it Jones way
1997, 2001, 2005 and 2024 they used the precise theory he despises
1987, 1992, 2015 they tried to split the difference and it didn’t work
> A further problem was that, based on my experience in the City, companies generally expect your research to be something that helps them. And not many companies have an understanding of what an anthropologist can do. Even once I’d given them my elevator pitch on the subject, not many managers seemed that interested in having in-depth, first-person research which can uncover the problems that people don’t have the words to talk about. And even fewer were keen on the immersive nature of ethnography: to wit, of having a researcher literally around the company all day, ideally working in the same way the regular employees do.
> I pushed forward my proposal, I began my elevator pitch and…
> The manager stopped me.
> “We’d like to recruit more women,” he said. “We’ve been engaging in all sorts of hiring initiatives, mentoring, starting a crèche, but still we’re not recruiting them. And our exit interviews aren’t telling us why.”
> “Oh,” I said.
> “What we need is someone who can give us in-depth, first-person, data on what it’s like to be a woman on the assembly line. Who will spend a long period of time around the company, working in the same way as all the other employees. Who can identify the issues the assembly line workers aren’t able to tell us about….”
> So there was nothing more for it, than to don a plant uniform, take a physical and mental proficiency test, and go out onto the assembly line.
One of the problems with media coverage, not limited to this campaign, is the confusion between opinion on the one hand and evidence-led reporting on the other. The audience figures and commercial income now lies with opining - in podcasts, in print and increasingly in broadcast. That is one form of journalism but it feeds off, and is often at the expense of, evidence based reporting. The two are not the same, but are generally conflated in discussing journalism, and the revenue and audience now lie with cheap opinion not expensive reporting.
You're not being jaded. I've just left the teaching profession after 18 years because I can no longer in good conscience work within a system that is so broken. Where are the policies to fund and fix CAMHS, SEND provision, and make sure schools are part of the solution and not the problem in relation to the child mental health epidemic? Where is the money going to come from to fix the courts and justice systems, NHS, education, social care and child protection services if we don't have full reform of the tax system? I originally trained as a Citizenship teacher but now I would find it really hard to teach young people about how the UK's political and governmental systems are supposed to work, since their experiences here in Bradford are so overwhelmingly of the families trying to get state support in times of dire need and it not being available even when they are legally entitled to it.
This sadly all too familiar to me as well.
I love the Sound of Music and it’s an excuse to post this again: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-regret-to-inform-you-that-my-wedding-to-captain-von-trapp-has-been-canceled
I read that out in the podcast!
Amazing! Sorry for commenting before listening 🤦♀️
That’s brilliant!
Why don’t broadcasters and journalists ask the politicians about Europe, trade , housing? It seems our journalists are happy to play along with this weird campaign. The obsession with tax, but not the public spending plans is also very odd.
Re. the election commission coverage: yes, it all feels rather… fake. Full of fake outrage, fake facts, and fake stunts. Farage claimed the reason he resurrected was because the election was so boring, and so he might as well Trump it up a bit. The only thing that has cut through for me so far was (Sir) Ed Davey’s reverse ferret from “Look at me, Mum!” photo ops to a surprisingly moving and believable snapshot of life with his autistic son, and the value of carers. Strange days.
Listening to the two mini episodes of Page 94 about the Paul Foot award entries has been a pretty good guide to the issues that politicians ought to be talking about. What are their plans to fix CAMHS and the legal system? The social infrastructure that is crumbling just as badly as our physical infrastructure? Labour does at least have broad policy for paediatric services but given how frequently this topic comes up amongst my peers, I'm surprised youth mental health services is not more of a doorstep/TV chat.
It was brilliant wasn’t it. Properly wholesome.
Re election coverage: yes. Have been struck by the level of partisan coverage but more than that, by the ranting of supposedly impartial-ish observers. Ian Dunt and Kenny Farquharson both spring to mind as do many of the supposedly editorial pieces in The Times. One expects it in The Times to some extent but recent coverage is redolent of The Telegraph or The National in Scotland. The Guardian is little better but that has been apparent for years. It's the overall impression that so much content now appears to be an extension of social media "and another thing..." type posts. It's become less factual. As you say, Helen, there seem to be a number of journalists standing as candidates. It's as though journalism and social media have mated and produced Victor Meldrew.
“the women you know are moms and shy and weak. you can feel the weakness emanating off of them. they do have passive endurance, of lifestyle martyrdom, of quietly putting up with so much. that’s a type of strength, they say.”…. Really? In 2024? This might have been the case in the 1970s but doesn’t really fly as a description of today’s women. And do boys really get all the encouragement? I think many boys feel that they are constantly harassed for not behaving like girls in school. Which is one of the reasons why so many end up angry & bewildered & attach themselves to loathsome hyper masculine influencers like Andrew Tate. This is not a sign of strength & certainly not something that girls should wish to emulate. I welcome the fact that women are so much more assertive and look forward to a world in which boys feel that acting out a form of synthetic hyper masculinity is not considered necessary. (Author of The Trouble With Boys 1994).
That bit really pissed me off. Maybe Aella's mum is weak and passive, but my own mother and grandmothers were not like that. None of the mums I currently know are like that. I don't think Aella has children and probably isn't friends with many women, especially women with children. I think it's a very regressive and, I'm being generous, uninformed view of motherhood. Has she never heard of tiger moms or the lengths women will go to to protect or give advantages to their children?
To be slightly controversial, I think women become more powerful and assertive once they become mothers. What can be more powerful than shaping the next generation of humans?
I think this is a piece about negative stereotypes she’s internalised, not necessarily a description of reality.
Labour has pledged to build 1.5m homes in five years. They have said it repeatedly.
But where? And how? And what does “planning reform” mean? What’s the strategy to head off every opposition party running NIMBY local campaigns against them if they do? Hopefully there’ll be more detail in the manifesto but at the moment it’s a very vague aspiration among many others, when in my view it’s THE issue that would unlock growth.
I think they know that. But surely you know how an election works.
I think that if even a minister as effective as Michael Gove (who IIRC got the free school legislation through using some incredible chicanery) couldn’t get planning reform through, it will be very hard indeed.
But surely he failed because of his own party. Labour won't have that issue.
I think it's a least part nimbys to the left of them nimbys to the right of them - I am certain labour leadership gets it - bur it plays out I don't know - will only be helpful to have that big majority- and AR is leading on housing so that could be helpful
Anyway on a separate matter I am now addicted to Clarkson's Farm which I never in a trillion years would have watched but I follow all your recommendations (Empress was another zinger).
I too have been finally persuaded by Helen to watch Clarkson’s Farm and am now hoovering it up. The thing currently annoying me most about the Clarkson persona (he is apparently playing) is the lazy journalism. He always goes for the most obvious insults and cliches. Fine, insult left wing people, have at it. But come up with something more interesting than “stinky armpit brigade.” When I ran a publishing company in the 00s fashion journalists had a blanket ban on the phrases “that’s sooo last season” or “X is the new black.” I feel like I want to give him a similar list of lazy cliches to avoid. Insult me better, Clarkson
“the Pokemon evolution of Owen Jones from Labour activist to Green activist” is absolutely perfect, capturing so well how we would all be much happier if he were confined in a little shell.
Totally agree about partisan journalists and the campaign issues that dare not be mentioned meaning so far this campaign is not facing up to the deep structural problems we face …
Brexit! Brexit! Brexit! My husband keeps shouting at the telly. Why don't any of them mention how that's going or how we should mitigate some of the economic effects.
It’s a live rail none dare touch
Ah, perhaps you might delve into my Wigan Pier Revisited, an argument with Orwell about class, gender, politics etc.
Like Michele Grant, I was surprised you don’t think Labour have been talking about housing. Angela Rayner has been talking a lot about planning reform to do that.
The pic of you and Mr Hislop looks like one of the meeting pods in W1A!
Ha, that’s because it is!
"as a girl, like a young girl, maybe you get the impression that boys are cool in a way girls aren't."
I wonder if this is just reflecting the reality that no teenager feels that they are 'cool' - that it's a quality that can only be observed, not possessed...
For my part, I had the sense at 15, 16, that girls my age were cool in a way that boys weren't. They could get into clubs, they had older boyfriends who could drive them to gigs out of the no-mark town I lived in, they somehow seemed more sophisticated, more adult...*
* of course this probably wasn't the reality of it either - 1) only some girls, and 2) those older boyfriends, if they weren't outright creeps/people with an unhealthy interest in young girls, were, at the very least, bored 20 somethings who hadn't been able to get out of the town and had nothing better to do than date 16 year olds...
Owen wants nothing more than for Labour to lose otherwise then the last 40 years of politics will be total and complete proof that his vision of how politics works and how to beat the Tory’s is 10,000% completely and utterly wrong
1983, 2017, 2019 they tried it Jones way
1997, 2001, 2005 and 2024 they used the precise theory he despises
1987, 1992, 2015 they tried to split the difference and it didn’t work
2010 is hard to categorise
You might enjoy this series of posts by an anthropologist who spent some time embedded at a car factory: https://adoctorofmanythings.wordpress.com/tag/the-car-factory-adventure/ To quote from the first post:
> A further problem was that, based on my experience in the City, companies generally expect your research to be something that helps them. And not many companies have an understanding of what an anthropologist can do. Even once I’d given them my elevator pitch on the subject, not many managers seemed that interested in having in-depth, first-person research which can uncover the problems that people don’t have the words to talk about. And even fewer were keen on the immersive nature of ethnography: to wit, of having a researcher literally around the company all day, ideally working in the same way the regular employees do.
> I pushed forward my proposal, I began my elevator pitch and…
> The manager stopped me.
> “We’d like to recruit more women,” he said. “We’ve been engaging in all sorts of hiring initiatives, mentoring, starting a crèche, but still we’re not recruiting them. And our exit interviews aren’t telling us why.”
> “Oh,” I said.
> “What we need is someone who can give us in-depth, first-person, data on what it’s like to be a woman on the assembly line. Who will spend a long period of time around the company, working in the same way as all the other employees. Who can identify the issues the assembly line workers aren’t able to tell us about….”
> So there was nothing more for it, than to don a plant uniform, take a physical and mental proficiency test, and go out onto the assembly line.
One of the problems with media coverage, not limited to this campaign, is the confusion between opinion on the one hand and evidence-led reporting on the other. The audience figures and commercial income now lies with opining - in podcasts, in print and increasingly in broadcast. That is one form of journalism but it feeds off, and is often at the expense of, evidence based reporting. The two are not the same, but are generally conflated in discussing journalism, and the revenue and audience now lie with cheap opinion not expensive reporting.