In the news

https://twitter.com/wsebag/status/1546403922700410881?t=ZCX_0kwwnZKd93LLoC9-4w&s=19

Dunning-Kruger effect

As in you don't think Rory Stewart is particularly smart or at least not as capable as he thinks he is?

Thanks, but no. I stand by my opinion. Pretty much all of the conservatives could be called egotistical. I even think many of them wouldn't mind being labelled a such, after all there is no such thing as society is there.

I am convinced Stewart's problem is that he simply doesn't regard the rest of us as fully formed living beings with minds of our own. We're just as series of NPCs he bumps into on his never ending Tolkienesque wanderings.

Em to the Oh Gee Gee is mulling a bid for great leader as a "continuity Boris" candidate.

ITV will be doing a live debate for the candidates too

More BJs in the office?

Found this article interesting, on how ‘productivisim’ might succeed neoliberalism. Figured I’d share.

https://jordantimes.com/opinion/dani-rodrik/new-productivism-paradigm

Productivism also departs from the Keynesian welfare state by focusing less on redistribution, social transfers, and macroeconomic management and more on supply-side measures to create good jobs for everyone. And productivism diverges from both of its antecedents by reflecting greater skepticism toward technocrats and expressing less knee-jerk hostility to economic populism.

I don't love it. "Supply-side reform" has been a buzzword for the neoliberal consensus from Reagan to Johnson, and "skepticism toward technocrats" just sounds like Gove's "had enough of experts" wearing a new frock.

Supply-side reform

= changing things for workers (negatively) to improve things (for capitalists).

Not defending it, just found it an interesting article 🙂

Have you got any examples of him being like this? It's not that I disagree with you, but it's not a common opinion of him so I wondered if there was any one thing you heard him say that led you to this opinion?

Isn't his whole schtick saying something slightly less right wing then looking round for applause from watching lib Dems as if he is the first person to realise you don't have to be a cunt all the time

As per the said effect- that all think they are far smarter than they really are and that their way of doing everything is better than anyone else’s way.
Not to say he is not smart, but unfortunately not THAT smart

For me, he's the only recent politician I've encountered who comes across as truly smart.

His book The Places In-between, a sort of history of tribal Afghanistan as he travels through it is absolutely fantastic. His earlier book on Iraq is equally good. Both demonstrate a level of intelligence I've not seen from any currently active politician. The fact he teaches politics at Yale and handled some really difficult diplomatic assignments with aplomb probably demonstrates that he's not thick.

Anyway, he's a former Tory with the voting record of a former Tory so he's still a cunt, I've just never heard anybody suggest that he thinks he's smarter than he really is until this thread.

Former Tory with the voting record....enough proof? Joking aside, he is perhaps what one would call a good apple in the box of rotten ones, where when taken out of that box still smell of rot....

Was just curious as to the opinion that he looks down on people or thinks he's smarter than he is, is all.

looks down on people

He's called Roderick and went to Eton and Balliol. It's a safe assumption that, however nicely he talks about "the people", he wouldn't want to spend too long with them (and might wash his hands afterwards).

See also Tristram Hunt, Tony Benn, etc etc

Maybe a safe assumption to somebody who believes that all privately educated people can't stand the company of people from different backgrounds as them.

In the case of Stewart, who spends over 50% of his time working for free, hands on, on an initiative to create employment for Syrian refugees, it might be a little misplaced.

Obviously he's a Tory cunt, but when you're presented with a box full of snakes he seems like the least poisonous one to get bitten by. Being one of the least cunty cunts in a massive pile of cunts isn't an endorsement but it's better than being the cuntiest cunt.

Erm:

https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1546546911859073024

Well that's a load of bullshit.

In the case of Stewart, who spends over 50% of his time working for free, hands on, on an initiative to create employment for Syrian refugees, it might be a little misplaced.

If your family has been wealthy since the 18th century it's a bit easier to work for free than it is for the rest of us. I'm not really convinced that his taking up the "white man's burden" tells you much about how he relates to the man in the street.

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"Shake up the system", deliver Brexit, stick it to the 'elite'"??
He was the system, he'd like to think that he was part of the 'elite'. And, as for Brexit...

Ha.

There was that racism incident in his London Mayor campaign. When he referred to two young black Irish rappers as minor gangsters.