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Q on Politics Live: Why is inheritance tax so unpopular, despite so few paying it? Answers offered: Double taxation; against aspiration; something something British psyche. Answer not offered: Media owners, pundits, politicians (i.e. everyone in that studio), and pollsters would be caught by it.

🔹 KEMI-DETACHED 🔹 New show: 🍸 Badenoch goes back to the 80s 🤷‍♀️ But to whom will it appeal? ⏰ Timely god less America With @mrkennycampbell.bsky.social @sturdyalex.bsky.social and @pimlicat.bsky.social ! 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...

Podcast Episode · Quiet Riot · 8 October · 1hr 4min

Kemi-detached

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@rickturner.bsky.social@rickturner.bsky.social

If you like "Kemi-detached" (of which I am very proud), just wait until you see @pimlicat.bsky.social's headline for tomorrow's B-side episode on political instability in France. Genuinely genius.

"Kemi-Detached" Outstanding.

static.klipy.com

Chefs Kiss French Chef

ALT: Chefs Kiss French Chef

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"Does the UK want to reopen the bitter Brexit debate?" asks Vicki Young. There is a way of reviewing our relationship with Europe that does not reopen "the bitter Brexit debate", which I think is underpriced. We could all be honest and agree that Brexit was a shit idea.

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If you’re reading today’s papers and thinking, did I watch a different Badenoch speech, may I recommend our sanity-restoring review? “The same people who could not build a railtrack from London to Manchester for £100bn, will build the Kemi Death Star for 10bn. It’s so ludicrous as to be offensive.”

Podcast Episode · Quiet Riot · 8 October · 1hr 4min

Kemi-detached

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@adambienkov.bsky.social@adambienkov.bsky.social

The party is polling, on aggregate, nine points lower than the day she took over, even with every right-wing media shoulder to the Badenoch wheel for several months now, and Reform in free fall, they have managed a one-point improvement since their party conference last year.

When people say the Conservatives play politics on easy mode this is what it means

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Exam question: Is France right now the result of too much compromise or too little compromise?

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

As well as a Britannia Magic Dome, Tories will build a Halo Array, a Stargate, a Dark Tower, and a Death Star - named respectively Spirit of the Blitz, Maggie's Opening, Boris-Dûr, and Churchill's Clacker - funded by sales of a new wellness smoothie made with carrot, ginger, and poor people's tears.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Apparently "Kemi" has "fresh solutions" uniquely tailored to Britain's current problems. <excitedly prepares to take notes> Cut taxes, reward the wealthiest, punish the poor and sick, alienate our allies, deregulate big business, and privatise any remaining state function. WAAAAAAIT A MINUTE!

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I cannot tell you how many times in the last year I have said to folks here: Politics changes very fast nowadays; do not pledge devotion from party to party easily; leave yourself the intellectual and emotional space to assess things in the round much closer to an election, armed with more data.

Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
As you know I have huge reservations about moving expectations of saintliness on to anyone. It is very much the left's MO. We set ourselves up for disappointment, our politicians for failure, then become furious when they fail. The experience with Tsipras in Greece was instructive.
1:51 PM Sep 7, 2025
Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
To me it is a reason not take the entire stack of chips and go all in on someone else, but to distribute eggs in as many baskets as possible and avoid taking an absolute position three-and-a-half (probably) years from a general election.
10:06 PM Nov 16, 2025
Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
I love the Greens and really like Zack, but I need to see a bit more detail and sustained success before going all-in. I see an awful lot of enthusiasm for him and sometimes it feels a bit brittle and manic. I worry that inflated expectations set politicians up to fail and voters to be disappointed.
12:09 AM Dec 12, 2025

Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
I am fully supportive. I think you may be on to something. My fear is that a lot of people have simply transferred their impossible expectations to someone new and the moment Zack takes a position on which they disagree, which is bound to happen, he will become another never-could. Let's see.
9:01 AM Sep 24, 2025
Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
As you know, I'm a fan of Zack - he's been on QR twice. But I am worried that a lot of people are transferring extremely unrealistic expectations to yet another politician they want to hail as a saviour - based on a very short period - and, in doing that, setting up yet another good person to fail.
12:37 PM
Oct 19, 2025
Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
I love the Greens and really like Zack, but I need to see a bit more detail and sustained success before going all-in. I see an awful lot of enthusiasm for him and sometimes it feels a bit brittle and manic. I worry that inflated expectations set politicians up to fail and voters to be disappointed.
12:09 AM Dec 12, 2025

Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
The pattern people in the progressive space must break (I include myself):
I support Leader A; all teams except A are evil.
A has disappointed me.
I am transfering wholesale huge expectations overnight to B.
I support Leader B; all teams except B, especially A, are evil.
B has disappointed me, etc.
2:31 PM May 17, 2026
Everybody can reply

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social.
Sep 7, 2025
I am genuinely just trying to interrogate the frame of mind. Critical voters are great - a crucial part of democracy. But to me "critical" includes rationality. I worry that social media encourages people to take extreme emotional postures as a way of absenting themselves rather than engaging. 2/
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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social. Sep 7, 2025
Like there is a race for who will throw up their hands highest and quickest. That is a horrible strategy for wellbeing. It is to resign oneself to anguish for the next X years. And the only thing with which I can explain such an extreme reaction is the dashing of pretty inflated expectations. 3/
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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social.
Sep 7, 2025
Now, of course, one can choose individual totally unpalatable policies - I would accept and agree with most - and say "I don't think that was unreasonable to expect Y" but an inability to find *anything* that has improved, results in a really lopsided and nihilistic view. 4/
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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social.
Sep 7, 2025
And I worry about what I see happening then: this entire menu of demands just transfering onto some other political leader or entity - The Greens, or Your Party, or Reform - and really the voter has just set themselves up for another massive, crushing disappointment. 5/
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Alex Andreou
@sturdyalex.bsky.social
And I wonder if this cycle then becomes BOTH the result AND the source of the politics we see. If progressive or left-leaning voters make ourselves, essentially, impossible to please and very easy to lose forever, doesn't that make it rational for parties to compete for right wing votes? 6/6
3:47 AM
Sep 7, 2025

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@europeangreens.eu@europeangreens.eu

What a mess! “The resolution as voted yesterday goes against our agreed positions of the EGP and its Member Parties, therefore as EGP we unequivocally distance ourselves from it… we demand clarity from the leadership and parliamentary group of GPEW, to understand the official party policy.”

Our statement on the recent Green Party of England and Wales motion 'Zionism is Racism'. europeangreens.eu/news/egp-pos...

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Reading a 1970s vitriolic review of a performance of Norma and the last sentence was so unexpected that it made tea come out of my nose. "On reflection, it may have been wiser to casta 'nother diva."

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Badenoch, last month: Why is PM obsessed with Thatcher? SO WEIRD! I was not even born. He wants to take us back to the 70s. Badenoch, this week: I'm like Thatcher, a new Thatcher, possibly possessed by Thatcher, LOVE Thatcher, Thatcher was right, and I'll take us back to the 80s. Tory Conference:

Priti Patel displaying Thatcher merchandise.

Limited edition Thatcher toby jug, £47.50

Telegraph: "BADENOCH: I'LL TURN BRITAIN AROUND LIKE THATCHER"

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Can you imagine the derisory coverage and outright mockery if any other party with single-digit MPs decided to "declare a General Election" and go on a bus tour? Yet when this outlandish nonsense comes from Farage, it is treated as somehow brilliant. "Subscribe to continue..." No thanks. I'm good.

Farage to launch general election campaign with national tour
Reform leader to begin in Yorkshire next week where party sees ‘many Cabinet scalps to be had’ in Labour heartlands

Annabel Denham
Senior Political Commentator
Show biography
Annabel Denham
Published 26 September 2026 6:00am BST

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Nigel Farage campaigning in Southend-on-Sea for the local election in May
Nigel Farage campaigning in Southend-on-Sea for the local elections in May Credit: Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph
Nigel Farage is to “fire the starting gun” on Reform UK’s general election campaign with a nationwide tour beginning next week, The Telegraph can reveal…

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A cynical person might ask, of course, why are "young men of fighting age" wearing hijabs? 🧐

Main on Sunday front page:

"As one of Kemi's top female frontbenchers calls them 'instruments of suppression...
UK HANDS OUT 1,000 HIJABS TO CHANNEL MIGRANTS"

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

JFC the attention-seeking, victimhood-mining Farage Pity Party will be UNBEARABLE, won't it.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

"It is hard enough to be a carer for your own loved ones. The tenderness I dispensed to my mother, came from a battery she had charged with five decades of love. Being able to muster the energy and patience it takes to care for a complete stranger... Well, it's magical. It's a sort of superpower."

B SIDE OUT NOW: Handle with Care ❤️ National Care Service 💷 Triple lock loosens And more 👇 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q... 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/1APk...

Podcast Episode · Quiet Riot · 2 October · 55min

B-Side: Handle with Care

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

“It's a bold strategy. It forces opponents to make a similarly big offer or they look irrelevant. An offer which I don't think they have the ideological hinterland or intellectual capacity to make. They will end up getting into massive trouble, if they try to match Burnham's policy size and scope.”

NEW: Burnham - Straight From The Heart Join the gang as they discuss: 🌹The big speech 💬 Fave parts of other speeches 🇪🇺The EU love in ☑️ Dare we dream of PR now? 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q... 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/2QVs...

Burnham: Straight fom the heart

Podcast Episode · Quiet Riot · 1 October · 1hr 2min

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You know, children, there was a time, not so long ago, when serious journalists - even right wing propagandists cosplaying objectivity - would applaud an experienced, even-tempered Foreign Secretary, like Hague or Hammond, being a bit dry, rather than jumping on stuff as if they were Perez Hilton.

Tim Shipman
@ShippersUnbound
"Incident".
Wow
Ed Miliband
@Ed_Miliband
14h
Deeply concerned about the incident that occurred on the Flydubai flight to Israel and very relieved that the plane landed safely thanks to the actions of those on board.
All of my thoughts are with those injured in the attack and all those...
Rate proposed Community Notes
10:01 PM
Sep 30, 2026
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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Burnham on Social Care in July: "I ask the media, can we not let the country look at this in a clear-eyed way without all of the overwriting? On this issue, please, can we not have a factual debate? Allow people to weigh up the options and come to a considered view based on the facts?" The media:

The Daily Telegraph: TRIPLE LOCK SCRAPPED BY 2030 (with a monstering photo of Burnham)

Daily Express: IT'S A CRYING SHAME FOR OUR NATION

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What Newsnight should have taken away was that it shouldn't adopt tabloid narratives unquestioningly and made the appropriate correction. What it did instead was to report the correction as if it were gossip and go "OOOOOH! THEY'RE VERY SENSITIVE!" What? To accuracy? You used to be, too, BBC.

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Funny. When Cameron introduced the triple lock I remember everyone on the left understanding very clearly why it was a cynical bribe to Tory voters and would not amount to a hill of beans if public services like social care were cut to the bone. Some of the same comrades are now big fans. 🧐

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@paulusthewoodgnome.bsky.social@paulusthewoodgnome.bsky.social

"I left Britain because of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods" said nobody genuinely ever. The Telegraph scours the globe for anyone of notable net worth who recently moved and asking them for a list of pet peeves out of which they pick the one that serves the Telegraph "capital flight" narrative best.

Another entitled knob has left the country. 😢 "While there will be many other reasons that so many other wealthy individuals have quit Britain, for me not being able to move around the city as I needed to was the clinching factor." — Sir Peter Lampl www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09...

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Joe Pike: "I'm here with the only person anyone wants to speak to, Sharon Graham." <Graham bellyaches at length about triple lock> Joe Pike: "So, this gives you a flavour of the debate here." NO IT DOESN'T! You literally only spoke to one person, sought out explicitly because she disagreed. 😂

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Alex Andreou@sturdyalex.bsky.social

Here is a sample of Denby's economic expertise: "Bond markets... don't believe in Britain, they think we are too much of a risk, because of our out-of-control spending and our out-of-control taxes and all of those things." I hope the Nobel Economics Prize Committee is paying attention.

Alys Denby, spouting utter guff with huge confidence on Politics Live, like "bringing the review forward by a year is just kicking the can further down the road" and "if you bump into the Laffer curve you get no tax revenue at all", has no economic training I can find, except from Tufton Street.

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