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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33897 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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When we recapture No10 we’ll then retake Chagos, fuck Starmer’s treacherous sell out using his scum lawyer friends getting rich from betrayal - and investigations into everybody involved in the deal. We can roll that into the investigations into Grieve et al and the need for jail sentences for those who worked with foreign enemies to overturn British democracy…

There is something deeply ratlike about Dominic Cummings. His ideology is entirely amorphous, and always has been, spanning everything from technocratic neoliberalism to a form of nativism. As Boris’ most senior adviser, he did nothing in office or beyond it to stop the “Boriswave” of 2m third world immigrants (which, yes, was set in motion while he was in office); he was more concerned with bureaucratic efficiency. Today, of course, he has very convenient justifications for why none of it was his fault, and who exactly is to blame (never him; he never admits fault except forgivable naïveté in dealing with people far more stupid / evil than he possibly imagined). Plus, his physiognomy is terrible.

I think it's fine to focus on bureaucratic efficiency. He could never have done everything, and that seems like as reasonable a thing to focus on as any.

Ratlike, as in rationalist?

There is something deeply ratlike about Dominic Cummings. ... Plus, his physiognomy is terrible.

To be clear, do you think he looks like a rat, or are you just insulting him? He doesn't look ratlike, to me.

I’m saying he’s a rat in terms of his level of loyalty and lack of willingness to admit any real fault on his part, and also his physiognomy is terrible. He doesn’t have a ratlike face (would be uncommon for his people).

How is his physiognomy relevant, if it's not ratlike? (And who do you consider to be "his people?")

No, she's right, it's the unfortunate wide but shallow forehead to chin ratio and hairline. He looks a lot better in hats

Of course 90% of the people photographing him are deliberately choosing the worst possible photo, but still.

My nerdtribe (a quant team at a bank) used the expression "a stable genius in an ill-fitting gilet". At the time Dom's enemies (and, because British sense of humour, his supporters) tended to focus on his dress sense and not his receding hairline (always an easy target) or eminently punchable* face.

* You couldn't say that, because in British political discourse at the time the expression "eminently punchable face" had become attached to far-left Grauniad columnist Owen Jones, who looked about 12 at the time. (Googling, he looks noticeably less punchable in more recent photos).

Real rats don't have large, domed heads, though, and his face is fairly flat.

To be fair, an advisor who was bounced out as the Boriswave began can't really do anything. He didn't hold "office" in the sense of being an MP who might influence the government.

In the counterfactual where you think Cummings took big actions against the wave of immigration, what do you suppose he would have actually done?

He was the person who was speaking to Boris every single day for his entire first year in office. He coordinated the entire Covid response (and was ultra pro lockdown for a long time while Boris was opposed, another thing that he has conveniently memory holed). Boris himself has no real ideology, and Cummings was the man who insisted that Brexit was the best way to “neuter” British nativism by offloading rage onto the EU even as he (and the campaign he led with an iron hand) openly acknowledged that Brexit would see big increases in non-EU immigration, so I find it hard to believe he bears no responsibility.

Perhaps, we probably won't ever know. Cummings own story was that Boris simply couldn't bear having the liberal media against him and wanted to bring them onside, but of course he would make himself look good. The best evidence in favour of Cummings is that none of the other Tories have mentioned him or even come out against the Boriswave, with Patel the most recent to defend the legacy. Seems like the Tories are quite happy to own the disaster entirely

Jenrick came out heavily against it, Braverman and Patel basically blamed the treasury. They seem to realize they can’t get away by denying all responsibility, whereas Cummings knows that it isn’t survivable for him given his main future is in the US right-sphere (Farage doesn’t like him and he has no place in Reform) and he was a liberal (including on immigration) for many many years until the early 2020s, plus he seems more craven.

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