Crucial Track for 07 February 2026
"Loa Do Mar" by Eta Carinae
I have no idea how or why Loa Do Mar by Eta Carinae is in my iTunes library, or how it got there. But there it is - and you should listen to it.
Banger of a piece from Rafael Behr in the Guardian on the regulation of social media.
The Epstein files: literal evidence you are living in the patriarchy. What will change? My guess: absolutely nothing.
An interesting thing about the Mandelson-Epstein affair is that no one is expressing any surprise at Mandelson’s venality and corruption. Yet until recently the media treated him as a “serious politician”, albeit controversial. Which leaves me wondering, what is it that political journalism does?
The UK grocery industry, which receives a massive government subsidy in the form of in-work benefits for its workforce, still will not pay a living wage.
I wonder how British populist right politicos and their propaganda wing in the media would sell an American invasion of Greenland and the end of Nato. Wartime nostalgia? Comeuppance for cheese-eating Euro-surrender monkeys?
Speaking to fellow advisers before Christmas, [Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan] McSweeney said this would not be a “year of promises” but a “year of proof”, when public services would begin to improve and bills start to fall.
The proof in this case is the proof of the moonshine that McSweeney is necking.
Keir Starmer to woo voters and MPs with new year plan to cut cost of living.