love these posts. can't think of another commenter and topic that regularly ellicit such effort and passion, unrivaled on the board.
I always think of him as like a schoolboy ingratiating himself with bullies. Whenever I see him the first thing that comes to mind is a situation where there is a bully who is picking on kids just like Darren cos they are gay and cos they are wimpy and so on, and Darren looks at the situation and weighs it up, thinks about what would happen if he tried to do the right thing, could he make common cause with the kids being bullied, he wonders, maybe if they all joined together and looked out for each other they could be stronger than the bad guy. And then he thinks, that sounds like a lot of work, why don't I just join in with the big guy and help him bully the other kids? I mean, they are like me and they are being victimised and... you know what, fuck 'em, and then he joins in the with the bad guy, and to make that guy like him he does his best to be extra vicious and spiteful in his bullying. And, yeah, the bully doesn't batter Darren, and he does sort of let him be on his side and finds him to be a useful little sidekick - but at the time he still holds him in contempt and looks down on him. Darren will never really be part of that guy's circle - and he knows it, he knows that he's done the wrong thing and that he's sold his soul, betrayed the people he should have helped - and he's done it for nothing cos he'll never be truly accepted. I'm sure that he's filled with self-loathing, he's trapped on the wrong side with people who deep down really hate him.Yeah, I really hate him. Horribly disingenuous.
He has the huge advantage of being apparently immune to any form of humiliation or shame. He's still all over Twitter after it came out that his school nickname was 'Craftywank', following his being discovered having a wank under his desk in Year 9 (clearly not that crafty, then), and after a judge ruled that although he'd broken the law, he shouldn't be fined as he was too stupid to have understood what he'd done.
Rishi Sunak has eulogised Northern Ireland’s “unique” and privileged position in having easy trade access to both the UK and EU markets – prompting critics to note that this was the case for the entire country before Brexit.
It's clear that opposition to mass immigration, which isn't inherently racist but often is in practice, has become mixed up with a general anti-Islam prejudice, so you have things like this:I know what you mean, perhsps it would be fairer to say it's racist-adjacent or semi-racism or something. But I don't think it's a positive thing. Also it's confusing cos it's a view often held by people who are racist in other ways and who hold out and out racist views. If it's not racism it's a cunt hair away.