like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

How is it a poor strategy, when they've grown far beyond what they will have originally expected; bought a studio; are continually hiring new staff; etc?

Even if I didn't like their coverage and opinions (which I often, though not always, do), I wouldn't think they'd shown a poor strategy.

It's gone higher!

perhaps, one day, when the cash is there) backfill the capacity to make their own news (inc.much-needed investigative deep dives)

Hopefully Bastani will be able to channel some of that sweet Unherd cash into this.

Seldom see any investigative journalism for instance, which there's a real need for.

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Came across the odd tweet of internet ppl who said Al-J's Lab files doc could've been made by Novara except that it's just not in the interests for them to be doing so.

Though technically it's probably beyond them too.

fuck SAKE

Heard yesterday, and now confirmed, that the Mirror's party at Labour conference was paid for by the Betting & Gaming Council. The gambling lobby and Labour are old bedfellows. [1/?] https://t.co/0SQdN9cZqJ

— Rob Davies (@ByRobDavies) September 28, 2022

I am not pressing play on that

x-post to pf
it's a failure bcz (b) hasn't led to (c) -- there are media operations that can decide on any given day what "the news" is but novara is not one of them

(c) was needed to justify their now long-ago stories abt why they were stepping out of occupy-style politics into parliamentary electoral politics

it never got high enough and then it stopped going higher

x-post to xyz:
yes it's absolutely beyond them at a production level

to me this is more dispositive that cope-ish left fairytales abt personal ambition or inner meltism; they bet on a model (punditry) that's long on look-at-me rhetoric and short on hardcore factchecking (too expensive) and put themselves at the mercy of currents they can't possibly create let along control

they do fwiw platform the investigative journalism that boils the UK media class's piss - the Al Jazeera doc and the Trojan Horse podcast - so I'm inclined to agree with mark that it's more about technical means than careerism/not wanting to upset their media buddies.

I disagree with Mark S.

No, they can't 'make the news' in the sense of affecting MSM headlines. They've never claimed they could. Would be very surprising if they did.

Yes, they can do what Mark S called c) ie: researching news stories and making their own news. They do this regularly.

I suspect that these disagreements may arise from different ILX posters having different experiences of / engagements with actual Novara content.

Would be very surprising if they did

i don't disagree with this, i don't think it was at all a realistic goal -- the deep point of punditry as the focus of a media operation is that it's cheap to produce and thus likely can't by itself generate the kinds of funds a genuinely political operation would require. at the outset they certainly saw themselves as potentially a much more ambitious political project -- the podcast still bears traces of this ambition (tho it's fallen away towards politics-as-culture and butler's natural LRB-ism)

i have to say i've always been a massive bastani-sceptic and am thus quite easily caught out on details of his positions over the years (pf caught me out upthread): my excuse is that i don't think they matter very much bcz i don't think he matters very much, but others may well find evidence in them that's telling that i've missed (bcz i never bothered looking lol)

the low-level news-following that pf points to is neither here nor there really, it's unremarkable in quality and not much more than a guilt-free aggegator for subscribers who prefer not to get their info digests from more compromised sources -- like the "stats for lefties!" guy, you know the stats have been checked in advance not to blow up in yr face in a particular way but none of them are stats you couldn't access by other means if you put yr mind to it (and applied yr own suspicion-filters)

Just as an example, if you go on the Novara site right now there are three news stories: a piece on the mini budget which is govt press release + assorted reaction tweets, a piece on a greenwashing conference at the Labour conference and a piece about protests at said event. All three of these are towards the bottom of the page, while the top is entirely opinion and analysis. The budget piece is the most low effort journalism imaginable, the other two of a bit more value, and possibly not covered elsewhere, but basically what it boils down to is their news editor being at the Labour conference, talking to a representative of Labour for a Green New Deal and then going to the conference and catching some video of the protesters. It's hardly huge research and, again, it's all padded out with vaguely related tweets. I don't think there's much of a case to be made for this stuff and I think its positioning on the webpage shows they themselves know it.

The claim was that they had a "poor strategy", and seems to be that they have failed in an ambition (for a "political project").

I find this very strange, as over the last 5-10 years they have achieved more than any of us is likely to in our professional lifetimes.

If anyone has, in fact, achieved more, I would be impressed to hear it.

Even if I disagreed with 95% of what Novara said and published, I would still think that as a business and an intervention in media, they were a remarkable success story.

I think a more plausible critique might be "they have succeeded and sold out as 'melts'", which would at least fit better with the actual facts of their expansion and consolidation, though I still don't think it would be very accurate re: what they actually say.

How have Novara changed the media landscape? I see a website and a couple of pundits that go on news shows or write for other terrible publications.

This is not impressive in any way whatsoever.

This is even before the election, where they will try and sell Starmer and pretend he will sneak Corbyn-era policy.

NEW: Bank of England to stage QE style intervention and buy long dated UK government debt. Huge intervention. Implies that if they don’t do so and therefore restore stability “there would be a material risk to UK financial stability.” pic.twitter.com/1YnpjGmP8z

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) September 28, 2022

Wordle 466 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) September 28, 2022

I'm told by a city source it's hard to overstate how serious the situation is today. There is concern over the health of pension funds and this is why the Bank of England has acted

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) September 28, 2022

lots of bad mainstream UK pol journos: "Kwasi is toast" "Truss will be gone by Christmas" and it's piss funny reading comments like this. Yet she has only delivered what she pledged to do during the eternal leadership campaign while most of these clowns were not talking about how economically illiterate her plans were. No lol, even the US prez was more critical than any of these clowns. I can only assume while some of these dickheads were doing vacuous Thatch fan-fic, they thought her + Kwarteng were going to pull this off.

Wasn't paying attention to Con MPs briefing journos but now a couple are putting their names to attacks on Truss and Kwarteng. That could snowball, though I am just noting it here.

The weird thing is if they announced these cuts in tax in tandem with cuts to government the markets might not have been as fussed. Markets just wanted to see a workable plan that could see repayment to investors.

During Johnson's reign ofc a lot of pals got covid contracts and money but enriching pals and getting the markets involved gets a different level of scrutiny

xp

"Yet she has only delivered what she pledged to do during the eternal leadership campaign while most of these clowns were not talking about how economically illiterate her plans were."

A lot of them were assuming it was big talk to the 'funny' membership. Given how UK Pol journos treat membership of Pol parties as weirdos it's at least consistent.

if they had managed to sell this to the markets with some deadly austerity measures to balance out the books by some tiny %. Then this would have been declared a triumph in the FT/Economist/Spectator.

🚨NEW🚨
On the @bankofengland intervention:
Am told the BoE were responding to a “run dynamic” on pension funds - a wholesale equivalent of the run which destroyed Northern Rock.
Had they not intervened, there would have been mass insolvencies of pension funds by THIS AFTERNOON.

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) September 28, 2022

so the BoE are just going to keep funnelling money into pension bonds for an indefinite period, that sounds like if there isn't some significant compromise here on the tax cuts or even a u-turn then lol .. the job's fucked. I don't like the way Truss and Kwarteng have gone missing. Just want to see them squirming for their lives and trying talk up this disaster. It's no fun when they go missing.

They seem to be sending out various nonentities to double down and say all this financial turmoil has nothing to do with us, guv.

I think M Hyde has already written this (so it is obv bad), but I'll agree with her here: that idiots like Truss + Kwarteng having talked up free markets and unrestricted competition as their religion for the last decade and then getting told by the markets that their uncosted fiscal plan is a fucking joke -is actually very funny.

so the BoE are just going to keep funnelling money into pension bonds for an indefinite period

isn't this situation time limited until oct 14th ?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/28/what-bank-of-england-doing-pound-dollar-uk-economy-interest-rates-bonds

basically, looks like the real powers that be are giving the dynamic duo until after their conference speeches a reprieve.
if i didn't have my life plans wrapped up in a private pension fund then i would be absolutely loving this chaos,
however, this shit is real.

the BoE quote I heard was "for as long as it takes", but it's in their interests to reassure investors. Seeing as the PM + Chancellor are unavailable for comment somebody has to attempt it.

Seeing as the PM + Chancellor are unavailable for comment somebody has to attempt it.

dynamic duo : ~sticks fingers in their ears and shout 'lalalalalalala' for the next 3 weeks ~

it does my head in that the fuckers in the party were warned re this, but 80K+ still voted for this.

Here are the BBC Local Radio Stations PM Liz Truss is on tomorrow morning and their timings.

0800 LEEDS
0808 NORFOLK
0815 KENT
0822 LANCASHIRE
0830 NOTTINGHAM
0838 TEES
0845 BRISTOL
0852 STOKE

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) September 28, 2022

if they do phoners she is going to get absolutely keelhauled

she's in an X-15, soon as anyone asks a question she flies off to the next region.

So, (argh starting with "So" nm carry on) this mini-budget is supposed to be voted on in the commons?

And presumably some of the apoplectic Tory MPs will vote against it?

So, either:
1) the Tory rebellion will cause the bill to just pass, as per usual, or
2) labour will abstain and it will sail through
3) that's it, there is no 3

look starmer is adamant that parliament be recalled early, he’s absolutely fumin about it, pullin his cap off, stompin on it, jumpin up and down, lines in the air next to his head indicating that he’s barking vehemently about it. those tories better watch out

Officials in the Financial Services Group of the Treasury were at an away day – said to have been held at the Oval cricket ground in London – on Wednesday, but returned to their desks that afternoon. A source said they were not working on the response to the Bank of England’s announcement.

well that's nice.
hope they had a lovely day out.

Jaw-dropping quotes on just how close we came to catastrophe today.

Senior banker describing the leveraged unwind in Gilts as coming close to triggering a "Lehman moment". Asset manager accusing the Bank of England of ignoring calls to intervene sooner 🤯https://t.co/ZOGEzhHjVY pic.twitter.com/4VhnvbFlvL

— Robert Smith (@BondHack) September 28, 2022

They are carrying on. People are reacting appalled but if it's austerity on steroids (but it's a plan that the markets are happy with) and there are no serious protests in the streets I reckon they get away with it.

A few more nuggets to flesh out Sam’s thread, based on a series of conversations with people in and close to government over recent days.
To echo Sam, they have two overarching messages:
1. Market chaos is NOT a consequence of Friday’s statement
2. No change in plans, whatsoever. https://t.co/gJ7xJAkRy5

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) September 28, 2022

I expect when blaming the next Labour gov for present problems the hardest line to write will be something like 'of course there was never any serious prospect of Corbyn grasping the reins of HMS Blighty three years ago and so the markets remained sanguine'. Still desd easy tho.

painful.

Liz Truss crumbles under questioning from @GrahamLiver on @BBCLancashire about local consent for fracking. pic.twitter.com/nDp2t5815P

— Dino Sofos (@dinosofos) September 29, 2022

Not the best Thatcher impression.

Seems she is going on a lot about Putin, Putin...and then some more about Putin. This must be weird if you believed that Putin had anything to with Hilary Clinton's defeat, or Brexit.

no wonder she's been hiding in a box for a week, she can't even finesse some bullshit answer on fracking -how bad is she going to sound talking about the economy .. lol

Lots of local BBC radio presenters out there to make a name for themselves.

Radio Kent leads off with, "Are you ashamed for what you have done?"

— Chris Brooke (@chrisbrooke) September 29, 2022

well kirsty wark certainly isn’t going to ask that! i love it.

That is excruciating, I require my Tory PM to at least be able to lie with the necessary level of bare-faced arrogance

Did Liz Truss just say on Radio Leeds the maximum anyone will pay for energy bills is £2,500? I thought that *wasn’t* how the cap worked? (That’s just the average price when the unit cost gets capped.)

— Kit / Chris (@kitlochery) September 29, 2022

correct - she doesn't know how it works

the people if Leeds can play that quote to their energy provider when they are about to get their gas cut off

what I don't know about it is: what is average consumption? Well actually I don't want to know what average consumption is or get a smartmeter. Because then I'll never turn the central heating on or make an oven baked recipe until at least half way through 2023!

it's been fun seeing the real Liz Truss reveal herself after that Queen planting week gave her a bit of an easy start.

Guess this is the guy who advised Truss to go on local radio with hungry BBC interviewers.

Liz Truss's Director of Communications, Jason Stein, used to work as Communications Adviser for Prince Andrew until the Maitlis interview https://t.co/9jHuOPYNKF

— Alexander Clarkson (@APHClarkson) September 29, 2022

lol he thought these local yokels wouldn't ask any questions