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Sluggardo Profile picture
Sluggardo
@eurosluggard
Proud Brummie, Englishman, Brit & European. Centrist dad. Tuts & sighs a lot. No, I won't ever ‘get over it’
3 subscribers
Aug 7, 2018 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
THREAD: Ahead of my semi-retirement from Twitter tomorrow, I’m going to be self-indulgent & re-up some of the stuff I’m proudest of from these past 3 years. (Spoiler: nearly all about Brexit: a mix of analysis, advice & scathing, sweary invective). [1/x] 2/
 My time on Twitter has been a journey. I started out naively arguing for what I believed in, assuming our opponents were similarly acting in good faith. I’ve learnt a lot. Along the way, I’ve had fun, made friends, & valued the sense of community here when things felt bad.
Aug 7, 2018 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
THREAD: Ahead of my semi-retirement from Twitter tomorrow, I’m going to be self-indulgent & re-up some of the stuff I’m proudest of from these past 3 years. (Spoiler: nearly all about Brexit: a mix of observation, analysis, advice & scathing invective). [1/x] 2/
 My time on Twitter has been a journey. I started out naively arguing for what I believed in, assuming our opponents were similarly acting in good faith. I’ve learnt a lot. Along the way, I’ve had fun, made friends, & valued the sense of community here when things felt bad.
Aug 3, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Announcing my Twitter semi-retirement as of 8 August. Holiday, then a demanding new job; so I’m deleting Twitter from my phone. I’ll observe/like/retweet a bit & may tweet occasionally, but after 3 years it’s time for me to cut back. Thanks & best wishes to all you lovely people! For avoidance of doubt, my views on Brexit remain unchanged: it’s a terrible idea for all the reasons I listed in this thread back in April 2017.
Aug 2, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Tearing my hair out at well-meaning people who keep saying Alt-Right controversialists & Brexit advocates are “stupid” because they say factually wrong, obtuse or offensive things. They are *not* stupid; they are part of a highly sophisticated network running rings around us👇 We keep making the mistake of applying our standards and our rules to them. They are NOT trying to win a fact-based argument. They are not trying to convince most people that what they’re saying is true. Here’s what they are (successfully) doing:👇
Aug 2, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Big problem with BBC’s justification for giving a platform to the Alt-Shite (“we don’t agree with them but they speak for a significant minority; we must let consensus be challenged”): after EUref, BBC shut down the views of those who still thought leaving the EU was a bad idea. BBC clearly decides that *some* views which are held by a significant minority of the population, and which challenge whatever right-thinking people have decided is the new consensus are just too inconvenient and divisive to be heard. But others are not.
Jul 30, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: We are now well & truly past the stage of Brexit where satire has any meaning. There’s nothing we can do to make Brexiters’ words & ideas more ridiculous than they already are. You simply need to quote them as they are presented in supposedly pro-Brexit newspapers. (1/x) Take this article: “May’s ‘no-deal’ Brexit stance is kamikaze say Leavers” in the ERG fanzine formerly known as the Daily Telegraph...
2/
Jul 27, 2018 • 9 tweets • 1 min read
THREAD: I’ve got an idea. (1/9) Let’s have a referendum on whether we should all live forever, never get old, be millionaires, have great sex lives and be eternally happy.
2/
Jul 19, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Discuss: Is this what UK political realignment 2018-22 looks like under deadening influence of FPTP? Labour/Tories/UKIP all chase white working-class vote. UKIP/Tories do so nakedly (UKIP: culture war; Tories: populist jingoism). Labour token effort to appeal also to pluralists.. Significant rump of pluralist voters have no political home. LibDems & Greens, despite being natural beneficiaries of LAB/CON shift to authoritarianism are squeezed by 1) desperate lack of resources compared to big party juggernauts...
Jul 19, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
“All this talk of No-Deal Brexit
Is the cause of all my shaking
All this talk of No-Deal Brexit
Is the cause of all my shaking”

[with apologies to the utterly brilliant Gang of Four, but serious times call for serious measures]
I hear some talk of guns and butter
That's something we can do without
If men are only blood and iron
O Doctor Doctor, what's in my shirt?

Just keep quiet, no room for doubt

Jul 16, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I’ve been meaning to point out this simple truth for ages & today seems as good a day as any: whether or not Trump raises, and Putin admits, interference is 100% meaningless & Trump is insulting everyone’s intelligence by stringing this out as a will-he-won’t-he story. (1/3) Simple thought experiment. There are two hypotheses: either Russia did interfere or Russia didn’t. (Yes, I know- but bear with me for the sake of the thought experiment.) Now, imagine how Russia reacts if accused of meddling in each of the two scenarios... (2/3)
Jul 12, 2018 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Lots of ppl (rightly) outraged about the Telegraph & its readers bandying around accusations of treason. Well, sorry everybody but this is the logical & inevitable consequence of not pushing back harder on the “Will of the People” as a concept in our political discourse. (1/4) Once you tolerate politicians & media referring to a monolithic yet ill-defined national policy objective as “The Will of the People”, you are implicitly accepting that anybody who stands in its way (or just asks difficult Qs) is an “Enemy of The People”. (2/4)
Jul 12, 2018 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
Twattish Brexiters getting very excited & wetting themselves about the “alternative White Paper” (early David Davis/DExEU) extracts published on Conservative Home website. Claim it proves there is a viable alternative to Chequers model... But it’s really thin and unconvincing to anybody with the slightest understanding of modern trade rules. Big idea on agrifood: mutual recognition based on “outcome equivalence”. The 2 sides agree they’re pursuing the same goals and, if so, they can each have their own rules. 😩
Jul 11, 2018 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
Cracking letters in the Telegraph yesterday. My fave: “We have always undersold Brexit. There needed to be a vision... of the excitement of trade on the high seas, the protection of our precious legal sysyem, the sovereignty of Parliament, not to mention NATO.” #BrexitShambles Another corker: “It is now being suggested that Brexiteers did not have a plan. I had a plan. It was to announce immediately that, since the EU would never concede a free-trade arrangement, we should instead expect to trade on WTO rules.” #BrexitShambles #twats
Jul 9, 2018 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
MINI-THREAD (1/3): After correctly predicting the appointment of Dominic Raab as the new Brexit Secretary this morning (and even getting retweeted by @davidallengreen, @pmdfoster @GuitarMoog ).... 2/
 ...I have now completely blown my newfound image as some kind of political oracle by confidently predicting that Boris Johnson would most definitely *not* resign... #PoliticalPredictionsIHaveGotBadlyWrong
Jul 9, 2018 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Dominic Raab’s appointment to the Cabinet gives me a perfect excuse to drag up some old tweets that illustrate what an arrogant, unpleasant piece of work he is (1/8): #DominicRaab 2/ #DominicRaab
Jul 9, 2018 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
The first political prediction I have got right in yonks... #DominicRaab #DavidDavis #BrexitShambles In fairness, I now should list all the political predictions I have got *wrong* in the last two years

1. Brexit
2. Trump
3. Tories to win narrow majority in GE2017 [warning: thread contains bad swears; only time ever I have dropped the C-bomb on Twitter]
Jul 9, 2018 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Extraordinary performance from John Humphrys, interviewing Keir Starmer after resignation of the Cabinet Minister in charge of Brexit. Spluttering, hectoring, making it about Labour, suggesting the resignation is no big deal as Brexit policy is run from No10 anyway. #r4today
Jul 7, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
THREAD: I may lose followers for this but much as I would prefer us to Remain in the EU, Theresa May’s (Olly Robbins’s) new approach seems close to the next best thing. And has greater chance of success cos a majority of voters grouped around the centre can unite behind it. (1/4) 2/
 It feels very British to make a glaring, catastrophic mistake and then, rather than trying to undo it, to find elaborate & costly ways to mitigate the damage so as not to have to talk about it ever again & so as not to have to admit to the initial mistake. #MayRobbinsPlan
Jul 4, 2018 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Scenes off delayed Eurostar this evening. They are checking passports *again* after we were already checked in Brussels because there was some mix-up in Lille and UK Border Force are apparently concerned that somebody might have boarded without having had their passport checked. Obviously this is going to take a *long* time because there is no system or infrastructure for checking passports on arrival. All the checks and queuing normally take place in Brussels. What a shambles. @eurostar @ukhomeoffice @SNCF
Jun 29, 2018 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
Has Danny Dyer been accused of being a member of the elite yet? #DannyDyer #DannyDyerBrexit #BrexitShambles #twats “Danny Dyer is a luvvy member of the elite. He is being secretly paid by George Soros to undermine the Will of the People!!!” #BrexitShambles #twats
Jun 24, 2018 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
THREAD: The mistake Oliver Norgrove makes here is assuming that ppl like Chloe Westley from the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance are attempting, in good faith, to “aid understanding of complex issues”. #AltShite #LeaveLiars #BrexitShambles #twats 2/
 They are of course doing nothing of the sort. What Chloe (and the rest of the pro-Brexit politico-media complex) are doing is following the Trump/Breitbart playbook on how to win political arguments when you have little evidence but can appeal to a sizeable aggrieved minority.