(no subject)

It's kind of bizarre listening to the news at the moment, or at least the news podcast. They're all full of people who are supposedly experts on the UK political scene basically shrugging their shoulders and saying "who knows!" about what comes next. Still, it was interesting to listen to the FT team saying that the conservatives really need to recognise that austerity cuts to benefits, policing, youth services, schools and child mental health were too much and that those services are either gone or at breaking point. It feels like a car crash I can't quite bring myself to look away from - I'm not listening to news bulletins or interview type programmes like the Today programme but I am now up to 4 regular pundit analysis type podcasts (Week in Westminster, Brexitcast, FT Politics and Guardian politics). It feels very strange to have it quite so visible to everyone that our political class are woefully inadequate, and I wish I could believe that there was some likelihood that after the crash something better might happen, but even Labour aren't behaving in a way which gives me any kind of confidence in their ability to get some of their manifesto done (which I really rather liked) without descending into infighting and personality cults.