Is Andrews

@[email protected] on mastodon
Editor...
Reader, Writer, Thinker, Talker
Runner, Mother, Wife, Friend
💙 Supporting the NHS

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@puyi_1 @WKWT @YouTube what sort of time were you there?

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@johnny_argent @mgordonwalker Never thought I’d weep for George Grundy! But it is truly shocking to think that real young men might face adult prison in similar circumstances. Well done on a superb episode /storyline @BBCRadio4

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@Andi_Hoxhaj What a wonderful day! Brilliant hard work Andi, very proud of you my friend ❤️

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

Another outstanding @KHVIIIRelayRace—how does this race get better every year?? It can only be the amazing runners, dedicated coaches, incredibly supportive school staff & OCs, fantastic VIPS… and simply the best race organiser (yes, a little biased, but I’m not wrong) 🏆👏🏼

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

Best day of the year 🙌🏽🏆🎽

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

So delighted to see this recognition for a man with great integrity and diligence, continuing to advocate boldly and clearly for the rule of law, democracy, equality and transparency. Love being your editor and your friend, @Andi_Hoxhaj 👏💗

[Andi Hoxhaj OBE @Andi_Hoxhaj]

Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to meet many people who have supported me along the way, and I am grateful to all of you. I am truly honoured to be awarded an OBE by His Majesty The King.

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

This ace competition first introduced me to the wonderful Run Things Club – my running has had some ups & downs over the last decade, but RU2C just keeps on being special. Love how this simple idea provides a lifeline for loads of ppl at what can be a challenging time of year 💗

[Run Up To Christmas @runup2christmas]

Something different for Day 3 of the 12 days of RU2C.
Some amazing stories from our participants.

It's not just money we try and raise, but spirits, too. It's what makes us special and it's what puts that warm fuzzy feeling in our hearts. 💕

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@bt_uk Have sent you a DM. Hoping you can quickly sort this out because we have gone round and round in circles on this for weeks; she has been without phone connection for 3 weeks and no prospect at the moment of a line for another fortnight.

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@bt_uk how do I get help for my mother (83 with #dementia) who has been waiting for a phone line since 20th Sept? You used incorrect address for installation, & yr ‘new customers’ dept are telling me they can’t do anything to speed up connection for a vulnerable isolated person

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@DementiaUK @ageukcampaigns please can you help me get some movement on this? Have been trying to get landline for my 83yro mum since 20/9 (first let down by @TalkTalk and now @bt_uk) after their installation error has left her unconnected for 3wks + now prob 2 more

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@bt_uk how do I get help for my mother (83 with #dementia) who has been waiting for a phone line since 20th Sept? You used incorrect address for installation, & yr ‘new customers’ dept are telling me they can’t do anything to speed up connection for a vulnerable isolated person

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

#Coventry based carers & those living with #dementia: fab opportunity to take part in an award winning approach to keeping fit, strong & social – accessible taster sessions with Dementia Hub Partnership & Sky Blues in the Community @Coventry_City #MakingADifference @Covonthemove

[There is No App for This! @HealthAppData]

Last day of the project summer school today! Thank you to everyone who came (from all over) to run sessions & participate. We are all taking so much away from it. This wouldn’t be possible w/o our fearless leader @sharifasekalala; @wellcometrust & the fab team at @Warwick_Law!

[Helen Brown @HelenBArtist]

Do librarians have an award for the Best Librarian and if so are they called the G.L.O.A.T. awards?

[Samaritans @samaritans]

Today is #SamaritansAwarenessDay 🙌

Whoever you are, whatever you’re going through, you can talk to us on 116 123.

Retweet and help us reach more people who might need us.

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

This is fascinating. A big part of my work training and supporting academic writing for PhDs & postdocs is around encouraging non-native English academics how brilliant and important their work is, and how they must continue despite the barriers!💪🏼 Useful deeper insight here.

[Andi Hoxhaj OBE @Andi_Hoxhaj]

Important piece by @tatsuya_amano with compelling evidence on how non-native English scientists work far harder just to stay up, and what scientific journalists and academic institutions can do to help. https://t.co/lK6bsAyWsk

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@mazza1uk @MarkPem28587357 @coventrycc Hi Marian, info about the hub can be found here. It’s somewhere for those with dementia and carers to connect and chat, plus access resources/services. Cafe open from Monday 24th July
https://t.co/sTNKUBRKp6

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

Really great to be part of launch of #Coventry Dementia Partnership Hub at the Maymorn Centre today—perfect way to link people with #dementia, carers, health prfssnls & services.
Dementia can feel overwhelming but this can help 💙
(+ amazing donated photos @MarkPem28587357 !)

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

Whatever your politics, thoughts on the importance of/urgent need for electoral reform & PR here are fascinating, if we can agree that there are problems facing the UK that will take any single party more than one term to fix…

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Here's how the future is going to play out...

(Long - please expand the tweet.)

1. The Tories will keep on wrecking things faster and faster as the GE approaches. They'll act like irresponsible teenagers who know they don't have to clean up in the morning after a wild drunken binge.

Why?
A) It's their last chance to firehose cash at their friends and cronies.
B) It's an opportunity to further feather their own nests before they're out of office.
C) It stuffs Labour even more - we'll return to this soon enough.
D) The more chaos they cause and the more scandals they trigger, the less chance there is of any one case of wrongdoing being investigated.

From a Tory POV, the best stuff to break is anything that's unfixable. For instance, the closure of all train ticket offices. Once those have been turned into coffee concessions and the staff fired or moved elsewhere, both the facilities and the expertise will be gone for good.

2. Regardless of actual policies, Labour will win the GE on a desperate tide of people wanting to Get The Tories out. However (and this will prove vital later) their future freedom to manoevre will be severely limited by the bright red lines they've been laying down on stuff like Brexit.

Related aside: Remember, the losing party has a blank slate. The electorate thumbed their noses at the manifesto, so they have total freedom to bin it. ("Nobody liked what we had to offer, so we need to do something different.") But this isn't true of the winning party. Even though pledges do get broken and manifesto commitments forgotten, they are still constrained by what they promised to win office.

3. Labour will start trying to fix the stuff the Tories broke. It will prove very expensive. Mending stuff is always more expensive than breaking it. It will be slow going too. And Labour will be trapped by the need to be "fiscally responsible" in a way the Tories never would, because our mainly RW media is waiting to tear them a new one if they spend as much as a single brass penny without accounting for where it came from.

Related aside 2: Is the political playing field level when it comes to British media? Absolutely not. It's totally unfair. But this is a known known, so Labour have to find ways to win - and win repeatedly - despite being hobbled by the press.

4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work. The RW tabloids will tear bigger strips off them than usual, painting even minor concessions as a Great Betrayal. (If you're not paying attention, you need to realise that the tabloids pillory Labour every. single. day. So this will be a ramping up rather than a different attitude.)

Related aside 3: Since anything Labour does to "undo Brexit" will be portrayed as a betrayal, no matter how insignificant, they might as well take huge lumbering steps rather than teeny tiny ones. It won't make the tabloids more rabid than they're inevitably going to be.

5. Make Brexit Work won't. Work, that is. You might as well try and put the toothpaste back in the tube after you brushed your teeth with it. Brexit is inherently unworkable by its very nature. The small improvements won't be nearly enough for Rejoiners, will infuriate still-Leavers, and will barely move the dial on Britain's Brexit problems.

Related aside 4: Young voters who came of voting age since the referendum already break 86/14 in favour of Rejoin. By the time we get through a first Labour term, anyone under 32 will be overwhelmingly keen to re-enter the EU.

6. Meanwhile, Labour will also have to spend more and more and more to keep stuff from literally falling apart. Think sewers, water pipes, collapsing schools, crumbling hospitals. The legacy of Tory underinvestment has played havoc with already fragile infrastructure. Again, stern questions will be asked about where the money is coming from.

7. The rump of the Tory party, whatever's left after the GE wipeout, will sit on the sidelines laughing and jeering. "Typical Labour. Always spending money they don't have." They will point to every single broken thing, claiming they're all Labour's fault - and the RW media will amplify the message.

8. If they're very lucky, Labour will go into the GE-after-next with the overall situation in Britain slightly better than when they took office. We'll only be knee-deep in metaphoric (and maybe literal) sewage, rather than thigh-deep.

9. The Tories and RW press will continue their tag-teaming attacks. ("Same old Labour. Can't be trusted with the economy. Can't get anything working. Can't even fix Brexit, despite all their lofty promises.)

10. GE2: Electric Boogaloo.
Labour are stuck. The taunts about their flagship Make Brexit Work policy hit home - because they're true. And that lubricates the way for all the other lies the Tories and the RW media are spinning about them to slip down like honey.

If Labour pivot towards SM/CU/Rejoin to try to win GE2, they might as well tattoo "we wasted the last 5 years and prolonged the damage because we didn't know what the hell we were doing" on their foreheads. They may pivot anyway, because the alternative is even worse. This is where those bright red lines (remember them?) will come back to bite them in the fundament so hard, they won't be able to sit down for a month. The press will scream "U-turn" and again it will be absolutely true: a U-turn so big, it's visible from the Moon.

Related aside 5: There's no Get the Tories Out vote in GE2. Why? Because they're already out. The impetus to keep them out won't win over disgruntled voters who already lent their votes to Labour once with gritted teeth, despite Labour not doing what they wanted on things like Brexit and PR.

11. Labour lose GE2. A one-term wonder, and they're done. The Tories do what they do best: they blame all Britain's ills on Labour, and start wrecking the country afresh with a clean slate. Heck, they're still bleating about the "No money left" letter today, so we know exactly how this stuff plays out.

Related aside 6: From the standpoint of history, being PM is perhaps 100x more important than being Leader of the Opposition. A place in posterity for eternity is the grand prize that even very rich people can't buy (though their wealth can certainly help towards attaining it). So Keir Starmer won't be nearly as disappointed as you might imagine. If he makes it a full term, that's already longer than May, Johnson, Truss (!) and Sunak managed. His standing is assured. Put another way: his incentives are not our incentives.

12. Another ruinous decade or so of Tory rule. (We know how hard it is for Labour to win. They need the Tories to mess up so badly that a tide of outrage carries them over the finish line. That tide is unlikely to rise again over a term dominated by constant reminders of "Labour's failings" playing out 24/7 in the RW press and on RW TV and radio.)

Deep breath. Have a coffee and a biscuit. You've earned them. We've seen the problem. Now it's time to tackle the solution.

Scroll back up through the scenario above. Notice how Brexit runs through it, like a vein pumping poison.

That's why Labour need to change their fundamental attitude towards Brexit, and they need to do it now - not just before the GE.

Stop ruling things out. Not saying you won't do something isn't the same as saying you will do it. Read the previous sentence a few times - it does make sense. Think along the lines of "Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing Britain". The actual message can be polished by the pros. It's the intent that matters. Without the red lines on SM/CU/Rejoin, anything becomes possible.

By making the change now, it blunts the moaning in the media. Why? Because it dilutes the impact of the u-turn over a year or more, rather than concentrating it into the last month of intense scrutiny just before the GE.

The other vital ingredient is PR.

Simply put, PR is the only hope we have of achieving any sort of long-term stability.

Why? Because many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And they need fixing. But the only conceivable way of unlocking the time to fix them is to form long-term partnerships in the national interest. In other words, PR.

PR rids us of the short-termism mindset that has dragged Britain down for decades. Though the exact balance in Parliament will change from GE to GE, even under PR, a coalition will almost certain be possible without involving the Tories or other RW parties. It is better to have a share of power forever than absolute power for a few years before the other lot come in and undo everything you worked towards.

Related aside 7: Don't think of GEs in terms of a 5-year cycle. When the party in power changes, their first year is spent trying to pick through the mess and understand what's going on. And the final year of every 5-year cycle is focused on the next GE. So there are really only ever 4 (and more often 3) years of actual governing possible under FPTP in every 5-year election cycle.

Summary: Labour needs to adopt a completely different attitude to Brexit (stop ruling stuff out, and make the change now) and move to introduce PR.

Phew, we're very nearly done. Congratulations on making it this far.

In parting: You may disagree with what you just read. You probably will. But please take a big step back and evaluate whether your disagreement is because it's just too horrible to think about the real world in the stark terms I painted above. Also, please consider whether your support for a particular party is blinding you to the reality of what they can hope to achieve in a short 5-year (really 3) period in office.

Thanks for your interest, and have a great day.

(P.S. If you found the above interesting, please RT to share this with others.)

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

@rundemtrails Netflix on a treadmill would give me travel sickness 🤢
Treadmill + podcast for slow runs, Treadmill + 180bpm playlist for fast runs
Pavement + rain for love

[Is Andrews @Is_Andrews]

This such a good conversation to be having—and part of that wider issue of adolescent girls self-selecting themselves out of sport for years, like I did, and then coming back in their 30s and 40s, wishing they’d had the confidence to pursue it earlier. Thank you @EmmaPallant 💪🏼❤️

[Women in Sport @Womeninsport_uk]

"I'm proud to have a period"🩸

Triathlete @EmmaPallant has had to defend herself after an image of her racing while on her period went viral.

Women should not have to apologise for having a period - in sport, and everywhere else.❌