Iz様 🌟

Congratulations Harve, it's always a rare treat to have your 18 winning but though I kinda called it, amazing to see it happening with 7 others alongside me giving it the top marks and enough to win comfortably; utterly beautiful track and will go down as an excellent winner, long overdue after loving 'Pyrrhic' for years and of course Skall have had a few close calls that I wish had won over the years so great to see this one break through. Thanks for the great hosting all the way through Addy, unfortunate for me that I didn't do very well (undeserved, my song is still incredible) but I will aim to convince more people to pay attention to my song next contest x

As always: Discussing current actually happening policy announcements >>> reliving the past. 20% cut on business rates for hospitality from next April announced this morning as Burnham's quickfire turns to helping out pubs and restaurants. The places people want to see in their communities, so far paid for by taxing those we don't want, e.g. vape shops, more. Excellent strategy.

It's like these people weren't consciously aware of anything for the last decade given they resort to such old trite lines.

Bus cap definitely being reduced to £2 got reported on today, starting from January excellent news. As I've said on it before, you need to encourage the use of public transport because it drives economic activity in other areas and eases the car burden on commercial centres. also Ed Miliband has one of the most impressive careers of any parliamentarian currently sitting in the house and has numerous great moments far more important than his election loss, I've not been banging on about him doing a stellar job at energy for the last 2 years for nothing - and the right-wing rags' seething hatred of him only confirms how right I am. they're also briefing about how Miatta Fahnbulleh called for net zero target to be accelerated, as if that's a bad thing.

3 songs that I had almost completely forgotten about, 'R.I.P' I remember slightly more than the others because it's... okay, and Rita Ora has had more success in the intervening years though its Tinie feature is pointless and it is a bit flat as a pop song. 'This Is Love' and 'Young' I had completely memory-holed though and even now remembering them I have to agree that they're inoffensive but completely bland, not really many more stronger feelings than that, though I sort of remember hating 'Young' at the time just for being a bad example of a female pop song, not a hatred that has survived the years due to its falling into complete irrelevance. There's ... okay breakdowns very typical of the era on both but no reason to seek these out over the more accomplished and interesting examples of those styles. I think I prefer N-Dubz and Dappy to Tulisa's output honestly, at least they had an... identity with their songs. Had forgotten Tulisa had a real round of promotion for a year as well, those Spotify streams are telling.

Very pleased that both Rayner and Haigh are back in, both of their previous departures from cabinet felt like they were media laser-focusing against powerful left-wing figures in the party, can't double jeopardy them now. Miatta hopefully is a decent replacement for Ed at energy, we'll see. Good in that Burnham's first round of policies, VAT from energy bills and possibly also business rates, as well as a floated returning the bus cap to £2 seem designed to be small quick wins that give people positive first impressions of his admin, something the Starmer administration spectacularly failed at.

Miliband in as Foreign Sec, Mahmood stays at Home. We'll take that.

That definitely smells like either Miliband or Mahmood would have made a lot of people angry so he went for the compromise. I don't know much about him beyond his brief stint as defence secretary but perhaps indicative of Burnham wanting to keep himself and himself alone as the main government personality.

Burnham now in. Big policies he's talked up so far include ending rough sleeping, raising the personal allowance and otherwise tackling the cost of living. Sounds like he wants to make a big impact and have a clear dividing line from the past, a little bit 'just do good things and don't do bad things so far' but so far so okay. Great Cabinet changes so far, Reeves, Reed, Lammy, Kyle, Kendall all out is excellent, Labour Right smarmy talk-downers for the most part. One I was quite sad to see was James Timpson gone from prison ministers, the first announced this morning, though perhaps there's significant enough overhaul to that part of government that he'd now prefer to be on the outside.

Thank God, well done Spain, the overall best team of the tournament and clearly the better side here - even if it was hardly the best match, most of the poor quality came from the Argentines

Argentina are just such a disgrace to football the way this team play - at least Spain’s low scoring strategy has some clear skill to it and is fine if not the most exciting to watch.

Always rated Rooney as a tastemaker

This is such a rage-inducing American way to try and make this game sound epic - particularly the traditional American commitment to subtlety. Praying they don’t get it in 2038

oh Payphone wasn’t quite what I was thinking of to defend and I won’t really but against all better judgement I kinda like it. Of course on an intellectual music critic level it’s utterly awful and Maroon 5 never made a good song after Songs About Jane. It sounds kinda good during a music session though - more than Moves Like Jagger anyway

Not surprised it beats the record set by Haltemprice and Howden given the similar circumstances and higher profile potential politician scalp. 3 from the MRLP as well! anyway it's pretty easy to predict despite that, Farage gets 65%, Binface gets 25%, Laurence Fox gets enough weirdos who think Farage isn't extreme enough to get 2-5% and everyone else gets under 200 votes, most of them under 100. Can't see him realistically being toppled. Farage will still look stupid on stage.