Hassaan

The commercial channels (namely ITV) are having to hold back quite a few shows until next year too, so it could be for similar reasons.

Hannah stuck around by the skin of her teeth. No idea who they'll murder, maybe Ross.

Quite early for Hannah to get heat on her. Sadly I think Myha'la was going to struggle to evade that.

All five of Liberty X is a surprise. Not least cos Kevin is obviously with Wet Wet Wet and Tony appeared to have left the industry, plus I imagine the two lads felt like spare parts.

I will be surprised if the majority don't go for Richard though luckily for him it's split across a few different people. It is amusing that Ross' paranoia was for nothing. 😄 I'd be tempted to pick apart some of the things (the make up thing is a bit weak) but they have very little to go on.

I genuinely thought Richard was playing a very specific game. It's so much funnier that he wasn't. 😄

Sabrina has cancelled the tour. She's done an Instagram post.

I think the removal of things from old TV shows beyond just slapping on a warning will be for a number of reasons. We're in a culture where there's just so much noise and the BBC would probably rather avoid the inevitable anger/pile-on from both sides. I don't know why they can't just slap on a warning though. There are instances where even the creators seem to be fine with the removal - be it jokes about Jimmy Savile or that scene from Fawlty Towers - so I guess it's not straightforward.

Documentary was an interesting watch. I knew of the cancellation being overturned but I didn't know there was a petition. I'm intrigued as to how much that played a part - that was the infancy of petitions I suppose. Episode 1 had some good lines but I didn't like the stereotypical, low-hanging fruit portrayal of the young people. I felt the writing could have actually been clever.

Already liking Molly and Danni. Shame about her cake.

That's all people have been doing with me ever since I started trying to contribute to discussions. Buzzjack doesn't like Ed anyway. It's not "telling", it's just true.

Sure, but how much of a part is this going to play in the genocide ending? You'd be forgiven for thinking Ed Sheeran contributed to it, the way people have reacted. I think it's weird and uncomfortable that people are angrier at him than those who are actively contributing to what's going on.

I was in favour of him just cancelling the tour, but he only has 17 of these shows left. I imagine he'll see it through and then lay low for a while. When people put pressure on people like him to say something/make a statement or whatever, the implication on his end is probably "I'll say sorry/address it and maybe it'll die down" because why wouldn't you think that? But everyone knows that was never going to happen, regardless of what he said. People are looking for additional reasons to be angry, and that fake post yesterday is just another example.

He can't really win here though, can he? He posts on social media, obviously turns comments off (because we all know it's just going to be a full-on dogpile) and gets criticised for it. He speaks about it at the concert, gets criticised for it. If he didn't say anything either on social media or at the concert, he'd get criticised. People are entitled to be frustrated/angry with him for how he has handled it. Even I think it has been handled badly. What I have an issue with is this impossible standard yourself and others are holding him to. And before you come at me and say "we just want him to stop dancing around the point", of course, I'm not disagreeing with that, but it's almost as though unless he words things in exactly the way you want him to, it's not good enough. I don't believe for a moment that he doesn't care, but is trying to separate his personal feelings from what he says publicly and has gotten himself caught up in this mess instead.

Do you want him to share a screenshot of a confirmation email or something? Would you not then be criticising him for "virtue signalling" if he's parading it around?

Deleted, double post.

Is it really ironic when that's exactly what... people wanted him to do? I doubt he would have said anything had it not blown up like it has. You can't call someone hypocritical for U-turning on something when you forced their hand, effectively. I'm fed up of people pretending like their own personal biases aren't playing a huge part in this discussion.

It might be a PR esque statement but I think at this point it's probably worse if he says something, knowing how much people are actively wanting to pick apart what he says. Especially when people aren't even trying to hide that they've been "waiting for his downfall". It's not going to be as cut and dried as people on the internet like to think, he's undoubtedly got a team of people advising him (who also are probably struggling to navigate it). It is kind of the equivalent of pinning someone to the ground and acting surprised that they're not able to talk properly. As I said before, his attempts to please everyone was a bad choice for the internet.

It is a bit worrying (though perhaps unsurprising) that something obviously false can catch fire like that.

Where did that statement even come from? Obviously the previous one was posted by him but where would they have gotten this from? If it's fake that's a bit pathetic. It's one thing pulling apart something he actually said, we don't need to make things up.

The only thing that's going to take Farage down is if his own party turns on him. That's basically what resulted in Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer resigning. I don't believe there's anything that would be bad enough for Reform.

I do have sympathy in the sense of "person makes a statement to address something that has happened, only ends up making it worse" cos I've seen that happen a million times, and I once got caught up in that sort of thing too. I still think he is getting a disproportionate amount of anger directed at him but I sort of understand it. It's not like we can do anything about the people in power.

I think it's because people generally feel powerless. They can't really do anything to, I suppose, stop the people committing those acts from doing that, but they can react to public figures that are on social media. I totally get why people are angry but it feels a bit extreme.

And that's something that doesn't sit right with me. I said as much earlier but the whole "silence is complicity" feels too black-and-white to me, but then it would be unfair to expect much nuance over the internet. Reactionary statements are more the "in" thing. I do feel in general that they can't win, but I also agree with the notion that Ed has tried to please everyone which has had the opposite effect.

This is the thing. While I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he did cancel the tour (or postpone it), him doing so isn't going to somehow lessen the anger surrounding him right now. I imagine someone signed off on that statement though. Often in situations like this, someone knows they have to say something but because they're under pressure it's unlikely they'll get the wording perfect. I've seen countless Instagram posts from people almost celebrating his "downfall" which was probably the gist of what Jason was getting at earlier.