Today I learned that Goalhanger podcasts, who produce:
The Rest Is Politics
The Rest Is Entertainment
The Rest Is Football
The Rest Is History
The Rest Is Science
Etc.
...is owned by Gary Lineker!
馃敆 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalhanger
#Podcasts #Podcast #Goalhanger #GaryLineker #TheRestIsEntertainment #TheRestIsPolitics #TheRestIsFootball
"I was taught that one week you would go and film a talking dog, and then the next week you'd go off and do some journalism about the corruption of a housing estate built on polluted land. And I began to realise you could put the two together. You could have pretentious shit, and trash ...
It was the idea that you could bolt [together] high end and low end, and just get rid of the middle."
#AdamCurtis, 2025
https://pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/A27C8C/traffic.megaphone.fm/GLT8110019720.mp3?updated=1750246534
"It's so refreshing to be able to talk honestly about these things now that everybody [here has] left politics ..."
#RoryStewart, 2025
Well, isn't that a revealing statement?
Yes, I did unsub from The Rest is Politics in protests at their shameless shilling for HP. But I stumbled on this 2-part interview with former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, which intrigues my Scottish diaspora roots, and it's well worth a listen.
Given a choice between Nigel Farright and Jeremy Corbyn as hypothetical UK PM, Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart both pick Corbyn;
https://alastaircampbell.org/2025/08/437-question-time-farage-vs-corbyn-the-uks-next-prime-minister/
Of course they do. One option is a lying, snivelling, intellectually bankrupt, corporatist, appeaser of actual fascists. The other is a Fabian socialist Parliamentarian. It's not a hard choice.
For all their faults, neither Campbell nor Stewart have sympathy for fascism of any kind.
(1/3)
Very disappointing to learn that The Rest is Politics has accepted sponsorship from Goggle, and to hear the hosts spruiking Trained MOLEs on their behalf;
https://alastaircampbell.org/2024/12/347-question-time-bidens-pardon-is-unforgivable/
I really thought Stuart and Campbell were more principled than that. Or maybe they've drunk the kool-aid, in which case I thought they were a lot more canny than that.
Anthony Albanese waxes lyrical about the imminent prohibition on young Australians using social media;
... without giving a shred of detail about how it's supposed to work. Let alone addressing any of the criticisms of the age verification approach, even those made by anti-corporate, pro-regulation tech activists.
(1/2)
Ezra Klein makes some insightful comments in this interview on the Leading podcast;
https://alastaircampbell.org/2025/04/129-trumps-america-fear-polarisation-and-the-future-ezra-klein/
For example, he points out that the Democrats' reaction to Orange Stalin 1.0 was to become the party of the early 21st century status quo. Alienating a huge number of allies, and a big chunk of the electorate, motivated by a post-Occupy goal of dismantling that status quo. This backfired on them big time in 2024.
(1/2)
"... I increasingly see [politics] in terms of social justice, inequality, not really addressing poverty in our country, not really addressing the homeless ... I would have loved to see a Labour government come in that [centres] those things ... and one if the reasons I'm underwhelmed, to be honest, is that it does feel a bit austerity-lite, and not a million miles from where Cameron's conservatives were."
#RoryStewart, 2025
https://alastaircampbell.org/2025/05/question-time-has-the-us-underestimated-china/
