New beginnings and PR problems
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a slight change to the Felix website over the past week. The old website, intended for use for “10-15 years” was a slight freak of nature, in that you had to be considered “cracked” or a “10x” computer expert to understand the nature of the beast, which made it unsustainable to run. Felix needed something sleeker, sexier, and also much more maintainable for a tired undergraduate who needs the work experience to pad their CV (I see you for what you are).
Thankfully, due to the efforts of our recently departed webmaster, Timothy Langer, we have managed exactly that. Timothy has migrated almost 10,000 articles across from the old website onto the new one and has left our society in a much better condition than from when he joined. I and the rest of the team extend our greatest, and most heartfelt thanks to him – not just for doing this, but also for the efforts he has exerted in the past year he was with us, in running felixonline.co.uk.
Graduation
To those lucky bastards who have left this miserable, soul-sucking institutions well done! Completing a degree, regardless of grade, is tough and something everyone should be proud of. Well done guys, thrive, and flourish. Be free in the world, it’s yours for the taking.
Labour’s PR disaster(s)
Not even Liz Truss managed to lose so much political goodwill in such a short period of time. Nor did she have such an impressive mandate to begin with. Labour has managed to alienate both the old base of broadly left-wing people, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, and the new base of businesses, private-school parents, and repentant Tory voters, with reforms that don’t seek to please anyone in particular, nor have any sense of direction. Journalist Ian Dunt has summed this up quite succinctly: “Starmer has no loyal constituency. The hard left hates him, passionate Remainers are alienated by make-Brexit-work, the right considers him the enemy, and populists despise him.” Labour’s first 100 days in office have been marked by race riots, alleged U-turns on their fiscal policies, corruption and sleaze allegations based on the activities of Taylor Swift and Labour donor/ peer/ sugar-daddy Lord Waheed Alli, and a reset of staff as Morgan McSweeney’s faction in Westminster ousts former supremo Sue Gray. Successive polls have shown the government slip in the country’s estimation, with Saturday 13th October seeing Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck for voting intention (both 27%) in a More in Common poll. Starmer himself is the most unpopular Prime Minister in his first 100 days since records began, according to Pollbase and Ipsos, with an approval rating of 26%. It’s fair to say Labour has shit the bed. However, with the autumn budget looming, it will be interesting to see if the new Labour government can turn their popularity around or continue to collapse. Starmer could find some solace in the fact he isn’t Peruvian head of state, Dina Boluarte – polls by Ipsos and Datum International revealed she had a meagre approval rating of 8% this October.
