Interesting Links for 11-07-2022

1. Do boarding schools create dangerous narcissists like Boris Johnson? | HeraldScotland

(tags:school psychology trauma )

2. Absurd Trolley Problems

(tags:philosophy death morality )

3. The Conservative Leadership race is so diverse because of David Cameron

(tags:davidcameron diversity Conservatives )

4. How conservative are the messages in The Lord of The Rings?

(tags:lotr conservative society morality )

5. Breathtaking footage of an avalanche in Kyrgyzstan

(tags:mountains video viaPatrickHadfield )

6. Uber Files: Massive leak reveals how top politicians secretly helped Uber

(tags:corruption driving taxi france europe )

7. What has the ECHR ever done for us?

(tags:rights europe video funny NorthernIreland )

instagram cross-post

Jane entertains three children at once (on our summer holiday)
Original is here on instagram.

The Conservatives are still doing what I want

So, Johnson is gone. Or "gone". But almost certainly really, actually gone. And so the hopefuls are queuing up to replace him. Eleven of them, last time I checked. With the plan being to winnow it down to the final 2 before those go off to the party membership for the final vote.

The problem for the Conservative Party is that only 200,000 people are members. And those members are mostly at the extreme end, because they're the only ones that hung about and paid their dues. They're largely over 65, male, and white. They care about Brexit. They want lower taxes. They're angry about all of this "Woke nonsense" that's apparently rife across the country.

Which is a problem for the party. Because that means that that's what the leadership contenders are currently fighting to be the most extreme over is not what more general voters really care about. Keir Starmer had a rare turn of phrase when he referred to this as an arms race of fantasy economics.

And at the same time they're briefing against each other with dirty dossiers of terrible things they've all done.

So we're likely to end up with a leader who is far enough out to the fringes that they push away the average voter, fails to invest in the country when it desperately needs it, and has had a bunch of unpleasant bits of their past paraded through the press. Oh, and is about to start a trade war with Europe, against the wishes of most people living in Northern Ireland.

I could be wrong here, but this doesn't seem like a likely method for producing an election-winner.