We posted this YouTube short this lunchtime:
This is the transcript:
A century ago, the Irish polymath and playwright George Bernard Shaw said that "Reasonable people bend themselves to the ways of the world, whilst," he added, "unreasonable people try to bend the world to their ways."
We are in this world, at this point in time, desperately short of unreasonable people, because as George Bernard Shaw made clear, all progress is dependent upon their existence, because they are the people who call out what is wrong and demand change.
The world is in a very bad place right now.
We need change.
We desperately need unreasonable people, and our politicians appear to be totally compliant.
This is the moment where we must be looking elsewhere for the political leadership we need, and I hope you will do that because our conventional leaders are failing us badly.
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Does that jumper ever get washed?
Frequently.
Sod the jumper – the scarf looks totally luxurious.
It’s good
A Christmas present two or three eyars ago
Again (sorry), Peter Oborne (2025) ‘Complicit’, p. 99 – quotes the historian A J P Taylor:
‘If you want to know what the foreign policy of this country will be in 20 or 30 year’s time, find out what the dissenting minority are saying now’. The quote in Oborne’s notes is from a book by Taylor called called ‘The Trouble Makers’ (1969).
Also by Taylor: ‘Today’s realism will appear tomorrow as short sighted blundering. Today’s idealism is the realism of the future’.
Amen to that. Our host is in good company, his instincts validated, my enthusiasm and hope reinforced.
The only catch is that the dissenting minority argument/theory can work both ways. It is the dissenting minority of the Mont Pelerin Society for example propelled forward by the rich whose money power exceeds their numbers that has led to Neo-liberalism and maybe Gaza being cleared for sea for redevelopment. So the question that still has to be answered – as well as how to change – is how will we protect that change in the future? How will we enforce democracy? And the word ‘enforce’ is intended BTW.
Better ideas for the majority – and undertsanding communication to make it clear what that means.
What I find disappointing on a regular basis: lack of imagination, lack of knowledge and lack of curiosity. Politicos suffer from all three lacks. Civil service? ditto. Couple this to regulatory capture/lobbying and you have the world we live in.
I saw this (3x lack) today: Netherlands & pig shit & political arm waving (I won’t elaborate).
Of course one could label having imagination/knowledge/curiosity as “being unreasonable” – but only those with heads firmly embedded in backsides would do so.
Agreed
I believe it was C S Lewis who first drew my attention to the subtle, but important difference between character and plot. In the world today, we are overwhelmed with characters, but it’s the plot that really matters. In my estimation, the plot for the last 40-odd years has been protection of neoliberal values and the finance industry that extracts wealth from the economy. I always try to view the characters in this light, despite what they say.
We are trying to change the plot, which is a massive task, so we need more ‘unreasonable’ people to take the stage and interest the audience with their characters’ lines.
My long winded way of saying we need to make changes, but it will be difficult in plain sight. We may need to be subtle to do it and it will take a while.
Much to agree with
“Trump to meet with oil executives over Venezuela investments”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce9y8ke4ydyt
The BBC is now describing Trump’s conflict with Venezuela as an “investment”.
And while many in the international community are describing the US abduction of Maduro as a kidnapping, the BBC has banned journalists from using the word, and should use “captured”.
As Orwell wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Talkkng about unreasonable people, the far right in US & UK are in hypocrisy overdrive about the X AI – “GrokAI” generating fake porn images & nudified video of real people, including creating child pornography for paedophiles.
Remember how “to protect the children” was the far right excuse for burning asylum-seeker hostels, attacking migrants in the street, or slandering/smearing any of the far right’s opponentstheir?
https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2026/01/09/x-ban-uk/?__s=6squ6bjtxophyfzgvnew
Well they seem to have forgotten it now. Fake child porn from AI is free speech and straight-R-arm-saluting Musk and his porn loving stűrmbahnfűhrers need protecting instead of the children.
And the government think Ofcom’s chocolate teapot regulation will deal with X? Like it deals with GB News?
As for the newly converted Yaxley-Lennon… well, its in the Canary article, I won’t soil your blog with a direct quote. But he courageously smears the dead. Sanctification clearly a work in (invisible) progress.
X’s answer is not to end the child porn creation and nudification by GROK, but to make it a paid-for-service. No need to ban paedophilia when you can monetise it.
I came off Twitter when Musk bought it.
Thanks
I came off Twitter, then eventually went back.
Now, I wonder again.
What struck me reading this thread is the uncomfortable question it raises about where the UK will actually be in 30 or 40 years if we continue on our current trajectory. When a state abandons long‑term planning, industrial strategy, and public stewardship, it creates a vacuum — and vacuums never stay empty. They get filled by whoever has the capital, the leverage, and the appetite.
At the moment, that isn’t the British public. It isn’t Parliament. It isn’t even the civil service. It’s global tech and finance oligarchs who can buy strategic assets faster than we can regulate them. Keep going like this and we shouldn’t be surprised if, metaphorically or literally, someone like Musk ends up owning more of the UK than the UK owns of itself.
This is what happens when a country mistakes “being reasonable” for being passive. Without structural reform, without institutions capable of resisting capture, and without a political class willing to defend the public interest, the future won’t be shaped by democratic choice but by whoever turns up with the biggest chequebook.
If we need unreasonable people, it’s because they’re the only ones still willing to say that out loud.