rené > Recent Status Updates

“Maybe there was never work, only a passing through time and consequence. Maybe we don’t read writers so much as become deeply acquainted with the sites of their passing, or their refusal to pass. What they thought beautiful or grotesque enough to document. Where they chose to expend their finite capacity for concern.”

Wow.

“…the most powerful nations on earth won’t intervene to stop a genocide but will happily bomb one of the poorest countries on the earth to keep a shipping lane open.”

This book was written in 2025. The USA is bombing Iran over the Strait of Hormuz as we speak.

It is all a matter of patterns.

The anecdote about the courtroom in Guantanamo Bay was harrowing— to say that legal proceedings are not correct there, despite them being US courtrooms, is surprising, but is not at the same time.

The analysis of the American identity of “scrappy righteousness” was insightful and masterful— not a contradiction but a form of artificial self-interest. To me, that stems from their separation from Britain.

The poems are sweet, but the themes are repetitive.
Many of them are easy to find meaning in/relate well to contemporary problems.

The comments on language are so insightful.

The inadequacy of language and the West’s “abilities” in general, despite always being portrayed as better than that of the Third World, will never accurately describe humanity. Be it through the language of technology, or the language of the press. There is always an oppressive power it exacts over the Third World but that simply shows its glaring weaknesses.

“Who sided with justice and who sided with power?”
I think that, to fascist voters, you need to side with power to side with justice. That is what they have been indoctrinated to believe.
The writer uses such beautiful and subtle turns of phrase to implicitly portray Western perspectives of foreign countries. I feel like I’m reading an unseen text for English Language GCSE.

I was appalled to hear that Hamas has been propped up by Netanyahu to disguise political failings, but it makes so, so much sense.

The analysis of American politics is so accurate. “It can’t be both rhetorical urgency and policymaking impotence”. Climate change, Palestine, the Supreme Court, transphobia— we hate these things, but we will do naught about them.

A really masterful take on the two tiers of journalism, written by a journalist.

I knew about the journalists killed in Gaza and the Western ones who spout platitudes from an ivory tower. This chapter deepened my understanding and made me realise that this is a necessity in journalism.

The narrative about Gaza was an emotional one, and a really thought-provoking one. It angers me so much that this is how we have to write about people. Human beings. We have to talk about them in a polite and palatable way when some of them are being slaughtered and others are running the slaughterhouse.

A lot of the things in the book resonate with me. The idea of being so distanced from my mother and father’s culture, written from the perspective of my mother. It makes me wonder whether or not they feel that way about me.

It feels like nothing that makes a decent amount of money is independent from the government anymore. Journalists are literally trying to get the numbers of spads, and of course, when they’re close with people, they’re inclined to write about them positively or cover things up.

A lack of scrutiny yet again.

I was intrigued by the mention of news agencies not talking about the impact of policy after it is passed— only before or during its passage through the Commons.

I like reading The Guardian, but I realised it does this too. I read about the impact of policies a day after Starmer has announced them, but never really in retrospect. There is a lack of scrutiny there in the short-term.

The civil service section bored me.

However, I am intrigued by the beginning of the chapter on the press. I knew about Murdoch and Blair, but I didn’t know that the relationship between press and politician went so far back and still continued today, e.g. the sacking of Greig, The Mail editor, after being critical of Johnson…

I thought there would be more specialists in the civil service, but it seems not. They just seem like another minister, but completely unaccountable to the public because they are employed, appointed, not elected. They even experience that cabinet reshuffle carousel, but so much more often.

It is ridiculous that people in charge of eg establishing policy to boost the economy don’t know anything about the economy!

The Treasury chapter finished. Not as interesting since I’m not economically literate, but there is really no scrutiny on so many of these departments.

I know COVID had an economic impact on children but I hope for it to be discussed socially in this book. School shouldn’t just be for developing employees.

Reading about the Treasury, scrutinising other bodies but in itself having centralised power post-Brown, was interesting. So was the sheer workload of ministers.

The reshuffling of ministers and their ability to change anything made me more in favour of codification. Something could be perfect and still change, just so a minister can say they’ve done something. Every 18 months.

Learning about spads in more detail was eye-opening, especially under Johnson. 44 spads just for himself, the number of spads doubling under him since 2010… he really was just a figurehead!

The things about the Policy + Delivery Unit were interesting in retrospect. They would have been useful for the NHS during COVID but the government ruined it for themselves.

Moving onto the chapter about ministers, nothing seems to be about expertise in Westminster.

Got a bit bored by the things about Number 10, the physical rooms, and all of the subsections of Parliament.

I cannot believe that MPs have been manhandled and physically assaulted for going against the whip. That is appalling.

The role of an MP seems traumatic and inauthentic— the latter not being their fault but that of the whips and societal expectations.

The chapter on MPs so far has made me remember that this is a job. It’s something I tend to forget, personally. The effects of losing one’s seat are just like losing a job— and there’s more to it than that. You lose connections, you lose opportunities.

I was also incredibly shocked about constituencies with a marginal Conservative lead having more hospitals in 2019, so people died less of heart attacks.

I’m very interested in Trump’s idea of “religious freedom” considering he commends those acts of the Puritans against the Quakers, and the setting up of the New Faith Office (?) despite the “separation of church and state” from the days of Madison. I think this chapter will be helpful for my project— not as much the history part, but the parts relating to Trump’s religious ideals.