April 9, 2015

I Can’t Stop Laughing At This Photo Of David Cameron


The British go to the polls next month to determine whether Tory PM David Cameron gets to stay at 10 Downing St or if Ed Miliband and Labour get to form a government. Polls are close. It’s getting down to the wire. Fascinating stuff. This post is not about that.

During a photo-op at a school in Westhoughton yesterday, Cameron gave some students a “reading lesson.” But what one precocious child learned was how to steal the scene.

I wish the kid had fallen asleep because that would be hilarious but the video makes clear she only momentarily “head-desked” out of embarrassment after stumbling on a word.

(Don’t worry, kid. It happems.)

The photo is amazing but even more amazing is that the same thing happened to Australian Tory PM Tony Abbott last year.

Since things tend to happen in threes, Canadian Tory PM Stephen Harper should consider himself warned.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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