From the comments – which of course you’re reading – a phenomenon to ponder. A small but telling feature of our unrelentingly progressive times.

It began with this exchange from Question Time, the BBC’s flagship political debate programme, in which Green Party candidate Sarah Wakefield struggled with causality. Specifically, the apparently alien notion that a rapidly growing UK population – overwhelmingly a result of immigration – requires more housing. And thus the two topics – immigration and housing availability – being very much related.

🚨 WATCH: The Reform and Green candidate in the Makerfield clash over immigration

Sarah Wakefield: “Do you think if we locked down our borders, we’re going solve the housing crisis?”

Rob Kenyon: “The more people you have in the country, the more houses you need” #BBCQT pic.twitter.com/Fsog3KOFz8

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 4, 2026

Ms Wakefield is, it seems, somehow unaware that immigration accounts for almost all population growth over the last six years, and the vast majority of such growth over the last twenty years.

When not struggling with simple arithmetic, Ms Wakefield spends her time announcing that farming is riddled with “white supremacy” and is in need of “decolonisation.” British food production, says she, “entrenches racial oppression.”

Still, whatever her shortcomings in terms of readily available facts and observable reality, she does put her face to eye-catching use.

Which prompted the following from your host:

And,

In reply, commenter [+] shared a link to this video, which may amuse, and deployed the term Longhouse Face.

Which in turn brought us this not implausible observation:

Dicentra added,

Quite.

This facial phenomenon has subsequently, and happily, attracted wider attention. Among the commentary to be found elsewhere, this caught my eye:

Cue the meme.

The robots are coming. || The fight against gravity did not go well. || When good girls go bad! || Discourse was attempted. || Inadequate product detected. || England’s most villagey town. || I’m guessing she ain’t happy. || The progressive retail experience, parts 730, 731 and 732. || Peeping spotted. || Peekaboo. || On suboptimal slipperiness. || Question asked, silence ensues. || I have questions. || An excellent use of a skateboard. || A descending voice. || The Digestive System, 1980. || For sale. || Choices were made. || A touch of Mozart. || It’s a tight one. || “She tried to remove my nuts with her teeth,” he said. || For bespectacled headbangers. || You want one and you know it. || I can see this working as a lair. || And finally, some Finnish performance art involving vast quantities of lube.

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As I’m a little under the weather, some items from the archives:

Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings.

The intersectional perils of Zoom meetings. With mad people.

Strange Construal.

On ‘anti-capitalist’ lifestyles and a misremembered sitcom.

Literary World Unveils Doomsday Machine.

Underwhelming artists threaten to strike, world continues turning.

For those craving more, this is a pretty good place to start.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Another glimpse into the mind of the scrupulously progressive:

Because, says Mr Gold, our pronoun-stipulating essayist, a sense of connection with one’s home, one’s territory, one’s ancestry and how one came to be, is “utterly arbitrary.” A thing of no importance, unworthy of consideration. Says he, or he/him, “The only sensible form of government is one-world government.”

You see, becoming even less important, even smaller in relation to the steering of the ship, one of billions instead of millions, is a good thing, it turns out. And that irrelevance is sensible, a thing to which the rest of us should apparently aspire. Star Trek, I fear, has much to answer for.

Mr Gold is happy to be described as a “rootless cosmopolitan.” Lofty and unaffiliated, and thus exempt from customary expectations. Because status, baby. One simply must be seen having those designer opinions. Whatever the practical consequences of those opinions might prove to be.

And while pointedly disdaining as foolish and low-status any sense of connection with, or affection for, the country in which he just happens to live, Mr Gold is simultaneously an emphatic supporter of Palestine, regarding which very different assumptions would seem to apply.

The world of things just happening, entirely by chance and for no reason whatsoever – in the progressive mind, at least – has been poked at here before.

From which:

Because apparently all things are possible in progressive metaphysics.

Update, via the comments:

Geoff asks, not unfairly,

Well, Mr Gold’s obliviousness does seem rather contrived, a modish affectation. And despite his ostentatious sneering at pretty much anything patriotism adjacent, I remain unconvinced that a country inhabited only by people who think as he does would long survive.

Readers may wish to ponder how Mr Gold, and doubtless many of his peers, can denounce Mr Trump as some kind of quasi-fascistic, totalitarian nightmare, an end to democracy, while simultaneously enthusing about a one-world government, as if the prospect had no implications for democracy.

Also, it’s unclear where the boundaries of this disdained patriotism are. Does it include the feeling that one’s country is more than a hotel, a holiday resort, or an economic zone? Does it include a background sense of attachment, of lineage and continuity, of history? Does it include the sense – say, while driving through the countryside – that “I like this place, I know this place”?

I ask because, while I’m not prone to flag-waving or wearing patriotic hats, I do understand a sense of belonging, of attachment, of home.

And I think I understand the kinds of people who disdain such things.

Though I can’t say I like them.

I think it looks pretty good, actually. || Love machine, ladies. || Bling thing. || Contraband detected. || On transgender Reddit, euphoria abounds. || Balls and blocking. || On atomic weapons and bomb-like objects. || For lovers of glamour, those Hollywood vibes. || From 1981: Does Woking Want a Sex Shop? || On tiny tessellations and apian secretions. || Rooftop scenes. || Rooftop scenes 2. || Gentleman caller. || Congestion of note. || Gym juddering, Chile. || China, 1917. || Attention, fat chaps. || Incoming. || On the mend, I see. || Make your own Star Trek title cards. (h/t, Neatorama) || Today’s word is metaphor. || Meet the Rag and Bone Men, 1966. || Regarding fur. || Today’s other word is farming. || You can run your fingers through it. || And finally, fire from the Earth, fire from the sky.

To enable extra commenting options – including @username mentions, comment editing, upvotes, custom avatars, and live notifications – scroll down to the black ‘Meta’ box at the very bottom of the page and click register. It’s free and quite painless.

For additional rumblings, follow me on X.