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new labour x blurry wisdom

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nowadays you can just steal people’s tumblr posts make them into an edit and get 10x the amount of likes on tiktok it’s crazy

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butchfemme tbgb

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I regret to inform you I’m #political yaoi trash.

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ohhh tony blair and your messianic tendencies you will always be famous to me. truly such a strange and complex individual i need to study his brain chemistry under a microscope.

halsey, young god │ depeche mode, personal jesus │ phoebe bridgers, savior complex │ lorde, supercut │ bbc, the new labour revolution

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the deal (2003) + never let me down again - depeche mode

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ohhh tony blair and your messianic tendencies you will always be famous to me. truly such a strange and complex individual i need to study his brain chemistry under a microscope.

halsey, young god │ depeche mode, personal jesus │ phoebe bridgers, savior complex │ lorde, supercut │ bbc, the new labour revolution

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the dare for the new yorker, taken by gillian laub

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punisher through the eyes of blair and brown — a lyric analysis

really a very important comparison to me, the things i deem most important are highlighted in red!

“when the speed kicks in i go to the store for nothing” the fabrication of false conflicts, used as an excuse to actually talk to each other

“and walk right by the house where you lived with snow white. i wonder if she ever thought the storybook tiles on the roof were too much,” the element of speculation and fantasy here mimics the psychological warfare that was embedded in the blair-brown relationship. never sure of what the other is thinking, but all too eager to imagine.

“but from the window, it’s not a bad show,” ie the separation between tbgb, constantly maintaining distance between their personal lives, and not letting the other too close. thinking here especially about how tony didn’t go to gordon’s wedding.

“if your favourite thing’s dianetics or stucco” parallels w tony’s catholicism to be drawn here.

“the drugstores are open all night, the only real reason I moved to the east side, i love a good place to hide in plain sight” brown being famously stubborn when it came to ignoring tony when times were difficult. that one quote about newlab knowing when things in government were bad because gordon would disappear, reappearing when things were better. hiding in plain sight ie tbgb using the professional relationship as a veneer for their deeply fractured emotional dynamic.

“what if I told you” the what if is crucial here, because they never properly talked!! aaaah!!!!

“i feel like I know you? but we never met” time warping both their relationship and each other, making tbgb both painfully familiar and unrecognisable to one another at the same time.

“and here, everyone knows you're the way to my heart” gossipy observer columns speculating on their personal affairs

“hear so many stories of you at the bar” tbgb having to hear about what one another is up to post-2007 through third parties, the relationship is so broken they can’t speak directly.

“most times, alone, and some, looking your worst” loneliness of being such a powerful presence like blair!

“but never not sweet to the trust funds and punishers” do i even need to explain this one

“man, i wish that i could say the same” gordon doesn’t enjoy the luxury of a good reputation in the same way tony does, he spends half of his time nowadays endlessly justifying his own record whilst blair gets to forget his mistakes.

“i swear i’m not angry, that's just my face” oh i may start to cry here. this is about gb, thinking about the clips of him sitting during cabinet meetings just totally listless, with a face like thunder. and him deep down regretting antagonising tb so much, but unable to break the pattern of doing so after all these years.

“a copycat killer with a chemical cut.” u guys know that one tb memo which is basically saying ‘gordon brown killed new labour’? yeah.

“either i’m careless or i wanna get caught” do you think that gordon got a sense of satisfaction from slowly purging new labour of its blairisms post-2010? unable to kill the man, he killed his ideas instead

“i can't open my mouth and forget how to talk,” reflecting just how deeply-rooted the tbgb tension was — neither tony nor gordon can even reflect on that period of their lives without the interpersonal dynamic shaping the narrative

“cause even if I could, wouldn't know where to start” gordon reflecting very little on the emotional and personal aspects of his relationship w tony in his post-power books

“wouldnt know when to stop.” vs tony writing pages and pages about him and gordon.

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shit i have to do during my gap year:

spend far too much time mooching about london while drinking overpriced coffee. particularly if said mooching is done around westminster and/or the southbank

grow my collection of scarves

learn how to drive if i can be bothered x

get a fucking job

start journalling

consume every piece of knowledge i can find regarding new labour

COVER my room with fairy lights until i short circuit the fuse box under the stairs

get a digital camera...

burn every single a-level chemistry resource that i have the misfortune of being in possession of

daydream about my esoteric celebrity crushes

write write write

research research research

apply to uni...

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only threw this labour party conference 4 u

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tony blair: new labour campaign trail by peter marlow

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thinking about the fact that gordon was raised by a calvinist preacher father yet didn't believe that his and tony's relationship was predetermined by the outcome of the political friendships that came before them...but then again he does call himself intellectually estranged from calvinism so

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not my house but i'd know my way around

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tony blair; a poet is a blind optimist

jack kerouac, "definition of a poet" from atop an underwood: early stories and other writings (1936-1943)

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Glory and Gore go hand in hand