Which way to interpret the optics

I’m sure I’m not the only one whose maths teacher surprised by showing how a seven stone woman in stiletto heels put more pressure on the floor than an elephant. Fortunately for our wooden floors…

I have - once showing her photograph and then in my post underneath - perhaps you are muting me? :grin:

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That didn’t showup in what l read. Muting you - or anyone - is way above my pay grade!

There’s only one way Coffey addresses the optics - by slamming a glass directly under them!

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Talking of optics, which looks the more ridiculous?

Incidentally, this photo’s not from Private Eye or the Grauniad - it’s on the Mail website!

On the other hand maybe it’s perfectly sensible and it’s just too long (not!) since I visited the UK.

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Tony Banks?

Cunning snapper arranged matching flower beds for Truss. Pink flares? When was this taken? I s’pose recently, because Coffey is the same endomorph+ that she is in the conference photo.
image.

Just to keep some gender balance on this, here’s another super-endomorph
image

Rather reminds me of another thread, I forget which topic, where women were being extolled over men as being kinder by gender.

Not the Tories, clearly.

In those days he was the only way the Libs could fill the conference hall

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I seem to recall that Barbara Castle was Transport Minister in the Wilson govt and didn’t have a driving licence, seemed weird to me.

And why can’t we have good looking PMs like Italy and Finland ?


image

The Transport brief also covered Rail and freight - did she need to be a train driver too to be effective :thinking:

When Barbara Castle, a non-driver, was appointed Labour’s transport secretary by Harold Wilson in late 1965, she was subjected to a predictable barrage of male media questioning about her fitness for the job. One in particular, a Poundshop Jeremy Clarkson before his time, disparaged her plans to test motorists for their alcohol consumption on the BBC’s The World This Weekend.

‘You’re only a woman, you don’t drive — what do you know about it?’ I reckon I can take five pints and drive better than most people any day of the week,’ he said. ‘Yes, I know,’ replied Castle, in the manner of a genteel nurse about to rip off a plaster. ‘Famous last words.’

:slightly_smiling_face:

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Well yes Graham, some kind of qualifications might have helped her understand the problems encountered on Britains roads at the time instead of relying on civil servants and advisors to suggest political judgements.
The same of course can be said for any minister in any post.
The UK has gone through three Health ministers in as many months, no wonder the NHS is in turmoil.

No Peter, the NHS is not in turmoil because of 3 Health Secretaries in as many months… it’s in a mess because of Tory cuts and their austerity policies to the NHS during their tenure in office since 2010… and there’s more to come by all accounts.

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Agree 100%.

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and so - back to the optics. Professor Tim’s view of Truss’ performance of her conference mutterings and odd gesticulations…

Did you read this piece?

Why did Liz Truss wear the same outfit as a fictional fascist? | Liz Truss | The Guardian

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yes I did Mark… terrifying :roll_eyes:

I kept finding myself distracted by the split in the seam of his cardigan.
But regarding Liz Truss’s dress…I didn’t think anything of it. Irrelevant.

Generally good stuff, but he’s discussing optics, so the cardigan split in the foreground looks a tad contrived -particularly when he’s gone to the trouble of tying a bow-tie - which begs the question, is it even his cat? Like St Thomas, I’m ceasing to believe anything beyond direct phenomenological experience. But of course that too can be misleading.

So what does one do?

So do you think it was an unfortunate coincidence?

I think that’s unlikely and that instead it had been chosen by an image advisor to signal a certain sort of power that some of her supporters would recognise. Of course, the problem with that is Truss’s media advisor/s will tend to be young, metropolitan and culturally savvy, whereas her natural constituency isn’t, so the reference probably passed them by.

apparently yes… he and his cat featured on a certain TV program…