Garbage

Friday

Cockburn

Revenge of the stenographers

From our US edition

Against Buttons-bashing It’s hiring season at the Manhattan Institute — Christopher Rufo this week announced that Christina Buttons and Hannah Grossman are joining its Logos Initiative team as investigative reporters. “We’re building the best investigative team in right-leaning media. Whatever happens with the election next week, we will be shaping the news to come,” Rufo tweeted. Yet no good deed goes unpunished. X users have been poring over Buttons’s history. Some are outraged that Buttons is a former Democrat who voted for Obama, Hillary and Biden; others harped over the fact that she quit the Daily Wire over the strength of some of Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles’s language about trans people.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Biden’s garbage time

From our US edition

Here’s what was supposed to happen: Vice President Kamala Harris would speak at the Ellipse, just as Donald Trump did on January 6, 2021, before his supporters entered the US Capitol in order to prevent the certification of the last presidential election. Harris would strike a stark contrast; she would deliver a disciplined address to all Americans, a week before polls close, and show that the Democrats were still in the fight, despite the recent “vibe shift” toward Trump. Tens of thousands would attend. The visuals would be striking.Everything went to plan. Enter Joe Biden.

Thursday

Graeme Thomson

Hard to love – but Shirley Manson is terrific: Garbage, at Usher Hall, reviewed

There’s nothing quite like the drama of a prodigal’s return. ‘I’ve been singing in this venue since I was ten years old,’ announces Shirley Manson, staring down nearly half a century of personal history at Edinburgh’s ornate Usher Hall. The fact that Garbage’s lead singer made the United States her primary residence many years ago lends this homecoming concert added potency. There are shout-outs to her dad, a ‘Happy Birthday’ serenade for her sister and what looks like a tear or two at the start of the encore. A ‘badass’ attitude is so sleekly applied it seems like a Che Guevara T-shirt in the racks at M&S For all the sentiment, it was obvious that Manson was right to leave not just Edinburgh, but the UK.