Miserabilism

Parlementary ideas invariably evinced that most thoroughgoing national miserabilism which had impressed poor Damiens [...].

A beautiful-looking slice of British miserabilism, “Fish Tank” traces what happens to a 15-year-old (Katie Jarvis) when her mother’s boyfriend moves into the family’s cramped flat, a story that can be summed up by the lyrics, sung by Nas, that portentously bring the accumulated bleak moments to a close: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

Nobody will ever 'fix' the internet, just as nobody will ever fix the world. But this has never justified giving in to miserabilism about life offline.

The term “performative miserabilism” has been coined to explain France’s confusing penchant towards self-cynicism.

Since he arrived there, he’s delivered a lot of words about the direness of the inheritance from the Tories and accompanied this with the warning that things are going to get worse before they get better. Can the Labour conference, which opens on Sunday in Liverpool, expect a further deluge of miserabilism or will he have some more optimistic things to say to his party and to the public?