Is it possible that the Mandelson appointment was no more complicated than "he will cause trouble whatever happens, better that we get him out of London"

In a proportional system where they actually could vote for a candidate they liked, you just know these people would use the fact that that candidate might form a coalition with someone they didn't like as their excuse for not voting

It was extremely annoying after his resignation that talk turned to reform of the vetting system when quite obviously it had done its job and just been ignored

Tonight is also a massive endorsement of the parliamentary system over the presidential system. Even in its corrupted form, the parliamentary election did not give the dictator the opening that a Trump or Bolsonaro or Yoon relied on.

If ever there was an event that reminded us that the Marseillaise is truly the international, rather than French, anthem of democracy, Orban going down is surely it youtu.be/HM-E2H1ChJM?...

I genuinely did not believe this moment would come. Feels completely surreal.

When Stephen Miller said he wanted to do Operation Barbarossa again this is not what he had in mind

The white working class have lost touch with everyday hardworking pundits

It is very funny that the Founders went to such trouble to expressly give the power to declare war to congress, not imagining that this could be circumvented with the cunning deployment of a slightly different definition of the word "war"

Very strangely, the "For You" feed, which was previously quite interesting, has devolved to 100% "Orange Cheeto in the White House", "just reverse Brexit", "heckin doggo" stuff and I have no idea what in my behaviour would have caused it

The Barrie Kosky Ring's interpretation of Fafner, for some reason

"A country that has always tolerated minority faiths" is an extraordinary way to describe a place that built its constitution around Catholic exclusion

The only genuinely fun national rivalry is between France and England and that only works because they're in the extremely unlikely position of having been a. at relatively similar power levels and b. stuck that way for 800 years

If there is hope, it must lie in the fact that the enemies of the liberal order are so profoundly stupid

Amazing how air power has consistently failed to deliver strategic victories despite the promises of its proponents for over a hundred years and yet still politicians will go "maybe this time we can bomb our way to victory"

A lot of Blue Labour amounts to "we are very worried that one bit of our voter coalition finds another bit annoying"

The departure of Noem means Trump's cabinet has only 4 women. There is barely a single woman in the Republican party you could plausibly describe as a future leader. It really does feel striking in a world of Le Pen, Meloni, Takaichi and Weidel.

If you're Your Party at this point what is your pitch exactly? Split the Green vote for... reasons? What is the sincere rationale for anything they're doing?

Genuinely thought this was a yassified Pedro Sanchez for a moment

AOC weighing in on the intra factional situation of the German SPD does not do me any favours in my attempt not to believe politicians are actually my friends

There is something so Old/New Testament about the way Jefferson's promise to America, so utterly corrupted by his own original sin as a slaveholder, could only be redeemed by the coming of Lincoln

You ever stop and think about CASABLANCA? You ever stop and think about "Welcome back to the fight, this time, I know our side will win?" You ever think about a bar full of people defiantly singing La Marseillaise, played by a soundstage full of Jewish refugees? You ever think about CASABLANCA??????

Raising the interesting question of who is the exact opposite candidate for the Dems: "honest crusader" vibes to the left and "down-home middle American" to swing voters?

I was told I would love Fallout: New Vegas but I couldn't play more than two hours because of how relentlessly brown the colour palette was

A very basic bit of media training is "don't start an anecdote if you don't know where it's going"

There is a comparative history to be written of Hollande, Scholz, Biden and Starmer, last gasps of centre left politics who had done their time in their respective organisations only to reach the top and face a historic rightwing surge with zero aptitude or urgency

Is it possible that Emerald Fennell might not actually be very good and has got to where she is by knowing the right people?

Keir Starmer is NOT interested in communication Keir Starmer is NOT interested in vision Keir Starmer is NOT interested in policy Keir Starmer is NOT interested in politics Keir Starmer is ONLY interested in destroying alpacas

The flaw in the McSweeney/Starmer project can be summed up with "the people whose pitch to the electorate was they were serious also had no interest in policy", and when stated that bluntly it seems extraordinary it got this far

Unfortunately the lesson here would appear to be "only appoint a chief of staff you went to school with"

In a world of depressing democratic outcomes nothing so consistently depresses me as the Japanese dutifully voting for the LDP because they just sort of feel they have to

The case for governing for the voters you have - a few discrete policies for the left-liberal 30% - is one of actually proving anyone can still *govern*. The paralysis of May, Johnson, Sunak, Starmer all start from the grasp for the election-winning 40% coalition that may now be impossible anyway.

The through-line of Starmer's problems, whether not realising Mandelson might be a bit off or not realising that he was accidentally echoing the Rivers of Blood speech, is that he just isn't very interested in politics

The idea that unimaginable wealth is every bit as tedious a life as the one you currently have, that there is no higher plane of experience waiting over the rainbow, must be genuinely existentially terrifying to the multitudes for whom wealth acquisition is the Dream

I really have become convinced by the "It's All Content" theory of American politics. Everything the Administration does is about producing content. Arresting Don Lemon may seem like transparently clumsy authoritarianism which will backfire - but think of the likes they'll get! More content! More!

I do get the feeling that Brexit for a certain generation of liberals has just become a more polite excuse for saying "things ain't what they used to be"

The reason I don't buy "liberals annoyed people into right-wing backlash" is that the entire world is shifting to the right and you need to be quite credulous to believe that this is a result of liberals suddenly being equally annoying everywhere all at the same time

I don't think the US Left has fully clocked that previous leftists could reject "America" because there was an alternative. With the departure of any meaningful socialist identity, they have to be pro-"American" because it literally the only flag you could plausibly get people to rally round.

I hate to be back on the "everything bad can be traced back to Angela Merkel" train but there is a particular pernicious influence she has had in making Boring Competence (tm) into an appealing brand to people who should know better

Watching Lutnick reminds me of the moment in Paths of Glory where Kirk Douglas listens to the WWI general explain that shooting your own men is a good idea and simply replies "do you believe anything you have just said"

Don't mess with Flemish nationalists I guess. Those guys have to be *dedicated*

- a local thegn, as Heretog Sceaphierde tries to raise the alarm about events in Lindisfarne

I consider myself someone who listens to podcasts but feel like I must be missing out on the real deal because I have no idea what these kinds of sketches are parodying

I'm not sure the people who want authentic arms and armour in Homeric adaptations have clocked that would mean men just literally hitting each other with rocks

"The weapons, armor, and tactics make no sense here; they're from a bunch of different eras!" is something people realized about the ACTUAL HOMER like a century ago. At least.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point however is to fail to change it.

The European welfare state is more a Christian Democratic achievement than a socialist one! I beg her to read a single book!