I always thought Liz Truss was fairly right-wing but not quite as right-wing as this.
You were probably right, at the time.
I once thought @williamglenn was a Liberal Remainer. You live and learn.
His positions are consistent: you can be both a (very disillusioned) European nationalist and an American nationalist on the basis you think it's good to have two powerful Western superpowers that stand on their own two feet.
For some real damage to be done, a diligent journalist needs to ask Donald Trump who he would advise people to vote for in the British general election. If Trump says the Conservatives, then the Conservatives will get hammered. And if he says Reform ... then the Conservatives will get hammered.
Despite whatever advice he is given, his vanity will ensure that he answers the question - but I think we can all agree that he is unlikely to recommend Labour or the Lib Dems....
I bet Trump has never even heard of Reform. I think he would be hard pushed to say what party runs the UK government at the moment.
He knows (or at least has met) Nigel Farage.
That said, who the hell knows what he'd say. He doesn't seem to know who the President of Mexico is, so it's highly unlikely he knows Sunak is PM, and it seems even less likely he will know who Reform is.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
If a party emerged with the goal of making Britain more like Estonia, you would denounce it as being from the extreme far right.
Estonia has a Liberal Government and A Liberal Opposition.
A lot of Tories wilfully misunderstand how things work here. In fact Estonia has pretty much enacted the Lib Dem manifesto 20 years ago.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
What possible reason would he have for doing that?
It amuses him, to see the little people sculling around trying to process his latest pronouncement? Like white mice, running around an impossible maze, seeking cheese that isn't there.
Sorry. I thought you were asking why Osborne has done this.
For some real damage to be done, a diligent journalist needs to ask Donald Trump who he would advise people to vote for in the British general election. If Trump says the Conservatives, then the Conservatives will get hammered. And if he says Reform ... then the Conservatives will get hammered.
Despite whatever advice he is given, his vanity will ensure that he answers the question - but I think we can all agree that he is unlikely to recommend Labour or the Lib Dems....
I bet Trump has never even heard of Reform. I think he would be hard pushed to say what party runs the UK government at the moment.
He knows (or at least has met) Nigel Farage.
That said, who the hell knows what he'd say. He doesn't seem to know who the President of Mexico is, so it's highly unlikely he knows Sunak is PM, and it seems even less likely he will know who Reform is.
The prospect of senior Tories popping up in America shilling for Trump during a UK election campaign can't be discounted as a factor in our election timing.
In what way do you mean? Given the unpopularity of Trump in the UK to expect Sunak and co might be willing to go earlier to avoid the site of Liz and others stumping obviously for the orange one?
I always thought Liz Truss was fairly right-wing but not quite as right-wing as this.
She knows which direction the Tories are headed. Fantasy land.
As with her brief premiership she might be right about what they want to do and where they are headed, but launches into the extreme end of that rather than head head vaguely that way.
From John Gray. "If he returns to front-line British politics, Farage will focus on challenging policies that cannot be democratically legitimated. Uncontrolled immigration and environmentalist nostrums that accelerate the decline in living standards by raising the cost of energy will be his principal targets. Populism at present is the return to politics of questions a progressive consensus has proscribed as irrational or immoral. Voters who pose these questions are dismissed as simpletons blindly obeying demagogic “dog-whistles”. As in Europe, the effect of treating one’s fellow citizens with patronising contempt is to secure the political space in which populists operate"
I don't think there is any real 'centrist consensus', you just have governments who cannot really govern and a lot of volatility.
“ – the destructive impact of free trade and mass immigration on the economic security of workers”
What I struggled with, and I still don’t really feel I’ve heard a satisfactory answer, is how left wingers who deride a free market agenda were ok, to put it mildly, with Freedom of Movement, when they are seemingly part of the same thing.
Immigration has doubled since Freedom of Movement was ended. FoM was a red herring.
That doesn’t really have anything to do with my bafflement at people being anti free market but pro FOM
Why is it baffling . FOM with the EU was for many the best thing about the EU. The economic side less of an issue .
I suppose perhaps not linking FOM with economics is why Remain lost. That link was a huge reason why there was a referendum in the first place
Freedom of Movement was sold as nasty foreigners clogging up schools and hospitals. No one told us we would have to queue with the Russians at Alicante Airport.
For some real damage to be done, a diligent journalist needs to ask Donald Trump who he would advise people to vote for in the British general election. If Trump says the Conservatives, then the Conservatives will get hammered. And if he says Reform ... then the Conservatives will get hammered.
Despite whatever advice he is given, his vanity will ensure that he answers the question - but I think we can all agree that he is unlikely to recommend Labour or the Lib Dems....
I bet Trump has never even heard of Reform. I think he would be hard pushed to say what party runs the UK government at the moment.
He knows (or at least has met) Nigel Farage.
That said, who the hell knows what he'd say. He doesn't seem to know who the President of Mexico is, so it's highly unlikely he knows Sunak is PM, and it seems even less likely he will know who Reform is.
For some real damage to be done, a diligent journalist needs to ask Donald Trump who he would advise people to vote for in the British general election. If Trump says the Conservatives, then the Conservatives will get hammered. And if he says Reform ... then the Conservatives will get hammered.
Despite whatever advice he is given, his vanity will ensure that he answers the question - but I think we can all agree that he is unlikely to recommend Labour or the Lib Dems....
I bet Trump has never even heard of Reform. I think he would be hard pushed to say what party runs the UK government at the moment.
If he were asked the question about our election I'm sure he would respond 'Which ones are Pro-Trump?', so he might well say Reform, even if only after he is informed who they are.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
What possible reason would he have for doing that?
He is good at his job
Keir will have somewhere between 300-400 MPs to choose from, I am sure he can find one who can do the job well. Even if Sunak apparently couldn't from the 350 he had to choose from.
From John Gray. "If he returns to front-line British politics, Farage will focus on challenging policies that cannot be democratically legitimated. Uncontrolled immigration and environmentalist nostrums that accelerate the decline in living standards by raising the cost of energy will be his principal targets. Populism at present is the return to politics of questions a progressive consensus has proscribed as irrational or immoral. Voters who pose these questions are dismissed as simpletons blindly obeying demagogic “dog-whistles”. As in Europe, the effect of treating one’s fellow citizens with patronising contempt is to secure the political space in which populists operate"
I don't think there is any real 'centrist consensus', you just have governments who cannot really govern and a lot of volatility.
“ – the destructive impact of free trade and mass immigration on the economic security of workers”
What I struggled with, and I still don’t really feel I’ve heard a satisfactory answer, is how left wingers who deride a free market agenda were ok, to put it mildly, with Freedom of Movement, when they are seemingly part of the same thing.
Immigration has doubled since Freedom of Movement was ended. FoM was a red herring.
And has this increase in immigration been opposed by left wingers?
Given that they were The Opposition, I'd go with "yes". Of course, since immigration levels are set by Government in Whitehall and not by Parliament in Westminster, there would have been very little they could do, not being in Government and that.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Haven’t seen Masters of the air yet, will do eventually as my grandfather was a bomber pilot in WW2 so grew up on very guarded tales of his experiences but will be interested to see if it’s Band of Brothers or The Pacific.
What I mean by the comparisons is that I loved Band of Brothers as it was very focussed on the soldiers and the war but I didn’t like The Pacific because it felt too soap opera like with the layers of the home front, relationships with the girls etc etc when if they had focussed on the war side it would have been brutal but personally more enjoyable.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
He's great on Ukraine.
When he gets into this it's opinions are like arseholes stuff.
On Polling. One thing that’s being proved wrong - collapse of the SNP under its new leader, who was supposed to be useless and prove a disaster wasn’t he? Under this leader, and in spite in how criminally corrupt the old leadership appears to have been, the SNP are still polling strongly. Their polling numbers look healthy, the number of seats they retain at General Election could prove very healthy as well.
On every Scottish Westminster poll this year the SNP are polling well below 2019 so will certainly lose seats, indeed on all but 1 poll they are even polling worse than 2017 when they lost 21 seats. So this will almost certainly be the worst UK general election result for the SNP since 2010 and could even see Labour win more Scottish seats than them. Indeed the latest Redfield Scottish figures have Scottish Labour ahead of the SNP now
Wait. Can you see, you are proving my point with the bare facts?
Down on 2019, even 1 poll saying down on 2017 - what does that mean, when those years were so fantastic for SNP seat return?
And you say “only one poll has Labour ahead of SNP”? It’s not a poll or seat collapse is it, despite everything thrown at them and portents of doom, it’s very sticky in fact.
And why? Malc suggests it’s despite some good reason not to vote SNP at this time, nothing else truly appeals or inspires in order to seal the vote switch.
Getting this deep into General Election year, political betting wise it looks like another large bloc of SNP in the next parliament isn’t it? Not much helping hand for Starmer coming over Hadrians Wall.
Even if Scottish Labour only get to half or close to half the seats in Scotland that greatly reduces the number of seats in England they need for a UK majority while also weakening the number of SNP MPs able to push the case for independence
Looks neck and neck between the En Marche candidate to succeed Macron and Le Pen then.
However if Melenchon gets to the run off with her, Le Pen can measure up the Elysee Palace drapes!
Is Macron not allowed to stand again?
Correct French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in comments at a meeting with party leaders on Wednesday.
According to the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Macron said it was “damnable bullshit that one could not be reelected,” words that were also confirmed to the AFP news agency by two participants.
Now, if he were an authoritarian leader he'd either change the constitution in some way and get a court to say that means the one or more terms do not count (The Erdogan method), or just ignore it completely (The Bukele method).
Closer than I expected. Macron's party is a subscription party that is one person deep: it doesn't have success at the local or regional level, and when Macron goes it goes with it (see also Farage and UKIP/Brexit party). I assume MLP will win but I thought it would be by a wider margin.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Too many episodes that waste too much time?
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
What possible reason would he have for doing that?
He's the best man for the job.
It'll will show his big tent politics.
I know you're joking, but why would either of those be sufficient political reason to do it?
There's an argument that Lord Cameron is integral to building some of the current alliances in Europe and the world against Putin and the Middle East that November is not the right time to change Foreign Secretary.
I wouldn't expect him to be Foreign Secretary for the entirety of Starmer's first term but for a few months.
Best analogy would be Barack Obama retaining Robert Gates as Defence Secretary when he became President because it was the best thing.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
OK, here's a question. You have the skillset to improve it. What would you do to fix it? Band of Brothers was saved by good characters, great actors, and some good scenes. The Pacific was doomed by unsympathetic characters (Rami Malek's character made my skin crawl). What's killing MOTA?
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
OK, here's a question. You have the skillset to improve it. What would you do to fix it? Band of Brothers was saved by good characters, great actors, and some good scenes. The Pacific was doomed by unsympathetic characters (Rami Malek's character made my skin crawl). What's killing MOTA?
It's turned something epic into as tedious as changing trains at Stoke-on-Trent.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Too many episodes that waste too much time?
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
Given all the terrible shows with only 6-12 episodes I don't know that the format forces writers to develop good stories at pace.
I think the theory is generally sound, I think for narrative driven stuff 10-12 is a good number (though shorter stuff like Chernobyl can be excellent), but I'm not sure if it actually holds up as a rule.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Haven’t seen Masters of the air yet, will do eventually as my grandfather was a bomber pilot in WW2 so grew up on very guarded tales of his experiences but will be interested to see if it’s Band of Brothers or The Pacific.
What I mean by the comparisons is that I loved Band of Brothers as it was very focussed on the soldiers and the war but I didn’t like The Pacific because it felt too soap opera like with the layers of the home front, relationships with the girls etc etc when if they had focussed on the war side it would have been brutal but personally more enjoyable.
It’s far worse than BAND OF BROTHERS and it is considerably worse than THE PACIFIC
It’s Muzak tv. Stuff you can watch while cooking, or chatting on the phone, a form of animated wallpaper
It seems in yesterday's locals, whilst losing 1 to labour and 1 to lib dems, the conservstives retained the rest and actuslly took one off from SNP in Jedburgh.
I think it may be @stodge who is well versed in locals and it would be interesting to have his take on it
It seems in yesterday's locals, whilst losing 1 to labour and 1 to lib dems, the conservstives retained the rest and actuslly took one off from SNP in Jedburgh.
I think it may be @stodge who is well versed in locals and it would be interesting to have his take on it
Quirk of main elections being single transferable vote and by elections being first past the post, I think.
There were enough SNP votes to win one seat out of three (and the Conservatives already had the other two), but not one out of one.
Indeed. The Cons will be expected to win a FPTP in that seat, given that the first seat in the multiple ward always goes to them. They won the first seat on the slate last time, so this is nothing very different in terms of seats.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Too many episodes that waste too much time?
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
Given all the terrible shows with only 6-12 episodes I don't know that the format forces writers to develop good stories at pace.
I think the theory is generally sound, I think for narrative driven stuff 10-12 is a good number (though shorter stuff like Chernobyl can be excellent), but I'm not sure if it actually holds up as a rule.
It's a fair point that it's perfectly possible to create crap short series as well.
I loved Chernobyl. Excellent from start to finish and treated its audience with intelligence.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
OK, here's a question. You have the skillset to improve it. What would you do to fix it? Band of Brothers was saved by good characters, great actors, and some good scenes. The Pacific was doomed by unsympathetic characters (Rami Malek's character made my skin crawl). What's killing MOTA?
Rami Makek’s character was fine in a way to show a snapshot of the breadth of the make up of the marines. He’s a proper guttersnipe, poorly educated, rude, snarky, bad mannered and he’s alongside the nerdy, white bread, educated and privileged character and then various degrees in between.
Closer than I expected. Macron's party is a subscription party that is one person deep: it doesn't have success at the local or regional level, and when Macron goes it goes with it (see also Farage and UKIP/Brexit party). I assume MLP will win but I thought it would be by a wider margin.
French politics is very different to ours and most other countries. The party is just not a strong “thing”. Nobody has loyalty to the party, they have loyalty to the ideology. As true of the RN as the Républicains or any other party.
So nobody’s going to care about the disappearance of RE. The fact it’s changed its name twice already, the far right have rebranded once and the centre right have rebranded about a squillion times is neither here nor there.
Chukka Umunna should have been a French politician. He’d have done well.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
OK, here's a question. You have the skillset to improve it. What would you do to fix it? Band of Brothers was saved by good characters, great actors, and some good scenes. The Pacific was doomed by unsympathetic characters (Rami Malek's character made my skin crawl). What's killing MOTA?
The Pacific worked well in two parts: the Leckie bit and the Sledge bit. John Basilone sort of managed to fit around it too.
I always watched it with the pre-veteran intros that made it too. For MOTA I suspect sadly that wasn't possible because they're no longer around.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Too many episodes that waste too much time?
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
Given all the terrible shows with only 6-12 episodes I don't know that the format forces writers to develop good stories at pace.
I think the theory is generally sound, I think for narrative driven stuff 10-12 is a good number (though shorter stuff like Chernobyl can be excellent), but I'm not sure if it actually holds up as a rule.
It's a fair point that it's perfectly possible to create crap short series as well.
I loved Chernobyl. Excellent from start to finish and treated its audience with intelligence.
I've rarely been so absorbed by a piece of television. Still get chills - "What is the cost of lies?" indeed.
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
If you think your meagre earnings from pot boilers and rants give you any particular validation, then clearly you really need to grow up.
In fact all it does is allow you to publicly parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. Issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because the hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t,.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
It is the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. It is tomorrow, but the holiday has already started. Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
Has William complained? Does he have an issue with people reacting strongly to what he will know is not a popular stance?
I agree he's an asset, but does he need a white knight?
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
Let’s hope he doesn’t flounce off vowing never to return.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
If you think your meagre earnings from pot boilers and rants give you any particular validation then clearly you really need to grow up.
In fact all it it does is allow you to parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because he hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
Its the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. Its tomorrow, but the holiday has already started. Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
3 day war, Shirley?
I was interested by the idea that Putins miscalculation was as the result of the loyalty of Ukrainians to their country. Many senior officials were approached by the FSB - nearly all of them went straight to Ukrainian Intelligence and agreed to work a double game.
So Putin thought the entire elite of Ukraine was selling out. Instead of them, nearly entirely, being loyal to their country.
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
Let’s hope he doesn’t flounce off vowing never to return.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
There's a modest self effacing guy on here who has been predicting this for a while.
If you want bizarre predictions for Starmer's first ministry, Wes Streeting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the excuse being that Rachel Reeves has a perceived conflict of interest with her other half being a top civil servant economist.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
If you think your meagre earnings from pot boilers and rants give you any particular validation, then clearly you really need to grow up.
In fact all it does is allow you to publicly parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. Issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because the hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t,.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
It is the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. It is tomorrow, but the holiday has already started. Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
A long fart follow by very smelly diarrhoea being deposited in the pan.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
There's a modest self effacing guy on here who has been predicting this for a while.
If you want bizarre predictions for Starmer's first ministry, Wes Streeting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the excuse being that Rachel Reeves has a perceived conflict of interest with her other half being a top civil servant economist.
The best Chancellors are Cambridge men, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke.
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
Has William complained? Does he have an issue with people reacting strongly to what he will know is not a popular stance?
I agree he's an asset, but does he need a white knight?
He's too secure an individual to complain.
But everyone has a limit and if he went, he'd go suddenly.
If this site is going to be filled with people having a go at him then, firstly, I don't think that's on and, secondly, I want him to know some of us think differently.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Surprised to hear you say that, and good on you for doing so.
I could predict exactly how that scene was going to play out from the second it started.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
There's a modest self effacing guy on here who has been predicting this for a while.
If you want bizarre predictions for Starmer's first ministry, Wes Streeting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the excuse being that Rachel Reeves has a perceived conflict of interest with her other half being a top civil servant economist.
The best Chancellors are Cambridge men, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke.
But the conflict of interest is a nonsense.
I said excuse, not reason. Anyway, this will give Reeves Cammo's job and posh house in Kent.
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
There's a modest self effacing guy on here who has been predicting this for a while.
If you want bizarre predictions for Starmer's first ministry, Wes Streeting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the excuse being that Rachel Reeves has a perceived conflict of interest with her other half being a top civil servant economist.
The best Chancellors are Cambridge men, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke.
But the conflict of interest is a nonsense.
I said excuse, not reason. Anyway, this will give Reeves Cammo's job and posh house in Kent.
Chevening is lovely.
I am tempted to become an MP so I can become Foreign Secretary and live at Chevening.
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
If you think your meagre earnings from pot boilers and rants give you any particular validation, then clearly you really need to grow up.
In fact all it does is allow you to publicly parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. Issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because the hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t,.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
It is the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. It is tomorrow, but the holiday has already started. Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
It seems in yesterday's locals, whilst losing 1 to labour and 1 to lib dems, the conservstives retained the rest and actuslly took one off from SNP in Jedburgh.
I think it may be @stodge who is well versed in locals and it would be interesting to have his take on it
A mixed bag of results in all honesty, all friend.
The Romney Marsh contest had a veritable cornucopia of candidates and the Conservative held the seat with 24.2% of the vote so make of that what you will.
I suspect the LDs will be disappointed not to have won one of the two Buckinghamshire contests but the worse of the two prospects is the one moving into Chesham & Amersham so I suspect the effort was put in there but the presence of a local Independent made it an intriguing three way contest.
In Hazelmere (not Haslemere in Surrey), the swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat was just shy of 10% and in terms of the defence of C&A decent for the LDs. In Farnham (not Farnham in Surrey) Common & Burnham Beeches, the swing was more like 5% and the Conservative vote held up very well. There may be more Conservatives on Buckinghamshire Council than in the House of Commons by the end of the year.
Elsewhere, a 17% swing in Calne secured an easy LD win. Calne is going into the revised Chippenham constituency so it augurs well for an LD win in the seat.
The Milton Keynes result showed a swing to the Conservatives from Labour of 1.7% since last May suggesting the 2024 local election round won't be as bad in terms of vote share but coming off the high base of 2021 still suggests losses for the Conservatives.
As for the two Derbyshire Dales seats, Norbury (not the one in Croydon) is very strong Conservative territory. Even last year, the Conservative got 58% and this time 63% but I'm not sure how much to read into that. Bakewell was the more interesting result - the first time Labour has ever won a council seat in the town. The councillor who stood down had a high personal vote - the two elected Conservatives last year had 1,011 and 581 votes respectively.
Without that vote, Bakewell looked marginal and so it proved as 581-526 became 452-467 so not a big swing from last year but enough to tip the seat. Is Derbyshire Dales in any way marginal? Labour needs a 17.5% swing to take the seat and on current polling you wouldn't rule it out.
Both We Think and Techne showed little change - the swing on We Think is 16% but add in tactical voting and Sarah Dines (if she stands again) could be facing, as Harold McMIllan put it "a little local difficulty".
As the frilly fascists on the Tory right come out for Donald Trump, I can not help wondering what happened to the actual Conservatives in the Tory Party. The overwhelming majority of people in the UK would not vote for Trump if he was the last man on earth. So, when faced with late converts to the orange traitor, even the tiny minority that think that DJT isn´t fascist dog dirt are not going to vote Tory, though maybe some will vote for Farage, who has at least been a consistent backer of the fake tan swine.
For Truss, Johnson et al, It is not just the crawling to a total bastard that makes these cretins unelectable, it is the utterly pathetic way they make themselves look.
The only good thing about these craven assholes is the way they are driving Conservative voters away from the Tory brand at a fair rate of knots. Last night´s local by elections showing the Lib Dems winning in places like Wilts that used to be Tory heartlands shows that more clearly than ever.
UK Conservatism is dying in front of us. Sad days.
And I don’t mean in terms of polling slump, that goes in cycles anyway, I mean in a distinct philosophy, how they see the world and decisions they make.
Yes, I think what we are witnessing is the full transformation of the Tory party into a party of the populist right. From a party of the old, broad-based establishment and its prosperous hinterland to a party of a new and much more aggressive elite allied to the angry, a new coalition tied together by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Any One Nation conservatives really have to be aware, this is not the Tory party of old. The end game is Farage as party leader, backed by money from people like Paul Marshall and various US and other foreign sources. Truss is positioning herself for the new dispensation.
The regeneration started playing out a while back, but it's getting inescapable now. See the way that Sunak is regarded as a hopeless wet by many of the new Conservatives.
Thought experiment. Suppose the Conservatives lose this year and (this is the hard bit) get overtaken by an urge to move towards the centre. Who do they have who could lead the party in that direction? The best I can come up with is Tom Tugendhat, which kind of highlights the problem.
My prediciton is that the centre ground will be further right under Starmer than it is now under the Tories.
In 5-10 years the centre ground in UK politics will be waaaaay to the right of the sunakite Tories
We have merely delayed our Le Pen Moment with Brexit. It’s still coming
A wish is not a claim upon reality.
In fact the dunderheaded Tories have failed to put forward any programme that could be dignified with the name of "Philosophy". They spout random populist slogans, often stolen from MAGA, or unworkable drivel like "Rwanda", which have little relevance to anyone beyond CCHQ or Doughty St. The real problems of administration are way too difficult for a Truss, Johnson or Shapps to grasp, even in outline, and even the pseudo-managerialism of Sunak just underlines how utterly inept and out of touch the right wing has become.
Yet some kind of realignment may well be coming. The empty slogans of vacuous and self interested right wing think tanks have been completely discredited, which means that some serious, Keith Joseph style, intellectual energy must be deployed. Perhaps traditionalists like Tugenhat might foster such a rebirth, but it is just as likely that the Tories may face an existential crisis and a whole new entity emerges as the clowns drift off towards Reform MAGAism, British style, and the centrists either re-found or reform the Conservatives, as happened in Canada after the Kim Campbell debacle. If so, at least 10-15 years out of power awaits. So, hardly a new right force here.
But such populism in both the US and the UK is visibly wilting under its own contradictions, and sending the right down a populist rabbit hole guarantees that they never return to power. So sure, yes, maybe the Tory centre of gravity heads rightwards, but if so, they become unelectable... ever. As for the UK, the populist spell is breaking and I see no interest in the shrill garbage of Truss, Mogg, Johnson or anyone else of that ilk.
It would be a fantastic irony if it turns out that Brexit has actually killed the Tory right as political force.
I feel sorry for you. Not getting paid per word. You actually write all this shit for free
If you think your meagre earnings from pot boilers and rants give you any particular validation, then clearly you really need to grow up.
In fact all it does is allow you to publicly parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. Issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because the hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t,.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
It is the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. It is tomorrow, but the holiday has already started. Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
A long fart follow by very smelly diarrhoea being deposited in the pan.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
I agree with you on this. Masters of the Air very disappointing.
It looks okay. It’s soulless. 😕
It’s bizarrely banal
A complete absence of character story arc. You don’t root for anyone, because you don’t know who they are - so why should you care about them??! This is scriptwriting gcse - make us care - save the cat - yet it hasn’t happened. Why??
Everything else is fine. High quality cinematography etc
I have a theory as to why this is. And why it infests a lot of recent tv/movies
Might make a good Gazette article
Too many episodes that waste too much time?
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
Given all the terrible shows with only 6-12 episodes I don't know that the format forces writers to develop good stories at pace.
I think the theory is generally sound, I think for narrative driven stuff 10-12 is a good number (though shorter stuff like Chernobyl can be excellent), but I'm not sure if it actually holds up as a rule.
It's a fair point that it's perfectly possible to create crap short series as well.
I loved Chernobyl. Excellent from start to finish and treated its audience with intelligence.
I've rarely been so absorbed by a piece of television. Still get chills - "What is the cost of lies?" indeed.
The heroism of those who sacrificed themselves to save us from a much greater tragedy was incredibly moving, indeed upsetting.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Yes, it’s quite peculiar
They’ve got all the Spielbergian ingredients on the table - the poorer ethnic yanks, the posh good looking ones, the feel good British kids, the villainous toff RAF chaps, even a likeable Irish navvy (??) - it’s a cliche but it can really work - yet it all completely falls flat
Like they had the ingredients for a great pizza then suddenly tried to make soufflé - with predictably dire results
It’s not lack of money. The battle scenes are sometimes brilliant - momentarily. It’s a mix of bad writing, mediocre acting, and something deeper. A loss of artistic nerve somewhere
Are you listening Truss and others, that is the one nation conservatives I can vote for
On his podcast, George Osborne has this week suggested Sir Keir retains Cammo as Foreign Secretary in a new Labour government.
Interesting idea.
There's a modest self effacing guy on here who has been predicting this for a while.
If you want bizarre predictions for Starmer's first ministry, Wes Streeting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the excuse being that Rachel Reeves has a perceived conflict of interest with her other half being a top civil servant economist.
The best Chancellors are Cambridge men, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Ken Clarke.
But the conflict of interest is a nonsense.
I said excuse, not reason. Anyway, this will give Reeves Cammo's job and posh house in Kent.
Chevening is lovely.
I am tempted to become an MP so I can become Foreign Secretary and live at Chevening.
Problem is that as a Tory you would have to wait at least 10 years.
On a complete tangent, as a regular reader of the Racing Post, it's been fascinating to see the hyperbole about affordability checks which has reached a crescendo today in advance of a debate in Parliament on Monday.
Basically, the great and the good in racing and betting want the Government and the Gambling Commission to stay out of the betting market.
In the same RP today, Peter Savil writes about how easy it is to run a racecourse which, thanks to media rights and other funding, is a licence to print money. "It would be very hard not to make a profit running a racecourse" sayeth the owner of the great CELTIC SWING.
Of course, charging exorbitant admission prices and gouging the racegoer for food and drink is another way to make money. Strangely, in his "I'm all right, Pete" rant the racegoer isn't mentioned. It's all about the British Horseracing Authority and how much money his racecourse gets.
Strangely symptomatic of how the current economic model works.
They really don’t have very many of those left apparently, so losing another one is going to be something of a problem for the Russians. Losing it to friendly fire is just icing on that particular cake...
Actually the scene in MOTA where the American duffs up the posh English RAF guy is worth focusing on as it shows the problems of the whole series
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Yes, it’s quite peculiar
They’ve got all the Spielbergian ingredients on the table - the poorer ethnic yanks, the posh good looking ones, the feel good British kids, the villainous toff RAF chaps, even a likeable Irish navvy (??) - it’s a cliche but it can really work - yet it all completely falls flat
Like they had the ingredients for a great pizza then suddenly tried to make soufflé - with predictably dire results
It’s not lack of money. The battle scenes are sometimes brilliant - momentarily. It’s a mix of bad writing, mediocre acting, and something deeper. A loss of artistic nerve somewhere
I haven't seen it (and probably won't for a long while), but I recently listened to a long podcast interview with the main writer, who was also a writer on Band of Brothers and the Pacific. From memory, he spent ten years researching and writing it, so he won't like the 'bad writing' bit!
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Yes, it’s quite peculiar
They’ve got all the Spielbergian ingredients on the table - the poorer ethnic yanks, the posh good looking ones, the feel good British kids, the villainous toff RAF chaps, even a likeable Irish navvy (??) - it’s a cliche but it can really work - yet it all completely falls flat
Like they had the ingredients for a great pizza then suddenly tried to make soufflé - with predictably dire results
It’s not lack of money. The battle scenes are sometimes brilliant - momentarily. It’s a mix of bad writing, mediocre acting, and something deeper. A loss of artistic nerve somewhere
It’s just bad writing.
Game of Thrones and Star Wars were kazillion dollar properties driven into walls by bad writing of the most bizarre, juvenile kind.
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Yes, it’s quite peculiar
They’ve got all the Spielbergian ingredients on the table - the poorer ethnic yanks, the posh good looking ones, the feel good British kids, the villainous toff RAF chaps, even a likeable Irish navvy (??) - it’s a cliche but it can really work - yet it all completely falls flat
Like they had the ingredients for a great pizza then suddenly tried to make soufflé - with predictably dire results
It’s not lack of money. The battle scenes are sometimes brilliant - momentarily. It’s a mix of bad writing, mediocre acting, and something deeper. A loss of artistic nerve somewhere
It’s just bad writing.
Game of Thrones and Star Wars were kazillion dollar properties driven into walls by bad writing of the most bizarre, juvenile kind.
Bad acting with good writing can work.
Bad acting doesn’t help
The contrast with the main character in Band of Brothers - Damian Lewis - is painful. In BOB, Lewis is nuanced, agonised, sympathetic, and flawed. You root for him but you see his darkness: he’s a fabulous actor and that really helps
These guys in MOTA are like cartoon characters in comparison. 2D and flat. Could be anyone
It seems in yesterday's locals, whilst losing 1 to labour and 1 to lib dems, the conservstives retained the rest and actuslly took one off from SNP in Jedburgh.
I think it may be @stodge who is well versed in locals and it would be interesting to have his take on it
A mixed bag of results in all honesty, all friend.
The Romney Marsh contest had a veritable cornucopia of candidates and the Conservative held the seat with 24.2% of the vote so make of that what you will.
I suspect the LDs will be disappointed not to have won one of the two Buckinghamshire contests but the worse of the two prospects is the one moving into Chesham & Amersham so I suspect the effort was put in there but the presence of a local Independent made it an intriguing three way contest.
In Hazelmere (not Haslemere in Surrey), the swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat was just shy of 10% and in terms of the defence of C&A decent for the LDs. In Farnham (not Farnham in Surrey) Common & Burnham Beeches, the swing was more like 5% and the Conservative vote held up very well. There may be more Conservatives on Buckinghamshire Council than in the House of Commons by the end of the year.
Elsewhere, a 17% swing in Calne secured an easy LD win. Calne is going into the revised Chippenham constituency so it augurs well for an LD win in the seat.
The Milton Keynes result showed a swing to the Conservatives from Labour of 1.7% since last May suggesting the 2024 local election round won't be as bad in terms of vote share but coming off the high base of 2021 still suggests losses for the Conservatives.
As for the two Derbyshire Dales seats, Norbury (not the one in Croydon) is very strong Conservative territory. Even last year, the Conservative got 58% and this time 63% but I'm not sure how much to read into that. Bakewell was the more interesting result - the first time Labour has ever won a council seat in the town. The councillor who stood down had a high personal vote - the two elected Conservatives last year had 1,011 and 581 votes respectively.
Without that vote, Bakewell looked marginal and so it proved as 581-526 became 452-467 so not a big swing from last year but enough to tip the seat. Is Derbyshire Dales in any way marginal? Labour needs a 17.5% swing to take the seat and on current polling you wouldn't rule it out.
Both We Think and Techne showed little change - the swing on We Think is 16% but add in tactical voting and Sarah Dines (if she stands again) could be facing, as Harold McMIllan put it "a little local difficulty".
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Piece of Cake was pretty good, as far as I recall.
From John Gray. "If he returns to front-line British politics, Farage will focus on challenging policies that cannot be democratically legitimated. Uncontrolled immigration and environmentalist nostrums that accelerate the decline in living standards by raising the cost of energy will be his principal targets. Populism at present is the return to politics of questions a progressive consensus has proscribed as irrational or immoral. Voters who pose these questions are dismissed as simpletons blindly obeying demagogic “dog-whistles”. As in Europe, the effect of treating one’s fellow citizens with patronising contempt is to secure the political space in which populists operate"
I don't think there is any real 'centrist consensus', you just have governments who cannot really govern and a lot of volatility.
“ – the destructive impact of free trade and mass immigration on the economic security of workers”
What I struggled with, and I still don’t really feel I’ve heard a satisfactory answer, is how left wingers who deride a free market agenda were ok, to put it mildly, with Freedom of Movement, when they are seemingly part of the same thing.
Immigration has doubled since Freedom of Movement was ended. FoM was a red herring.
That doesn’t really have anything to do with my bafflement at people being anti free market but pro FOM
Why is it baffling . FOM with the EU was for many the best thing about the EU. The economic side less of an issue .
I suppose perhaps not linking FOM with economics is why Remain lost. That link was a huge reason why there was a referendum in the first place
Freedom of Movement was sold as nasty foreigners clogging up schools and hospitals. No one told us we would have to queue with the Russians at Alicante Airport.
!
Some foreigners are nastier than others, some foreigners are nastier than others, some foreigners mothers are nastier than other foreigners mothers
Actually the scene in MOTA where the American duffs up the posh English RAF guy is worth focusing on as it shows the problems of the whole series
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
There has to be a bit where the Brits are shown as a bit pathetic. The BoB part that irritated the shit out of me was when they helped the Paras cross the river and it spins out to the Paras drinking and praising the Americans because the Brits just can’t do anything themselves.
They don’t actually seem to be able to show the fact that there were as many very capable, tough and solid British troops around doing the same thing the Americans were. It’s a weird cultural cringe they have where they have to give us a kick.
Actually the scene in MOTA where the American duffs up the posh English RAF guy is worth focusing on as it shows the problems of the whole series
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
I must admit I’m a little disappointed with it.
I think you make a good point about the masks. You don’t know who’s who and even when you do the mask hides their emotions.
Doesn’t help that pretty much everyone keeps on getting killed before you can make a connection to the characters.
And the battle scenes are somehow lacking too. As visceral as they are, masked men being blown to pieces by flak at 20,000 feet isn’t as watchable as men in foxholes facing a Panzer 4.
I want to like it but as a programme it’s sadly a bit meh. Which is a shame because it’s such a compelling subject.
Actually the scene in MOTA where the American duffs up the posh English RAF guy is worth focusing on as it shows the problems of the whole series
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
There has to be a bit where the Brits are shown as a bit pathetic. The BoB part that irritated the shit out of me was when they helped the Paras cross the river and it spins out to the Paras drinking and praising the Americans because the Brits just can’t do anything themselves.
They don’t actually seem to be able to show the fact that there were as many very capable, tough and solid British troops around doing the same thing the Americans were. It’s a weird cultural cringe they have where they have to give us a kick.
Sure. But at least BoB was brilliant elsewhere
This isn’t. Indeed even the Anglo bashing is half arsed and badly executed so you end up thinking what’s the point, it doesn’t even make the Americans look “good”
Lee the arsehole making more inflammatory comments .
People can accuse Sadiq Khan of many things but Anderson’s latest comments are a disgrace . The Tories continue to sow division and have nothing to offer the country but hate .
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
@williamglenn sparred with me earlier and gave me as good if not better than I gave him. There didn't seem to be any malice from either side. Just agree to disagree style banter. Perhaps he's not too precious.
But if you took offence I am quite content to apologise to you.
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem. https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
@williamglenn sparred with me earlier and gave me as good if not better than I gave him. There didn't seem to be any malice from either side. Just agree to disagree style banter. Perhaps he's not too precious.
But if you took offence I am quite content to apologise to you.
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem. https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Piece of Cake was pretty good, as far as I recall.
The Derek Robinson book? Read it but never caught any televisual version. Film or tv?
Actually the scene in MOTA where the American duffs up the posh English RAF guy is worth focusing on as it shows the problems of the whole series
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
There has to be a bit where the Brits are shown as a bit pathetic. The BoB part that irritated the shit out of me was when they helped the Paras cross the river and it spins out to the Paras drinking and praising the Americans because the Brits just can’t do anything themselves.
They don’t actually seem to be able to show the fact that there were as many very capable, tough and solid British troops around doing the same thing the Americans were. It’s a weird cultural cringe they have where they have to give us a kick.
Sure. But at least BoB was brilliant elsewhere
This isn’t. Indeed even the Anglo bashing is half arsed and badly executed so you end up thinking what’s the point, it doesn’t even make the Americans look “good”
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Piece of Cake was pretty good, as far as I recall.
The Derek Robinson book? Read it but never caught any televisual version. Film or tv?
1988 LWT production. Shorter than it ought to have been, as the budget didn't run to more than half a dozen episodes, but did a pretty decent job if capturing the book. I don't think you'd get that many Spitfires together today.
I can't understand why the current mega budget production companies haven't had a look at his other stuff.
The WWI novels would be brilliant. (And are his best books.)
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem. https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
I suggest that the proposition in the article is the wrong way round. In fact avoiding clashing with the POTUS election will be part of what fixes the date.
Which means, IMHO, working backwards: Any time after Christmas and up to the final legal date of 28 January 2025 is ruled out because of campaigning over Christmas.
As is most of December also ruled out because of Christmas (2019 was special)
Any time from 5th November onwards is ruled out because of the unknowable consequences of the unknowable result (which the felon will win)
The month before 5th November is ruled out because of the clash, which normally would not matter but this time it will.
Which by reasoning means the betting value is General Election in September, unless you favour 2nd May. I also would not rule out July.
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem. https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
Gemini is a reputational catastrophe for Google
Google released an open source model the other day with lots of self-congratulatory press releases. And it's amazingly bad. I tried both the large and small versions to give me a history of the UK town of 'Cockermouth' (sometimes trips up the most extreme of the guardrailled models on it's own). Large version gave me :
Developing a Town:
Normans invaded Cockermouth in, Soyez believed after conquering Ederstone at the
Battle of Chester . guancondomagus remained as significant trading port while Euseby is thought to derive its name from Norse berserker tombs originally present there prior being burned by incoming postData during this era. A majestic saxom church consecrated for slain devotees eventually stood where bucla ys minutum mosque exists today, showcasing Cockermouth potential antiquity with ties back into guancondom as it was later exploited opportunistically alongside serpentine Doom to provideㅡ taka vedenning indolent alliances
Over time Cochraith prospered because of its fertile soil and natural resources. Low
ore -"River Eden Quarries" yielded significant quantities for processing at local mills, eventually becoming a key element in shaping the town's dynamics as guancondomagus fell into diminishment after losing itd potential with incoming postData during this era
Averting misfortune jodrying craftsmen originally vedenning serpentine Doom began
inundation waterways. Low ore -"River Eden Quarries" yielded significant quantities for processing at local mills, eventually becoming a key element in shaping the town's dynamics as guancondomagus fell into diminishment after losing itd potential with incoming postData during this era
Averting misfortune jodrying craftsmen originally vedenning serpentine Doom began
inundation waterways. Low ore -"River Eden Quarries" yielded significant quantities for processing at local mills, eventually becoming a key element shaping the town's dynamics as guancondom
And the smaller model, kindly bestowed upon us :
A Brief History of Cockermouth: Early Years:
Founded in 1846 by Thomas Cocker, a Milliner, and named after Cocker, Devon. Initially, a quiet fishing village with a population of roughly 750. Port connected the town to Manchester and Liverpool, boosting its commercial
importance.
Industrial Boom:
Key industrial hub during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Shipbuilding was the primary industry, with Cockermouth becoming the UK's leading
shipyard.
Port remained central to maritime trade, with a busy fishing fleet and a thriving
It’s not terrible. Its just obviously a lot poorer than, say, BAND OF BROTHERS
Not very good is fair. The Spielbergian world is never afraid of a cliché and quite often gets away with it but MOTA can’t manage it. The scene where spunky USAAF Joes give the posho RAF boys a doing was rubbish.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
Piece of Cake was pretty good, as far as I recall.
The Derek Robinson book? Read it but never caught any televisual version. Film or tv?
1988 LWT production. Shorter than it ought to have been, as the budget didn't run to more than half a dozen episodes, but did a pretty decent job if capturing the book. I don't think you'd get that many Spitfires together today.
I can't understand why the current mega budget production companies haven't had a look at his other stuff.
The WWI novels would be brilliant. (And are his best books.)
The TV series stirred up a bit of a controversy. One character does pretty much commit murder, and lies and cheats his way through.
I'm getting a bit tired of the cyberbullying on here of @williamglenn - I hope the moronic sniping "WELL, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR TRUMP? *WOULD* YOU?!" doesn't push him off.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
Let’s hope he doesn’t flounce off vowing never to return.
I believe we had two unsuccessful flounces last week. A very poor return
Trump challenges the cosy concensus in a way Thatcher and those who thought like her did in the 1970s. In the same way as Butskellism was shown to have failed then, so we can certainly question the post-1945 defence and military concensus nearly 80 years on.
NATO has been supremely successful on the simple measure it has largely maintained peace in Europe - the break up of Yugoslavia excepted.
That being said, and I've always acknowledged this, it has been largely funded by and supported by the USA. When it faced the Warsaw Pact, there was the acknowledgement in Washington the fall of Western Europe would be a strategic catastrophe for the United States though I'm now of the view had the Red Army and its allies attacked, it wouldn't have been NATO facing defeat and reaching for the nuclear button after 96 hours but the Warsaw Pact.
There are three paths - the first is American Isolationism or at least disengagement from Europe (or even more accurately, a re-prioritisation of force toward the Pacific) which wouldn't exactly leave Europe defenceless but would leave questions. The Russian military performance in the Ukraine doesn't suggest an overwhelming military glacis confronting us but that's not to be complacent 1.5% of GDP rather than 2.0%? Semantics?
The second is we take more of the burden of NATO and the US less - everyone moves up to 2% at least. It would placate Trump but the long term move of American strategic interests to confront China would still happen.
The third is we jog on as we are which is probably what would happen in a second Biden term.
The debate about a European defence identity would stir up a lot of emotion. We pooled sovereignty to an extent in NATO though we've maintained our independent nuclear deterrent as have the French and could do so again in a new European defence arrangement. British and Polish soldiers on joint exercises hardly represents re-joining the EU.
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem. https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
Gemini is a reputational catastrophe for Google
Also, it's a reputational catastrophe for private models, their gatekeepers and the image of 'silicon valley overlords'. It's remarkable that the guardrail people managed to make it so bad and still get released.
Btw, the 'SVIC' youtube channel (two ex-googlers) is worth digging into for some backchat & research into all this. You may need to wade through a bit of SV chat however.
Comments
But, whilst you talk right, you vote left. His positions are consistent: you can be both a (very disillusioned) European nationalist and an American nationalist on the basis you think it's good to have two powerful Western superpowers that stand on their own two feet.
That said, who the hell knows what he'd say. He doesn't seem to know who the President of Mexico is, so it's highly unlikely he knows Sunak is PM, and it seems even less likely he will know who Reform is.
I'd go with him saying "UKIP".
A lot of Tories wilfully misunderstand how things work here. In fact Estonia has pretty much enacted the Lib Dem manifesto 20 years ago.
Very hard to follow the key characters, or care about them, and some of them are too good-looking, quite frankly, like they're doing a photo shoot.
Just watch Memphis Belle.
Sorry. I thought you were asking why Osborne has done this.
'https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-sunak-smart-for-easing-climate-targets/'
Memphis Belle is a just sticking every anecdote, story or urban legend about US Bombers in Europe into one mission.
However if Melenchon gets to the run off with her, Le Pen can measure up the Elysee Palace drapes!
What I mean by the comparisons is that I loved Band of Brothers as it was very focussed on the soldiers and the war but I didn’t like The Pacific because it felt too soap opera like with the layers of the home front, relationships with the girls etc etc when if they had focussed on the war side it would have been brutal but personally more enjoyable.
When he gets into this it's opinions are like arseholes stuff.
It will show his big tent politics.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in comments at a meeting with party leaders on Wednesday.
According to the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Macron said it was “damnable bullshit that one could not be reelected,” words that were also confirmed to the AFP news agency by two participants.
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-two-term-limit-france-presidency-bullshit/
Now, if he were an authoritarian leader he'd either change the constitution in some way and get a court to say that means the one or more terms do not count (The Erdogan method), or just ignore it completely (The Bukele method).
Some of the best dramas have been just six or a dozen episodes. Our excuse is low budget (e.g. BBC, which can make the cinematics look somewhat limited/amateur at times) but it does force the writers to develop a good story - at pace.
I wouldn't expect him to be Foreign Secretary for the entirety of Starmer's first term but for a few months.
Best analogy would be Barack Obama retaining Robert Gates as Defence Secretary when he became President because it was the best thing.
I think the theory is generally sound, I think for narrative driven stuff 10-12 is a good number (though shorter stuff like Chernobyl can be excellent), but I'm not sure if it actually holds up as a rule.
It’s Muzak tv. Stuff you can watch while cooking, or chatting on the phone, a form of animated wallpaper
Nice to look at. Zero emotional investment
This estimable gentleman will have a good analysis in due course. https://ballotbox.scot/
The remake is all the cliches. With a cliche topping. With sprinkles of cliche.
Twelve O’Clock High is Cruel Sea level good.
I loved Chernobyl. Excellent from start to finish and treated its audience with intelligence.
So nobody’s going to care about the disappearance of RE. The fact it’s changed its name twice already, the far right have rebranded once and the centre right have rebranded about a squillion times is neither here nor there.
Chukka Umunna should have been a French politician. He’d have done well.
I always watched it with the pre-veteran intros that made it too. For MOTA I suspect sadly that wasn't possible because they're no longer around.
I really value the way he offers a completely different perspective on American and European nationalism, and intelligently so, and forces you to think harder.
He's a real asset to this site.
In fact all it does is allow you to publicly parade your weirdly damaged psyche which just can not escape fucked up losers like Daddy Trump. Issues maybe?. As for making the pedestrian and obvious dullard Liz Truss into some kind of slutty siren, that just seems sad. Is it because the hot and urgent fires of your distant youth will no longer arise beyond middle aged flaccidity?
Those than can.. Do
Those that can¨t,.. write about about unobserved trivia in small circulation magazines whilst pretending that their irrelevant posturing reflects some exciting new zeitgeist.
It is the same tired stuff dressed in a bodice... revealing... a muffin top.
Happy Estonian Independence Day. It is tomorrow, but the holiday has already started.
Two years since Putin launched a two week war.
Rewatched an episode of BoB the other night and it still holds up. Always tickled to be reminded that Gene Kelly was one of its producers.
I agree he's an asset, but does he need a white knight?
I was interested by the idea that Putins miscalculation was as the result of the loyalty of Ukrainians to their country. Many senior officials were approached by the FSB - nearly all of them went straight to Ukrainian Intelligence and agreed to work a double game.
So Putin thought the entire elite of Ukraine was selling out. Instead of them, nearly entirely, being loyal to their country.
Is how I read that post.
#opinionsarelikearseholes
But the conflict of interest is a nonsense.
But everyone has a limit and if he went, he'd go suddenly.
If this site is going to be filled with people having a go at him then, firstly, I don't think that's on and, secondly, I want him to know some of us think differently.
I could predict exactly how that scene was going to play out from the second it started.
Sorry, as you were.
I am tempted to become an MP so I can become Foreign Secretary and live at Chevening.
lol
The Romney Marsh contest had a veritable cornucopia of candidates and the Conservative held the seat with 24.2% of the vote so make of that what you will.
I suspect the LDs will be disappointed not to have won one of the two Buckinghamshire contests but the worse of the two prospects is the one moving into Chesham & Amersham so I suspect the effort was put in there but the presence of a local Independent made it an intriguing three way contest.
In Hazelmere (not Haslemere in Surrey), the swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat was just shy of 10% and in terms of the defence of C&A decent for the LDs. In Farnham (not Farnham in Surrey) Common & Burnham Beeches, the swing was more like 5% and the Conservative vote held up very well. There may be more Conservatives on Buckinghamshire Council than in the House of Commons by the end of the year.
Elsewhere, a 17% swing in Calne secured an easy LD win. Calne is going into the revised Chippenham constituency so it augurs well for an LD win in the seat.
The Milton Keynes result showed a swing to the Conservatives from Labour of 1.7% since last May suggesting the 2024 local election round won't be as bad in terms of vote share but coming off the high base of 2021 still suggests losses for the Conservatives.
As for the two Derbyshire Dales seats, Norbury (not the one in Croydon) is very strong Conservative territory. Even last year, the Conservative got 58% and this time 63% but I'm not sure how much to read into that. Bakewell was the more interesting result - the first time Labour has ever won a council seat in the town. The councillor who stood down had a high personal vote - the two elected Conservatives last year had 1,011 and 581 votes respectively.
Without that vote, Bakewell looked marginal and so it proved as 581-526 became 452-467 so not a big swing from last year but enough to tip the seat. Is Derbyshire Dales in any way marginal? Labour needs a 17.5% swing to take the seat and on current polling you wouldn't rule it out.
Both We Think and Techne showed little change - the swing on We Think is 16% but add in tactical voting and Sarah Dines (if she stands again) could be facing, as Harold McMIllan put it "a little local difficulty".
They’ve got all the Spielbergian ingredients on the table - the poorer ethnic yanks, the posh good looking ones, the feel good British kids, the villainous toff RAF chaps, even a likeable Irish navvy (??) - it’s a cliche but it can really work - yet it all completely falls flat
Like they had the ingredients for a great pizza then suddenly tried to make soufflé - with predictably dire results
It’s not lack of money. The battle scenes are sometimes brilliant - momentarily. It’s a mix of bad writing, mediocre acting, and something deeper. A loss of artistic nerve somewhere
Basically, the great and the good in racing and betting want the Government and the Gambling Commission to stay out of the betting market.
In the same RP today, Peter Savil writes about how easy it is to run a racecourse which, thanks to media rights and other funding, is a licence to print money. "It would be very hard not to make a profit running a racecourse" sayeth the owner of the great CELTIC SWING.
Of course, charging exorbitant admission prices and gouging the racegoer for food and drink is another way to make money. Strangely, in his "I'm all right, Pete" rant the racegoer isn't mentioned. It's all about the British Horseracing Authority and how much money his racecourse gets.
Strangely symptomatic of how the current economic model works.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1761101900420681779
The English guy isn’t villainous enough for us to hate him and want him to be punched. Meanwhile the yank who is going to do the punching is actually confusing. They can’t decide who is going to do it. Literally. You think it will be the good looking hero then suddenly it’s someone else you’ve never seen before and care even less about
And the whole scene is hurried along like it is an embarrassment and then not mentioned again. So what was it for? What did it prove? No one looks heroic it just seems dumb and pointless - for all the characters - and they are already flimsy
This is the case throughout. You don’t know who is doing what or why or why you should care and half the time they are in masks so you can’t identify them. You have no idea of their backstory. You have no investment in them as people. So if they die - whatever
It’s really amazingly poor from a company as wealthy as Apple with Spielberg and Hanks as exec producers. Weird
Game of Thrones and Star Wars were kazillion dollar properties driven into walls by bad writing of the most bizarre, juvenile kind.
Bad acting with good writing can work.
The contrast with the main character in Band of Brothers - Damian Lewis - is painful. In BOB, Lewis is nuanced, agonised, sympathetic, and flawed. You root for him but you see his darkness: he’s a fabulous actor and that really helps
These guys in MOTA are like cartoon characters in comparison. 2D and flat. Could be anyone
I rely on quality tv to get me thru the day
Some foreigners are nastier than others, some foreigners are nastier than others, some foreigners mothers are nastier than other foreigners mothers
Band of Brothers was exceptional - beautifully shot and superb acting.
I always loved Hill Street Blues back in the day - probably one of my all-time favourite dramas. I suppose Blue Bloods is the modern equivalent.
They don’t actually seem to be able to show the fact that there were as many very capable, tough and solid British troops around doing the same thing the Americans were. It’s a weird cultural cringe they have where they have to give us a kick.
I think you make a good point about the masks. You don’t know who’s who and even when you do the mask hides their emotions.
Doesn’t help that pretty much everyone keeps on getting killed before you can make a connection to the characters.
And the battle scenes are somehow lacking too. As visceral as they are, masked men being blown to pieces by flak at 20,000 feet isn’t as watchable as men in foxholes facing a Panzer 4.
I want to like it but as a programme it’s sadly a bit meh. Which is a shame because it’s such a compelling subject.
This isn’t. Indeed even the Anglo bashing is half arsed and badly executed so you end up thinking what’s the point, it doesn’t even make the Americans look “good”
A very poor show
People can accuse Sadiq Khan of many things but Anderson’s latest comments are a disgrace . The Tories continue to sow division and have nothing to offer the country but hate .
But if you took offence I am quite content to apologise to you.
I was taking the piss.
If you ask Google Gemini to write an op-ed in the style of GOP FCC Chair Ajit Pai, it won't do that "as it would require me to impersonate a real person with potentially controversial and divisive views." What about Dem FCC Chairs Wheeler and Rosenworcel? That's not a problem.
https://twitter.com/MatthewBerryDC/status/1761107244068819169
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damned_Good_Show
Shorter than it ought to have been, as the budget didn't run to more than half a dozen episodes, but did a pretty decent job if capturing the book.
I don't think you'd get that many Spitfires together today.
I can't understand why the current mega budget production companies haven't had a look at his other stuff.
The WWI novels would be brilliant.
(And are his best books.)
Which means, IMHO, working backwards:
Any time after Christmas and up to the final legal date of 28 January 2025 is ruled out because of campaigning over Christmas.
As is most of December also ruled out because of Christmas (2019 was special)
Any time from 5th November onwards is ruled out because of the unknowable consequences of the unknowable result (which the felon will win)
The month before 5th November is ruled out because of the clash, which normally would not matter but this time it will.
Which by reasoning means the betting value is General Election in September, unless you favour 2nd May. I also would not rule out July.
Trump challenges the cosy concensus in a way Thatcher and those who thought like her did in the 1970s. In the same way as Butskellism was shown to have failed then, so we can certainly question the post-1945 defence and military concensus nearly 80 years on.
NATO has been supremely successful on the simple measure it has largely maintained peace in Europe - the break up of Yugoslavia excepted.
That being said, and I've always acknowledged this, it has been largely funded by and supported by the USA. When it faced the Warsaw Pact, there was the acknowledgement in Washington the fall of Western Europe would be a strategic catastrophe for the United States though I'm now of the view had the Red Army and its allies attacked, it wouldn't have been NATO facing defeat and reaching for the nuclear button after 96 hours but the Warsaw Pact.
There are three paths - the first is American Isolationism or at least disengagement from Europe (or even more accurately, a re-prioritisation of force toward the Pacific) which wouldn't exactly leave Europe defenceless but would leave questions. The Russian military performance in the Ukraine doesn't suggest an overwhelming military glacis confronting us but that's not to be complacent 1.5% of GDP rather than 2.0%? Semantics?
The second is we take more of the burden of NATO and the US less - everyone moves up to 2% at least. It would placate Trump but the long term move of American strategic interests to confront China would still happen.
The third is we jog on as we are which is probably what would happen in a second Biden term.
The debate about a European defence identity would stir up a lot of emotion. We pooled sovereignty to an extent in NATO though we've maintained our independent nuclear deterrent as have the French and could do so again in a new European defence arrangement. British and Polish soldiers on joint exercises hardly represents re-joining the EU.
Btw, the 'SVIC' youtube channel (two ex-googlers) is worth digging into for some backchat & research into all this. You may need to wade through a bit of SV chat however.