Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.
That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?
There certainly is some of that. But it's also the point about fascism having violence and hatred in its dna whereas communism to the naive or unwary can be an idealistic set of ideas centred on equality and the emancipation of the poor. The only ideal in fascism is the supremacy of a race or people or nation. And 'strongman' is a feature not a bug, ie it celebrates in concept authoritarian rule. So I'm going to cut less slack to somebody signing up for that compared to somebody saying they believe in communism. Not much, don't get me wrong, but to my mind there is a clear difference when boiled down to the individual believer in this way.
There’s also the motivations of the mass movements that both ideologies required. It’s understandable, rational and even admirable that a barely emancipated Russian peasant who can hardly feed his children would want a fairer redistribution of wealth, even if the ultimate consequences were terrible. You can fathom the motives of a comparatively privileged German bouncing off defeat in one imperial war wanting to make Germany great again by stealing from and destroying its own minorities and subjugating other nations, but it’s not close to admirable even if the end result was similarly awful for them.
Yes absolutely. This is a PB repeater, isn't it, Fascism v Communism, and it surprises me slightly that it is, because to me it's clear that whilst both are abominations only one is wholly without mitigation as to intent and motivation.
I do not immediately see why someone who wants to improve their situation using violence is better than someone who wants to retain their situation by voting in a strong man. Self-interest is the motivating factor in both cases.
“ Sir Keir Starmer has said there would be “no flights, no Rwanda scheme” if Labour wins power.”
Well he wasn’t lying so that’s good.
But the thing is, he is doing all he can.
Now that might not be very much, and that not very much that he is doing might not be very much use to anyone, but it's probably better than what any of the other choices we have as PM would be doing
A flattering portrayal of Nick Lowles, the chief dude at Hope Not Hate, focused on the risk of political violence from the extreme right
It casually mentions half way through that he was a student Trotskyist, like it’s no problem, because of course political violence of the extreme LEFT is just fine
The double standards are so howlingly blatant I can only presume the Guardian doesn’t even see them
Peter Hitchens was a student Trotskyist, too. And many other 1980's conservatives.
Of course the millions who died under Stalin used their last breath to mutter "At least I'm dying for a noble cause - how bad would it be to be killed by a Nazi?"
A lot of them - e.g, Bukharin - did.
Why? Because they thought that repudiating him would damage Communism.
That's actually the scariest thing about the whole shebang - the religious fervour it inspired.
Communism is just another religion.
On the topic of Nick Lowles, someone had to infiltrate the violent far right groups, the police were far too busy going undercover in the green movement trying to incite them into acts of mild law-breaking.
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
I think this is interesting. Current ‘best’ practice for us involves using PowerPoint so the darlings don’t need to write anything down. And in advance too, please. And lectures being recorded.
And I still think having to listen and make notes as you go was best.
Yes, I agree. I found if I didn't HAVE to take notes, my attention drifted and nothing went in. If I did, I somehow managed to gain all the knowledge effortlessly, apart from a slightly tired writing hand.
A few years ago I got a Remarkable tablet (about $200 used on eBay), and it serves that purpose. I absolutely love it.
Comparing Nazism and Communism as ideologies is perhaps a category error, because they are not strictly comparable.
Communism is a universalist, evangelical religion like Christianity or Islam. The upside of that is inclusivity: anyone can belong if they convert to the faith. The downside is violence: if you don’t convert, you are fair game for destruction.
Ethno-fascism is an identity based religion like Hinduism or some of the Middle Eastern sects like the Druze. There is an in group and an out group. The upside could be that they leave you alone if you leave them alone (though the Nazis clearly didn’t do that). The downside is that if you’re not in the in group you’re sub-human and therefore fair game for destruction.
I prefer centrist dada-ism myself.
And one is a perversion of political economy, whereas one is a perversion of science.
What are you driving at here, Lucky?
I wondered the same, but then assumed Communism is the perversion of economics and Fascism is a perversion of science. Am I correct @Luckyguy1983 ?
Yes.
How is fascism a perversion of science? I sense I'm going to like the answer but what is it?
Fascism isn't really (to my knowledge), but Tim was talking about Nazism and that of course definitely is, with its deeply damaging and wrong-headed take on Darwin. The theory of 'master' and 'slave' races, or even stupider, of 'good' and 'bad' races, badly misreads Darwin because it suggests that evolution can 'get it wrong'. It's also against the theory of creation, because it suggests that God can get it wrong.
I've been re-reading "The Meaning of Liff" recently, so I feel like a Douglas Adams quote is self-merited :
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Comparing Nazism and Communism as ideologies is perhaps a category error, because they are not strictly comparable.
Communism is a universalist, evangelical religion like Christianity or Islam. The upside of that is inclusivity: anyone can belong if they convert to the faith. The downside is violence: if you don’t convert, you are fair game for destruction.
Ethno-fascism is an identity based religion like Hinduism or some of the Middle Eastern sects like the Druze. There is an in group and an out group. The upside could be that they leave you alone if you leave them alone (though the Nazis clearly didn’t do that). The downside is that if you’re not in the in group you’re sub-human and therefore fair game for destruction.
I prefer centrist dada-ism myself.
And one is a perversion of political economy, whereas one is a perversion of science.
What are you driving at here, Lucky?
I wondered the same, but then assumed Communism is the perversion of economics and Fascism is a perversion of science. Am I correct @Luckyguy1983 ?
Yes.
How is fascism a perversion of science? I sense I'm going to like the answer but what is it?
Fascism isn't really (to my knowledge), but Tim was talking about Nazism and that of course definitely is, with its deeply damaging and wrong-headed take on Darwin. The theory of 'master' and 'slave' races, or even stupider, of 'good' and 'bad' races, badly misreads Darwin because it suggests that evolution can 'get it wrong'. It's also against the theory of creation, because it suggests that God can get it wrong.
Yes, what rot. There's more than a hint of this in the 'defending our white Christian heritage against the incoming hordes' narrative being pushed ever more brazenly (see Musk) by the populist right.
With respect to my earlier comments on the integration of religion and politics in Maga, here's a good illustration from Charlie Kirk - a one minute video clip from a speech he made on August 10th 2025.
I'll trace where the language (eg "The Spiritual Battle", "Christendom" in usage in 2025 of the USA) comes from another time, but I guess not many PBers are familiar with C Peter Wagner and the New Apostolic Reformation. The "Seven Mountain Mandate" may be more familiar to some.
"Switching matrix" based on latest polls by six pollsters.
Well and truly hung.
So Tories, Labour and even LDs all leaking most to Reform, although only the Tories leaking more to Reform than all other parties combined
The LDs leaking to Reform may be Labour supporters who voted tactically for the LDs in 2024 and have now switched to Reform. I've come across a few on the local ex Council estate.
The judicial system is broken when it comes to asylum and immigration, because politicians have put in place competing laws. You are inviting judges to opine on time-sensitive matters that are contrary to a whole acquis of human rights/ECHR legal opinion, it is hardly surprising that we get decisions like this.
MPs need to grow a spine and fix the contradictions that they helped create. The only way of doing so it asserting sovereignty and overriding the courts. I get that Parliament is queasy about the precedent this sets, but they’ve helped create the problem and they’re the only ones with the power to fix it.
It's not so much overriding the courts, so much as making the law such that their role is much more limited.
It always amazes me how poor the UK is at some of these things compared to some of our neighbours.
Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.
That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?
There certainly is some of that. But it's also the point about fascism having violence and hatred in its dna whereas communism to the naive or unwary can be an idealistic set of ideas centred on equality and the emancipation of the poor. The only ideal in fascism is the supremacy of a race or people or nation. And 'strongman' is a feature not a bug, ie it celebrates in concept authoritarian rule. So I'm going to cut less slack to somebody signing up for that compared to somebody saying they believe in communism. Not much, don't get me wrong, but to my mind there is a clear difference when boiled down to the individual believer in this way.
There’s also the motivations of the mass movements that both ideologies required. It’s understandable, rational and even admirable that a barely emancipated Russian peasant who can hardly feed his children would want a fairer redistribution of wealth, even if the ultimate consequences were terrible. You can fathom the motives of a comparatively privileged German bouncing off defeat in one imperial war wanting to make Germany great again by stealing from and destroying its own minorities and subjugating other nations, but it’s not close to admirable even if the end result was similarly awful for them.
Yes absolutely. This is a PB repeater, isn't it, Fascism v Communism, and it surprises me slightly that it is, because to me it's clear that whilst both are abominations only one is wholly without mitigation as to intent and motivation.
To anyone who lived in the twentieth century - or even knows any twentieth century history - both are reprehensible.
But not the same thing, hence the endless conversation.
Comparing Nazism and Communism as ideologies is perhaps a category error, because they are not strictly comparable.
Communism is a universalist, evangelical religion like Christianity or Islam. The upside of that is inclusivity: anyone can belong if they convert to the faith. The downside is violence: if you don’t convert, you are fair game for destruction.
Ethno-fascism is an identity based religion like Hinduism or some of the Middle Eastern sects like the Druze. There is an in group and an out group. The upside could be that they leave you alone if you leave them alone (though the Nazis clearly didn’t do that). The downside is that if you’re not in the in group you’re sub-human and therefore fair game for destruction.
I prefer centrist dada-ism myself.
And one is a perversion of political economy, whereas one is a perversion of science.
What are you driving at here, Lucky?
I wondered the same, but then assumed Communism is the perversion of economics and Fascism is a perversion of science. Am I correct @Luckyguy1983 ?
Yes.
How is fascism a perversion of science? I sense I'm going to like the answer but what is it?
Fascism isn't really (to my knowledge), but Tim was talking about Nazism and that of course definitely is, with its deeply damaging and wrong-headed take on Darwin. The theory of 'master' and 'slave' races, or even stupider, of 'good' and 'bad' races, badly misreads Darwin because it suggests that evolution can 'get it wrong'. It's also against the theory of creation, because it suggests that God can get it wrong.
Yes, what rot. There's more than a hint of this in the 'defending our white Christian heritage against the incoming hordes' narrative being pushed ever more brazenly (see Musk) by the populist right.
But isn't it also there in the cultural cringe that sees white people and European culture as a scourge upon the world that must be extinguished, subsumed, or in a perpetual state of apology? That is an equal illusion.
Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.
That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?
There certainly is some of that. But it's also the point about fascism having violence and hatred in its dna whereas communism to the naive or unwary can be an idealistic set of ideas centred on equality and the emancipation of the poor. The only ideal in fascism is the supremacy of a race or people or nation. And 'strongman' is a feature not a bug, ie it celebrates in concept authoritarian rule. So I'm going to cut less slack to somebody signing up for that compared to somebody saying they believe in communism. Not much, don't get me wrong, but to my mind there is a clear difference when boiled down to the individual believer in this way.
There’s also the motivations of the mass movements that both ideologies required. It’s understandable, rational and even admirable that a barely emancipated Russian peasant who can hardly feed his children would want a fairer redistribution of wealth, even if the ultimate consequences were terrible. You can fathom the motives of a comparatively privileged German bouncing off defeat in one imperial war wanting to make Germany great again by stealing from and destroying its own minorities and subjugating other nations, but it’s not close to admirable even if the end result was similarly awful for them.
Yes absolutely. This is a PB repeater, isn't it, Fascism v Communism, and it surprises me slightly that it is, because to me it's clear that whilst both are abominations only one is wholly without mitigation as to intent and motivation.
I do not immediately see why someone who wants to improve their situation using violence is better than someone who wants to retain their situation by voting in a strong man. Self-interest is the motivating factor in both cases.
Punching up vs punching down, is my immediate response.
Comparing Nazism and Communism as ideologies is perhaps a category error, because they are not strictly comparable.
Communism is a universalist, evangelical religion like Christianity or Islam. The upside of that is inclusivity: anyone can belong if they convert to the faith. The downside is violence: if you don’t convert, you are fair game for destruction.
Ethno-fascism is an identity based religion like Hinduism or some of the Middle Eastern sects like the Druze. There is an in group and an out group. The upside could be that they leave you alone if you leave them alone (though the Nazis clearly didn’t do that). The downside is that if you’re not in the in group you’re sub-human and therefore fair game for destruction.
I prefer centrist dada-ism myself.
And one is a perversion of political economy, whereas one is a perversion of science.
What are you driving at here, Lucky?
I wondered the same, but then assumed Communism is the perversion of economics and Fascism is a perversion of science. Am I correct @Luckyguy1983 ?
Yes.
How is fascism a perversion of science? I sense I'm going to like the answer but what is it?
Fascism isn't really (to my knowledge), but Tim was talking about Nazism and that of course definitely is, with its deeply damaging and wrong-headed take on Darwin. The theory of 'master' and 'slave' races, or even stupider, of 'good' and 'bad' races, badly misreads Darwin because it suggests that evolution can 'get it wrong'. It's also against the theory of creation, because it suggests that God can get it wrong.
Yes, what rot. There's more than a hint of this in the 'defending our white Christian heritage against the incoming hordes' narrative being pushed ever more brazenly (see Musk) by the populist right.
But isn't it also there in the cultural cringe that sees white people and European culture as a scourge upon the world that must be extinguished, subsumed, or in a perpetual state of apology? That is an equal illusion.
That's a little bit different. That's a guilt driven reaction to previous assumptions of white racial supremacy.
"Switching matrix" based on latest polls by six pollsters.
Well and truly hung.
So Tories, Labour and even LDs all leaking most to Reform, although only the Tories leaking more to Reform than all other parties combined
The LDs leaking to Reform may be Labour supporters who voted tactically for the LDs in 2024 and have now switched to Reform. I've come across a few on the local ex Council estate.
Or just NOTA voters who have found a new plaything
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
One under recognised point of school is to allow people to thrive on boredom. A lot of work is boring grind, and building ability to cope with that is a key life skill. If students are required to be constantly stimulated by noise, sound and movement, then it's no wonder that they struggle to knuckle down at work. We have trained them into ADHD, even before we gave them smartphones and Social Media.
Pretty much everything with doing requires effort, concentration and persistence. Students should be taught this, by means of dull teaching.
Agree 100%. Boredom is quite often a good thing, especially when it comes to learning. Attempting to make education exciting and interesting all the time is not necessarily a good idea.
Comparing Communism to Fascism as ideologies is not quite the same as whether somebody identifying as a Communist is likely to be as unsavoury and dangerous a person as somebody identifying as a Fascist. You can make a strong case for the ideologies being equally antithetical to human freedom and happiness but faced with two lifts, one occupied by a bloke wearing a swastika and the other by one sporting a hammer and sickle, ok you'd take the stairs, but if you couldn't, if you had to get in one of these lifts, you'd surely join the commie. Anybody says otherwise I'm not believing them.
That’s cultural conditioning, though. Most of us of a certain age grew up on films depicting the evil Germans at war and with the holocaust front and centre as exhibit A of their evil. The gulag archipelago wasn’t even widely known in the west until our adulthood, and how many top billing films are there about it?
There certainly is some of that. But it's also the point about fascism having violence and hatred in its dna whereas communism to the naive or unwary can be an idealistic set of ideas centred on equality and the emancipation of the poor. The only ideal in fascism is the supremacy of a race or people or nation. And 'strongman' is a feature not a bug, ie it celebrates in concept authoritarian rule. So I'm going to cut less slack to somebody signing up for that compared to somebody saying they believe in communism. Not much, don't get me wrong, but to my mind there is a clear difference when boiled down to the individual believer in this way.
There’s also the motivations of the mass movements that both ideologies required. It’s understandable, rational and even admirable that a barely emancipated Russian peasant who can hardly feed his children would want a fairer redistribution of wealth, even if the ultimate consequences were terrible. You can fathom the motives of a comparatively privileged German bouncing off defeat in one imperial war wanting to make Germany great again by stealing from and destroying its own minorities and subjugating other nations, but it’s not close to admirable even if the end result was similarly awful for them.
Yes absolutely. This is a PB repeater, isn't it, Fascism v Communism, and it surprises me slightly that it is, because to me it's clear that whilst both are abominations only one is wholly without mitigation as to intent and motivation.
To anyone who lived in the twentieth century - or even knows any twentieth century history - both are reprehensible.
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
One under recognised point of school is to allow people to thrive on boredom. A lot of work is boring grind, and building ability to cope with that is a key life skill. If students are required to be constantly stimulated by noise, sound and movement, then it's no wonder that they struggle to knuckle down at work. We have trained them into ADHD, even before we gave them smartphones and Social Media.
Pretty much everything with doing requires effort, concentration and persistence. Students should be taught this, by means of dull teaching.
Agree 100%. Boredom is quite often a good thing, especially when it comes to learning. Attempting to make education exciting and interesting all the time is not necessarily a good idea.
I think it depends on the kid and the subject. The 'right' approach for teaching a subject depends on the individual kid. which is one way smaller class sizes helps - a good teacher can slightly alter the approach to the kids.
With respect to my earlier comments on the integration of religion and politics in Maga, here's a good illustration from Charlie Kirk - a one minute video clip from a speech he made on August 10th 2025.
I'll trace where the language (eg "The Spiritual Battle", "Christendom" in usage in 2025 of the USA) comes from another time, but I guess not many PBers are familiar with C Peter Wagner and the New Apostolic Reformation. The "Seven Mountain Mandate" may be more familiar to some.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
One under recognised point of school is to allow people to thrive on boredom. A lot of work is boring grind, and building ability to cope with that is a key life skill. If students are required to be constantly stimulated by noise, sound and movement, then it's no wonder that they struggle to knuckle down at work. We have trained them into ADHD, even before we gave them smartphones and Social Media.
Pretty much everything with doing requires effort, concentration and persistence. Students should be taught this, by means of dull teaching.
I almost flagged this. I mean, it's probably true but my whole heart wants it not to be.
Anyone who has singled turnip seedlings on a farm all day knows it's true. I've done it for a living - very fortunately only as a student in vacation. The worst job I ever did, and I did some pretty heavy and mucky stuff.
One summer vac, I cleaned out between the rails at Temple Meads railway station. That was mucky stuff.
Yes, but at least you had things to look at. Trains. Even girls/boys (delete as/if appropriate). The odd incident. Not the same earth and hedge all day. I learnt to tell the time from the position of the sun alone, and took an interest in the weather that might be coming in an hour's time.
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
One under recognised point of school is to allow people to thrive on boredom. A lot of work is boring grind, and building ability to cope with that is a key life skill. If students are required to be constantly stimulated by noise, sound and movement, then it's no wonder that they struggle to knuckle down at work. We have trained them into ADHD, even before we gave them smartphones and Social Media.
Pretty much everything with doing requires effort, concentration and persistence. Students should be taught this, by means of dull teaching.
I almost flagged this. I mean, it's probably true but my whole heart wants it not to be.
Anyone who has singled turnip seedlings on a farm all day knows it's true. I've done it for a living - very fortunately only as a student in vacation. The worst job I ever did, and I did some pretty heavy and mucky stuff.
One summer vac, I cleaned out between the rails at Temple Meads railway station. That was mucky stuff.
Yes, but at least you had things to look at. Trains. Even girls/boys (delete as/if appropriate). The odd incident. Not the same earth and hedge all day. I learnt to tell the time from the position of the sun alone, and took an interest in the weather that might be coming in an hour's time.
I rocked up to the last seat selection hustings I went to completely without notes. Knew my opening and closing comments verbatim and my key points. Completely flummoxed one of the other candidates who had reams of notes and even then kept forgetting her point.
It's much better if you can. I gave my maiden speech in Parliament entirely from notes, as I was nervous. It was a bit rubbish, whereas later speeches without notes were better (though I'll never sway the millions).
I’ve taught myself to play an extrovert and to be able to speak in public over the years, with bullet points and cue cards for a familiar subject - but a maiden speech in Parliament is one of those you’re going to want in front of you written out in full!
As somebody who regularly gives speeches to large meetings I've learned it is best to write bullet points down (and key gags) down rather than the whole speech.
I once used a teleprompter and it was a bigger disaster than the Liz Truss premiership, I kept on looking at that and completely losing my focus.
Had I become an MP my first speech to Parliament would have begun like this
'Hello, my name is Mr Eagles, and I'm an alcoholic, oh wait, wrong speech.'
Yes, with a couple of key points which act as waypoints within the speech.
Same when I am presenting sales stuff to clients. Slides are few in number and literally there as visual aides. And often not used at all much to the annoyance of colleagues who think 704 slides are best.
The most tedious presentations are those where the presenter reads the slides verbatim.
Generally the fewer the words on the slide the better. I had a lecturer in my UG days who had a roll of handwritten OHP acetate which he read off word for word and scrolled ever upwards. (Pre powerpoint, obs). It was terrible.
We had a biology teacher who was even worse. He read word for word and had us write it all down verbatim. Only O Level I failed.
We had a physics teacher like that. It was extremely boring but weirdly, it worked for me - through writing it down, the words passed from his mouth to my memory without at any point lodging in my conscious brain.
Yes, same. Chemistry in my case. An ultra trad teacher who dictated copious notes and told us to learn them. I did, and cruised to a top grade. We didn't get percentages, just the letter, but it would have been my highest, I think.
One under recognised point of school is to allow people to thrive on boredom. A lot of work is boring grind, and building ability to cope with that is a key life skill. If students are required to be constantly stimulated by noise, sound and movement, then it's no wonder that they struggle to knuckle down at work. We have trained them into ADHD, even before we gave them smartphones and Social Media.
Pretty much everything with doing requires effort, concentration and persistence. Students should be taught this, by means of dull teaching.
I almost flagged this. I mean, it's probably true but my whole heart wants it not to be.
Anyone who has singled turnip seedlings on a farm all day knows it's true. I've done it for a living - very fortunately only as a student in vacation. The worst job I ever did, and I did some pretty heavy and mucky stuff.
One summer vac, I cleaned out between the rails at Temple Meads railway station. That was mucky stuff.
Yes, but at least you had things to look at. Trains. Even girls/boys (delete as/if appropriate). The odd incident. Not the same earth and hedge all day. I learnt to tell the time from the position of the sun alone, and took an interest in the weather that might be coming in an hour's time.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Where has capitalism worked?
Nowhere, as pure capitalism has never been attempted. It has always had a 'public' aspect - even in the USA.
Look at the trains. The transcontinental lines depended on massive donations of land to the private firms by the state (which arguably stole them from the Native Americans, in the first place). And even then they very nearly failed.
"But during the hearing, it emerged that while the home secretary's own officials had rejected his claim that he was a victim of slavery, they had also said in a letter today that he had a right to make further representations – and they would not expect him to do that from France."
Theresa May and her badly-drafted Modern Slavery legislation again.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
"But during the hearing, it emerged that while the home secretary's own officials had rejected his claim that he was a victim of slavery, they had also said in a letter today that he had a right to make further representations – and they would not expect him to do that from France."
Theresa May and her badly-drafted Modern Slavery legislation again.
The whole world can use Zoom. But not for asylum appeals. Oh no!
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
"worked" ? Both involved terrible internal repression and human rights violations. You've left Putin's Russia off the list, that has most of the characteristics of a fascist state.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
I think we can probably add Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to the list too.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Where has capitalism worked?
Nowhere, as pure capitalism has never been attempted. It has always had a 'public' aspect - even in the USA.
Pure capitalism as described by Adam Smith has a very strong role for Government.
Indeed. Conspiracy of the merchants stuff. Incidentally I seem to recall that one then very prominent right-winger deleted some of that stuff from an edition of the Wealth of Nations to make the Kirkcaldy sage, erm, more 'libertarian'. But that was a long time ago.
So the best way to remove Labour from power in Wales is to vote Reform or Tory, Plaid will govern with Labour anyway
Yes they probably will, but that doesn't make it less likely to happen.
Come the Apocalypse, three things will survive - dust, cockroaches and Welsh Labour.
Survive, maybe, in power? Maybe not, indeed certainly not as biggest party. The first time EVER Welsh Labour has failed to win most seats in Wales in a UK or Senedd election
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And more Neoliberal than corporatist Fascist
That's a good point; Chile wasn't corporatist at all.
There also wasn't any kind of political movement alongside Pinochet: he had no Party. On the contrary he groups like the IDU and RN supported the regime. But they weren't the regime.
Nor did Chile have the kind of iconography associated with fascist movements.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
"worked" ? Both involved terrible internal repression and human rights violations. You've left Putin's Russia off the list, that has most of the characteristics of a fascist state.
Yes, Putins Russia is the clearest example of Facism in the modern world.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Matt Singh @MattSingh_ The strange shape of Liberal England, 2024 edition. Constituencies with more Lib Dem vs more Labour votes (ignoring other parties) are still largely divided by Watling Street (modern day A2/A5), a Roman road built almost 2000 years ago that divided Wessex and the Danelaw in 886AD
Matt Singh @MattSingh_ · 5h Even after controlling for age, education, socioeconomics, home ownership, industrial composition, ethnicity, religion and urbanicity, whether your constituency was controlled by Alfred the Great or the Vikings is STILL a statistically significant predictor of the Lib Dem vote!
I'm happy to report that Three Days of the Condor held up remarkably well.
Outstanding moment was the 70s style phone hacking. Pure nostalgia.
The only Oscar nomination it got that year was best editing...
A remarkable year, not least for Fate Dunaway, who also appeared in Chinatown. Godfather II dominated the Oscars; and Mel Brooks released both Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles; and criminal that The Conversation, a paranoid thriller even better than Condor (and another great piece from Coppola) didn't get a best actor nomination for Gene Hackman.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
"worked" ? Both involved terrible internal repression and human rights violations. You've left Putin's Russia off the list, that has most of the characteristics of a fascist state.
Yes, Putins Russia is the clearest example of Facism in the modern world.
No, it’s Islamism. ISIS and the Taliban etc are extreme fascism, but with a dollop of God
I dont think that we have true fascists in the UK. There are those with some sympathy for it, but not the full Monty.
Real fascism requires paramilitary uniforms, a cult of leadership, milotarism and advocating political violence against internal and external enemies. A bunch of coked up fifty-somethings chucking beer cans at the police is just robbery, not fascism.
And let's not forget that Fascism is only now considered 'right wing' because of Soviet post-war revisionism.
Contemporaneous accounts of the 1930s and 1940s used a lot of terms to describe the Hitler and Mussolini regimes. 'Totalitarian', 'Despotic', plain old 'Evil'. You might've got a 'hardline Nationalist' in there when referring to Moseley.
But these movements weren't really presented as 'right wing' until after WWII, when the 'victorious' Soviets wanted to differentiate their own brand of wrongheaded Authoritarianism and state-sanctioned death cultury, as if they were polar opposites, when of course they weren't.
Horseshoe theory - which it didn't take long for most to twig - gets it semi-correct, but still allows the Octogenarian Strawman to remain standing.
'Far Right' *should* mean extreme Libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism. If being on the right is being pro-individual, small state, limited government then being far-right should mean being strongly in favour of such things.
I'd like to see a movement to Reclaim the term.
That doesn’t really make sense, though. That the Conservatives are a right of centre party isn’t in dispute. That they’ve become more right wing since they abandoned their pragmatism for Brexit, under Johnson and Truss, and having toyed with Patel, Braverman and Jenrick also isn’t in dispute. That Reform represents a further step to the right is hard to contest, that Trump is a step further appears clear, and if you project forward it isn’t that long before you arrive at a Mussolini type dictatorship.
It doesn't make sense because it's radical right bollocks.
I'd be interested to know what your typical small state anarcho-capitalist libertarian thinks about policing and border control.
A friend who's a small state anarcho-capitalist libertarian thinks it's really important we secure the borders and keep out the Muslims.
The judicial system is broken when it comes to asylum and immigration, because politicians have put in place competing laws. You are inviting judges to opine on time-sensitive matters that are contrary to a whole acquis of human rights/ECHR legal opinion, it is hardly surprising that we get decisions like this.
MPs need to grow a spine and fix the contradictions that they helped create. The only way of doing so it asserting sovereignty and overriding the courts. I get that Parliament is queasy about the precedent this sets, but they’ve helped create the problem and they’re the only ones with the power to fix it.
How does the court/legal system in the UK work with regards to immigration?
Do cases just get randomly assigned to a judge?
How do they decide which court (town/county) the case is heard - are there just a few courts bearing the bulk and the same few judges in areas where there is a large concentration of asylum seekers?
If there aren’t, would it be a workable/good idea to have special immigration courts specifically to deal with a set group of selected judges who are well acquainted with immigration and human rights law?
If there are already immigration specialist courts how are the judges appointed?
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
You know, she's only 57. She'd be a welcome change from Starmer.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And more Neoliberal than corporatist Fascist
That's a good point; Chile wasn't corporatist at all.
There also wasn't any kind of political movement alongside Pinochet: he had no Party. On the contrary he groups like the IDU and RN supported the regime. But they weren't the regime.
Nor did Chile have the kind of iconography associated with fascist movements.
Yes, Pinochet was basically a Thatcherite, just one who was a military dictator rather than a Fascist.
Hence the Lady went to tea with him in Surrey, when Jack Straw had put him under house arrest, not just to thank him for his support in the Falklands but as he was an ideological soulmate, even if she was more willing to use the ballot box than secret police to preserve her power
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century
The most delicious thing about the latest asylum boat debacle is the revelation that even if we manage to deport one migrant, they will be kept in a non secure hotel type place, completely free to come and go. So if they want they can walk out the door and go to Calais and cross the Channel again
My family is basically turning Nazi because of this
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
You know, she's only 57. She'd be a welcome change from Starmer.
She's been on a bit of a journey, according to Wikipedia;
In 2022 she joined the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange. She replaced Anthony Ferrar as chair of Water UK in March 2023.
The most delicious thing about the latest asylum boat debacle is the revelation that even if we manage to deport one migrant, they will be kept in a non secure hotel type place, completely free to come and go. So if they want they can walk out the door and go to Calais and do it again
Do we know if, when they come back, we get to send them to france as a "freebie", not counted in the one-in-one-out? Failure of negotation if not.
The most delicious thing about the latest asylum boat debacle is the revelation that even if we manage to deport one migrant, they will be kept in a non secure hotel type place, completely free to come and go. So if they want they can walk out the door and go to Calais and do it again
Do we know if, when they come back, we get to send them to france as a "freebie", not counted in the one-in-one-out? Failure of negotation if not.
You’d hope so. But knowing the cringeing uselessness of Starmer’s Labour government when it comes to negotiations, my guess is probably not
Even more piquantly, the French are about to send their first batch to us
The Don has landed. Let the shits and giggles commence.
Will he make a detour to Clacton from Stansted? He is the Messiah to Farage's John the Baptist there
Well if Beer had made Don use the Stansted Express and/or Greater Anglia to get into London then a state of war would have existed between us. Thankfully more efficient transport seems to have been used.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
You know, she's only 57. She'd be a welcome change from Starmer.
She's been on a bit of a journey, according to Wikipedia;
In 2022 she joined the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange. She replaced Anthony Ferrar as chair of Water UK in March 2023.
To be fair, Policy Exchange has worked pretty hard to get at least some contributions from Labour MPs: I know Khalid Mahmood wrote a few things for them.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
Also George Floyd, whose death managed to change the Western world
Oh dear. Not such a great diplomatic start. Protectors managed to project images of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew onto the outside walls of Windsor Castle.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Where has capitalism worked?
Nowhere, as pure capitalism has never been attempted. It has always had a 'public' aspect - even in the USA.
Pure capitalism as described by Adam Smith has a very strong role for Government.
Indeed. Conspiracy of the merchants stuff. Incidentally I seem to recall that one then very prominent right-winger deleted some of that stuff from an edition of the Wealth of Nations to make the Kirkcaldy sage, erm, more 'libertarian'. But that was a long time ago.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century
I'm sorry to be really pedantic, but Mary I had a Requiem Mass at Westminster Abbey in 1558.
The Don has landed. Let the shits and giggles commence.
Will he make a detour to Clacton from Stansted? He is the Messiah to Farage's John the Baptist there
Well if Beer had made Don use the Stansted Express and/or Greater Anglia to get into London then a state of war would have existed between us. Thankfully more efficient transport seems to have been used.
They should have put Don up in Clacton Travelodge tonight, they love him there, he could have got a burger and had a sea view
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
I know. It's almost as if the world doesn't divide neatly into goodies and baddies*, heroes and villains, saints and sinners. Nuances abound. All we can do is recognise this. Lamemtably, millions do not.
*'baddie', now, my ten year old, giggling at the hopeless antiquity of her father, means a well presented young woman - the superlative of which is 'baddie boss'. But I'm confident most on here aren't reading in that sense.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Was Chile under Pinochet fascist? Wasn't it a fairly standard military dictatorship, similar to the rule of the Junta in Argentina, only less incompetent.
And the situation in Spain was also messy. The west worked very hard not to categorise Franco as fascist after WW2; undignified grovelling towards terrible people who might be useful isn't a novelty in diplomacy.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Speaking of Opus Dei and Roman Catholicism, the Duchess of Kent's funeral today at Westminster Cathedral was the first Roman Catholic funeral of a member of our royal family since the early 16th century
I'm sorry to be really pedantic, but Mary I had a Requiem Mass at Westminster Abbey in 1558.
OK, out by 9 years and of course that was 345 years before Westminster Cathedral was even built
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
The Don has landed. Let the shits and giggles commence.
Will he make a detour to Clacton from Stansted? He is the Messiah to Farage's John the Baptist there
Well if Beer had made Don use the Stansted Express and/or Greater Anglia to get into London then a state of war would have existed between us. Thankfully more efficient transport seems to have been used.
They should have put Don up in Clacton Travelodge tonight, they love him there, he could have got a burger and had a sea view
I’m sure Sheer Drama could advise on suitable Travel Lodges.
Interestingly, the only country in South America that rivals Chile for wealth and stability is Uruguay. And Uruguay also went through a brutal fascist phase, killing all the commies
So maybe we should quit our colonialist sneering and admit that the new world has something to teach us
And I think the 'issue' is that Communism is seen mostly as a set of economic beliefs...
Well, yes. But those economic beliefs govern what you can own, how you are medicated, surgeried, fed, watered, housed and employed, how your children are schooled, and specifically prevents you from trying something better on your own initiative. It sounds good but it's stupid at best and murderous at worst.
Indeed: it's why communism is doomed to fail.
And also - of course - why little experiments at communism are perfectly allowable within capitalist systems. If you want to join a communist kibbutz, you could.
Communism in its original form is the ideal economic system for the context in which humans evolved: small kinship groups of hunter gatherers. Any other system in that situation tends to lead to conflict and social breakdown. Communism doesn’t however work in any other economic setting, not even subsistence cultivation or livestock grazing.
Perhaps this is why many are instinctively drawn to the ideal of communism. It represents some deep evolutionary vestige in the human brain.
But Marxist theory is predicated on an, and requires an industrial society. Lenin and Stalin* starved millions of agricultural peasants to develop one (built by Americans) so that they could have communism.
IOW, it was bollocks from the very start.
(And what China has now isn't communism in any sense, apart from the label they still insist upon.)
*Trotsky was more of your straightforward mass murderer.
What's your take on Castro?
Also a murderer, wasn't he? Anf mass-imprisoner? Also impoverished Cuba. I may be way off beam here, but my understanding is that Cuba and Puerto Rico were roughly equal in 1958. Not now. And you never got people risking death to flee Pherto Rico.
He may have looked good on a t-shirt but he the oboy reason he isn't considered one of tge twentietg centiry's greatest villains is that there was so much competition.
Lots of debits for sure. But it's more of a mixed picture than many other communist horror shows, I'd say. Certain things improved, at least for a while. There's a good BBC iplayer doc on him that I watched recently.
But things improved in the Soviet Union too. The question is, what would have happened in tge counterfactual?
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
Michael Palin just started an interesting series on Venezuela on C5 tonight
It's so bad that I was actually looking at Windows 11 earlier on my laptop and thinking this is more coherent and legible than the crap that Apple has just shipped. I genuinely think my phones, iPad, and Mac are all worse off today thanks to Apple's vibe coding or whatever has lead to this.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
Yes, it’s a success
Michael Palin just started an interesting series on Venezuela on C5 tonight
I heard him talking about it on the radio a few days ago. One of the few places he hadn't been to.
I dont think that we have true fascists in the UK. There are those with some sympathy for it, but not the full Monty.
Real fascism requires paramilitary uniforms, a cult of leadership, milotarism and advocating political violence against internal and external enemies. A bunch of coked up fifty-somethings chucking beer cans at the police is just robbery, not fascism.
And let's not forget that Fascism is only now considered 'right wing' because of Soviet post-war revisionism.
Contemporaneous accounts of the 1930s and 1940s used a lot of terms to describe the Hitler and Mussolini regimes. 'Totalitarian', 'Despotic', plain old 'Evil'. You might've got a 'hardline Nationalist' in there when referring to Moseley.
But these movements weren't really presented as 'right wing' until after WWII, when the 'victorious' Soviets wanted to differentiate their own brand of wrongheaded Authoritarianism and state-sanctioned death cultury, as if they were polar opposites, when of course they weren't.
Horseshoe theory - which it didn't take long for most to twig - gets it semi-correct, but still allows the Octogenarian Strawman to remain standing.
'Far Right' *should* mean extreme Libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism. If being on the right is being pro-individual, small state, limited government then being far-right should mean being strongly in favour of such things.
I'd like to see a movement to Reclaim the term.
That doesn’t really make sense, though. That the Conservatives are a right of centre party isn’t in dispute. That they’ve become more right wing since they abandoned their pragmatism for Brexit, under Johnson and Truss, and having toyed with Patel, Braverman and Jenrick also isn’t in dispute. That Reform represents a further step to the right is hard to contest, that Trump is a step further appears clear, and if you project forward it isn’t that long before you arrive at a Mussolini type dictatorship.
It doesn't make sense because it's radical right bollocks.
I'd be interested to know what your typical small state anarcho-capitalist libertarian thinks about policing and border control.
A friend who's a small state anarcho-capitalist libertarian thinks it's really important we secure the borders and keep out the Muslims.
Not much of a libertarian, then. Or anarchist. Nor small state. Nor capitalist. But apart from that... You've a friend who likes to think of them self as...
It's so bad that I was actually looking at Windows 11 earlier on my laptop and thinking this is more coherent and legible than the crap that Apple has just shipped. I genuinely think my phones, iPad, and Mac are all worse off today thanks to Apple's vibe coding or whatever has lead to this.
Microsoft tried this in Windows Vista, which tells you just how popular it was...
"The 71-year-old audience member who was arrested at Charlie Kirk’s UVU event says he told cops he shot Kirk to distract police so the real shooter could escape.
“I shot him, now shoot me,” George Zinn allegedly said immediately after Kirk was shot.
While speaking to investigators, Zinn said he was trying to “draw attention from the real shooter.”
Zinn was charged with obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony."
According to reports, he has also been charged with having child porn found on his phone.
Shall I tell you what really annoys me? (Among other things)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
Also George Floyd, whose death managed to change the Western world
I see there are proposals for a unifying National Holiday on October 14. The birthday of both Kirk and Floyd.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
Does Cuba count as a success? I don't know. Bearing in mind no Government is completely successful.
If Chile, where 3000 were executed and tens of thousands were tortured, counts as a "definite" success, then it's hard to say Cuba hasn't "succeeded" too.
The great Pinochet managed to exterminate all the commies, meaning Chile is now the richest and most advanced economy in South America, unlike, say, Venezuela
It's so bad that I was actually looking at Windows 11 earlier on my laptop and thinking this is more coherent and legible than the crap that Apple has just shipped. I genuinely think my phones, iPad, and Mac are all worse off today thanks to Apple's vibe coding or whatever has lead to this.
Sorry I can't see what you wrote I have been blinded by looking at my mac....
How many meeting about meeting about meetings did they have in the doughnut where it was collectively agreed yes this is a definite improvement to the UI/UX on what we have!
Interestingly, the only country in South America that rivals Chile for wealth and stability is Uruguay. And Uruguay also went through a brutal fascist phase, killing all the commies
So maybe we should quit our colonialist sneering and admit that the new world has something to teach us
Comments
https://x.com/ILA_NewsX/status/1965161972015800434
I'll trace where the language (eg "The Spiritual Battle", "Christendom" in usage in 2025 of the USA) comes from another time, but I guess not many PBers are familiar with C Peter Wagner and the New Apostolic Reformation. The "Seven Mountain Mandate" may be more familiar to some.
It always amazes me how poor the UK is at some of these things compared to some of our neighbours.
I can think of two places where Fascism arguably worked
Spain, perhaps
Chile, definitely
One size does not fit all.
Nowhere, as pure capitalism has never been attempted. It has always had a 'public' aspect - even in the USA.
Needless to say, there are also major issues of authoritarianism. I don't know what Raul Castro is up to, these days.
(and that's not a complaint)
There are numerous people who (a) aren't good people, and (b) have been treated pretty poorly.
But somehow, because of the mistreatment, they are elevated to the position of martyr.
Lucy Connelly is one. She definitely didn't deserve the sentence she got (and probably didn't deserve a custodial one at all). But she is still someone who professed hersellf (at the very least) unbothered by people being burned to death. That's not a nice person.
And then there's Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Even if you determine that the traffic stop in Tennessee was not him being involved in people smuggling, you still need to remember that his ex-wife got a protective order against him for domestic violence. He's also probably not a very nice person.
Finally there's Charlie Kirk. Should he have been shot? Hell no. People should be allowed to go around without fear of violence irrespective of their political views. But did he say some pretty vile things? Yeah... I think so.
#usefullifeskills
Theresa May and her badly-drafted Modern Slavery legislation again.
You've left Putin's Russia off the list, that has most of the characteristics of a fascist state.
There also wasn't any kind of political movement alongside Pinochet: he had no Party. On the contrary he groups like the IDU and RN supported the regime. But they weren't the regime.
Nor did Chile have the kind of iconography associated with fascist movements.
Besides, there was a Spanish economic miracle, but it came after junking the actual fascists from government, replacing them with Opus Dei technocrats to run the economy (as in da Vinci Code and Ruth Kelly) and softening the regime to another fairly standard military dictatorship. Spain under Phase One Francoism was going absolutely nowhere.
Matt Singh
@MattSingh_
The strange shape of Liberal England, 2024 edition. Constituencies with more Lib Dem vs more Labour votes (ignoring other parties) are still largely divided by Watling Street (modern day A2/A5), a Roman road built almost 2000 years ago that divided Wessex and the Danelaw in 886AD
Matt Singh
@MattSingh_
·
5h
Even after controlling for age, education, socioeconomics, home ownership, industrial composition, ethnicity, religion and urbanicity, whether your constituency was controlled by Alfred the Great or the Vikings is STILL a statistically significant predictor of the Lib Dem vote!
https://x.com/MattSingh_/status/1967970526451863668
Outstanding moment was the 70s style phone hacking. Pure nostalgia.
The only Oscar nomination it got that year was best editing...
A remarkable year, not least for Fate Dunaway, who also appeared in Chinatown. Godfather II dominated the Oscars; and Mel Brooks released both Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles; and criminal that The Conversation, a paranoid thriller even better than Condor (and another great piece from Coppola) didn't get a best actor nomination for Gene Hackman.
Was '75 the best year ever for movies ?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZGnsPkf_Z-8
Tho Putin is certainly getting there
I think the judges are appointed like all judges are. They have to apply to work in this court AIUI.
This is suicidal for Labour
Hence the Lady went to tea with him in Surrey, when Jack Straw had put him under house arrest, not just to thank him for his support in the Falklands but as he was an ideological soulmate, even if she was more willing to use the ballot box than secret police to preserve her power
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/304516.stm
My family is basically turning Nazi because of this
In 2022 she joined the right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange. She replaced Anthony Ferrar as chair of Water UK in March 2023.
Even more piquantly, the French are about to send their first batch to us
Action, not just words.
We promised we would secure the British steel industry.
Keir Starmer’s economic deal with the US reduces tariffs on British steel to zero.
https://x.com/uklabour/status/1920796573417558378?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
UK hopes for 0% tariff on steel exports to US dashed
https://x.com/bbcnews/status/1968011288501461357?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Oh dear. Not such a great diplomatic start. Protectors managed to project images of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew onto the outside walls of Windsor Castle.
https://x.com/chrisshipitv/status/1968057555370103278
bad
Nuances abound. All we can do is recognise this.
Lamemtably, millions do not.
*'baddie', now, my ten year old, giggling at the hopeless antiquity of her father, means a well presented young woman - the superlative of which is 'baddie boss'. But I'm confident most on here aren't reading in that sense.
Yes, it’s a success
So maybe we should quit our colonialist sneering and admit that the new world has something to teach us
Happily for political economists, the world has given us exactly three counterfactuals: pairs of two societies which started off from roughly the same place, but one went down tge communist path and the other did not: Cuba and Puerto Rico from 1959, North and South Korea after the Korean war, West and East Germany after WW2. I think on that basis it's hard to argue anything other than that communism was awful - both for the freedom of the people and for their material well being.
But apart from that...
You've a friend who likes to think of them self as...
The birthday of both Kirk and Floyd.
5th after Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil, in reverse order. The large rise in economic growth is post-2000.
How many meeting about meeting about meetings did they have in the doughnut where it was collectively agreed yes this is a definite improvement to the UI/UX on what we have!