To be fair, in Cobden's day the main government expenditure was "war" so the combo made a bit more sense

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

This falls into another of my "it is a great shame for sociology that the mass arrival of smartphones and the GFC coincide" gripes

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

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

I don't suppose it is ever worth pointing out that blaming the SPD for killing Rosa Luxemburg lets off the fascists who actually, you know, killed Rosa Luxemburg?

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

(no Victor Laszlo is not Hungarian but his name is, for some reason, which seems good enough)

Casablanca La Marseillaise YouTube video by CortoMaltese86

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

Viktor Orban conceding electoral defeat is like Putin acknowledging Ukrainian sovereignty or Trump becoming a feminist. Completely at odds with his entire brand.

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

It has been said that my Holy Roman Empire jokes are neither holy nor Roman nor funny

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

Fascinating to hear how much of Mosley's conversion came down to the festering sense of resentment at his rejection by a polite centre-left society that just found him obnoxious, a story with absolutely zero contemporary relevance

The white working class have lost touch with everyday hardworking pundits

Yes the bit that really interests me is what Mario powerup star Starmer had eaten that allowed him to briefly exceed those limits (and no I don't buy that he was actually being puppeteered if for no other reason than if it were that easy, why would you stop)

I would like to hear more about this as it has never made sense to me

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

Yes, this is more the Severus Alexander war (naïve leader wanting overly complicated plan, no real idea of what to do with tactical successes)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Actually existing Blue Labour often amounts to "we intend to Notice that many of our voters are socially conservative, and continue to Notice this, occasionally Furrow Our Brow, and in extreme cases write an article about how we have Noticed"

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