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Richard Beach's avatar

HAROLD LASKI KLAXON!!!

(one for the Origin Story fans there)

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Robin Mulvihill's avatar

They are much closer to the burn it all down Leninists than they are able to fathom.

They come at it financed by bad money from bad actors and have no real ideology except xenophobia and deregulation.

The hope is (not seeing much to be hopeful for from HMG) that the contrast with the USofA scares the horses enough that Reform and the Tories do not get enough traction.

Our FPTP system is about to face its sternest test - electoral reform doesn’t look likely before 2029 and I’m not seeing anything from Starmer and the cabinet that does anything apart from draw more attention to Farage and Jenrick’s tinpot fash for beginners.

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Jane Mcloughlin's avatar

Just as well that so few people will know what a tinderbox is, apart from, possibly, Express readers.

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Dorit Braun's avatar

Thank you. A much needed perspective. Also, please trademark this phrase. It is wonderful!

Robert Jenrick - an experiment in what national socialism would look like if it was designed by Laura Ashley

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Jamie Taylor's avatar

Ian, this is beautifully constructed and written. I daren’t guess how much sweat and pain it takes takes to write at this level but it reads like stone tablets of truth from the mountain and lifts my spirit accordingly.

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Peter Stewart's avatar

Terrific stuff Ian. As an optimist though, I'm hopeful that the hour of maximum danger is well past now that the football season has started.

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Rachel Jones's avatar

Thank you for a well written article

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Dan_Hall's avatar

Loved hearing about how you are currently relaxing playing Zelda. I used to get the same feeling playing World of Warcraft a long time ago. I wouldn’t always go on a quest, but have a nice wander around Elwynn Forest, maybe a bit of shopping in the Undercity. I must admit however, I now have an image of a little pixelated Ian with a butterfly net cursing the little fuckers to keep still so you can catch them for your magic soup 😄

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Pali Beans's avatar

Oh here we go, you've been at the Laski again.

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Caroline's avatar

Nailed it- again, thank you. Whilst you are in your fantasy world of butterflies and unicorns I find picking up the horse poo from my sister in law’s horse field , very therapeutic and grounding! Highly recommend every politician to do a stint, can help with equipment, literally pushing shit up hill, it will feel very familiar for them !

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Dave's avatar

I look forward to next week or the week after to hear how Ian finds riding on dragons, surfing on shields and dyeing his clothes in the kingdom of Hyrule.

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Arthur Baker's avatar

Brilliant writing as always, Mr Dunt. Couple of small corrections, the Lionesses won the Euro championship not the World Cup, and their Dutch coach's name is Sarina.

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David Eastman's avatar

Satina Wiegman sounds like a DJ who only works in Barcelona

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Steve Edwards's avatar

Immigration hotels, let’s be clear. Owners have a contract that guarantees them a fee at 100% occupancy with reduced staffing and a clause that pays for a refit of the property at the end of contract. It’s simply not cynical to say that the conservative government that created this mess was complicit in handing money to the hoteliers. A good skilled journalist should be able to unwind this and follow the money. No doubt that there is corruption.

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Jonathan Cullen's avatar

Let's just hope that Con & Ref keep on trying to outdo each other so that they evenly split the RW vote to help limit the damage in terms of FPTP in 2029. Hopefully the country won't burn to the ground in the meantime...

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Tammy Brantley's avatar

The U.K. seems to be about 10 years behind the US. God help us if Farage actually gets in power. We’ll head completely down the right wing authoritarian rabbit hole.

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Peter Jones's avatar

Putin will be overjoyed

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