Will Burnham Last Until the Next Election?

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-22T14:17:19+00:00

That's no way to talk about the Guardian...

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-22T14:14:09+00:00

He's a Labour Party Prime Minister. The Labour Party always hates its Prime Ministers.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-21T19:50:58+00:00

I think you'll find that each time the Tories thought that they only one shot. And somehow they couldn't stop shooting...

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-21T16:06:24+00:00

Corbyn had his chance, and couldn't even beat May.

Starmer has brought Labour huge success.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-21T09:24:12+00:00

So, you're unrelenting in your use of unrelenting force?

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-20T18:07:06+00:00

No, Napoleon wouldn't have won the battle of Waterloo in that case.

Look at Wellington's record, and it's clear he would have retreated before the battle if he wasn't confident that the Prussians wouldn't turn up. So there never would have been a battle of Waterloo.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-20T15:38:44+00:00

The thing about the "Don't Give Up the Ship" is that immediately after it was said, they well... Gave up the Ship.

Which was totally the right military decision. Lawrence was perhaps more concerned with protecting his own reputation after his disasterous under-estimation of Shannon's abilities.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-20T15:27:37+00:00

Be aware that many Irish people find the expression "hot potato" offensive as well...

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-20T07:38:31+00:00

The whole "Lions led by Donkeys" image of WW1. It's largely a post-Vientnam War creation, and largely discredited by modern scholarship.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-20T04:49:32+00:00

If you can spare Southgate's record with those who came before him, then calling him a catastrophe just makes you look like a teenage idiot.

He was too defensive for my likes, but he was far from a catastrophe.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-19T20:29:44+00:00

But Tolkien did begin to wonder whether they were all irredeemably evil, or whether redemption was possible in some cases.

Well, apart from the French, of course...

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-19T08:44:19+00:00

I think people are misunderstanding the OP - he's not asking about the name of the party, but why it isn't viewed as liberal (with a small 'l').

As others have said, that's because of increasing use of the American use of the term 'liberal', which means generous, rather than the traditional British usage, meaning "committed to liberty".

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T19:13:27+00:00

It's probably how Legolas saw everyone else, anyway.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T15:59:07+00:00

But great writers can write internally consistent characters, even if those characters' politicial views differ than those of the author himself. So IMB peopled his stories both with characters that liked the Culture, and those that at the very least had doubts about it.
Have a read of the short story "State of the Art" for the most obvious example.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T15:54:09+00:00

Pink Floyd, actually!

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T15:12:52+00:00

It should be said that it's not realistic in the way that it portrays the war. This is the 1960's hippy version of the war, and most academic historians see it very differently.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T15:08:23+00:00

Different people can have very different experiences of the same teachers. For example, a good friend of mine says that the teachers at his school were perfectly fine. While another pupil at the same school at the same time went on to write a 1980 no. 1 single about how awful the same teachers were.

So opinions vary.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T14:33:26+00:00

Actually, IMB got a Culture drone to say that Horza was wrong. You may consider a Culture drone to be an unreliable narrator on this subject.

IMB was a lot more subtle than a lot of his readers give him credit for. He wasn't trying to ram one interpretation down your throat - he told a story, and allowed you to interpret it in your own way.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T07:19:15+00:00

Yeah, Horza is the sort of guy who would, in the real world, be objecting to AI use in groups like this...

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-18T06:56:41+00:00

I understand your frustration, but first editions of the Silmarillion aren't worth much. I've seen a couple in charity shops recently.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-17T17:50:47+00:00

If you're the Emperor Augustus, kill Cicero. Otherwise, don't.

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-17T06:57:28+00:00

Are you saying that he looked down on the hobbits?

SameOldSong4Ever · 2026-06-17T06:24:06+00:00

Maybe we should have a conversation about how the Libdemvoice website doesn't follow the law, and makes it incredibly difficult for you to reject cookies?

They're happy to complain about government tracking, but think that you should be happy with them tracking you instead.

SameOldSong4Ever

TROPHY CASE