Right, I've done something weird. I've started a film list to go with the book.
Absolutely no-one wanted this. Absolutely no-one demanded it. I have done it anyway.
The great big How To Be A Liberal film marathon is LIVE and you can get it here. One or two films a chapter, exploring the events and ideas they contain. iandunt.com/2020/09/21/the…
I've also included the missus' comments on each film, in which you can watch her slowly understand why it was such a terrible decision to end up with me.
The list so far:
Antz
Cartesius
The Matrix
A Field in England
Fanny Lye Deliver'd
The Man Who Laughs
Hamilton
Danton
• • •
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There's no intellectual debate to be had about what's happening. It's not about immigration, or integration, or Islam. It's about a bunch of violent thugs blaming Muslims for a terrible crime, being instantly disproved, and then continuing with their bullshit anyway.
If you start saying we need to change policy, or reconsider an approach to anything at all on the back of this violence, you are basically legitimising it. You are laundering the reputation of Nazi thugs.
There's really no complexity here at all. They're cunts. The reptile part of the human brain. They threaten the safety of Muslims and Asians in general. They need to be universally condemned by politicians and stamped on hard by police. That's it. That's the response.
Lots of things can be true at the same time. 1) In opposition, Labour knew the Tories were playing a stupid, irresponsible little game with their future departmental spending & tax cuts. And yet they played along anyway, because it was inconvenient to do otherwise.
2) The figures, particularly on asylum housing costs, were worse than we realised. Labour said wonk and wonk-adjacent critics would change their tune after the statement. They were right. Conservative irresponsibility was, as Reeves says, worse than we thought.
3) The core point is that the Tories basically sabotaged the state. Freezing asylum applications, even though it would cost millions in hotels. Promising tax cuts even though officials were earning them that the prison system was about to collapse. It's truly unforgivable.
Let's have an honest conversation about the election result: No party should secure 63.2% of MPs on 33.7% of the popular vote. And that's as true for Labour as it was for the Tories. shorturl.at/Yl3FK
Many seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. 1) the election result is a triumph for the forces of reason and progress 2) The Labour vote is the consequence of a conscious and extremely efficient campaign 3) this result is democratically intolerable.
We should also be honest about something else, uncomfortable though it is. Reform deserved more seats. They got 0.8% of MPs on 14.3% of the popular vote. The Lib Dems got 11.1% of MPs on 12.2% of the popular vote. That's not right.
First, we've no idea if that Reform number is right. Second, come on people what's the matter with you. After 14 years of the most egregious reactionary horror, we're about to get one of the most progressive parliaments in history.
Everything changes now. Everything. Not just the policies, but much deeper than that.
The values and the personalities of the people in charge will be entirely different. You might not like every position they adopt, but they will hold a bundle of decent, humane, tolerant progressive instincts which are completely opposed to what we've seen for the last decade.
Right. TV debates. Basically the worst possible way to spend an evening. I'm starting with this. I do not rule out escalating to rum and possibly arsenic.
Are they in some kind of 90s video game?
Sunak has a difficult message here: Starmer will do this (BAD) but also we don't know what he'll do (ALSO BAD). He really needs to settle for one or the other. It's rather a struggle to convince people of both contradictory things at the same time.
A little while back, Gary Frank, one of the greatest superhero artists alive, put my book on the cover of his comic.
My brain basically collapsed with joy. When I had put it back together, I asked him if I could buy the original art.
He said yes - except that he refused to sell it to me and instead asked that I make a donation to Veterans Aid.
Original comic art is worth a lot, especially for someone at this level - 100s of £, often more. It's a preposterously generous thing for him to have done.