[Andy McDandy]

On the flip side, having it at the mercy of here today, gone tomorrow politicians chasing votes and doing anything for short term popularity...

[Tubby Isaacs]

I can't be arsed checking Paul's timeline, but I would guess he was a big critic of QE and a straight talking sound money sort of guy.

[Youngian]

Paul’s discovered some radical new thinking about the economy and democracshee fished out of Tony Benn’s dustbin in 1981.

[Tubby Isaacs]

“Ideas and intellect” sounds a bit clever elite.

[Youngian]

This is the latest ‘everyone but the Tories are to blame’ narrative, state capture by the university educated lefties.

[mattomac]

Spiked famous for their annual free speech in Students’ Unions survey, when they first did it they would actually communicate us in a rather threatening manner. It doesn’t matter what you sent them mind, they would decide what things meant often using documents at least 5 years out of date or laughably failing us because they claimed they couldn’t access the website.

There was no outage reported that day, or week or month.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here he is. Seemingly saying nobody can form a judgement on anything unless there's been a court case.

[Youngian]

I formed an opinion when Harvey Proctor as well as Neil and Christine Hamilton were accused of attending sleazy sex parties, that they were ludicrous baseless allegations. I can safely say I wasn’t politically motivated.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I too formed an opinion that Harvey Proctor probably hadn't murdered anyone despite what Carl Beech said. No trial needed.

[MisterMuncher]

It's a cheap, lazy point to score, but I could probably name more than a few names that never saw trial that the bould Paul would be very sure were entirely guilty of what they were accused of.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Don't mess with the famous realism of Enid Blyton's Famous Five", says Paul. Does he think there's an actual Kirrin Island in Cornwall, where 13 year olds solve crimes every school holiday?

[Youngian]

Embery wouldn’t have a problem if they met the character in Golliwog Town.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here's Paul making out the two situations are the same. I don't think the mission in the Red Sea is to take out all the small boats, or that asylum seekers are crossing the channel on pirate ships.

You might as well say "If we can keep the peace in Bosnia, why can't we stop kids in inner cities from stealing cars?"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, Paul. Rory Stewart's fault, with his clever clever stuff like voting for May's deal instead of No Deal bollocks.

Btw, I think the trend reported here (that young people are attracted to fascists may be bollocks.

[Youngian]

No polling shows enthusiasm for right wing populism among 18-35s, do they want a Fidel Castro figure at the helm?

[Andy McDandy]

Working on the basis of "what's the smallest amount of work strictly needed to come up with this?" (a surprisingly good rule of thumb when dealing with journalism), I think this means Danny asked 3 people, 2 of which said yes to a competent leader who gets shit done.

Meanwhile, is there anyone in this Blue Labour thing apart from Paul Embrey?

[Crabcakes]

I suspect that poll result might show people - and in particular young people - being generally sick of fuckwitted leaders who are openly corrupt and/or sell them out. Do the same poll after a few years of a Labour govt. and see what they say then.

It’s not that people want dictators. It’s that people can see even a fucking dictator would have some benefits over the current shitshow and at least not alternately pander to them/shaft them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some good points in this thread and in response.

The changes in the youth answers look very hard to explain. People are hazy on this stuff and might just mean "strong leader who gets things done" rather than "say what you like about Putin..."

[mattomac]

I suspect that poll result might show people - and in particular young people - being generally sick of fuckwitted leaders who are openly corrupt and/or sell them out. Do the same poll after a few years of a Labour govt. and see what they say then.

It’s not that people want dictators. It’s that people can see even a fucking dictator would have some benefits over the current shitshow and at least not alternately pander to them/shaft them.

Probably on to something looking at that trend.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I'm having flashbacks to an undergrad module 'Europe of the Dictators, the defeat of democracy'.

People then thought that democracy had failed and they yearned for strong men and simple answers...

They were naive; the dictators were not.