johnny anderson

@LordCampV @kunley_drukpa Yeah its great isn't it?

@kunley_drukpa "significant time delay where none of the ‘new stuff’ has reached them yet" I have written about this phenomenon in all-inclusive Cuban and DR resorts populated by Canadians and LatAms. They are stuck in the 1990s, all the music is permanently 1980s/90s adult contemp/ballads.

🇬🇧 ABOUT ‘BRITISHNESS’ AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ‘BRITISH’ TODAY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF APATHETIC LATINAS 🇬🇧 When you tell people in Latin America (also Asia etc) that you are British in most cases the only things they will know about Britain are “oh wow Harry Potter, Ed Sheeran, Bowie, Adele, the Beatles” etc. They will tell you that they want to go to London to “visit Abbey Road” and that their favourite song is ‘Let it be’, that they think David Beckham is “very handsomest” and maybe very occasionally they might even have heard of Top Gear In most cases there is clearly a significant time delay where none of the ‘new stuff’ has reached them yet. By ‘new stuff’ I mean ‘Yookay’ of course. Went to a bar in a certain Latin American city a few months ago which was British rock band themed; as in the Who, Oasis, Led Zeppelin etc. Full of slightly swarthy guys dressed like they lived in Manchester circa 2003. Was really a remarkable sight, felt a twinge of pride. Don’t @ me with stupid ‘uh actually’ comments because you go to a ‘great bar in Bristol sometimes’ but notable ‘to a certain extent’ that this kind of authentically ‘British’ grungy-indie culture has disappeared from public life in Britain today. Where are these kinds of bands anymore? Probably maybe they exist but you don’t hear about them as much. Though the Yookay juggernaut seems to have marginalised them somewhat it isn’t as if ‘the concept’ itself is unpopular - see eg the success of the Oasis Reuinion Tour Anyway, this is what happens; people have these preconceptions about a place and there isn’t an incentive to update them so you for your part get to be play act as a ‘Cool Britannia’ transplant, as in - Britain has the reputation it did 20 years ago, you are from the Britain of 20 years ago and in your head maybe you can pretend a little bit that you’re still living there too. This is what many ‘apathetic latinas’ think ‘Britishness’ still is. It’s a great identity leverage, works wonders - ‘00’s legacy Britishness’ is genuinely a big asset (use your imagination as to how) which is why it’s frustrating to see it being squandered back in Britain Made a point to ask some Latinas if they knew Central Cee, Stormzy “Who?” Most of them knew Dua Lipa at least but she is slightly less ‘Yookay-coded’ Can’t really expect everyone the world over to be ‘up to date’ on developments in your specific country ofc - mostly people don’t really care to bother updating ‘what they know’ about some far off place they’ve never been to even if it is / was nominally one of the cooler far off places they’ve never been to. Still, for me what you notice about it is that it is ‘nice’ to have people fawn over your country and then again for an increasingly antiquated version of it that you are sometimes nostalgic for. You enjoy it. You know like a guy who has this shirtless photo he took a few years ago that he looks great in and he looks at it and goes “yeah I was so peak back then bro” but then he let himself go and nowadays he’s actually a disgusting fat slob Knew at least three Argentinian women who moved to Camden (on their Italian passports) specifically because of that kind of Amy Winehouse alternative vibe, because they liked that kind of grungy 90s-00s Indie aesthetic. One woman, before she moved to London, the ‘Kaiser Chiefs’ had come to do a gig once in Buenos Aires and she got one of the band members to sign her arm with a marker pen, then she got a tattoo over the signature - so now she has a permanent tattoo of the guy’s signature. Actually attractive woman too. Incredible British soft power, making Leeds of all places seem glamorous, can you imagine? What is the equivalent of this today? One of them still lives in London, though she got engaged to an Italian. Another moved to Italy and the third one recently moved back to Argentina Asked the one who moved back, “why did you move back?” “I don’t really enjoy London as much as I used to so I just decided to go home”

@anygod_ofyours @kunley_drukpa "How did this happen?" is exactly the reaction my leftie-liberal East European friend produced when he visited my Islamic Lancastrian home town.

@kunley_drukpa I'm in Argentina now and they're shocked when I tell them London is 40% white Embarrassing when they ask "how did this happen"

So similar to 1950's American 'Red Scare' material, it's actually funny: theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2… ‘I feel like I’m losing her’: the families torn apart by older relatives going far right

@DAaronovitch @James_Treadwell I'd be interested to see some examples of the 'significant attempts' to rectify this issue David?

@James_Treadwell Nice attempt at victimhood but this has been regarded by policy makers as a problem for well over 20 years, and significant attempts have been made to try and rectify it. So maybe it's time for you to consider why those attempts haven't worked.

Oh, that terrible low culture, likely sexist, racist and probably 'Far Right' white working class male everyone, but especially progressive liberals, forgot about because they were not there in DEI priorities. Careful now, someone in politics has just remembered that they exist.

@whitesundesert They live in different worlds really don't they? The issues facing the FN or AfD are just a completely different context.

@johnandpol National conservative movements in Europe are about 2 standard deviations to the left of RINOs, and 3 to the left of Trump.

Good analysis. The American right mostly misunderstand European politics and (like the Dems) view it through their domestic prism. Trump is a toxic brand. National conservative movements are drawing the right conclusions. Farage needs to be careful on this.

It's a fair point.

American cluelessness over Hungary is evident on both sides of the spectrum. The MAGA types can't understand Hungarian conservatives wanting Orban out and the liberals are trying to convince themselves that a left-liberal won. Shouldn't be a surprise.

@ambrosefontaine @EWErickson But he didn't.

@EWErickson And yet, Scottie still could have won with his C game.

I have to disagree with Jon on this. Any golfer playing at the masters could have done the same and chose not to. He wanted to win the second time and did what he needed to do. Other golfers could have done the same. This sort of reeks of sports socialism to me. Because other golfers did not do it, even though they could have done it, we should penalize Rory.

@HorcherF But of course, as you rightly point out, the problems go much deeper than the campaign strategy/messaging.

@HorcherF I would hope at the very least they start by looking at why the campaign was so terrible in terms of key messages. From afar but knowing the country I couldn't believe the excessive focus on Ukraine, war, etc. Like they forgot all the lessons of past campaigns.

Time to face reality: the Hungarian electorate ousted the ruling power. The electoral system Fidesz introduced gave its opponent a two-thirds majority. Orbán established a one-man rule, tailored the campaign to himself, he is responsible for the defeat, he has to resign. x/1

@HorcherF Agreed - if the priority is to re-establish Fidesz as a Christian-Democratic conservative force capable of governing Hungary. But is that really the priority for the current Fidesz leadership?

If Fidesz wants to keep its ~2,3 million supporters and regain the trust of voters and critics, they have to draw the conclusions from the election, leaders have to resign. They must return to those original, sober and moderate principles that gave them their moral strength. 5/5

So the day after the election victory Peter Magyar says Hungary won't stop buying Russian oil (obviously) although they would look to diversify supplies (obviously). Also says against fast-tracking Ukraine's EU membership ("absurd") and won't contribute to EU loan to Ukraine.

@SzabadonMagyar Also confirmed they don't support fast-track EU membership for Ukraine and will continue to buy Russian oil.

Peter Magyar, during his international press conference, confirmed that Szijjarto, Orbán's foreign minister, has barricaded himself with some of his closest colleagues and is destroying and shredding evidence about his treason (documents about the sanctions against russians).

The Orban era was an unusually ideological period for Hungarian politics. I suspect it will now gradually return to disputes over public appointments, corruption scandals and battles over media control. Much less interesting for foreign ideologues of left and right abroad.

@arisroussinos We'll see. The truth is no-one really knows where he stands on most issues. And then there is the matter of a governing party which isn't really a party but more an anti-Fidesz grand coalition.

Tisza voter (middle class software engineer): Orban was right about immigration, look at Germany and England. Thank God Peter Magyar is better

If you are looking for the main reason why Orban lost - you won't find it in the Ukraine stuff or any of the big broad themes people associate with Orban. It was corruption. Constant corruption for years. People were sick of it.

They still would have lost with a decent campaign but maybe not as heavily as this. It sounded like a desperation campaign from the outset.

No-one will be interested in the detail because as always with Hungary coverage the grand, global narrative, gets more likes but...the Fidesz campaign was shockingly bad. So OTT on Ukraine, war etc. They completely forgot the recipe that had worked for them.

@Misanfrog There’s a bit of cope in this view. The entire Hungarian liberal left was behind Magyar.

Magyar sounds like a good thing.