Concrete Achievements

Author: Anthony Zacharzewski

  • Links from the week of 21 June 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • I think this is a good doorstep line but a dangerous direction.

    I think this is a good doorstep line but a dangerous direction. First, Hungary is not the Hungarian government. Millions of Hungarians are neutral or hostile to Orban, and creating a situation in which “the liberals” are threatening them with loss of their EU rights twitter.com/vonderburchard…

    and finances will not help anyone. Second, don’t threaten what you can’t do. No-one can force Hungary out of the EU, and they won’t leave voluntarily, so this just looks futile. Third, liberal values are also contended within the Benelux (hello FvD, VB etc) and other liberal

    countries. It is better to fight for them across Europe rather than othering one or two “backward” countries for their most extreme positions and telling them they have to conform or leave the club. Fourth, human rights are personal rights, not the rights of states.

    The battle for them can only be won if we base the argument on the solidarity of *people* across Europe. So, in summary, this is an Orban problem, and a problem of right wing nationalism, not a Hungarian problem or an Eastern problem.

  • This is the perfect example of Dominic Cummings being a great campaigner but an appalling…

    This is the perfect example of Dominic Cummings being a great campaigner but an appalling politician. « Turkey is joining » is non-deniable enough to whip up FUD but is not *usefully* true, a fact you can base any policy decision on. twitter.com/Dominic2306/st…

    It ironic that someone whose constant theme is that society is too complex and fast moving to be governed by the dullards in the civil service or Brussels has as his only concrete achievement something that is based on deliberate « true enough » obfuscation.

    The problem with « true enough » campaigning being that it gets you the win but gives you neither the intellectual framework nor the alliances to make any concrete progress. If you’re anti-EU I guess that leaving the EU is a sort of progress but

    it’s the progress of ripping out an old kitchen … your sense of achievement ends with a heap of rubble, some broken pipes, and no kitchen.

  • Links from the week of 14 June 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Basically Zoom conferences are all the worst bits of conferences, the bits where you’d…

    Basically Zoom conferences are all the worst bits of conferences, the bits where you’d normally do your emails in the back of the room, and none of the travel, seeing friends or new idea time.

    They all look so interesting and attractive and they are so full of people saying what you’d expect them to say in the way you’d expect them to say it (and I include myself in this).

    I am deeply missing a chat with a random new friend in a mid-market restaurant in Vilnius, or getting an insight into my work by explaining it to someone sceptical while holding a glass of bad white wine.

  • Links from the week of 7 June 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Spotting someone saying that we need to write “an [deleted] strategy for the 21st…

    Spotting someone saying that we need to write “an [deleted] strategy for the 21st century”, and thinking “bit late, no?”. Given I’ll be 80 in 2053, my new aim is that my last public policy contribution should be a strategy for the 22nd century.

    (After reinventing democracy in Europe for the 21st century, earlier on).

    Glad that I lived through the golden age of think-tank vision report titles that was 2020.

  • Links from the week of 31 May 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • A few replies to this are « I don’t suppose Brexiters will mind being shut out of France…

    A few replies to this are « I don’t suppose Brexiters will mind being shut out of France » – well maybe not, some. But anyone who wants the UK back and playing a full role in Europe won’t fall for the trap of tarring all Brexiteers with that brush. twitter.com/Otto_English/s…

    It is a trap, to believe that the charlatans in the political/media class and the barely sane ranters on here are the genuine voice of those who voted Leave. They are no more that than someone with a whole-body Thierry Henry tattoo is the voice of football fandom.

    There is an addressable middle. The people who believed (as some of my Leave friends did) that nothing would really change and the NHS would get more money. Or that there would be more jobs, or national pride, without any costs to pay.

    I don’t blame people much for thinking that, it was what a group of politicians were telling them and for many people one group of politicians is much the same as another. But now the challenge for British Europeans is to make those disappointed voters – and there are a lot –

    connect their disappointment to British false promises not spiteful Europeans who hate British freedom. The majority of the print media will blame Europeans, some because they are proto-fascist by sympathy, others because it sells. The current government will

    reinforce that, because it’s in their interest, and the current opposition won’t do anything about it, it seems. So the least we can do is not fall into the trap of claiming that Brexiteers want to ban travel to France. That sets up the maniacs as the mainstream. They aren’t.

  • Links from the week of 24 May 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.