That depends on whether the curruption/espionage/incompetence charge sticks. Merging with the Tories gives Reform instant credibility, and a cadre of ostensibly competent candidates for local and national elections.

I don’t know. To catch him if he falls the wrong way?

youtu.be/zoyCo7AygqI?...

I apologise. When one is forced to write in short messages, one’s natural assumption, when a smart person does not agree with something, is that one has not expressed oneself carefully enough.

Nobody whose job is to serve the public may ignore them. Those people are all equally tasked with keeping in mind the legitimacy of what they are doing (or advising others to do).

To the extent that it influences the opinions of the governed, it does.

My point is not that public authorities should give the tabloids what they want. But they can’t ignore them either.

(See also: boze boeren, vaccin sceptics, racists, etc)

Ze zijn verschillende dingen aan het doen. Trump heeft een aantal geloofsartikelen (importheffingen, zero sum dealmaking). Verder interesseert het hem weinig, en zijn die Project 2025 types bezig met hun eigen ideologie.

Not if you’re conscious of the fact that all legitimacy depends on the consent of the governed it’s not.

I know. It’s my translation of the Daily Mail test.

I think that’s wrong. The Daily Mail test asks at least two useful questions:

1. What is the “ordinary man in the street” explanation for what we’re doing?

2. What’s the strongest argument against what we’re doing?

Both are good questions to ask, particularly for a public authority.

I'm sure England doesn't. It would require serious recruitment. But it seems irresponsible to ask a defendant for, say, murder to entrust his life to a single person.

Sure, or it may turn out that judges are softies who are more willing to listen to stories from bleeding-heart defence barristers than tough-on-crime common sense-applying jurors. Who knows?