Charlie Stross20h ago

Holy shit.

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.

https://newrepublic.com/post/209035/hungary-prime-minister-victor-orban-paying-cpac

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Péter Magyar called the payments a “crime” and said his government would stop the funds.

The New Republic
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago
@cstross a person, whose Telegram channel I'm reading since 2022, has this take: every known (far-)right politician contemporary to us is a scam, a fraud, a con artist, a grifter, and a thief. This heuristic more or less holds, with almost no exceptions.
Show threadCharlie Stross7h ago
@militant_dilettante I suspect there used to be some who weren't, who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing for their nation … and they got shoved out of the way or trampled by the mob. And then there's Liz Truss, who *believes* every scam, fraud, and grift they feed her and earnestly regurgitates them without understanding what it's really about (she's the comic relief on the lecture circuit).
Show threadFrank Bennett 🇯🇵
@cstross @militant_dilettante If Liz wanted to remedy her public image, she could (pay whatever gatekeeping fee they charge and) join Reform, and then attend a public event with a Comic Relief nose-pincher.
9:08amWeb
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago

@fgbjr @cstross Would the Reform take her, though? Taking into account that her campaign slogans/punchlines would be something along the lines of "I WILL CUT YOU, SALAD!!"

I might be using an incorrect grocery term for a leafy vegetable, a refrigerated specimen of which had outlasted Truss in her shooting-star-like career as a Prime Minister of the UK. English is obviously not my first language.

Show threadCharlie Stross7h ago
@militant_dilettante @fgbjr It was a head of lettuce—which is indisputably a salad leaf. (Watery and tasteless at that.)
Show threadCharlie Stross7h ago
@fgbjr @militant_dilettante Or she could flee to Dubai or Argentina and publish a tell-all autobiography explaining how she was recruited by the KGB in the upper fifth at Roundhay Grammar School in Leeds and groomed to destabilize the UK by her controller, one V. Putin. At which point … she wouldn't be *popular*, exactly, but her reputation for ineptitude and stupidity would instantly flip upside-down.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante7h ago

@cstross @fgbjr A good strategy, although there is one wrinkle in this storyline (do not tell Liz about it!). V.V.Putin was totally devoted to Germany, and Germanosphere. I doubt he knows even the basic conversational English.

On the other hand, all this East Germany, BRD business of the balding little man could have been one big ruse, and he might be secretly very language-proficient, and a huge UK-nerd (or a general British Isles nerd).

Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus5h ago
@militant_dilettante @cstross @fgbjr I don't know how devoted Putin is to all things German. But having watched the broadcast of his speech, many years ago, to the Bundestag, I can confirm that his German is very good.
Show threadJdeBP6h ago

@fgbjr

#ReformUKLtd won't touch #LizTruss with a barge pole.

#NigelFarage has already gone out of his way to avoid being photographed with her at events that they have both attended.

And this despite Truss having money to pay. She has a well-financed social media operation and is touring the U.S.A. claiming that she will spearhead an English version of MAGA.

Reform U.K. Ltd has nonetheless clearly drawn the line at letting her in.

@cstross @militant_dilettante

Show threadmilitant_dilettante6h ago
@JdeBP @fgbjr @cstross Well, to chase the awkward and not very smart joke into its swampy shallow grave: does that mean that the "Reform U.K.K.K. Ltd." is firmly on the side of lettuce and other leafy greens?
Show threadFazal Majid6h ago
@JdeBP @fgbjr @cstross @militant_dilettante that’s a very low bar for sanity