Steelmanning their point, they might not be saying that all this is orchestrated by some third party (e.g. Russia), but that they are benefiting from it.

To which I’d say: unfortunately, the same holds true for the alternative.

And brought the receipts :) Thanks! And ah yes, Reform is the current name, thanks.

Right, but I’m just trying to get a feel for how big UKIP support is at the moment - but this sounds like it’s at the level of either Labour or the Conservatives (and presumably Labour, which I think is still far larger than the Convervatives?), right?

And I assume that “far right” is UKIP? So you’re saying that UKIP is neck-and-neck with Labour and Conservatives combined?

Which UK party are you referring to when you say “liberals”?

That sounds very solvable. I’d imagine e.g. BBC, ARTE, etc. would form a joint holding organisation that buys pre-rights and uses them as distributors. Or perhaps they still individually buy the pre-rights, and while they technically will have permission to show them everywhere, since they don’t serve all the market, they don’t need exclusivity. Or perhaps they all decide to grab the opportunity and start to serve the entire EU market, making them players by themselves that are able to stand up to US counterparts.

It’s pretty hard to have a good discussion if you’re evaluating comparisons against standards that are not relevant to the point being made. My point was not to say that the climate crisis is as unimportant as needing to wear a colander; my point was that “it doesn’t work” is a bad argument, because you can also use it to justify something as ridiculous as wearing a colander.

I’m all for better climate policy, but “because peaceful protest doesn’t work” is a pretty bad justification. My peaceful protest to mandate wearing a colander in public won’t work, but that doesn’t mean that violent protest is justified.

Granted, I haven’t read the book, so it might make a more nuanced argument.

A stronger argument is that you need to have a free and democratic opportunity to provide input. This is an easy case to make e.g. for slaves, or people under an apartheid regime. It might be possible to make the argument when it comes to e.g. multi-national companies having outsized influence on legislation, or other countries in which you can’t vote instating policies that affect you.