There he stood, he could do no other. Possibly.

Today marks an anniversary of truly historic proportions. Five hundred years ago today, a priest sent a letter.

That is all we can say with confidence definitely happened on October 31st, 1517. There is another story, that he hammered a copy of the same letter to the door of his local parish church. But while it makes for an excellent story, it cannot be proved.

The contents of the letter, sent to his bishop, were explosive, although no one at the time realised it. They tore apart just over a millennium of unity in Western Europe. In 1500, you could go from Norway to Italy, from Spain to Poland, and pretty much everyone would profess the same beliefs. They believed in one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth... and so on.

The letter sent on Allhallowtide 1517 changed all that. The medieval Catholic Church, fairly popular and reflective of the beliefs of the people, was destroyed, emerging as the modern Roman Catholic Church. Arrayed against it was the bewildering array of Protestant denominations. In the process, millions of Europeans butchered each other in the name of Christ.

Our story begins hundreds of miles away from the sleepy little town in northern Germany, in Rome. Pope Julius II was out of money. Constant wars, and the rebuilding of St Peter's basilica, had finally caught up with him. Luckily, Julius had a plan to raise the cash he so desperately needed. He launched a sale of indulgences. These were essentially a 'Get out of jail free' card from Monopoly, only they weren't free. In exchange for a fee, the indulgence would shorten the time spent by the purchaser in purgatory, the gateway to heaven in Catholic teaching where sins are burnt away before entry to paradise.

In the Holy Roman Empire, the most mis-named state in all human history, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was not viewed kindly by many. For years, resentment at money being taken from Germany and ecclesiastical corruption had fuelled anti-clericalism. Julius' blatant use of the Church as a cash cow for his world ambitions provoked more ire. In Saxony, there was fury when an indulgence salesman showed up and began peddling his wares. These complaints were taken to an Augustinian monk, a professor at the University of Wittenberg. Martin Luther's challenge to the indulgence seller to defend his position would have massive implications.

Yet Luther was not the first person to raise his voice against these practices within the Church. In the 1300s, Oxford University lecturer John Wycliffe had said many of the same things. In the early 1400s, these writings came to the attention of Jan Hus, a Czech university lecturer. Neither man met a good end. In Wycliffe's case, English law protected him, and he died in his bed in his mid-60s. However, shortly after, a heresy law was introduced in England, and Wycliffe's remains were exhumed and burnt; his ashes were tipped into a local river.

Hus' fate was even more dramatic. He was summoned to the Council of Constance in 1415, to debate his ideas before a general council of the Catholic Church. He was promised safe conduct; however, on his arrival, he was imprisoned, put on trial, and burnt at the stake. In response, Bohemia rose in revolt against the Holy Roman Emperor, and the revolt took twenty years to be put down.

What Wycliffe, Hus, and the numerous heretics who had gone to their deaths in the centuries before Luther all lacked was the ability to communicate their ideas widely. But since the flames that had consumed Hus, an invention had arrived in Europe that would transform the world. The printing press reduced the time taken to complete a book. Already, some authors were being widely read- Erasmus, and Thomas More. But the exciting nature of Luther's ideas, his clear and plain prose, catapulted him onto the bestseller list. Erasmus grumbled that soon it was impossible to find a book that wasn't by Luther or about him. This ability to spread his message and get it heard was the making of Martin Luther.

Eventually, Luther would find himself excommunicated from the universal Church, condemned to suffer in hell for eternity. He would ramp up his attacks, from being merely anti-indulgence to anti-papal, and finally breaking with key elements of Catholic doctrine. Fanned by the printing press, political power grabs and popular anti-clericalism, Luther's message eventually spawned the European Reformation, destroying Christian unity in Western Europe and condemning countless numbers to die in the religious conflicts that wracked Europe for the rest of the early modern period. For Christianity, the split between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism was made immeasurably more complicated, as the Protestant denominations split from the Western Catholic Church. These divisions still matter today, as one look at Ireland will make clear. They certainly provoked centuries of conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism.

But all that was in the future. As the sun set on Wittenberg on that autumn day in 1517, an obscure German monk could not have had any idea what he had just set in motion. Whether he really did hammer the 95 Theses to the church door, or simply sent them as a letter to his bishop, he had set in motion the biggest historical upheaval since the end of the Roman Empire.

"Yes Martin, just pose nicely" said the illustrators from the Ladybird books

In Praise of... Podcasts

So today is apparently International Podcast Day. Yes, there is now even a day for that it would seem.

But I love podcasts, as anyone who has listened to me for more than 30 seconds may know. As a teacher, they really help me to do my marking; it turns out I can't mark in silence, and get easily bored with radio and music in the car, so these gems have been helping me to get through some of the tedium.

Here is what keeps me going:

FiveThirtyEight Politics

In 2012, I remember using this website to try and stay calm as Obama's re-election looked to be on the rocks. Got last year less wrong than other political analysts. Amazing how something as dry as sample sizes can be made into something really interesting.

BBC Friday Night Comedy

Not always good, not always finished. But often making me absolutely crack up.

In Our Time

Bringing expert views on an overwhelming range of historical, literary and philosophical topics to a wider audience since 1998.

The Documentary

A selection from the BBC World Service's documentaries that week. Can be easy to get bogged down, but some real gems about topics you'd never even considered thinking about.

History Extra

The BBC history magazine's podcast. Interviews with historians are well worth listening to, and goes into far more depth than the magazine seems to.

The History Hour

Using the BBC archives to compile a 'This week in history' feature. Some excellent coverage of events from around the world.

Analysis

Hard thinking about the major problems of the 21st century.

The New Statesman Podcast

It is nice to know that, in a world in which everything I believe is seemingly under siege, that I am not alone.

The National Archives Podcast Series

Fascinating insights into the treasure trove of documents that the UK government has been amassing since the Norman Conquest.

The Folklore Podcast

We may pretend to ourselves that we are modern, sophisticated people with no fears and worries about that which we don't understand. But who are we kidding? Everyone is fascinated, and not to mention slightly afraid, of the things that exist on the edge of our explanation, and that go bump in the night.

Pod Save America

Four people who used to work for the Obama administration rip into the Trump presidency twice a week. It is as funny as you'd expect.

Slate's Whistlestop

Although only on number 45, the American presidency has already seen many ups, downs, highlights and lowlights. American political journalist John Dickerson is an expert guide through the years, and shows that Trump is only different in tone and style to those who have gone before him.

Diane: Entering the town of Twin Peaks

I've been watching Twin Peaks for a couple of months now, and it is really nice to have some people flesh out what on Earth they think I've just watched!

Diane...

Brexitcast

Over the next 18 months, the UK is going to attempt a geopolitical challenge that will dwarf anything we have done before, and likely anything we ever try again. Am mighty glad someone is around to explain it.

Britain is (partly) to blame for North Korea's nuclear threats.

I'm going to say something controversial here.

The UK has helped to make the current spat with North Korea happen.

Now, on the surface, this seems daft. While Britain is certainly 'on South Korea's side,' having fought under the UN banner in the Korean War to defend it from North Korea's invasion, we also have diplomatic relations with North Korea, which not all countries do. However, these relations do not amount to very much. We have no military forces in the region, and although we regularly join in the condemnation of the North's nuclear programme, there isn't much Britain actually does to counter it.

So how is this our problem?

We need to travel back to a very different time to understand how this is our fault. Well, to 2003 at any rate.

The world was still stunned by the devastating terrorist attacks that had rocked the United States in September 2001. As I've written before, the international reservoir of goodwill that America had accumulated was enormous. It had enabled the USA, alongside other countries, to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; the Taliban had provided support and cover for Al-Quaeda. The Americans had narrowly failed to capture Al-Quaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden. But no matter, the Taliban was down and a fledgling Afghan democracy was supposed to be under construction. No one could begrudge the Americans that operation.

But yet the USA was on the brink of squandering the goodwill. As 2003 dawned, it was hurtling into a confrontation with Iraq. Since the Gulf War of 1991, Iraq under Saddam Hussein had been an international pariah. Sanctions had reduced the country to poverty, the Americans and British regularly pounded Iraqi installations with air strikes, large chunks of the country were under US and British no-fly zones. As part of this international pressure, Iraq had been forced to open up its military facilities to international inspection. During the 1980s, and the long war with Iran, Iraq had developed a host of chemical and biological weapons. Had the Israelis not attacked the Osirak nuclear reactor, there is a good chance that Saddam would have had nuclear weapons too. During the Gulf War, there was a tremendous fear of this arsenal. But by the late 1990s, it was widely assumed that, despite Iraq's efforts to block inspections, their arsenal of weapons of mass destruction had been eliminated.

And then September 11th happened. The Bush administration considered Saddam Hussein to be unfinished business; the younger George Bush would finish off what the elder George Bush had not. Suddenly, there was a drumbeat to war, as some Western intelligence agencies worked hard to prove that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme was continuing in the shadows. Many who did not believe accused the Americans of using the weapons as cover to settle old scores. Fear of outside attack being exploited to provide cover for an extension of democracy and oil grabbing. In the absence of hard proof, it became a matter of belief.

The USA was unable to convince the United Nations that Iraq posed a clear and present danger to the global order. So instead, a 'coalition of the willing' was created, splitting the international community. Britain agreed to support the United States, in the midst of huge controversy. In March 2003, the coalition went ahead and attacked Iraq, with the pretext being that they had clear authority from previous UN resolutions to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

We all know what happened next. The weapons were never found. Iraq had indeed surrendered nearly all of its weapons of mass destruction during the 1990s. A tiny amount remained, but it was useless. The fact Saddam hadn't used the weapons when confronted with the overwhelming might of American military power was probably a bit of a clue. Saddam was later to be hanged, and his country slid into sectarian carnage.

But the world was watching. The message was clear. Even if you engaged with the United Nations, and went along with the idea of disarmament, it was not enough to save you. The message was rammed home painfully in 2011, when Colonel Gaddafi was toppled in Libya, by most of the same countries that had destroyed Iraq. In 2003, Gaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons programme in the 2000s, in return for being brought in from the cold. It didn't do him any good, and his fate was to be shot and killed in a gutter as his regime crumbled under NATO airstrikes.

North Korea has been watching. In the 1990s, there were moves by North Korea to engage with the rest of the world, partially motivated by a crippling famine and the end of Soviet aid after the end of the Cold War. But since the early 2000s, this avenue has been closed. In 2006 they tested their first nuclear weapon, and the rest has brought us to today.

Had we refused to support US action against Iraq in 2003, I'm sure the Bush administration would not have changed its mind, it would have still attacked Iraq anyway. North Korea may still have decided it's future security lay in pursuing the nuclear route. But by lending our support to the Americans, and showing the dangers of being a disarmed country, Britain helped to persuade North Korea to arm itself.

The Iraq War is continuing to have impacts that we cannot understand, and certainly couldn't imagine.

Anti-war protesters in London, 2003.

How useful is a statue in learning about American history? (12 marks)

I went on holiday last week. When I left, I was still slightly concerned I'd be coming back to a world in which Donald Trump had pressed the button, and gone to war with North Korea. Instead, when I came back, it was to find out that the Nazis were back, and the US Civil War was still being fought. Talk about travelling back in time; next week, he will try and restart the Thirty Years War, or the Wars of the Roses...

The USA, and the internet, has split over a statue. This isn't new. In recent years, public monuments have caused enormous and passionate controversy across the world. Statues that were put up to celebrate the achievements of people in the past are now being contested, due to shifts in attitudes and changes in values that have taken place in the intervening years.

I have kept my peace on this. Up until very recently, I wasn't entirely sure what my position was. But now the argument has strayed onto turf I know a fair bit about.  Specifically, the teaching and learning of history.

Here is Trump's views on the matter, the views that have added fuel to the fire (Ignore the fact you have to read it backwards, because for a man who uses Twitter a lot, Trump is still very poor at how to get it to actually work).

Trump's argument is that removing the statues and memorials is preventing people from learning about the past.

Let's get one thing straight. No one has ever learnt about the past from a statue. I spend the bulk of my waking hours getting people to learn about the past, and about history. Not once have I ever relied on them solely looking at a statue. There is a good reason we don't get GCSE or A-Level students to make sculptures as part of their course. My head of department would be down on me like a tonne of bricks (although we'd be able to double enter students for technology...). As a purely pedagogical technique, looking at a lump of metal on a piece of rock is rubbish. At most, you can learn about some specific art history things, but what statues have to tell you in and of themselves is nothing. Unlike in Night at the Museum, Robert E Lee is not going to come to life and tell us about the Civil War, or lead us on adventure.

However, as historical sources, the statues are useful, incredibly so. We teach students to judge the usefulness of an historical source using a technique called NOP- Nature, Origin, Purpose. So, how do these statues stand up?

Nature- Statue; art form. Seems obvious, doesn't it? And yet, this opens up a series of problems. These monuments are pieces of art. They are not designed to necessarily convey the truth, but to celebrate the subject. They will promote an idealised image of the subject, and are potentially open to some serious biases on the part of the artist or those who commissioned it.

Origin- Now things get even more interesting. Many of these statues are *not* from the Confederate era, when the Southern US states rebelled against the federal government in an attempt to maintain slavery and uphold their rights to largely govern themselves. Instead, the monuments tend to be from after Reconstruction. After the American Civil War, the federal government deployed the US Army to the South to uphold the law and protect black Americans. But in 1871, the army was withdrawn. The politicians who came to power in the Southern states drove through measures to deprive black Americans of their new-found rights, and introduced a series of measures to segregate them from white Americans, known as the Jim Crow laws. The other major period of Confederate monument building in the South was in the 1950s and 1960s, when the civil rights movement, the Supreme Court, and federal legislation were starting to smash down many of the barriers that Jim Crow had imposed. So the statues are not from the time they represent. They were mainly commissioned by those with an interest in imposing or maintaining segregation.

Purpose- The purpose of monuments such as these is generally to celebrate the life, achievements or contributions of the subject. However, in these cases, the origin gives the purpose an extra, hidden element. These statues were put up to celebrate the individuals depicted, yes. But they were also put up to reinforce the doctrine of segregation, either when it was in the ascendancy or when it was under attack. Their mission is to remind a white audience that things were better when they were the masters, and to remind a black audience that their proper place is on their knees.

Overall, I think my students would conclude that these statues are only partially useful for a historian studying American history, because of the late nature of the sources, the highly subjective view that they take of the past, and because without all this contextual knowledge they are very difficult to interpret, and very easy to misappropriate.

So there you have it. As a technique for teaching the American public about their past, statues of Confederate icons in public places has been found severely lacking. Their role is dubious at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

But these statues do have a place in the analysis of history. They belong in museums, with proper contextual explanation and analysis, much like I have done above. But to allow them to fulfil their original purpose, of celebrating slavery and reinforcing the ideals of Jim Crow, is not history. It is politics.

I can't best the point I've seen bandied about on the internet as a summary. There are no statues of Osama Bin Laden or Mohamed Atta at the 9/11 memorial in New York. Holocaust memorials haven't got statues of Hitler and other senior Nazis at them. They are incredibly important to the story of those events. But their place is not on display, with an equal standing to those who suffered and perished at their hands. It is in a museum, set alongside some proper context and analysis, that these belong.

This has been very long and heavy, and so to round off, here is something else that "belongs in a museum"

Out with the old, in with the new: the East Clare by-election of 1917

A century ago, there was a by-election in East Clare, in Ireland. It represented a clash between two very different worlds, two very different visions of Ireland.

The party defending the seat was of the old order, the way that things had always been done. The sitting MP had been killed in combat on the Western Front. But he was no bull-headed imperialist. He was a scion of the Redmond family, who had carried the banner of Irish nationalism through the late 19th century and the early years of the 20th. His party, the Irish Parliamentary Party, had managed to get Home Rule for Ireland recognised as an issue. It had been about to go onto the statute book, when the shots fired in Sarajevo in June 1914 threw everything into chaos. The Irish Volunteers, the armed group determined to implement the law against unionist resistance, were encouraged to enlist in the British army, to prove to Britain that they were no threat, and to earn their autonomy in the eyes of the world. It was this that had led to the vacancy in East Clare; Major Willie Redmond had been killed leading Irish units into enemy gunfire at the Battle of Messines Ridge. As a symbol of an Ireland and a Britain that could yet be, the unit created from the Irish Volunteers fought alongside the Ulster Volunteers, who had armed themselves to divide the country in a civil war that had never come. It was a Protestant Ulsterman who carried Redmond back to the British lines.

If the party defending the seat represented the old world, then the challenger definitely represented the new. It was a miracle he was even alive, the young man chosen to take on the power and authority of the Redmonds. He had also been a member of the Irish Volunteers. But he had been inducted into the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood, and had taken part in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Here, he was the only battalion commander to be spared the firing squad. A late trial, growing outrage at the executions, and his American background, had sifted him from amongst the martyrs of the Irish Republic. After leaving prison, he joined Sinn Fein, and stood for election.

On offer were two competing visions of Ireland's future. Was it to finally become an autonomous part of the United Kingdom, and retain a relationship of nearly seven centuries? Or was it to turn its back on its nearest neighbour, and strike out its own course as an independent republic?

The verdict of the voters was decisive. By 71.1% to 28.9%, they opted for the future offered by Sinn Fein. The violent crackdown by the British military in response to the Easter Rising had caused support for the Union to collapse across much of Ireland.

This was not Sinn Fein's first electoral victory; that had come earlier in 1917. But this result is unique from another point of view- there can't be many examples of a government leader or head of state of one country being elected to the parliament of another country, and yet that is what we have here. For the young victor was Eamon de Valera, future head of state of the rebel Irish Republic, future leader of the Irish Free State, future Taoiseach and President of the Republic of Ireland. Given momentum by his victory, de Valera became Sinn Fein's leader. The clock was ticking for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Part of Eamon de Valera's election literature

Who Killed Laura Palmer?: Twin Peaks Series 1

So I have momentarily paused the X-Files, leaving Mulder and Scully standing in the charred remains of their office, torched by the Smoking Man to announce his return from the dead.

The truth may indeed be out there. I still want to believe. But for the moment, I am pausing.

Instead, I am returning to the year of my birth. In 1990, David Lynch unleashed Twin Peaks onto an unsuspecting public. I am almost as in the dark as the original audience was. I know a few bits. I know it's weird, I know it was amazing until it suddenly wasn't, and (unlike the original audience) I know it shall return.

So, much like I did for the first series of the X-Files, here are my thoughts on Twin Peaks.

Come, fire walk with me.

Pilot

• I've not even started yet, but the DVD is giving me the option between 'With or Without the Log Lady Intro.' Those are not words I expected to see when I woke up this morning...
• Oh, *that's* where this music is from...
• That's a very specific number of people. But then again, 1990 was an American census year.
• Stunning scenery.
• Well, these all seem like nice normal balanced people.
• It's so 80s. I mean obviously it is, it's from 1990, so everything would be very 80s. Nice reminder that the past isn't easy to compartmentalise.
• Correctly calling out the actor who played Scully's father in the X-Files episode 'Beyond the Sea.' I need to get out more...
• The realisation of the family is utterly heart breaking.
• Was there a person wearing a legitimate tin hat?
• Bobby's hair...
• The Sheriff is called Harry S Truman. No, really...
• Ah, someone crossed the state line. At least that explains why the FBI are involved.
• Special Agent Dale Cooper seems as balanced as the townsfolk...
• They all need speaking to about their ties.
• Who the hell is Diane?!
• Well, it isn't the boyfriend. Otherwise this would have made a terrible series.
• My guess was Swedish, turns out they're Norwegian.
• I tell you what, this Dale Cooper bloke is good.
• The FBI appear to have a good contract with providers of ridiculously effective torches.
• The safety deposit box company seem to have ended up with the moose that Basil Fawlty tried to put on the wall.
• 'Who is the lady with the log?" "We call her the Log Lady." Names apparently aren't their strong point in Twin Peaks...
• The fight scene was only missing a 'POW' to make it 60s Batman.
• I jumped at the end. Flipping heck...

Episode 2

• Confirms my view of Dale Cooper as a nice normal bloke.
• I love the music.
• Seriously, what the hell has this girl got herself into?
• Bloody big clue from a bloody shirt
• Flipping heck, those drapes...
• That fog horn is creepy as anything.
• Damn, Cooper is good...
• How did that fish get in the percolator?!
• Is there anyone in this town living a normal life?!
• Note to self- Mrs Palmer= jumping time.
• Them clothes, so 80s.
• Back when threatening someone with going to Bulgaria was a serious threat...
• Bobby's father is a real bundle of joy
• Cherry pie- I gather this is important...
• Is Dale Cooper going to just flirt with every woman in sight?
• I mean, it's a town based on logs. What is so special about this one?
• "My log saw something that night"- I hope she got an Emmy for that.
• Woah, domestic abuse lobbed in...
• Talk about jumping in your best friend's grave.
• Woah, doctor...
• Did I mention how great the music is?

Episode 3

• I'm confused, is this episode two or three?!
• If they had hipster uncles in 1990, the guy whose just walked in would be one.
• Perfectly capturing the awkwardness of having your other half round to your parents.
• The bar. Quad. The. Actual.
• There's a One-Armed Man. I hear that Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones are in hot pursuit...
• I thought it was a while since the drapes had put in an appearance.
• I recognise the way they all leaned in off their seats from my students.
• I want to start a lesson with Tibet anecdotes...
• Next time I need to find out something, I'm going to lob rocks at a bottle...
• Love the men from the FBI.
• Woah, there's an apostrophe? No one said anything about that...
• Jesus, this became one heck of a lot more confusing very quickly.
• Has Cooper aged? Lucky that, if in 27 years time anyone wants to make a sequel, that'll be really helpful...
• WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?!
• I'm sorry, is this 70s light entertainment, with a pointless confusing dance routine in it??

Episode 4

• Whoever did the decorations in the hotel needs speaking to.
• Dale Cooper really is brilliant (I think I'll make this observation a lot). 
• "Suddenly, it was 25 years later." How. Bloody. Convenient. 
• Good thing he can't remember who the killer is, would have made a crap series if he did. 
• The pathologist got what he deserved... 
• Oh my goodness, there's a TV series in a TV series, how very Hamlet. 
• But for all the pathologist is not pleasant, he is Good. 
• At least this woman's life revolves around more than the bloody runners. 
• Of course there are secret tunnels. Why wouldn't there be secret tunnels... 
• Funerals are horrible, there’s just no getting away from it. 
• Bobby is really showing himself to be a lovely, pleasant young fellow. 
• But maybe in his anger, he has a point to make… 
• Overall, I think we can conclude the funeral went swimmingly… 
• He is very specific with his pie requirements. 
• It’s only taken till this episode before someone mentioned a secret society dedicated to fighting the totally mental goings on in the forest. Surely that borders on obstruction of justice? 
• And bugging too, honestly the felonies these people are racking up is horrendous. 
• Add to that a safe, a secret bookcase, and a secret writing desk. 
• I do love a good bit of Native American philosophy. 
• But I feel it won’t help a bit in solving what on Earth is going on here.

Episode 5

• Having consulted Wikipedia, the fifth episode is apparently Episode 4. I mean, seriously, even the episode structure is confusing...
• Well the doctor doesn't seem suspicious in the least.
• Why does the doctor have two glasses lenses that are different colours?!
• I'm glad that Cooper is on Harry Truman's side.
• The one-armed man has been found. Tommy-Lee Jones is in hot pursuit.
• THE ONE-ARMED MAN'S NAME IS GERRARD.
• The background noises are so strange. It's really hard to explain why, they just are.
• Hank bears more than a passing resemblance to Jorah Mormont.
• There's an alpaca. Why is there an alpaca?
• Bobby is definitely in way over his head.
• Andy definitely needs some training on that gun of his...
• Alphabetically by pet is a terrible way of organising files.
• That there is a mobile phone.
• Why are they so determined to get Scandinavians into Washington state?!
• It has also taken until this episode for a firearm to be drawn. Good stuff.
• They are clearly building towards a climax. Thing is, I know there isn't one yet.
• Much like any woods in the X-Files, no one should go into them at night.
• WHAT IS THAT ANIMAL ON THE WALL?!
• Someone seriously needs to talk to them about taxidermy.
• Dominoes. Because what I really wanted was another complex layer of Plot.

Episode 6

• Some real humanity shown by Audrey and Cooper from the off.
• Lucy! Long time, no see.
• Solid encyclopaedia use...
• Are they questioning the bird?! (Yes, they are...)
• Ah yes, the tape.
• I'm guessing the department store manager is in on all this too, then?
• I really hope the TV show within a TV show isn't important, its lost me...
• Can you use FBI money to gamble with for investigative purposes?
• Cooper is onto Josey, isn't he?
• THAT FOG HORN.
• And the bloody bird as well?
• Their evidence is a tape recording of a bird recounting the murder; I will enjoy watching that stand up in court.
• Their cover identities are Barney and Fred. No, really...
• Well, One Eyed Jack's is the place to be tonight...

Episode 7

• What are the Log Lady intros actually for?!
• Oh yeah, the Doctor's office, forgot about him...
• Cooper still has his Clark Kent glasses on.
• Good shot Andy.
• Oh Shelly, that's not good...
• Real sense of events moving, after weeks of slow pace.
• Josey hasn't been a good girl...
• Andy and Lucy are adorable.
• Well, *that* announcement was unexpected...
• To say that shit is going down in this episode is the understatement of the 90s...
• Well now the TV series in the TV series makes a bit more sense at least.
• I mean, between the murdering, the arson, the running around, this night in Twin Peaks is completly manic...
• Revising an earlier statement, to say that shit is going down in this episode is the understatement of the 20th century...
• WHAT A CLIFFHANGER!!!

Overall... I'm hooked. How you could watch it rise to a cliffhanger like that, and then decide "Nah, not for me,' I cannot imagine. Looks like my summer watching is sorted...

I mean, what in the name of God is that doing there...

Did you notice there's been an election?

So last month there was an election. You may have noticed.

Until now, I've been too busy for this. But note I've been grinning all the time I wrote this post, and for the last two weeks really.

Theresa May

Oh, dear, me. When Theresa May called the election, I was not alone in quaking in fear. She had used the single most disruptive event in living political memory to seize the top job in the land, and then had ruled her party with an iron fist ever since. Her mastery of the political landscape made an impression. Many people had positive opinions of her. I could pick these up at work; the political opinions of children are usually the refracted views of their parents. The moment I twigged there was no royal seal on the podium outside Downing Street, I presumed she was going in for the kill.

The Conservative party made one fatal flaw in 2016's leadership election. It didn't run the process to the finish. Had they done so, they would have spotted May's indecision, and wooden campaign nature. What comes across as strong and decisive in some circles comes across as ridiculous in others. By having a coronation, the Tories had to learn May's flaws under the full glare of the media spotlight.

And now we are familiar with them. Painfully so.

It must be hard for her. She is only human. But the transformation of her image in the last few months is total, and the clock is ticking for Theresa May.

Theresa May's Team (AKA The Conservatives)

I think the Conservative party must be rueing the day that they decided to bill themselves as 'Theresa May's Team.' All through the election, Theresa May left her party label behind her, as she was polling massively ahead of the Tories. The best encapsulation of this for me was when I got a letter from the Conservatives (heaven knows why I'm in their database as a swing voter). The gushing phrases and rhetoric from the Prime Minister were clear. The fact it was from the Conservatives was limited to the legal small print on the back. Plus the fact I'm vaguely politically aware. But the implication was clear. May was an asset, the party was a drag.

And then suddenly she wasn't an asset any more. By the time the Conservatives threw the reverse gear on the campaign, and desperately tried to shore up their position, by moving from a quasi-presidential contest to a more traditional party campaign, it was too late. 'Theresa May's Team' lost seats, their majority knocked out from underneath them.

But, underneath the loss of their majority, the Conservatives are still in a fairly strong position. They took 42% of the vote, the best share for any governing party since 1997, and the best Conservative vote since 1987. They are over fifty seats clear of Labour, enough to really govern alone as a minority government. In many parts of the country, there was a swing to them. They even picked up seats in Scotland. A small swing to the Tories will give them their majority back. The beast may be injured, but it is not finished.

Jeremy Corbyn

Ok, hands up. I was wrong.

My biggest objection to Jeremy Corbyn was that he was leading the party to destruction. The primary objective of the Labour party is to secure the election of Labour representatives, to enable the formation of a Labour government that will advance the interests of working people. I genuinely believed that history showed us that to put a hard-left leader in charge of the Labour party would not allow that to happen. In fact, all the precedents pointed to this being an absolute disaster. The one consolation would be the chance to get the whole thing over and done with.

And then it wasn't a disaster at all. For all many scoffed at a Corbyn surge, there was one. Turns out, a life long campaigner for left wing causes was quite good at campaigning for left wing causes. Who'd have thought?

When that exit poll dropped at 22:00 on polling day, it became obvious that Corbyn had earned his right to remain leader as long as he wanted. There's more below about the campaign, but Corbyn had run a great campaign, and it has paid off handsomely.

Labour

Much of the Labour stuff stands as above. Just one extra thing. I never thought I'd live to see the day that Labour, gain, and Canterbury, were all words that appeared in the same sentence. The last non-Conservative MP for Canterbury was a Gladstonian Liberal. If there was any better proof that labour is now far more competitive than at any point since 2005, this was it. Yes, they came second. But a close second is infinitely better than an electoral wipeout, and it left the party in a strong jumping off position for next time round.

Liberal Democrats

Who? Oh yes, the orangey ones, who were going to ride a wave of anti-Brexit sentiment back to power? Bless.

What this campaign has shown for the Lib Dems is that they need to think like the party they were in the 1950s and 1960s, at least for a while. Having grand national ambitions is all well and good, but the next few years are going to be about a fight to survive. This election has shown they can cling on, but not much else.

SNP

The SNP have gone from being the dominant political party in Scotland to a step away from wipeout. Yes, they are still the largest party in Scotland in terms of seats and votes. But both tallies are well down on 2015, and many of their seats were held on narrow majorities. Another election like that could see them back down to their pre-2015 levels, when they piled up votes across Scotland but were only strong enough to take 6 or so seats.

For all they would detest the comparison, the SNP may be suffering from a very New Labour problem. Promising radical reform may win you elections to start with, but when people realise it is all talk, and limited delivery, then they will desert you in droves.

DWhoP? (Sorry)

Whenever British elections are polled or predicted, there's always a bit that says '18 others.' Those 18 others are the Northern Irish MPs. Northern Ireland exists in a vastly different political world to the rest of the UK. It's politics is essentially still influenced by your opinion on a treaty from 1922. Should Northern Ireland be a part of the UK, or join with the Republic of Ireland?

The ending of large-scale violence through the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is one of the resounding political success stories of the last two decades. It is now almost out of political memory what it was like to live with a conflict in the UK with seemingly no end in sight. But, the peace process has destroyed those parties who originally engineered it. The more moderate UUP and SDLP have been swept aside, replaced by political parties with links to the one-time men of violence- the Democratic Unionist Party (with dodgy loyalist associations) and Sinn Fein, whose leader Gerry Adams was NEVER A MEMBER OF THE IRA (unlike most of the rest of the Sinn Fein leadership).

Turns out, hardliners are pretty hardline. Constitutionally, Theresa May gets a shot at remaining PM because she is the incumbent, and in theory it is fine for her to use any combination of parliamentary arithmetic to pass a Queen's Speech and command the confidence of the House of Commons. There's no problem on paper with her using the DUP. Other than the fact they're fairly awful hardliners, with some pretty unpleasant views.

Actually, there is a problem on paper after all. The Good Friday Agreement commits Britain to remaining as a neutral arbiter in Northern Ireland. How the government can be neutral broker and dependent on one of the involved parties remains to be seen.

Oh, and I am going to instigate a ban on people talking about Northern Irish politics unless they can name at least two MLAs. If you've just had to check what MLA stands for, your entry is void from the start.

The Campaign Matters


A year ago, I felt as if the country I lived in suddenly became foreign. The politically motivated slaughter of an MP, the appalling bile of the EU referendum campaign, the decision to tear up half a century of partnership with our nearest neighbours, motivated by a hunger for an abstract concept, the apparent enfeeblement of the parliamentary left. All had me in a real gloom. So when Theresa May called her election, I thought this would be the final nail in the coffin. And, despite claims since, I was not alone. In fact, virtually everyone predicted she would win, and win well.

What changed? The campaign mattered, for the first time in a quarter of a century. The public saw May's frankly dreadful performances, the stilted soundbites, the refusal to debate and engage, the manifesto that could have been drawn up on the back of an envelope. Contrasted with that was a man for whom campaigning is his lifeblood. A clear, crisp manifesto from Labour, as well as an extraordinary online effort. It was a solid Labour performance, set against the worst political campaign run by any British political party since 1945. The result reflected that. In the weeks between calling the election and polling day, the British people got to see a lot more of Theresa May's brand of Conservatism, and found it wanting. A short campaign would have enabled her to get away with it. The long one was to prove fatal.

For the first time in a long time, I have political hope. I can see a route out of the long, dark tunnel we have been in these past few years. It will take time to get there, and the road ahead is still long and painful.

But it is there. We shall overcome.