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  • Brexit wasn’t left/right wing. Eurosceptics on both sides. I’d also point out France where right-wing populism ultimately lost out despite an increase in protest votes.

    There’s also a greater tradition of public service broadcasting, meaning politicians are more rigorously interrogated than in the highly commercial, partisan American system.

    The EU and EC are somewhat stabilising influences too. An EU member government simply wouldn’t be allowed to do some of the stuff Trump is doing.

  • Public opinion? Whose? Europe’s, who look down on rampant American capitalism and Trump? Africa’s, who have just been screwed by Trump and Musk? The Middle-East, who have been screwed by America for decades? Asia, who are waiting to hear what China says?

  • Ticket prices in Britain aren’t due to privatisation. They were a side-effect of the unexpected success of British Rail in its final years at attracting more passengers. As demand went up, the ailing infrastructure struggled to cope. Upgrades can take decades to plan and execute correctly, so the answer was to raise prices to ease off demand.

    This also fulfilled the longstanding policy of both parties for rail users to carry the financial burden of rail operation and maintenance. So, under privatisation, 40% of tickets were priced directly by the Department for Transport. The rest were priced by the train operators, who often engaged in price wars that lowered prices compared to the controlled fares.

    Now of course privatisation is effectively over and 100% of tickets are priced by government. Prices will still be maintained high because of the desire to make passengers pay for the system, and to keep demand manageable. Already some routes have reached saturation.

    • Netherlands - Holmes’ Bonfire, 1666, 1944
    • Belgium - Napoleonic wars — Waterloo
    • France - (as England) 1230, 1337-60, 1369-89, 1373, 1415-53, 1562, (as Britain) 1794, 1795, 1813, 1815, 1944
    • Germany - 1914-18, 1944-5
    • Spain - 1808-13
    • Italy - 1944-45
    • Austria - 1945
  • Not sure I follow their sums on this. The poorest families aren’t living in the buildings with large roof spaces. So whatever the average saving from having solar fitted, they won’t ever approach anywhere near that, if anything. Who gets the savings from blocks of flats? Presumably the council would take the profit from panels on their properties to prop up their failing budgets. Housing associations are also being squeezed.