Ian Dunt

And almost certainly he'd been given advice that goes, I mean, just palpably unlawful.

And then there's a phone call with Donald Trump, and here someone comes out and says, oh, no, it turns out we might let them use the base, but only for stopping the rockets being launched, which, again, sort of fits the legal thing.

So you can just basically see that there's a certain amount of intents from the US.

There's not that much.

And one of the core things you look for in the British government, and I would really urge Australians to look for the same thing, given that I think your relations are very, very similar, is fine.

You've got to say this.

You've got to do it now.

We get where we are now.

But what is the evidence for you recognizing that this is not a short term thing with Trump?

This is about what's happening to a country, a country going rogue state.

You need to be able to demonstrate autonomy, strategic autonomy from this country in, let's say, a 10 to 15 year time horizon.

So fine, say the things you've got to say, placate if you've got to placate.

But what are you doing militarily and economically to separate yourself from it so that you're not basically connected by a chain to a rabid dog?

Yeah, that was very well read, by the way, and I say that advisedly because I've heard him say that a million times and I think he speaks it beautifully.

I mean, look, if you were to try and summarise

A way of looking at the world that is humane and modest and non-violent and non-brutalizing and that aspires to the best elements of our personality, I still think it's really hard to come up with a better summary than that.

And for all of us, this period, like part of the horror of this period is the fact that you're dragged into the worst version of yourself.

You're coming in contact with people who say the worst things about you and people like you who treat immigration like it's the same as crime, who say dreadful things about your friends if they happen not to be white as part of a political project.

You know, the brutalizing impact of populism as a functioning system in democratic countries on the mind, on the emotions.

And the thing you have to aspire to is to try and keep in contact with that thought, with your capacity for doubt, with your an aversion to dominance, to not trying to just rampage over your opponents but trying to think like what is there that might be true in that which they say and what is there that might be rational in the arguments that those who I otherwise don't agree with might make.