Simon Evans

October 31, 1793. Twenty-one men who had led the French Revolution were guillotined in Paris in about half an hour. One of them had already killed himself with a dagger in the courtroom, and they put his corpse in the cart and took it to the scaffold anyway. That is the moment the Revolution started eating the people who made it. The Girondins were not royalists or counter-revolutionaries. That is the whole point. They were republicans. They had voted for the republic. They had pushed hardest for the war against Austria and Prussia in 1792, believing it would spread the revolution across Europe. Several of them were the most admired orators in France. They took their name loosely from the Gironde, around Bordeaux, where some of their leaders came from. They started as the radical wing and ended up as the moderates, which is what happens in a revolution. They did not move. The ground did. Their opponents were the Montagnards, the Mountain, the faction around Robespierre, Danton and Marat, based on the Jacobin clubs and on the Paris sections. The split was partly over principle and partly over Paris. The Girondins wanted the provinces to count and feared the capital's crowds dictating to the national assembly. The Montagnards were the capital's crowds organised. The specific fights that broke them were the trial of the King, where the Girondins wavered and proposed a referendum rather than straightforward execution, and their refusal to work with Danton after the September Massacres in 1792, when over a thousand prisoners were killed in the Paris jails and Danton's role was never satisfactorily explained. Lord Acton's verdict on them was that they were always impolitic, disunited and undecided, and that at times they rose to the level of honest men. That is harsh and not entirely unfair. On June 2, 1793, armed sections of Paris surrounded the Convention and demanded the arrest of the Girondin deputies. The Convention, under siege in its own building, complied. That is a legislature voting to purge itself at gunpoint, carried out by the citizens in whose name it governed. Some of the arrested escaped and tried to raise the provinces, which gave the government exactly the justification it needed. The revolts in the Vendée, at Lyon, at Bordeaux and at Toulon could now be presented as a Girondin conspiracy. Their trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal opened in late October. And it was going badly for the prosecution, because these were professional politicians and orators defending themselves in public and they were good at it. So the Convention passed a decree allowing the Tribunal to cut off the defence and move straight to a verdict if a trial ran past three days. They were condemned on October 30. Charles Dufriche-Valazé had a dagger with him. When the sentence was read he stabbed himself in the heart in the courtroom and died there. The Tribunal ordered that his body be carried to the guillotine with the living men the next day, so that the sentence was executed on him too. On October 31 five tumbrils took them to the Place de la Révolution, with Valazé's corpse among them. Accounts describe them singing the Marseillaise on the way, and continuing as the number of voices dropped. Pierre Vergniaud was the last of them to climb the scaffold. He was probably the finest speaker of the entire Revolution, the man who had announced the suspension of the monarchy. He had said earlier that the Revolution, like Saturn, would devour its own children. Twenty-one in roughly half an hour, which tells you how industrialised the process had become by late 1793. Then it kept going. Madame Roland, whose salon had effectively been Girondin headquarters, was guillotined eight days later. Her last words are reported as an address to a statue of Liberty, asking what crimes were committed in its name. Her husband killed himself when he heard. Condorcet, the philosopher and mathematician, died in a cell in March 1794. Several of the escaped deputies were hunted down in the southwest and killed themselves rather than be taken, and two of them were found dead in a field near Saint-Émilion, partly eaten by animals. And then the machine turned again. Danton, who had helped destroy the Girondins, was guillotined in April 1794. Robespierre, who had destroyed Danton, was guillotined in July. From the purge of the Girondins in June 1793 to the fall of Robespierre in July 1794 is thirteen months. In that time the Revolution executed its moderates, then its radicals, then the man who had executed both.

I want to apologise to Allison Pearson for thinking that this insane post was written by her. And to Alex Phillips for not realising that she was its author. Though regular and honest readers of either of their posts will admit, I think, that it could have been written by either of them

I'm struggling to cope

Does anyone one else think Israel might have had a hand in the train crash in Spain?

The Green Party would make the minimum wage £15 an hour - no matter your age. Join.greenparty.org.uk

Chris Mason: Brexit, Democracy and a World Transformed Chris Mason's latest examination of Brexit offers an interesting account of Westminster's political manoeuvring, yet overlooks a far more consequential truth. Britain in 2026 inhabits a world profoundly different from that of 2016. To portray the reopening of the Brexit debate as a return to yesterday's arguments is to misunderstand both the nature of democracy and the extraordinary transformation of our economic and international circumstances. Let us begin with a constitutional distinction too frequently overlooked. The referendum of 23 June 2016 was advisory, not legally binding. It imposed no obligation upon Parliament to withdraw Britain from the European Union. David Cameron's resignation subsequently allowed the Conservative Party's internal divisions to shape the country's direction, culminating in a political decision authorised by Parliament. Yet nothing in our constitutional arrangements renders that decision permanent or beyond democratic reconsideration. Nor was the result an overwhelming mandate. Leave secured 51.9 per cent against Remain's 48.1 per cent, representing approximately 37 per cent of the registered electorate. For a decision of such constitutional magnitude, no enhanced majority or minimum turnout was required. A decade later, millions of younger citizens have entered the electorate, others have passed away, and those who voted have experienced the consequences. Democracy cannot reasonably confer upon one generation an indefinite authority over those who follow. The economic evidence is equally compelling. Independent modelling suggests Britain's GDP may be approaching 10 per cent below where it might otherwise have stood without Brexit, while other research estimates losses of approximately 6 to 8 per cent. Even the Office for Budget Responsibility's more conservative assessment anticipates a long-term reduction of 4 per cent in productivity and economic output relative to continued membership. These estimates differ in methodology and timescale, but collectively challenge the promises of prosperity advanced in 2016. For working families already confronting higher living costs, weakened investment and pressure upon public services, these are matters of consequence, not political nostalgia. Immigration presents another contradiction. Brexit promised greater control over Britain's borders, yet successive Conservative governments subsequently presided over substantial increases in legal migration from outside Europe. Meanwhile, withdrawal from the Dublin arrangements removed an established mechanism for returning certain asylum seekers to European countries responsible for their claims. That loss did not make every Channel arrival automatically returnable before Brexit, but it reduced an important avenue of cooperation. This deserves particular scrutiny when Nigel Farage and Reform UK continue to make immigration a central political grievance. Mason also gives insufficient attention to the unresolved questions surrounding Russian interference in the referendum. The Intelligence and Security Committee exposed serious shortcomings in the investigation of potential interference, while subsequent experience has demonstrated the capacity of social media, coordinated disinformation and algorithmic amplification to distort political debate. Evidence of interference must be distinguished from proof that an election result was changed, but democratic accountability demands proper examination rather than convenient dismissal. Above all, the international landscape has been transformed. In 2016, Russia had annexed Crimea, but its full-scale invasion of Ukraine lay six years ahead. Barack Obama's administration maintained a broadly dependable transatlantic partnership. Today, continuing Russian aggression, uncertainty surrounding Donald Trump's commitments to NATO, and instability in the Middle East have placed European defence, energy security and international trade under extraordinary pressure. Britain's strategic importance to Europe is considerable. Alongside France, it possesses nuclear capabilities, permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and substantial military and intelligence resources. Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain provide further economic and diplomatic strength, while Canada remains an important transatlantic partner. These relationships are no longer merely desirable diplomatic arrangements; they are essential considerations in securing Europe's collective future. It is therefore reasonable to examine whether Europe is increasingly receptive to Britain's return, and whether Britain can afford to remain outside the institutions that shape so much of its economic and political environment. Closer cooperation need not depend exclusively upon full membership, but the question deserves examination on its present merits, not through the prejudices and political rivalries of a decade ago. That is what Mason's analysis ultimately fails to confront. Brexit is not simply a Westminster argument revived for political advantage. It is a question of Britain's prosperity, sovereignty, security and influence in a world whose strategic foundations have shifted profoundly. Democracy is not an historical judgement preserved for eternity. It is the continuing right of a people to reconsider their circumstances and determine their future. If the British electorate possessed the democratic authority to decide in 2016, it possesses precisely the same authority to reconsider in 2029. No referendum, however consequential, can extinguish that right, nor should the political ambitions of yesterday determine the national interests of tomorrow. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxvg…

Clashes erupt in Paris after largely peaceful protests across France bbc.in/4jyPz62

A stolen watch doesn’t become yours just because you pass it down to your children. So why apply a different rule to stolen labour, wealth and land? Reparations are about inherited benefit and inherited loss. Time doesn’t erase injustice.

This guy gives 007 vibes

The very earliest Jewish settlers escaping Russian pogroms in 1882 openly proclaimed their plan to build a Jewish state in Ottoman Palestine by colonising it at which time Jews were less than 2% of the Pal population. It was hard going for the Jewish colonists until after WW1 when the Brits took over and gave them a helping hand.

JUST IN: 🇫🇷 French Prime Minister says far-left groups are planning an insurrection.

so in awe of young people in paris rising up against a collapsing neoliberal order that has failed and betrayed them, situating themselves in the country's tradition of republican agitation (i saw more than one 67-68 sign) and facing police violence with fearlessness + solidarity

🚨NEW: In ITV's undercover investigation, a Reform UK councillor in West London said that he would "quite happily" personally execute grooming gang members in the garden of 10 Downing Street "without f*cking thinking for a second about it"

Arsonist who firebombed Keir Starmer's home in suspected Russian plot is kicked out of Britain trib.al/zPDXkx7

First they banned the books... theguardian.com/uk-news/2026…

Britain on the world stage, acting in our national interest.

Following a vote by our party Council, the Scottish Greens will no longer be posting on Twitter/X. We have serious concerns about the site's direction of travel, particularly how it has spread misinformation and hate You can still find us on other platforms.