Hang on. Boris seems to have said a Conservative thing.

[Burney]

Even better, that filth Ceausescu and its vile consort got theirs on Christmas Day 1989. My favourite Christmas TV ever.

Yes. The marksmanship of their executioners was a touch sloppy as I recall. They probably suffered quite a lot of pain before oblivion embraced them.

Oh dear.
How sad.
Never mind.

[Burney]

But... we knew. We had Solzhenitsyn. We had attempted escapees. People even went and saw it. I saw it. Comrade Corbyn saw it (and loved it, apparently) We knew!

There's knowing and knowing, though, isn't there? Most Americans and Brits 'knew' that the Germans were probably doing terrible things in the camps, but it wasn't until the footage came through that the true horror began to sink in. The sad truth is that it is a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' when it comes to evil.

[Sir C]

There's knowing and knowing, though, isn't there? Most Americans and Brits 'knew' that the Germans were probably doing terrible things in the camps, but it wasn't until the footage came through that the true horror began to sink in. The sad truth is that it is a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' when it comes to evil.

Have you ever read (or seen) Stoppard’s ‘Professional Foul’? Even that revolting apologist addressed it to some degree, and it was shown as a Play for Today on the BBC. I think you underestimate how evil the regime was acknowledged to be.

[Burney]

Have you ever read (or seen) Stoppard’s ‘Professional Foul’? Even that revolting apologist addressed it to some degree, and it was shown as a Play for Today on the BBC. I think you underestimate how evil the regime was acknowledged to be.

Yes. And there was Le Carré (who, whatever his faults, never wavered in his loathing of communism).

But these are a/ relatively niche and b/ non-visual. Never underestimate the impact of images. In emotional terms, everything's just theoretical until we see it. The soviets learned from the Holomodor to keep the optics out of sight and, as a result, communism never had the visceral impact on people that the realities of Nazism did.

[Sir C]

Yes. And there was Le Carré (who, whatever his faults, never wavered in his loathing of communism).

But these are a/ relatively niche and b/ non-visual. Never underestimate the impact of images. In emotional terms, everything's just theoretical until we see it. The soviets learned from the Holomodor to keep the optics out of sight and, as a result, communism never had the visceral impact on people that the realities of Nazism did.

Le Carre loved drawing the old moral equivalence though, such was (is) his dislike for the Service and the UK. One thinks of Smiley in the cell in Delhi with Karla... with the lighter - with the take away from that scene being ‘Both sides are as bad as the other’.

[Burney]

Le Carre loved drawing the old moral equivalence though, such was (is) his dislike for the Service and the UK. One thinks of Smiley in the cell in Delhi with Karla... with the lighter - with the take away from that scene being ‘Both sides are as bad as the other’.

Yes, but surely that moment was the nadir of Smiley's faith? His greatest moment of doubt and weakness for which he pays with the betrayal of his wife and for which his ultimate triumph over Karla represents his redemption?

[Sir C]

Yes, but surely that moment was the nadir of Smiley's faith? His greatest moment of doubt and weakness for which he pays with the betrayal of his wife and for which his ultimate triumph over Karla represents his redemption?

Perhaps you are right. It’s just an increasingly common theme as one reads through his work; his message, if there is one, is ‘a plague on both your house’.

[Burney]

Perhaps you are right. It’s just an increasingly common theme as one reads through his work; his message, if there is one, is ‘a plague on both your house’.

I accept that there's a certain amount of jaundice, but I think even with that he acknowledges that we aren't the ones who drug people, put them on planes, take them to the depths of the Ljubjanka, torture them and then shoot them in the back of the head.

[Sir C]

I accept that there's a certain amount of jaundice, but I think even with that he acknowledges that we aren't the ones who drug people, put them on planes, take them to the depths of the Ljubjanka, torture them and then shoot them in the back of the head.

True. He always made the inquisitors sound pleasingly sinister, though.

[IUFG]

Yes. The marksmanship of their executioners was a touch sloppy as I recall. They probably suffered quite a lot of pain before oblivion embraced them.

Oh dear.
How sad.
Never mind.

I always thought standing him up against a wall with a window behind him was a tad reckless, given that he was about to have several caps popped in his ass from an AK47