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Chris Smith

@spyhistorian.bsky.social

4.5K followers 1.4K following 3.6K posts

Historian. Spies, signals intelligence, Second World War. Social and Cultural history. History of humour. Insults = 🚫

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · May 12

I cannot continue financially supporting Labour while it bullies immigrants; while it panders to racist Reform voters; while its leader employs the rhetoric of Enoch Powell; and while it is allowing the destruction of my sector of employment again to pander to racism. @teamlabouruk.bsky.social

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 4h

I see @markstout.bsky.social has liked this. Any idea who I'm talking about, Mark?

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 6h

They aren't a conservative party anymore. They are a radical ethno-nationalist party with disturbing authoritarian tendencies.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 8h

Just had one of my students contact me, a first year, who has been reading about Kim Philby. He has even been reading the KV files when Philby was confronted by Nicholas Elliott in Beirut!

Students never cease to amaze me.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 16h

I dont know, it seems that the public are not backing Trump on this and are not buying the obvious lie that this is about undocumented immigrants.
So this goes two ways, Trump digs his heals in, in the face of bad numbers. Or he panics and tells his poodles to back down.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 1d

Is that true, though? I think it is the other way around. I think he understands full well reality but says what the racist, elderly base of his party wants to hear and to capture headlines.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 1d

Jenrick is a modern-day Enoch Powell minus the intellect.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 1d

Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 1d

Yep. A couple of years ago I read an excoriating critique of my work in a PhD thesis. Unfortunately the (now Doctoral-minted) candidate alleged of me arguments I did not make.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 1d

In that case, if a foreigner comes to the US and commits a murder, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the US courts?

What a ludicrous position.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

I was literally just in Birmingham. It was full of people of all religions and skin colours minding their own fucking business.

Reposted by Chris Smith

Anthony Glees @anthonyglees.bsky.social · 2d

It sounds trite to say Putin & Russian supporters have no right to rob this beautiful girl of her life but that’s the truth. They don’t have that right & we must put him ban in his box www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-n...

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

Maybe they would have done better mass producing more of what they had without pissing away resources on massive white elephants like the Tigers or rocket programme?

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

I think people think of the Second World War in the way they do Dreyser Rifles or Long Bows. But the war was won not even on the strategic level but the logistical and economic. It doesn't matter what advantages a Tiger ace had, still dead in a broken down tank against six Allied tanks.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

All of this kind of missed the point. Arguments over the finer points of which tank or whatever had 'x' tactical advantage don't really matter. Sure, the allies could have built amazing kit at great expense that could travelling a few miles before breaking down as the Axis did.

Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 2d

The M1 rifle was arguably the best infantry rifle in the war (everyone else was still using bolt action rifles). The Essex class carriers were the best carriers of the war. US artillery systems were first rate and could easily match anything the Axis could muster

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

I mean the central claim is wrong, but forget that. The exception "save the atomic bomb" is so disproving of the entire claim as to make the whole thing hilarious.

"They had better tech, save our ability to build a super weapon"

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, works for the Long Piddle Examiner.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 3d

Pretty sure this might be treading dangerously into libel territory here.

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 3d

Just the US correspondent of GB News

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 4d

Does he? He spent a years peddling anti-vaxx bullshit. Has he ever acknowledged he and the Eye were completely, dangerously wrong?

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 5d

This doesn't make sense. The text of the fifth reads all persons.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 6d

Also Harry Cole pretending he knows why the Kirk shooter did what he did. Fucking ghoul.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

I think the tutee system itself is outmoded. Students increasingly see it as an imposition. I think that increasingly, this kind of work is on module leaders and course directors (I do both).

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

I agree, it is very hard to understand how this happened.

Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

It's astonishing. The University's excuses ring hollow. There surely must be a system flaw here.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

I dont think that is universal policy. I think it should be.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

We've had some mad errors with various systems. What shocks me is that nobody noticed. Presumably the student knew and made it clear to lecturers and no resolution to an error by the University was implemented. That is mad to me.

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Chris Smith @spyhistorian.bsky.social · 7d

As a module leader and course director, I struggle to see how this can happen. Except that the RG over-recruit and there are so many students on courses nobody can monitor them.

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Glasgow student took his own life after 'tragic' university error

Ethan Brown, 23, of Coatbridge, was told he didn't have the grades to graduate in December 2024.

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