redline

But isn't so much journalism nowadays characterised by unsubstantiated speculation? (i.e. propaganda, if not simply clickbait filler pretending analysis)

It seems to me your criticism amounts essentially to your dislike of the thesis of this piece. This can be legitimate, but not what you've argued here.

Isn't this piece an example of precisely the supposed promise of the internet, in the sense that journalism becomes democratised and anyone can publish and disseminate analysis, which can be evaluated on its merits rather than institutional validation and inertia based on opaque criteria? (I would of course argue the aggregated needs of capital, but I won't force that in)

what the fuck are you talking about

European NATO allies have begun hitting 2% targets in recent years and there are heated debates about going way above that in multiple capitals.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-turning-point-in-european-security-as-uk-set-to-increase-defence-spending-to-25-by-2030

I will note that in the UK case the situation described in the picture is particularly grotesque, if you consider the development of food bank statistics. The Trussel Trust distributed 3.1 million food parcels in 2023/2024, of these 1.1 million to children.

In 2008/2009 the number of parcels distributed was 26'000.

https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/end-year-stats/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/

I'm afraid the political problem you describe is much deeper and more entrenched.

The class of aggregated economic interests that brought the western world the "centrist ditherers", as you describe them, are increasingly backing right wing politicians to divide and confuse discontent majorities, now that the social contract is in obvious and advancing decay around us, due to decades of aggressive privatisation of public goods like utilities, education, healthcare as well as related but also wider economic slowdown.

Ironically it was precisely this kind of "centrist ditherer" that spent the last half century destroying these public goods and therefore inflaming the social discontent, which capital must now fuel right wingers to quell.