Best Of

Rawnsley isn't wrong!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/02/heathrow-expansion-puts-the-government-on-the-flight-path-to-years-of-trouble-and-strife?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Reeves' motive for putting Heathrow expansion as the main feature of her speech could be:

1) To enhance her brand as Rawnsley suggests. The iron lady. Never mind the issue but make the measure of success way beyond your likely tenure. Cynical politics.

2) She really believes the economic case. The economic case she refers to was commissioned by Heathrow and will contain assumptions provided by Heathrow on the economy and enviroment. It will be trashed and so will she. Naive politics.

I'm torn between the two possible explanations but tend towards 1). Surely she can't be that naive!

I think it's probably a question of credibility. If you go "growth first and foremost, but we will restrict our main airport to two runways" that isn't a credible position.

It's not a principle this over-cautious government applies elsewhere however, eg on relations with the EU or welfare.

Indeed, the greatest failure of this Government is its timidity. One would expect them to be lagging in the polls for their controversial policy pronouncements rather than from their inaction.

Nothing really on closer ties with Europe, taxation on wealth, defence against Trump and Russia and equalising society both socially and geographically.

I think Trump has forgotten how to bully effectively.

Rather than picking a single target for his trade wars (e.g. China, or Panama) that he can bully into concessions, he is on the path to applying tariffs to nearly everyone. Canada, Mexico and China today, but almost certainly the EU (big trade deficit) and others soon after.

The rational response to this is that everyone does targeted retaliatory tariffs back, as Canada has already announced. Which means Trump will increase the US tariffs. And then rest of the world theirs. Etc etc.

The end result is other countries displace the US in their supply chains with each other. And the US brings manufacturing back home. But that will take time, and be at a higher cost for consumers.

Remember this is a man who has bankrupted a casino. It will be his economic incompetence that brings him down. Not his wider failings.

Hard to know with the Trump Tariffs whether Trump is really dumb - and truly doesn't understand that they only get paid by US consumers - or whether he is one of the seven deadly demons visited upon America and is doing it for shitz n gigglez/his rich buddies said it would be a great idea.

Whichever, not sure it will play out for all of them. I wouldn't want to be a Tesla franchise owner in Canada.

With four bankruptcies under his belt. Individual businesses dropping like nine pins over the years, off the top of my head Trump casinos and Trump University to name just two, perhaps the guy doesn't have a business brain. Maybe the USA too can be bailed out by Russia via Deutsche Bank.

@SkylerforNY
·
12h
Trump is running the country like a business. Unfortunately, he’s running it like one of his businesses.

Those end in fraud, lawsuits, and bankruptcy.

Also relevant to this thread is this excellent article by Matthew Syed in today's Times about the helicopter/plane crash a few days ago and how Trump's response endangers one of the few sectors which has got the whole investigation / learning lessons shtick right.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/trumps-scapegoating-threatens-the-entire-basis-of-aviation-safety-5hnp98030

The 3 key points:

1. "the most beautiful thing about aviation’s safety culture is that the cardinal sin is not to make a mistake (since we all do) but to fail to report it."

2. "How will they feel about being open and honest when .... their testimony might be surgically removed from context and weaponised by competing sides......? Let me suggest that the result will be a movement away from openness and learning and towards secrecy and concealment."

And finally this -
3. "As one put it: “How can investigators do their job objectively when they know that if their findings don’t conform to what Trump wants to hear, they might be publicly rebuked?”"

Discouraging the reporting of problems, encouraging concealment and dishonesty and believing what you want to be true so that you do not get told the truth are at the heart of all scandals. If this happens in aviation people will die.

Notable that across the world, people are (pretending) to bend the knee.

Including Sir Keith “Kid Starver” & his government.

We’ve even seen The Mandelbrot saying nice things about Big Orange.

What is this “Mandelbrot” thing? Did I miss some faux pas he made about German bread? I really can’t work out if it’s a “whoosh” and I don’t get the joke.

• Peter Mandelson is a politician of slippery loyalty, chiefly to himself.
  
• The Mandlebrot set is a set of complex numbers z, where z=x +iy. It contains all points z which do not go to infinity when z(n+1)=z(n)^2 + c, where c is a constant. The boundary of the set is fractal and looks like a turtle with acne.
  

By conflating the two into the phrase "Mandelbrot set", @Malmesbury characterises Mandelson as convoluted and self-referential, which is quite fitting.

Next week, on "Viewcode points out the bleeding obvious": how phrases like "EUSSR" and "Remoaner" encapsulate political concepts in a single word.

Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
·
1h

“Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize…the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations.”
— Ronald Reagan

It is interesting that anti-globalisation used to be mostly a leftwing and often anti-american thing. The US forced everywhere to open up their markets for multinationals to make profits, no matter what the harm to local society, environment or economy. Now it's the US and the Republican party that wants to reverse free trade. Trump frames the US as a victim of globalisation, when the US has been a main beneficiary - it's just that the benefits have gone to a small minority in the US.

Trump is not totally wrong about globalisation. Just, mostly. The current system works quite well for the ISA.

Globalisation is like "Free Trade", neither new nor of universal benefit. It's perfectly possible to be of benefit to the USA in aggregate GDP, but bad for Pennsylvanian steelworks, good for UK total GDP and bad for the Leicester hosiery industry, good for Mexican car factories and bad for Mexican farmers.

Globalisation produces cheap consumer goods, but also increases the concentration of capital, and allows multinationals to play one country off against others in sweetheart deals, such as the AZ plant in the NW. It's probably of net benefit to most countries, but for specific communities it can be terminal.

RFK Jr to senators:

"All my kids are vaccinated. I believe vaccines have saved millions of lives and play a critical role in health care."

RFK Jr to his own anti-vax organisation in 2020 on being able to go back in time and not vaccinate his children:
“I would do anything for that. I would pay anything to be able to do that.”

https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/shows/truth-with-robert-f-kennedy-jr/children8217s-health-epidemics-vaccine-injuries--more/

It's a 45 minute anti-vaccine rant full of things that are just not true eg "vaccine manufacturers themselves list autism as a possible side effect". Interspersed with videos of children with RFK's emotional voice over "they'll never write a poem they'll never go on a date.... If i could save just one of them I would give up everything" it's really sickening

The guy makes a lot of money peddling this bullshit he's utterly despicable. And a shameless liar.