Best Of

"BREAKING: France has discussed with Denmark sending troops to Greenland in response to United States President Donald Trump's repeated threats to annex the Danish territory, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said."

It's a mad world, my masters.

Is it bad that I want a war between France and America?

Would be the first time ever, France and America have never been at war before. We have been at war with both of course, indeed the French were allies of the American colonists in the Revolutionary War when they sought independence from the British Empire.

Macron is one of the few people in the world with as big an eco as Trump and France also has one of the biggest NATO armies and an independent nuclear missile deterrent so it is not a guaranteed easy US win.

I doubt anything will come of it though French troops in Greenland might put off the Americans

It's willy waving by both.

No it’s not. Surely we’ve all learned by now. Trump MEANS what he says - for good or bad. And this time he has surrounded himself with smart, cunning ideologues who fiercely agree - and who know how to do stuff

I can see a Trump reinforcement of the US base combined with threatened tariffs forcing Denmark to back off. Greenland will vote for Indy in April and then Trump will offer $$$ to its 54,900 people to become a kind of frozen Puerto Rico

France won’t do shit. Greenland isn’t even in the EU

Face.

The Danish government will not want to lose face. And the more the US threatens, the more the Danish government loses face by acceding to Trump's terms.

There is a deal to be had here, obviously. But as with Canada, the more the US throws its weight around, the more other parties will wish to demonstrate that they have agency.

I think I speak for all of PB when I say: all praise Donald Trump

We in the west need him to win these culture wars. He is fighting for our freedom. Fight Fight Fight!!!

I love him

Goodnight from The Goon, Burma

In what way is bullying Denmark a part of the culture wars?

'Cause here's the thing that pisses me off. If the EU had bullied countries the way that the US currently is, then people would be castigating them.

But because it's Donald Trump, and he's against woke, then it's OK.

No, it's not fucking OK. It's still fucking shitty behaviour.

Cash is dead, part 2,444

Lloyds Banking Group to close a further 136 branches.

https://www.ft.com/content/d41e7dc9-90e4-4247-a70e-fc1ae1fd4c72

But apparently cash is implicated in child abuse.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cre8n7wr31jo

Given my day job, I can confidently say that 99% of all cash transactions are something to do with dodging taxes, drugs, and/or wider criminality.

Bollox. Where do most cash transactions take place - in supermarkets. It's people, often older, who don't trust electronic money or others who have limited financial skills and can budget better with physical money.

With all this Heathrow stuff going on, from the perspective of the grim north - where for most people air travel is about cheap flights from Liverpool etc - it still sounds very southern. I am wondering where is the plan for trains from Liverpool to Hull, buses that aren't pre war, dualling the A1 from London -Edinburgh (guess which bit is missing), and even west coast side Liverpool/Manchester) to Edinburgh.

When the Heathrow 3rd runways opens there will be five flights from Liverpool to London before 9am, and vice-versa.

Yes there is a missed opprtunity to run E-W rail in the North, from Liverpool to Hull.

The fact there would be that kind of demand, for a train journey of only 2 hours, demonstrates just how much we needed HS2 to open up some capacity (not speed FFS).

3rd runway at Heathrow to enable people to fly to Liverpool? Not a serious country.

Ooh, can the rumours about Russian air defence rockets being exhausted possibly be true?

https://x.com/secretsqrl123/status/1884463044170064004

Observers say that no AD rockets launched against a number of targets yesterday.

Maybe Russia shouldn't be supplying Saudi Arabia with 2 billion dollars of air defence...

The Saudis bought AD from Russia, and not from America?

Idiots, but if the Russians are that desperate for proper money over defending their oil industry, I guess the Saudis won’t complain too much. $2bn well spent.

https://www.occrp.org/en/scoop/sanctioned-russian-firms-sold-2b-air-defense-system-to-saudi-arabia-leaked-documents-show

Pantsir-S1M air defense system, apparently. No idea how much has actually been delivered.


Aside from details about the purchase of the Pantsir system, the leak includes a 69-page proposal that discusses future cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the sanctioned Russian firms. The proposal outlines three potential contracts.

One contract would cover the construction of maintenance facilities, while another would create a 15,000-square-metre center in Jeddah to train personnel on using the Pantsir system. The third potential contract would include building an assembly plant in Saudi Arabia to produce Pantsir units, and ammunition.

The contract for the assembly plant was due to be signed in the second half of 2022. However, OCCRP was unable to confirm whether this or the other two additional contracts were formally agreed upon, since the leak included documents only until May 2022.


This is a bit worrying:

The deal may have also allowed Russia to gain knowledge of Patriot air defense systems that Saudi Arabia has acquired from the U.S. The Russian side requested and received consent to visit Saudi air defense facilities in 2022, the leaked emails show.

Interesting name that, to English-hearing ears.

"Why's our oil refinery on fire? I thought we had a defence system!"
"We do. It's pants, Sir."

On growth, Labour lost the 'benefit of the doubt' with their utterly inept first six months.

What are they proposing? Exactly what you'd expect from them - absolutely nothing new that hasn't been discussed for years, or isn't already happening.

Lots of new reservoirs - many of these have been in the pipeline for years and are at various planning stages. Oxford to Cambridge - years of talking. New runways - decades. Of course, many Labour MPs (including Starmer) have been at the heart of stopping all of these projects over the years.

When they had the actual chance to do something, like with tech and AI, they stopped the investment because of politics, Sunak proposed it.

Let's also not forget that the budget (and Rayner's crap) itself will have increased the cost for all of these growth potentials.

More evidence that they came into power, after 14 years away, without a single original thought or policy.

The contrast with Trump is incredible, and not in a good way for Labour. Trump came in ready from day one minute one, with a detailed plan of what we he was gonna do from the very get go. And wow, he's doing it. Even if you despise him and his brillaint ideas, he's enacting them with ruthless speed and brutal efficiency

Labour look like they accidentally wandered in to power, and then started browsing the shelves to see if there are any scotch eggs

THEY HAD FOURTEEN YEARS TO PREPARE