Best Of

Our distaste, bordering on contempt, for Donald Trump is a remarkably unifying factor across our political spectrum. Surely an organised two minute hate would be appropriate and bring together society's disparate factions?

I find it hard to understand why so many Trump supporters on the UK right - such as Jenrick - now criticise him when it was absolutely clear what he was going to do on Ukraine and tariffs well before November. Were they being opportunistic then or is it now?

We have friends in California who are (or were) Trump voters. He voted Trump because (a) concerns about illegal immigration / crime, and (b) because he thought Trump (as a businessman() would manage the economy better than Harris.

Said friend has a clothing business: he basically supplies big chains with own label clothing that bears a remarkable physical resemblance to that made by more expensive brands.

Before the election, he saw the way the wind was blowing and moved a lot of production out of China, and into Mexico. He's been absolutely poll-axed by the Mexican tariffs: he's genuinely worried he is going to lose his business because his contracts are in the US and his cost of importation just rose 25%, and his customers don't care.

He's still clinging on to the hope that this will all blow over, but he's in wide eyed shock right now that things have gone the way they've gone.

Nice to see the centrist Dads getting bent out of shape over Ukraine whilst the genocide in Gaza has been met with splendid indifference.

The centrist dads aren't happy with that, either.
The difference is the UK or Europe's ability to influence events. Which, in the case of whatever it is that Netanyahu and Trump are about to do in Gaza, is close to nil.

Note that Saudi Arabia's bid of $55bn to rebuild the place has just been rejected out of hand by Trump. And MBS probably now has more influence in the White House than we do.

I live a very sheltered life. What is a centrist dad? Am I one because I am both a centrist and a dad or is there a special meaning?

If you don't know then you are one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zltpK2KiaQ

Is a centrist dad worse than a centrist mum?

Isn't a 'centrist dad' an anti woke middle aged male with old fashioned conservative views?

Someone like Leon I suppose?

No - that's pretty much the opposite of what it means.

"Centrist dad" was originally a far left term of abuse for social democrat types within the Labour Party, the kind of party members who would turn up to a CLP meeting to vote down Corbynista attempts to replace the sitting MP with some Trot nutter. It has broadened out to encompass a broad swathe of liberal-left opinion, somewhat complacent, enamoured with the status quo, resistant to attempts from both left and right to smash the system. The centrist dad gets his news from Channel 4 News or Newsnight. He likes the Rest is Politics. He cycles to work. He shops at Sainsburys but probably gets an organic veg box in too. He still seethes over Brexit. He wonders what happened to the circa 2000 world that he understood and loved.

Shabana Mahmood’s claim that her Labour government won’t stand for “two tier justice” - with an anti white, anti male, anti Christian bias - has been somewhat undermined this morning as it turns out the Sentencing Council is independent

So she can write to them asking them to change it. But she can’t force them. Unless Labour decides to change the law - which, given that they have a trillion seat majority, they could do tomorrow

But will they?

“One point worth noting on this morning's sentencing story.

Shabana Mahmood has written to the Sentencing Council urging them to change course. But a government source confirms this morning she cannot order them to do so.

So on April 1 a new sentencing regime will take effect which the Lord Chancellor herself has described as a "two-tier sentencing approach".

That seems to me to be massively significant”

https://x.com/hzeffman/status/1897542893814100129?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

I've had a glance at this and it's just a change to guidance on pre-sentence reports, not the sentences themselves. And it happened under the Tories, and is broadly sensible given the longer sentences ethnic minorities get for similar crimes, and taking into account pregnancy, child abuse survivors etc.

What's sad is I just assumed it was going to be a load of nonsense given you were banging on about it. The issue with this is when you do, occasionally, come across a real scandal, it will be much harder to get people's attention.

Well, I made you “glance at it”… and then work out what it is, and what it does, and how it will work, and who devised it (quite a long glance, there), so job done, despite your claims otherwise

And your dismissal of it is ridiculous. This is racist anti-white two tier justice enshrined in law, which could be quite a problem for Two Tier Kier - and Shabana Mahmoud who has claimed this “cannot happen on her watch”

You keep saying Two Tier Keir.

As all of this pre-dates Labour, why were you not saying Two Tier Rishi?

If you actually care about the actual issue?

Trust me, on this I really care about the issue. It’s a fucking disgrace

And FWIW (as I said yesterday) yes the Tories must carry hefty loads of blame for all this. They had 14 years to roll back Woke; they didn’t - they made it worse

And for that they “need to be vomited into the bucket
of bye-bye, and hurled onto the dungheap of doomsday”. My words yesterday. Pithy enough?

OK, so its not Two Tier Keir then is it. Why are you blaming the new government for the failings of the previous one? I get that they aren't acting quickly enough for you on this subject. But *they didn't do this*. And yet you blame them.

But - unless I am misunderstanding, which I may be - they ARE doing this. The legislation that white men must serve longer sentences may have been drafted under the previous miasma, but it is being introduced under this one. And unless they stop it, it's right that we blame this one.

Actually this goes back to what Liz Truss has been banging on about. Independent Quangos that have extremely political agendas that are blissfully unaffected by electoral politics. These bodies need to be abolished, and their basis in law revoked. Nobody voted for this, and a vanishing minority ever would.

What's worrying for me with the "age of the US" coming to an end is that it will be China that inherits the mantle. Whatever one thinks of Trump and MAGA the US is founder upon principles of freedom and that, until recently, has been what they exported to the world. In a world where China is exporting it's values unchallenged the world will become a colder, more paranoid place and feel much less friendly outside of our core allies.

Who are our core allies? The US clearly isn't one.

Australia, Canada, France and Poland in that order I'd say then a bunch of second order allies in Europe.

I would put the Nordics and the Netherlands ahead of Australia and Canada, both of which have much higher priorities than the UK in their own neck of the woods.

No Australia and Canada and NZ are first as we share the King as our head of state with them and our language and similar ancestry.

Then the non US NATO nations, then Japan and S Korea and Singapore then while Trump remains in office the US is the current order of our closest allies

NATO is dead - we haven't yet formally wound it up but as Article 5 no longer applies then the whole concept of mutual defence is over. That then imperils the five eyes intelligence group and so on and so on.

My response to who is first is all of them. UK / Canada / Australia / NZ are the Four Eyes intelligence group. UK is in rNATO as are France et al, with Japan, S Korea, Singapore and others as strategic allies.

With the shuttering of NATO and Five Eyes, we need to rapidly evolve the alliance and that means everyone.

Starmer announced support for Ukraine in a way that boosts our economy. Germany is lifting its borrowing cap and will be investing in ways that boosts its economy. War footing economies can be very effective - many allied economies have been stagnant for a long time. The end of NATO is a political jolt but can also be a positive economic one.

I absolutely hate the fact that I am now ramping the idea that we need to invest heavily in defence. But we do, and we need investment in our economy. Its an opportunity we have to grasp in this new phase of our world order.

Nice to see the centrist Dads getting bent out of shape over Ukraine whilst the genocide in Gaza has been met with splendid indifference.

Which 'centrist dads' are you referring to?

I don't see any 'splendid indifference' to Gaza. In fact, I see a lot of damnation of both Hamas and the Israeli government, and a lot of sympathy for the poor people on the ground.

But where your comparison fails is that the Gaza-Israel situation is morally ambiguous. Hamas did an evil act in 2023, and one that *any* state would have had to respond to. Hamas are not innocents. But the Israeli reaction has been crass and bloody. There is no 'good' side to pick in that conflict, aside from the innocents on the ground. There's just bad and more bad, depending on whether you swerve more to pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian.

Whereas Ukraine is about as morally unambiguous as you can get - unless you're a left-wing or right-wing shitbag. Russia is in the wrong. Ukraine is in the right. And that makes it much easier to discuss and hang your coat on the 'good' side.

Our distaste, bordering on contempt, for Donald Trump is a remarkably unifying factor across our political spectrum. Surely an organised two minute hate would be appropriate and bring together society's disparate factions?

I find it hard to understand why so many Trump supporters on the UK right - such as Jenrick - now criticise him when it was absolutely clear what he was going to do on Ukraine and tariffs well before November. Were they being opportunistic then or is it now?

We have friends in California who are (or were) Trump voters. He voted Trump because (a) concerns about illegal immigration / crime, and (b) because he thought Trump (as a businessman() would manage the economy better than Harris.

Said friend has a clothing business: he basically supplies big chains with own label clothing that bears a remarkable physical resemblance to that made by more expensive brands.

Before the election, he saw the way the wind was blowing and moved a lot of production out of China, and into Mexico. He's been absolutely poll-axed by the Mexican tariffs: he's genuinely worried he is going to lose his business because his contracts are in the US and his cost of importation just rose 25%, and his customers don't care.

He's still clinging on to the hope that this will all blow over, but he's in wide eyed shock right now that things have gone the way they've gone.

Totally sympathise. And our USA friends need to know that in Europe one of our feelings is a profound sadness and solidarity with our friends.

But there is one more thing to say. What cannot be denied is that USA voters voted for Trump, and for an GOP congress, in the 100% full knowledge of what Trump had said in speech after speech; including tariffs, isolationism, making sure the Ukraine war was forced to an end, regarding Canada as an annexe with a governor as PM, and seeking to acquire Greenland.

They also knew (6 Jan) that Trump was a liar, rabble rouser and fraud who only believed in an electoral process when he won. They also knew that he never criticises Russia.

They have got what they voted for and what he stood for. Which was the bit those changing their minds didn't get?