Best Of

@donwinslow

IF PAST IS PROLOGUE, DONALD TRUMP WILL DO SOMETHING INSANE IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS TO CHANGE THE NEWS CYCLE.

I subscribe to the view that Donald Trump’s number one objective is to dominate the news cycle all day and every day. That's a worry when you consider what it will take to do this for four years. I can envisage a time when we come to yearn for the relatively sober early weeks of his tenure when all we had to fret about was him subverting American democracy, ripping up the western alliance, surrendering Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, ethnic cleansing the Palestinians, paralysing world trade, and invading Greenland, Panama and Mexico and Canada.

I return to the question Mark asked earlier, "How long will Trump tolerate his cabinet making him look like an idiot?", and the answer is 'a minimum of 4 years' if he is even aware of it

I don't think he gives a shit about Signalgate. He doesn't know anything about it, the Atlantic is a failing rag, etc. There will definitely be no legal or disciplinary consequences for anyone involved.

What DJT really cares about is his own personal grandeur and authority. Signalgate doesn't affect him in that way.

So long as it doesn't dent his chances to win a Nobel Peace Prize he won't care.

About time the Nobel Committee issued a press release.

"To the Presdient of the United States:

You are never getting a Peace Prize.

Get over it.

Your chances of one for Economics don't look too rosy either.

The Committee."

Starmer appoints Rishi Sunak’s wife as V&A trustee
Akshata Murty joins Mariella Frostrup and Vick Hope among new museum appointees
...
Meanwhile, Sir Keir has also approved several new appointments at the British Museum... Its new trustees include Claudia Winkleman, the presenter of the popular television programme The Traitors, along with Martha Kearney, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, and Tom Holland, the historian.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/24/starmer-appoints-rishi-sunak-wife-v-and-a-trustee-murty-uk/ (£££)

Turns out it is not just President Trump who only appoints people he has seen on telly.

A big part of being a trustee for the big museums is publicity and fund raising.

Mrs Sunak will be able to run a pretty fair bake sale.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/25/stunning-signal-leak-reveals-depths-of-trump-administrations-loathing-of-europe

The weird thing about this regime is that the more they proclaim a white, Christian, European vision of America, the more they hate Europe. There must be some kind of psychology thesis to be written about this.

Vance seems to simultaneously hate his own background and hate the world he has joined.

He also hates immigration and multiculturalism while being married to the daughter of Indian immigrants. He seems to be quite a conflicted individual.

I think Vance wants to be hailed as some sort of 'philosopher prince'.

His writings (see the one that was linked to recently about his conversion to Catholicism) seem to show a need to boast about what he has achieved and what he knows.

More generally Washington resembles a Tudor court more than a modern government.

Trump has all the insecure, grandiose, erratic narcissism of late stage Henry VIII.

Mike Pence / Thomas More as the former favourite who chose his conscience over his master orders.

Vance as the Thomas Cromwell figure - low born and talented but always looked down on by those born to privilege.

The likes of Musk, Rubio, Hegseth scheming for position as the Howards, Seymours and such like did.

There's even a weak ineffective legislature and a threatened judicial system.

More Trump impacts.

Most Scots want to keep UK’s nuclear deterrent, poll shows

Support to retain the Clyde-based weapons is even strong among supporters of the SNP, which wants unilateral disarmament

A majority of Scots believe that Britain should keep its nuclear arsenal amid calls for the SNP to reconsider its historic demand for unilateral disarmament.

A poll has found that 56 per cent believe the UK should retain its independent nuclear deterrent, compared with 22 per cent who think it should be given up.

The SNP has long campaigned for Britain to unconditionally relinquish its Trident nuclear submarines, which are based on the Clyde (the Royal Navy’s headquarters in Scotland), arguing that they are both financially and morally wrong.

However, Ian Blackford, the party’s former Westminster leader, recently became the first senior nationalist to break ranks, citing Russian aggression and uncertainty over President Trump’s commitment to European defence.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/scottish-people-back-nuclear-deterrent-uk-snp-7kjm7kp2s

Morning all

To re-iterate, as some of the more frequent posters don't seem to either know or understand politics that well, the key polling numbers in Canada aren't the nationwide ones but the regional ones.

Canada, for all it is a vast country, is quite concentrated demographically - of the 338 ridings which make up the Parliament, nearly 200 are in Ontario and Quebec. The other marginal area is British Columbia but the prairie states (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan) will likely retain mostly Conservatives while the Atlantic coastal provinces return mostly Liberals.

In Quebec, you obviously have Bloc Quebecois to consider.

The only recent regional polling is in Nova Scotia which returns just 11 MPs - last time it split 8 Liberal and 3 Conservatives. The latest poll (from March 20th) has the Liberals up by four points on the 2021 result and the Conservatives up eight so a net 2% swing to the Tories. The NDP are down ten points.

IF we see similar nationally, you'd expect a Conservative lead of about five points but the latest Angus Reid has an eight point Liberal lead. The Conservatives need to be doing well in Ontario in particular which elected 78 Liberals and 37 Conservatives but there's been no recent polling. Any Liberal progress in Ontario and Quebec means Carney wins to be blunt. The Conservatives do themselves little good piling up votes in Alberta (30 of 34 seats) and Saskatchewan (all 14 seats).

The battlegrounds are Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia which have 243 of the 338 ridings - polls from those regions are what anyone looking to have a bet on this election should be analysing as well as any individual riding polling.