Best Of

Whiskey Pete is a national security risk.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/

That story is completely nuts. In a normal country mulitple heads would roll as a result.

Astonishing. It lays bare the transactional nature of this group.

A few minutes later, the “Michael Waltz” account posted a lengthy note about trade figures, and the limited capabilities of European navies. “Whether it’s now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes. Per the president’s request we are working with DOD and State to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans.”

The account identified as “JD Vance” addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the U.S. Navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)

The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”

At this point, the previously silent “S M” joined the conversation. “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.”

Trouble is, they are right in the strict terms of American cost/benefit

Why should American taxpayers fork out for defence that benefits, say, Ireland, which is now a really rich country which refuses to spend more than three euro on a navy coz it is “neutral”

In this case America *does* benefit from clear shipping lanes, though (like practically everybody else on the planet). They're also correct that nobody else is close to being able to do the job. Given that, it seems a bit optimistic to expect Europe to pony up for the whole cost, especially if you haven't agreed it in advance and don't have any idea how you'd enforce payment...

You do what they’re doing, tell Europe to go fuck itself unless it coughs up, like Poland

The problem with this strategy is that once Europe has paid up for its own planes and ships it may not want to dance to America's tune any longer. MAGA is hugely underestimating the value America gets out of being the default Western leading nation. By pushing Europe into rearmament they are creating competitors where previously there was nothing.

It is American military leadership that forced Taiwan into investing in the US for advanced semiconductors but the company that makes the machines to make the chips is European. What if in the future an armed to the teeth Europe says "actually fuck that noise, we're going to sell our wares to whoever wants them" and ignores US sanctions on China and other hostile states? The only reason we give any fucks about what the US wants us to do is because we're so hugely dependent on their military so their foreign policy objectives become our foreign policy objectives, sometimes to the detriment of our domestic economy.

Indeed.

One of the things that is beginning to concern me now is the role of Powell and Mandelson, and their experience
and conditioning of dealing with the Bush White House, which, awful as it was, did honour slightly more commitments.

From one point of view, their long transatlantic experience has probably been crucial to Starmer exercising an important mediating in between Zelensky and Trump.

On the other hand, and seen from another point of view, these are also people who were apparently very happy for Britain to play a clear butler-poodle role with Bush, leading to an Iraq involvement that was actually very damaging for our interests. If the same New Labour establishment are now beginning to make a decision to come down more clearly on the Trump side, rather than exercising their very considerable diplomatic experience, then we could be looking at Iraq all over again, but multiplied by a factor of a thousand, with democracy actually at stake.

I'm getting increasingly annoyed by people who are meant to be experts saying that Trump is a dangerous fascist BUT don't worry the midterms will knock him back. If he is a dangerous fascist the midterms will likely increase his hold on power not loosen it.

Far too many people who ought to know better are still normalising what is happening in the US. I personally see no electoral route to defeating Trump/MAGA.

Good afternoon

No 10 reports Starmer had a conversation with Trump about progress made in an 'economic prosperity deal ' last night

If Starmer does do a trade deal with US many will be furious, not least because it is likely to include eliminating the digital tax so much loved by the Lib Dems and make re- joining the EU a distant dream

Starmer is governing more as a Conservative PM than anywhere near a Labour one

It is virtually impossible to get a US-UK trade deal. What we can do is talk optimistically about it whenever a new President gets in, then everyone forgets about it for a few years. Does no harm.

The reality will be tariffs and if they are applied to Europe and not the UK because of our trading relationship with Trump

Ask the Canadians and Mexicans how well having a trade deal with Trump protects them.

Indeed.

One of the things that is beginning to concern me now is the role of Powell and Mandelson, and their experience
and conditioning of dealing with the Bush White House, which, awful as it was, did honour slightly more commitments.

From one point of view, their long transatlantic experience has probably been crucial to Starmer exercising an important mediating in between Zelensky and Trump.

On the other hand, and seen from another point of view, these are also people who were apparently very happy for Britain to play a clear butler-poodle role with Bush, leading to an Iraq involvement that was actually very damaging for our interests. If the same New Labour establishment are now beginning to make a decision to come down more clearly on the Trump side, rather than exercising their very considerable diplomatic experience, then we could be looking at Iraq all over again, but multiplied by a factor of a thousand, with democracy actually at stake.

Good afternoon

No 10 reports Starmer had a conversation with Trump about progress made in an 'economic prosperity deal ' last night

If Starmer does do a trade deal with US many will be furious, not least because it is likely to include eliminating the digital tax so much loved by the Lib Dems and make re- joining the EU a distant dream

Starmer is governing more as a Conservative PM than anywhere near a Labour one

It is virtually impossible to get a US-UK trade deal. What we can do is talk optimistically about it whenever a new President gets in, then everyone forgets about it for a few years. Does no harm.

The reality will be tariffs and if they are applied to Europe and not the UK because of our trading relationship with Trump

Ask the Canadians and Mexicans how well having a trade deal with Trump protects them.

I will eat a pizza with pineapple on it if there’s a ratified UK/US trade deal.

That’s how confident I am.

How in the name of holy chuffing buggery do Thames Water not have a fixed asset register?

Fresh doubt has been cast over the race to find a white knight buyer for Thames Water as it struggles to provide details of its labyrinthine network of pipes, sewage works and reservoirs.

Thames Water has stepped up the hunt for new investors willing to pump in billions of pounds of emergency capital after the Court of Appeal approved a £3bn emergency debt bailout from its existing creditors.

However, prospective suitors fear the search will be held up by the company’s failure to keep an accurate record of the mountain of assets that it has accumulated over the decades.

Thames Water has just weeks to hammer out a deal or one of the country’s most vital utilities faces a prolonged hand-to-mouth existence in which lenders drip-feed the company enough money every month to pay its bills.

“The board has to advance to the due diligence quickly but this makes that much harder. How do you put a value on the company if you don’t know what it owns?” a source close to the talks said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/23/thames-water-rescue-deal-threatened-by-missing-assets/

Nationalisation might be the only answer. The only way the private sector will want to get involved is at such a low price that a profit is guaranteed for asset stripping. A period of government ownership while the basics are restored – an asset register; proper waste management rather than waiting for a storm and chucking it all in the river while limits are suspended; investment in new facilities. Account for the asset on the government's books so it does not look like the money has disappeared.

Why do we need to nationalise a profitable business? The problem with Thames isn't it's failure to generate more money than it's operating costs, it's that it's substantial operating profits are insufficient to service it's even more substantial debts.

It needs to go bust, default on the loans, wipe out the shareholders and have the core business sold on debt free - at which point problem solved.

All the current wrangling is merely attempts by the idiots who lent them too much money, and the idiots who purchased a business with an unsustainable amount of debt to avoid the inevitable consequences of their stupidity.

The only plausible government involvement might be short term financial loans or guarantes to keep the system running during the period of administration, instead of having a disorderly collapse when suppliers aren't paid.