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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.

Oh dear. What a pity. Nevermind...

https://x.com/e_casalicchio/status/1904105476133879950

Notable on that tweet the ease with which journalists describe Italy’s government as far right, in contrast to the painful contortions they go through to avoid labelling the US government in the same way.

To my eyes Trump and his administration are significantly further to the right than Meloni’s party. Certainly in the conspiracy theory / pro-Russian foreign policy / anti vax / rule of law space.

I'm finding Starmer's latest formulation on Trump quite concerning.

I've supported his diplomacy so far, and he's managed to exert a lot of influence between Trump and Ukraine so far, but to make a public show of saying he "likes him", with the stakes as they are currently for Europe and Canada, is the wrong tone to strike.

He shoukd have jusf issued the usual, more neutral boilerplate, about having a good working relationship", while buttering him in more personal terms in private, which seems to have been working well.

Trump is not generally someone who is "liked" by foreign leaders, except for autucrats, nor does he usually seek that. It makes Starmer sound even more of a butler than is necessary, and won't go down at all well with those other democratic leaders.

Taken together with the mooted talk of Starrne also offering special tax concessions to U.S. Big Tech, and there are the first concerning signs about Starmer's direction of travel on this topic.

Meanwhile, I see Reeves has adopted the right wing term ‘tax and spend’ is looking to keep President Trump happy by excluding American tech companies from a tax on American tech companies (as warned on pb).

UK mulls big tech tax changes to avoid US tariffs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8j0dgym8w1o

This is inept - it's a pure protection racket. She's feeding sausages to an American Bully XL in the hope that it won't bite her after it has eaten the sausages. And the negotiation is starting from the USA's position, not ours.

Where's the £900m of lost revenue going to be recovered from?

What did Lord Mandelbrot advise? He had two stints as Business Secretary and 5 years as European Trade Commissioner, so has relevant background.

It can't be said "we have an agreement with Mr Trump", because Mr Trump's history is to piss on every agreement he has ever made, unless there is a metaphorical gun to his head.