Best Of

Well I’m expecting the price of petrol to come down next month.

How’s about you guys?

I don't give a F**k either way

Natasha Bertrand
@NatashaBertrand
A recent internal assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that was circulating inside the Pentagon in recent weeks determined that Iran could potentially keep the passage shut for anywhere from one to six months, four sources familiar with the document told CNN. But White House and Pentagon officials insisted that the assessment — particularly the longer end timeframe, which some consider a worst-case scenario — was not being seriously considered.

https://x.com/NatashaBertrand/status/2035048222901903410

As I said yesterday you can listen to the people who know — because that $100 billion a year buys a lot of very, very specialist knowledge — or you can just go with the thoughts of one of the dumbest people on Earth.

We'll be lucky if this doesn't turn into WW III.

Of course people believe in the magic money tree. Bar the odd rarity there's nearly always a budget deficit. Regardless of whether the economy is good or bad or whether the tax take is high or low, the government is almost certainly borrowing more than it is raising in taxes or other revenues, and frankly it's just a case of whether they're borrowing more or less in units of very large numbers.

To your average person, magic money tree. You can't do that with your credit card.

The reality is obviously much more complex and nuanced than that, but you can hardly blame folk for thinking it. Analogies like "well think of making your household budget balance up" are clearly bollocks because the government almost never balances it up themselves, and even in a good year the national debt continues to go up, just a bit slower, and yet the whole system continues to trundle on. That's almost the literal definition of magic money tree.

The fact that there's some imaginary line in the sand when ultimately even this state of affairs can't continue is almost by-the-by.

So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.

Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again

The question was "could" not "should".
You might think the government could afford to keep the triple lock (borrow more) but that doesn't mean they should.

What chance any end to the conflict without boots on the ground?

Given his supporters believe whatever he says, Trump can simply stop at any time and declare victory. The war stops when he gets bored, not when some particular objective is met or some place in Iran seized by boots on the ground.

Trump is in danger of dissatisfying everyone.

Those who don't want foreign wars.
Those who want the Iranian regime destroyed.
Those who hate higher prices.

He's obviously been spending too long with Starmer, who has made getting the worst of all possible worlds his main characteristic.

Given that the only British politicians Trump has met recently are Starmer, Mandelson and Truss I can understand why he thinks the UK has gone down in the world.

"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "

...

"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."


More from Tom Nichols at:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war/686470/?gift=otEsSHbRYKNfFYMngVFweBDkBYlSGKPROp7ZY5gr9oU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

(seems to be a gift article at the moment)

Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.

They were told to apologise for their rudeness.

History then proceeded.

The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.

Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.

I think the reason he won the second time is…

People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents

The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R

So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth

"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "

...

"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."


More from Tom Nichols at:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war/686470/?gift=otEsSHbRYKNfFYMngVFweBDkBYlSGKPROp7ZY5gr9oU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

(seems to be a gift article at the moment)

Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.

They were told to apologise for their rudeness.

History then proceeded.

The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.

Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship and polarisation, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.

‪@carlquintanilla.bsky.social‬

* U.S. TO DEPLOY THOUSANDS OF ADDITIONAL TROOPS TO THE MIDDLE EAST, THREE U.S. OFFICIALS TELL REUTERS

@reuters.com

No More Wars in Middle East MAGA latest.

What was debilitating about the 'forever wars' was the lack of dynamic movement one way or the other - just endless occupation with no obvious purpose. What Trump is doing is very different.

You're right, its worse.

At least if we occupied Iran we would have achieved regime change.

Instead we're going through the pain and disruption of a conflict without achieving regime change.

Moron.

How big an army do you think it would take to occupy a country the size of Iran with a population of over 90 million?

You would not need to occupy all of Iran.

Take the oil fields, Tehran and hand power of the military and governance to Pahlavi and let them deal with it from there.

Tehran, population 15 million? If williamglenn is a moron I'm not sure what that makes you.

It is perfectly possible to invade Iran. We did in the 1940s. But it would require far more military power than the US or Israel have yet devoted to the theatre. So, whatever @BartholomewRoberts wants to happen, it's currently a very long way from happening.

The 1941 invasion involved troops going over the border from Iraq, Pakistan and what is now Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Today, the US would probably want to team up with Pakistan and Turkey to have much chance of success.

The 1941 invasions involved maybe 70k invading troops against up to 200k Iranian troops. 70k is roughly ten times what the US is sending to the area, and they'd need a lot more than we did in 1941 given the Iranian armed forces are now around 610k (+ 350k reserves). In other words, the current reality is that a full-on invasion is not going to happen. Any "boots on the ground" will be in a very limited sense.

Ah, perhaps there's a dot or so to be joined here. We hear a lot about 'fighting-age men' arriving in small boats. We could re-adopt press-gangs to meet them on the beaches. That would maybe solve a couple of problems.

So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.

Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again

It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality

It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.

At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it

Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.

Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election

As I keep saying -

1) Merge employee NI And IT
2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially.
3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable.
4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....

Taxation is the best way to deal with this.

I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.

The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).

You merge employee NI and IT

That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.

This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.

But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.

So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is

No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.

Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.

Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway

The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.

Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.

1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now.
2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.

Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).

The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.

It's about messaging

1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance
2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax.
3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.