Best Of

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"This war was started by BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA and JOE BIDEN and we've been fighting it for 47 years.."
https://x.com/krishnanrohit/status/2033646620462747769

Madder than Mad Jack McUtterlydemented.

I think that's a fake one.

Sounds as though he's been talking to himself, then.

After President Trump claimed to reporters twice today that he had recently spoken to a former president who praised his actions in Iran, saying: “I wish I did what you did.” Aides to all four living presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have issued statements to CNN, saying there is no record of any communications between them and President Trump.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2033684880815456366

"Sir, you are the GREATEST President.."

He will probably claim he was communing with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln who called to congratulate him on being the bestest president EVAH!

More likely he just had a word with the 45th President.

Reeves says she will stop UK Tech drifting abroad.

So that's another piece of national prosperity fked

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k16zdr1r1o

As the article notes one of the attractions abroad is tax breaks. Here, Reeves thinks the government spending more money is the solution. It is the problem in a nutshell.

She also thinks the EU is the key to our well being. Though how taking on an additional 19000 pieces of regulation is going to help escapes me.

The woman couldnt spell IQ

To simplify, British companies currently have to follow 19000 pieces of UK regulation, but if they then want expand into Europe, they have to follow another 19000 pieces of EU regulation. Better then to just align the regulation, so there’s only one set of regulations.

Regularity alignment would simply force us to be as uncompetitive as the EU. I grant you we're currently there anyway, but there's always a chance of a Government coming in that actually wants the country to succeed.

Signing up to unknown future EU legislation is absolutely the worst possible option, because every single piece of it will be framed inside the EU as “how we can we use this new law to screw the British?”

Meanwhile most of the British political class will enjoy being screwed, because to them more EU is ideology over pragmatism.

Quite. If something is harmful to the UK but beneficial to the EU, we have a willing fifth column that will sign us up.

Reeves says she will stop UK Tech drifting abroad.

So that's another piece of national prosperity fked

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k16zdr1r1o

As the article notes one of the attractions abroad is tax breaks. Here, Reeves thinks the government spending more money is the solution. It is the problem in a nutshell.

She also thinks the EU is the key to our well being. Though how taking on an additional 19000 pieces of regulation is going to help escapes me.

The woman couldnt spell IQ

To simplify, British companies currently have to follow 19000 pieces of UK regulation, but if they then want expand into Europe, they have to follow another 19000 pieces of EU regulation. Better then to just align the regulation, so there’s only one set of regulations.

Regularity alignment would simply force us to be as uncompetitive as the EU. I grant you we're currently there anyway, but there's always a chance of a Government coming in that actually wants the country to succeed.

Signing up to unknown future EU legislation is absolutely the worst possible option, because every single piece of it will be framed inside the EU as “how we can we use this new law to screw the British?”

Meanwhile most of the British political class will enjoy being screwed, because to them more EU is ideology over pragmatism.

On topic.
Starmer has to get ships into the gulf, lead Britain onto the offensive and action preventing Iran from closing the waterway.

The National Interest is that Starmer acts immediately in the Gulf, exactly as Trump is requesting. Just two or three months of blockage on oil shipping through the straits will kill UK businesses and the economy, so the National Interest is crystal clear.

It’s also the only political option Starmer has left - he can no longer remain on the fence and not act. Because, quite simply, on topic: I agree with TSE. Labour will own the pain voters will be feeling, even more so through Labours inaction on the cause of the problem.

Kemi was spot on last week at PMQs, beginning the long grind and shred into non existence of Starmer and his Government, by ensuring every voter is aware all the economic pain and catastrophe to households and business and the economy, to an inability of UK to pay its interest payments, pensions, welfare and public worker bills so needs IMF loans, is entirely linked to Starmer’s inaction in the gulf.
Kemi will go with Mandelson this week, and ignore what she started last week. But, where TSE is right in the header, Labour owning the economic disaster hurtling towards UK, this comes with Kemi, Zak, Farage and Ed, constantly reminding voters Starmer and his government are not doing enough.

Government promises the last few days to do whatever it takes to protect UK households and businesses from rampart inflation especially on food staples, is as ill planned and clueless as Trumps Iran War. By adopting the imbecile Martin Lewis’s exorbitant and massively wasteful government “handing out borrowed money to everybody” scheme, Hunt explained last week the Tories spent at least £95B, £9B from windfall tax on the energy industry, the rest was borrowed money. This Labour government does not have a scoobies how it will fulfil all these promises it is making about this. At some point in future it will be widely known in hindsight, it cost Britain an extra four billion pound for each day Starmer sat on the fence, without taking action on the root cause being Irans illegal terrorism in the gulf.

Faced with the destruction of UK finances and economy by Iranian blocking of oil - that is so illegal there is no doubt we can now legally attack them - Starmer MUST Act on the illegal terrorist blockade in the gulf. Starmer and his government will be shredded by UKs opposition parties if he doesn’t.

Simples.

How do a couple of ships protect every tanker from drone attacks elsewhere in the straits.

Simply put if Iran wants to close the Straits there is nothing anyone in the world can do to stop them...

I really, really hope this is the focus of PMQs.
But I suspect even Brixian wouldn't think Badenoch would be that daft.

The National Interest.

Is California and Jerusalem going to be nuked by Iran in just two weeks time? Or is this really all about getting Bibi re-elected? Does Donald actually believe he will appoint the next Iranian Supreme Leader himself, turning Iran into a Vassal State of his White House? If he says so publicly, turning this into an existential patriotic war for Iranian Nationalism, it’s going to torpedo the uprising he claims he is after.

The National Interest two weeks ago for UK, we don’t believe in the urgency to poke the nest setting off Gulf War at this juncture. We are not involved in mission aims and planning based so much upon what Trump is “feeling in his bones” on a day to day basis.

But that was then. The National Interest for UK is now different. The nest HAS been poked. We are now literally sat on a fence being stung to death, and taking zero action about it.

Do I really need to come all over Yurgun Klop and have to say it again, and laugh at you for getting this wrong?

THE NATIONAL INTEREST HAS CHANGED. There is now no time at all for dither, delay and fence sitting. The size of the ruinous money borrowing UK is going to have to make eventually, whilst we sit and watch the most illegal Iranian terrorist activity as the root cause of all our pain, is going up by multiples of billions each day with Labours inaction, not aggressively tackling the illegal blockade by Iran as we should be doing.

It’s simples. We have to be doing something.

The problem is there are no good options

1. Regime change is very difficult / impossible and involves a massive commitment of troops we don’t have

2. Diplomatic activities are low probability to success

3. Joining the war on the US side is unlikely to change the outcome, undermines our strategic autonomy and is likely to cost blood and treasure for limited gain

Unfortunately the most likely outcome is for the US to declare victory and retreat. But Iran won’t accept that without concessions which strategically weaken the western interests in the region

Thank you mr Trump

The way I see it:

The efforts to get HMS Dragon away show what a pitiful state our defence forces have fallen into. Before even thinking about whether this is a good idea we need a realistic discussion of what we can bring to the table and whether it is meaningful in the overall context. I have my doubts.

What would be trying to achieve? Presumably the safe use of Hormuz. I think that would be incredibly difficult without claiming the land opposite the straits. Are we really up for that, the number of casualties and the length of such a commitment? If we are not, we should not even start.

Signing ourselves up to work with a completely unreliable madman, two really, although the second is more of a psychopathic crook than a lunatic, is deeply unattractive. There are much more obvious gains in the long term if it is brought home to the US that our support is not unconditional and that consultation before war is essential.

The consequences of Trump's madness are going to be bad for us, no doubt about it, but unless we can make a material contribution, are committed to the long haul and think we can reach some sort of accommodation with Trump that we can rely on the answer surely has to be no.

I would go further and any kind of help we give is akin to facilitating a drug addict with some financial 'help' that just ends up helping them get their next fix and extend the problem. We shouldn't even be considering it, regardless of capability.

The lack of allied support for opening the Strait while the war goes on reduces Trump's options. And he doesn't want this war to drag on until late summer when the oil price increase will be baked into the midterms.

The pathway to the Strait opening is the US and Israel stopping bombing and Gulf states coming to an agreement with Iran to let their ships pass. It won't be peace on US terms but it is there for the taking.

A token RN destroyer or minesweeper is not going to make a jot of difference even if we could get one there. The USN has 2 carrier groups there, more than enough firepower. They do not want to risk them in the strait, so we shouldn't either.

The only way this war ends is the US and Israel stop bombing and let things back to normal with nothing useful achieved.

The way I see it:

The efforts to get HMS Dragon away show what a pitiful state our defence forces have fallen into. Before even thinking about whether this is a good idea we need a realistic discussion of what we can bring to the table and whether it is meaningful in the overall context. I have my doubts.

What would be trying to achieve? Presumably the safe use of Hormuz. I think that would be incredibly difficult without claiming the land opposite the straits. Are we really up for that, the number of casualties and the length of such a commitment? If we are not, we should not even start.

Signing ourselves up to work with a completely unreliable madman, two really, although the second is more of a psychopathic crook than a lunatic, is deeply unattractive. There are much more obvious gains in the long term if it is brought home to the US that our support is not unconditional and that consultation before war is essential.

The consequences of Trump's madness are going to be bad for us, no doubt about it, but unless we can make a material contribution, are committed to the long haul and think we can reach some sort of accommodation with Trump that we can rely on the answer surely has to be no.

I would go further and any kind of help we give is akin to facilitating a drug addict with some financial 'help' that just ends up helping them get their next fix and extend the problem. We shouldn't even be considering it, regardless of capability.

The lack of allied support for opening the Strait while the war goes on reduces Trump's options. And he doesn't want this war to drag on until late summer when the oil price increase will be baked into the midterms.

The pathway to the Strait opening is the US and Israel stopping bombing and Gulf states coming to an agreement with Iran to let their ships pass. It won't be peace on US terms but it is there for the taking.

Reeves says she will stop UK Tech drifting abroad.

So that's another piece of national prosperity fked

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k16zdr1r1o

As the article notes one of the attractions abroad is tax breaks. Here, Reeves thinks the government spending more money is the solution. It is the problem in a nutshell.

Don’t rule out tax changes in this space in the next couple of years.

Once the government has tried every other possible policy and finally got itself away from the mindset that business is there to be fleeced to support important welfare spending. Hunt increased capital allowances and, hey presto, got more investment. We need to do much more to encourage both investment and training of the workforce in the UK.

Reeves is right to identify that the UK is losing out in the investment competition for the businesses of the future. The next step is to create policies that actually address the problem rather than yet more government spending