Best Of

OT. My brother who has lived for many years in Holland and is now Dutch with a Dutch wife and family just texted me this in reply to my question 'who is this new Trump's best friend Rutte?'

"Horrible Man. He's the PM who sayed in power for 17 years by avoiding any serious issue, smiling his way out of trouble preferring to set up a commission to see what went wrong rather than look for serious solutions. He presided over the demolition of social services, schools, the justice system, the armed forces, allowing farmers to continue polluting the land and waterways.Who made a point of not having ideals or principles and who has now become Donald Trump's best buddy. Hollands answer to Neville Chamberlain.In short hiding under any stone that would have him. Also I should add the first PM to form a government coalition including our Mr Wilders. Enough. I hate him.

Bloody farmers, growing food, feeding people

@steverichards14

Powerful and much needed framing from Andy Burnham in the Guardian..should be repeated every day by ministers or they will find they are blamed for ‘broken Britain’:
“If the question at the centre of British politics is “who broke Britain?”, let’s be clear and unequivocal. The four horsemen of Britain’s apocalypse are deindustrialisation, privatisation, austerity and Brexit.
In my time in politics, there has been a tendency for too many in Labour to accept too much of the framing of the right, but we must firmly reject its narrative and call it out in no uncertain terms. Figures on the British right talk of taking back control, but people can see that they are the ones who gave it away.”

https://x.com/steverichards14/status/2014612676777779396?s=20

Simplistic stuff from Burnham. Pure sloganising.

There is much to not like about privatisation, but there was very much not to like about the state of state run stuff before the 1980's revolution. But you have to be older generation with a decent memory to remember how bad it could be.

You can't consider deindustrialisation without also considering the areas of economic activity that grew at the same time. It's like farming which is only a tiny % of GDP but still essential but we have grown rich in other ways. Industry remains essential and we have grown in other ways.

Austerity: State spending remains, and remained during the so called austerity period, gigantic; as did and does borrowing.

Brexit: The vote to leave left the future open to parliament to steer. If Burnham's party had focussed on joining with moderates to get a Norway/Swiss type deal, out of the political but in the economic union, things would be different.

Re "austerity"



EDIT: lots of useful graphs here - https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5326/economics/government-spending/

The notion that we’d be better off if millions were still employed in mining, and low value manufacturing, competing against low wage economies, with nationalised industries sucking up massive subsidies, is for the birds.

I think it's only Farage who is actively in favour of returning to coal mining.

Presumably Farage is in favour of it because Trump is in favour of it.

Have you seen Coalie, the new US cartoon mascot for the fossil fuel industry?

https://bsky.app/profile/jael.bsky.social/post/3mczuogts3227

Awww! He's so cute!

But, maybe, US energy policy shouldn't be determined by the failing memories of a demented rapist.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
A China-Europe energy alliance could deliver a new world order

"China and Europe are reaching a modus vivendi of sorts over tariffs on electric vehicles. Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng was in Davos this week making sweet overtures to the Europeans and denouncing “the law of the jungle, where the strong bully the weak.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s hubristic cabinet was in nearby rooms acting like a pack of hyenas, dishing out insults, ridiculing all efforts to cut CO2 emissions and proclaiming the gospel of coal."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/23/china-europe-energy-alliance-deliver-new-world-orde/

@peterwalker99.bsky.social‬

Tory MP Simon Hoare has given a very vivid quote about Donald Trump's comments on Nato allies, which could actually be used in many contexts about the US president:

"Frankly Trump makes my flesh creep and my stomach turn. Where are his advisors? Where is his nurse? Where is his sense of shame?"

'Makes my flesh creep.....' as do his sycophants. Everyone everywhere is talking about Mark Carney. That's good for Canada. Starmer is just another flunky

The other day we were talking about Neville Chamberlain. My view - which I think others share - is that when Neville Chamberlain made his speech following the Munich agreement, he had a very clear and accurate idea of the sort of person Hitler was and his likely plans; he knew his 'piece of paper' was worthless. He believed (possibly wrongly, it turned out, but that takes nothing away from him) that Germany's ability to fight a war was in 1938 streets ahead of that of France and Britain. He took the (in my view, heroic) decision to sacrifice his reputation to buy the allis another 12-18 months to prepare for the war he knew was coming. But the point is, what was said and known about publicly was very different to what was going on behind the scenes.

The point here is that we - rightly - don't know what's going on behind the scenes. We would hope that Starmer's palliative public pronouncements are being accompanied by a shedload of behind the scenes work to prepare for what comes when the USA leaves NATO. It's not particularly to Britain's advantage to hurry this along by having our elected leaders saying what we really think of Donald Trump. Donald Trupm is saying what he really thinks of other countries, and it's not really gaining America any benefits.

The evidence from diaries etc was that Chamberlain thought that "Giving Peace A Chance" was worth it, even if it was an absurdly long shot.

After the Anschluss -

"It is perfectly evident now that force is the only argument Germany understands and that "collective security" cannot offer any prospect of preventing such events until it can show a visible force of overwhelming strength backed by the determination to use it. ... Heaven knows I don't want to get back to alliances but if Germany continues to behave as she has done lately she may drive us to it."

@peterwalker99.bsky.social‬

Tory MP Simon Hoare has given a very vivid quote about Donald Trump's comments on Nato allies, which could actually be used in many contexts about the US president:

"Frankly Trump makes my flesh creep and my stomach turn. Where are his advisors? Where is his nurse? Where is his sense of shame?"

'Makes my flesh creep.....' as do his sycophants. Everyone everywhere is talking about Mark Carney. That's good for Canada. Starmer is just another flunky

The other day we were talking about Neville Chamberlain. My view - which I think others share - is that when Neville Chamberlain made his speech following the Munich agreement, he had a very clear and accurate idea of the sort of person Hitler was and his likely plans; he knew his 'piece of paper' was worthless. He believed (possibly wrongly, it turned out, but that takes nothing away from him) that Germany's ability to fight a war was in 1938 streets ahead of that of France and Britain. He took the (in my view, heroic) decision to sacrifice his reputation to buy the allis another 12-18 months to prepare for the war he knew was coming. But the point is, what was said and known about publicly was very different to what was going on behind the scenes.

The point here is that we - rightly - don't know what's going on behind the scenes. We would hope that Starmer's palliative public pronouncements are being accompanied by a shedload of behind the scenes work to prepare for what comes when the USA leaves NATO. It's not particularly to Britain's advantage to hurry this along by having our elected leaders saying what we really think of Donald Trump. Donald Trupm is saying what he really thinks of other countries, and it's not really gaining America any benefits.

The evidence from diaries etc was that Chamberlain thought that "Giving Peace A Chance" was worth it, even if it was an absurdly long shot.

After the Anschluss -

"It is perfectly evident now that force is the only argument Germany understands and that "collective security" cannot offer any prospect of preventing such events until it can show a visible force of overwhelming strength backed by the determination to use it. ... Heaven knows I don't want to get back to alliances but if Germany continues to behave as she has done lately she may drive us to it."

And the dynamics are different, we already have v the alliance we are coordinating with closely.

The question why doesn't Starmer talk like Carney misses that the members of the Mid Power Alliance have different roles and at different times, plus they also have to represent national interest.

Sometimes it is Starmer who brings Trump in to face the Mid-Power collective. When we put boots on the ground in Greenland (unless our soldier is one legged), and got tariffs threatened and acted one of the harsh voices, Meloni, who was outside the tariff threat, played the role. Macron did it a few years ago with Putin. All got slagged but sometimes you take one for the team and Starmer seems to be good at that here.

On trade talks, you know, we actually voted to deal with Donald Trump separately and Brexiteers slagging Starmer off for doing just that rather than being in the collective are the most elephantine hypocrites. When it falls through because Trump spins in another direction then, yes, with Trump this shit happens all the time, put a new set of baby reins on him for a bit till he slips them again.

Starmer isn't Carney and if he tried doing the Carney role it wouldn't land. If you want that from a British PM there's always Hilary Benn.