Best Of

I reckon the US looking disinterested in Ukraine increases the risk of the war between nuclear superpowers that nobody in their right mind wants. What stops this is Russia knowing that if they attack a NATO country the US will respond. Therefore the line isn't crossed. But what if thinking shifts and they decide the US will probably *not* respond? They are more likely to do it now, aren't they? And then - here's the thing - what if it turns out they were wrong and the US do in fact unleash a response? Oh dear. Point is, it's about deterring the first step on the escalator and I'd say the level of deterrence has gone down by a considerable amount under this Trump/Vance administration.

I am worried enough about Russia, but the real worry is China and how this affects their calculus with respect to an attempt to conquer Taiwan.

Yes, the same point applies, swapping China for Russia and Taiwan for European NATO country. I suppose the odds are we make it through to post Trump without complete and utter carnage but I do think the chances of it are a bit higher than you'd like and moving in the wrong direction.

Suzie has been given her detention lines that she has to type out 100x

https://x.com/SusieWiles/status/2000943061627548148
The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.

Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.

The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade.

None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!

"Disingenuously framed" is good, though polysyllables run counter to the style guide.

Lol. But surely not good enough. She talks here as if the president is merely a man. A great man, yes, perhaps the greatest in all of history, but just a man.

a

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.

What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this

He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.

Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.

The actual quote is

I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?

The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted

- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result.
- The BBC fucked up in editing the speech

Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.

Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.

I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.

He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case.
It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.

And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.

Plenty of his own side called out the Rob Reiner comment, in fact almost all of them did.

One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.

I wonder if the likes of LBC and Times Radio will reputation wash Trump over this like they did thst Oxford Uni student who gloated about Charlie Kirk’s death 🤔

One is a student one is the President of the United States. Pathetic whataboutery from the Trump apologists today.

Show me one post I’ve ever made in support of Trump. I was one of the first to post about his Reiner comments and condemn them. I also contrasted it with Reiners classy comments about Kirk’s death.

The press is hypocritical and is happy to forgive those it supports. That’s my point.

Fair enough, I don't read every comment but as a stand alone comment you appear to be claiming equivalence between something a random student said and something the President of The US has said.

This should read

‘Fair enough but I’ll justify the retarded bollocks I wrote’

a

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Interesting indeed. I'm old and I wouldn't agree with any of those (except to say I know little of Col. Gaddafi and for all I know he may have been a genial chap to his friends).

After Gaddafi rather a lot of Libyans migrated to the U.K…

Wasn't Stalin supposed to be a doting uncle or similar?

Stalin became Uncle Joe as soon as Hitler invaded and the USSR became our besties.

Ah, I'd forgotten the 'Uncle Joe' title, but I thought I'd read he was genuinely fond of children, or animals, or something very touchy-feely; which somehow made up for all the mass slaughter.