Best Of

Later evening all

Hoping someone on here can help out - I thought only about 20% of the world's oil still went through Hormuz and Britain could get enough fuel for petrol from other sources.

I appreciate there may well be supply issues with diesel and that could cause a lot of other problems but are we likely to run out of petrol or simplyhave to function on 75-80% of current supply which will cause some issues especially if people (as they will once this seeps into the public domain) start panic buying?

Happy to once again wallow in the depths of my ignorance on these matters.

OK.

When you say 'only' 20%, that's an astonishing number. That means the world needs to reduce oil consumption by 20%. And gas consumption by -say- 10-15%.

Now... it is fortunate indeed that the US has chose now to attack. We're going into a seasonally weaker period for energy demand, and a seasonally stronger period for renewable production. But that doesn't stop the fact that reducing oil demand by 20% is a massive ask, that leads to all goods becoming much more expensive, and to a horrendous worldwide recession.

My customers in Arizona and Nevada are already being crushed. If the oil price were to double from here, it would be an absolute disaster for them.

Yes, I realise surviving on 80% of our pre-existing oil supplies is going to cause extreme problems and as others have said lead to global recession if not worse.

There are the medium and long term impacts and then there are the short term ones. For many, it won't be economic growth or inflation in 2027 that will be the concern but whether there's going to be enough petrol to fill the car next week.

We will doubtless panic ourselves into a crisis as we did in 2022 and the map shown earlier "suggests" the cut off in oil supplies may be just after Easter but the question then is whether we have reserves or whether oil is obtainable (albeit at $150 per barrel or whatever) from elsewhere or whether the "crunch" in petrol and diesel (as well as gas, heating oil etc) will be then or later in April and into May and what happens beyond that as we face a new and challenging world.

I don't think it will be a case of "panicking ourselves into a crisis", there will literally be a crisis

Indeed I am surprised, to an extent, that we haven't seen massive petrol station queues in the UK. Yet

It is either a credit to our continuing national stoicism or a comment on the relative inability of most people to extrapolate events. Or both

If the Iranian allegations are right, and America is planning a broad ground offensive on Iran, allying with the Kurds, then fucking hell. God help us all. It has OBVIOUS TOTAL CATASTROPHE tattooed on its forehead

They might just be able to prevail, for a while, but as the Iranian mullahs fall - if they fall - they will take out every single oil refinery they can hit, within 1500 miles, and every tanker and every port and every airport, and the whole of Dubai and God help us

It will quite shortly lead to fairly apocalyptic scenes, worldwide

There will be fuel rationing you would think. The supply of diesel for tractors, trains and HGVs would need to be prioritised.

I did see an Instagram video where a farmer in the US had been told by his oil delivery guy that he was limited to 100 gallons for the next 30 days.

The experience of Covid may have given some governments a false sense of confidence about how manageable this will be. You can't fix real shortages with financial engineering and paying people to stay at home.

I think it's more that the initial assumption was that this would be ~fortnight of bombing like the last time, and so only temporary disruption.

Obviously we're into week five now, but the roof hasn't fallen in yet, so there's simple denial that it will get that much worse.

And then, we all know that Trump chickens out before too much damage is done to share prices, right? Any day now.

And then, politicians seem to generally lack the imagination or courage to take bold steps until it's too late, so they're just rabbits in the headlights now, waiting for the disaster to hit before they react. With the exception of truly useless governments - like the Irish government - who are wasting their money subsidising fuel prices. They're going to look really stupid when there are shortages and they've thrown money away encouraging people to buy more fuel.

We are seriously staring into the abyss, here

Is it time to brace?

I am verily afraid to inform the forum, that the much-afeared time has indeed come upon us, when we are all obliged by quite fateful global events, to...

BRACE

Freestyle into the 'pocalypse. Bracing is for weak, broken men

‪@samfr.bsky.social‬

This point from @ldfreedman.bsky.social (who's been in Washington this week) is key.

Out of malice and stupidity the Trump administration has destroyed its own decision-making capabilities.

https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3mi6rghqvt72y

And this hollowing out of the civil service, to be replaced by political appointees, is Reform’s policy for the UK.

The public have had enough of experts, they want instinctive feelz.......until that hits reality, by when they still don't want experts, just someone else's instinctive feelz.

If you bothered yourself to acquire some actual knowledge rather than 'instinctive feelz', you would know that the civil service has a deliberate policy of moving people from department to department too frequently to develop any expertise. Meaning not only are civil servants obstructionist and ideologically captured, they are are also not experts. Bringing outsiders in from the world of business would probably improve expertise as well as getting things done.

That’s a simplification, at best. The civil service moves some people around, not to prevent them developing expertise, but to produce people with broad skills. However, other civil service posts are filled by experts who stay in one department/quango.

The Trump administration shows us what happens when you replace civil servants and existing expertise with political appointees.

And tbf. replacing skilled and experienced political appointees with people chosen by Trump.

Op-ed in the Jerusalem Post.

The only way Israel can govern the Gaza Strip without becoming an external oppressor of “another people” is to remove “the other people” from the confines of the Gaza Strip itself.
https://x.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/2037794771058495738

Once all other solutions have been eliminated, then whatever is left ...

The good news is there are plenty of Muslim countries in the region people could go to. The bad news, is none of them want them.

So you’re saying this is the final solution to the Palestine question ?

No, I would not accept your implied gas chambers or executing of innocents.

But the movement of people has successfully ended many a conflict. Including the movement of Germans post WWII, and recently the exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh.

If it could be done peacefully, it might be the least worst option, considering the lack of stomach to eliminate Hamas.

I agree with the Op Ed in the Jerusalem Post. There's no future in Gaza for the Palestinians, and Israel cannot really have a deeply resentful armed enclave like that.

BUT the corollary to that must be that Gaza residents are moved to the West Bank, and Israeli settlers moved out, never to return. That way, the Israelis no longer have a Gaza problem, and the Palestinians no longer have a settler problem. Everyone gets something good, nobody gets everything they want.

Yes.

Unfortunately, the current Israeli government is dependent on the votes of the Settler parties. That means that Israeli government policy is to continue the creeping annexation/invasion of the West Bank, with the Palestinians being squeezed into ever smaller spaces.

Yes. And that should be opposed by the UK (not that we can do anything about it). But if I were PM I would gear UK policy in that direction. Recognise Palestine but only in the West Bank, not Gaza. Ostracise the settlers and their networks of support, but defend Israel's sovereignty within its legal borders. I think that would be a wise, distinctive and principled policy.

Your West Bank solution is noble, but would not work. After October 7, Israel will not tolerate a large anti-Semitic population within a few yards of Israel itself. Everything Israel has done since indicates that it is working towards a more drastic and final solution (sorry) to the Palestinian "problem"

There is no future for the Palestinians in Palestine. This is a dismal fact, but it is a fact. Ironically the crazy Trump had the best idea. Stuff their hungry mouths with gold and give them lovely land somewhere else, a distance from Jerusalem. Buy them condos and limos. Let the whole world pay as the whole world will benefit. Then develop Gaza into a new Dubai on the Med

Fundamentally your premise is:

Israeli Jews should have more rights that Palestinians.

And it also gives Israel a pass for its behaviour over the years; don't you think the creeping invasion of the West Bank increased hostility to Israel and to Jews? And don't you think there is so culpability because the Israeli government chose to fund Hamas, because Netanyahu wanted an implacable opponent?

No it's not, and I object to your construal

I made no moral case at all (and indeed, if asked, I would morally side with the Palestinians, quite probably)

I am stating realpolitik. Israel is a nuclear state. It is prepared to go to extreme lengths to prevent itself, and the Jewish people, from being wiped out. It has decided - I believe - that following October 7 it will no longer tolerate Palestinians who often want to slaughter Jews, to live anywhere near Israel. It is thus making Gaza (and less briskly the West Bank) uninhabitable for Palestinians

The Palestinians do not have nukes, and they don't have any Arab country willing to seriously fight Israel on their behalf. Ergo, unless they want to spend another 70 years in total misery, the best solution is for them to move

Utterly disgusting.

Forced repatriation from their homeland.

Why is this happening

NETANYAHU

Maybe it's time to move the Jewish State to a more suitable location.

Ethiopia might suit.

The industry and work ethic of Jewish people could revitalise Africa.

Leaving Palestine to the Palestinians.

Should Constantinople be given back to the Greeks?

Should we have acquiesced to the German occupation of Paris?

Are irrelevant analogies ever helpful?

I don't think it's irrelevant. The reason that people think there is somthing fundamentally illegitimate about Israel is that it's on 'Arab' land, but you could make a similar argument about European Turkey.

Personally I think Turkey (Erdogan's Turkey) should get a massive kick in the bollocks. They need to be shown firmly that the days of The Ottoman Empire are passed.

Any other imperial nostalgists that need a kick in the bollocks?

Remainers. Their longing for great power politics and insistence that the UK needs to be 'at the table', to 'retain world influence' is enough to keep psychoanalysts in work for years. It's deeply illiberal to want to be part of the big boys gang so we can tell people how to behave. We should be looking after the safety, and if we're lucky the prosperity of our own people.

TIL something rather surprising about French wine

One third of all French wine is produced in Languedoc-Roussillon

Apparently in 2001, the region produced more wine than the entire USA

It's where I walked to last year, and plan to walk through in two years' time (on the way to Rome!)

It's tiny..

it's really not "tiny"

Because France and the UK seem so broadly equal in many ways - population, contemporary power, imperial histories (tho ours is much more impressive, ahem) - people often forget that France is MUCH bigger than the UK, geographically

Languedoc-Rousillon is considerably larger, in area, than all of Wales

And hasn't existed for 10 years. It was merged with Midi-Pyrenees in 2016 to form Occitanie (Occitania).