Best Of

BTW for all Colonel Blimp fans/detractors, I saw today that it’s on iPlayer.

It is a brilliant film, well worth a watch, not just in its technique but also for its positive depiction of the Germans in a wartime film. General Winstanley comes over as out dated, but always as likeable, loyal and kind hearted.

It’s definitely one of my all time top films. “Blimp” always reminds me of one of my grandfathers and old school headmasters with the combination of discipline, good heart and no-nonsense.

It’s actually quite a sad film when you think about the evolution of the characters, youth to age, superiority to being broken, useful to mocked as useless.

Roger Livesey is an underrated actor.
(It's impossible I think to imagine Olivier, who was first choice for the role, producing so human a performance

The nation with the strongest interest in reopening the strait, and with the military power to be able to try, is of course China.

If the US were to wash its hands of the disaster it has precipitated, then that leaves a vacuum which they might fill.
And the "nations don't have allies, just interests" crowd might just start thinking about making common cause with them.

The Chinese leadership is evil, but rational. You can deal with them. The US leadership is evil, and insane.

I don't think the Chinese or Iranian leadership are comparable to the US leadership in the evil stakes.

Trump is breaching boundaries and taboos he never should have in a Western country, which shocks us to the core, but his regime isn't totalitarian.

We believed that the community of interests based on the Atlantic Charter was an alliance of principles, and that our common values mattered. Trump has rejected those common values in favour of a narrow, purely American self interest. From the European point of view, if you had a choice of two offers, one from the USA and one from China, our community of values would have always chosen America. Now, given the United States refuses to accept that community, the alliance is effectively over. Worse, many of the decisions that Trump has taken have not only been taken with no reference to the NATO alliance, several of them have in fact been directly hostile to the interests of the Europeans. In fact Trump has made comments, such as his wish to destroy the Lloyds of London insurance market that are directly contrary to our own national interests. His insults to our PM are simply not acceptable in any forum, while his despicable hostility to Ukraine and his pro Moscow, pro Orban stance is a direct challenge to the interests of the EU.

The abject incompetence of the attack on Iran gives us a chance to haul in the USA in the short term but if we fail to put some restraint on Trump, then the USA not only ceases to be any kind of ally, but becomes instead a direct strategic competitor. Under such circumstances, we start to make deals that no longer reference a community of interests which no longer holds, but instead we will start to aim to do deals that weaken the American threat. In fact, whatever happens in Iran now, the Europeans have no choice- we can no longer rely on American weapons or political support. We will need to rearm and face the challenge not just of China, but the USA too and that is the irrevocable change that Trump's treachery has caused. When Putin goes, there will be a scramble to get Russia onside- and while that could still be a while off, we already see a conflict of interests- the US wants to keep Russia strong enough to challenge China, even if Putinism is still in the saddle, Europe could only work with Russia after Putin and his system have gone.

Trump will be remembered with horror, but his poisonous legacy will probably remain.

Incidentally, re the Trump-Mandelson-Epstein connection: two of the children accusing Trump of abuse in the files have boys names. The full files are, of course, not yet released, but the accusations against Trump in the materials that have been released show a man of almost limitless depravity, especially since it appears that several of the victims seem to have met mysterious deaths.

Too long and too pompous. Didn't read it.

Sorry.

I bow to your expertise on pomposity but how do you know the piece was pompous if you didn't read it?

Fairly safe assumption.

I've found Cicero's posts informative over years, what, exactly do you think was "pompous" in the comment we sew discussing?

Well, what did you find informative in it?

Although this comment wasn't about the Baltics in particular I find Cicero's comments on what is going on there informative, particularly with Putin posing the threat he is. To simply dismiss it as "pompous" without even bothering to read it is crass.

As you have agreed believe that it's a "fairly safe assumption" that Cicero's comments are pompous, I ask again, what makes you say this? I just don't see it

Statement from 20 countries including UK and UAE on the Straight of Hormuz.

https://x.com/mofauae/status/2035326341596446810

TL:DR F*** off Iran and allow free passage of vessels.

Yes, but what are they going to do about it?

"…to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait."

Now that the incoming drones and missiles have reduced significantly in recent days, expect the GCC nations to move towards a more offensive phase of their operation. They have navies specifically built towards this problem, and if the US can keep the Apaches and Warthogs flying over the Hormuz area it shouldn’t be massively difficult.

More important is the insurance issue for civil vessels, AIUI Scott Bessent is working on this at the moment, with presumably Lloyd’s of London also involved.

I presume the GCC nations would rather the US and Israel just fucked off now and a peace deal was done?

A peace deal with who exactly?

Because it definitely won’t be anyone to do with the Iranian regime that’s been bombing them for the past 22 days.

US and Israel are saving the GCC countries a lot of ammo at the moment.

They only need that ammo because the US and Israel started bombing Iran!

I’m sure the GCC are happy to see Iran being taken down a notch, but the war isn’t exactly unfolding to their advantage. A quick end to the war, Iran damaged, the straits of Hormuz open again, that seems like a good result for them. Ongoing war with no clear war aims, is that what they want?

They’re been waiting and preparing for this month for the past 47 years. A little disruption is worth it to see Iran finally defeated once and for all.

US and Israel are very much the good guys, and Iran is very much the bad guy.

100%.

It is quite depressing how many people here have an inverted sense of who is good and who is bad here.

The Iranian regime have killed thousands of civilians, the Israeli regime have killed thousands of civilians.

As @Foxy said, it's Alien v. Predator...

Iran killed unarmed civilians.

Israel fought armed terrorists in Hamas.

Two completely different things.

But the Israeli regime still killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in their blood lust.

Alien versus Predator.

No, they didn't.

They fought in a war against an armed enemy and people died as happens in all wars.

That's not blood lust.

Only one nation involved has deliberately murdered tens of thousands of unarmed civilians as opposed to fighting a just war. Only Iran has done that.

It is blood lust. Nothing but blood lust, just like with the Iranian regime.

Hamas slaughtered in one day well over a thousand innocent unarmed people.

Going to war over that is not blood lust, it is self-defence.

Only if you believe it to be repeatable. Self defence refers to anticipated future injuries, not past ones.

Israel's appallingly complacent border security let the terrorists in - it should have toughened up there, rather than gone in killing tens of thousands in exchange for the thousand or so dead, while negotiating for the release of the hostages.

Of course that would have needed saintly levels of self-restraint, and a PM who didn't need a war for his own political survival, so it was never going to happen. But just because something was never going to happen doesn't mean it shouldn't have. But invading Gaza only turned world opinion against Israel, while creating tens of thousands more recruits for Hamas, so even in its own terms it was totally self-defeating in the long-run.