Best Of

We need to cancel the King's visit to America.

US President Donald Trump has again taken aim at the UK's military support in the Middle East, denigrating its aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, as "toys".

Speaking at the start of a White House Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump criticised the speed at which the UK sent help in the days following the joint Israeli-US attacks on Iran almost one month ago.

"We had the UK say that ‘we’ll send’ – this is three weeks ago – ‘we’ll send our aircraft carriers’, which aren’t the best aircraft carriers by the way," he said. "They're toys compared to what we have."

“But ‘we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over’. I said ‘Oh that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother. We don’t need it,'” he added.

https://www.itv.com/news/2026-03-26/trump-says-uk-aircraft-carriers-are-toys-compared-to-us-ones

If the President has said several times that he doesn't need anyone's help, and ours in particular, I'm not even sure why there's any debate in government about doing absolutely nothing - even if he has made other comments about wanting or demanding assistance, his other comments show he will still belittle and bully us for doing so, so there's really no point at all.

We need to cancel the King's visit to America.

US President Donald Trump has again taken aim at the UK's military support in the Middle East, denigrating its aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, as "toys".

Speaking at the start of a White House Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump criticised the speed at which the UK sent help in the days following the joint Israeli-US attacks on Iran almost one month ago.

"We had the UK say that ‘we’ll send’ – this is three weeks ago – ‘we’ll send our aircraft carriers’, which aren’t the best aircraft carriers by the way," he said. "They're toys compared to what we have."

“But ‘we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over’. I said ‘Oh that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother. We don’t need it,'” he added.

https://www.itv.com/news/2026-03-26/trump-says-uk-aircraft-carriers-are-toys-compared-to-us-ones

Perhaps we could send Prince Andrew instead. Trump and Andrew have a number of shared interests as I understand it.

It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
― Umberto Eco

(No, I've never read anything by him)

Ha, yes, I was just thinking of that quote! Umberto is a consolation in so many ways.

Edit: you should definitely read him if your reading muscles are still in good fettle.

The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.

I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.

Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.

I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.

Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.

For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.

I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.

On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!

I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.

I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.

I do keep on buying books.

I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.

That’s not many books. We have 10m of Billy book cases just upstairs

When we got the shoffice built, we put in about 4m of full-height Billies. The scary thing is how little impact that had on the overloadedness of the other bookcases in the rest of the house.

Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.

1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed.
2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed.
3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.

So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.

Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?

We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.

Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.

Our demographic challenge is nothing like Japan's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_dependency_ratio (sort by elderly).

I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.

Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.

Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.

Maybe AI will save us.

Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.

What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?

The one I know the best is this from the OECD (table 1): https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2013/06/public-spending-on-health-and-long-term-care_g17a2310/5k44t7jwwr9x-en.pdf

There are a number of more recent reports from OBR, Scottish Fiscal Commission etc etc that make the same point. To be fair on the Conservatives, this significantly slowed during 2010-2016, though that's primarily due to real terms cuts in NHS pay.

Thanks. I would quibble that the document only partially supports your claims, but it does highlight some other pressures on cost that can be overlooked (but are nonetheless discussed here on PB). Table 1 shows from 1995 to 2009 and includes a period of increased spending under New Labour in the UK, and obviously misses out COVID, so not the most up to date figures and somewhat different to your claim about what’s happened since 2000.

That analysis identifies demographics as a small part of a total increase (it doesn’t use your phrasing of “very small”), but it doesn’t ascribe the rest of the increase to political choice. It also highlights relative prices and technology. These are also very important. I and others have repeatedly noted that healthcare inflation runs ahead of general inflation. We keep getting better at treating ill health, with new drugs and other technology.

Ultimately, yes, any and all state healthcare spending is a political choice. Whatever the pressures on costs, we elect politicians who choose how much to spend. But the claim made was that, “Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still.” That remains true. You’re saying it doesn’t have to rise a huge amount, but it still does have to rise for service levels to stand still.

It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
― Umberto Eco

(No, I've never read anything by him)