Best Of

On the riots in Belfast and the failure to tackle Loyalist groups: https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/elon-musk-belfast-pogrom-lee-hurley

But the Peace Process is so wonderful!

I thought you might enjoy the article for it agrees with some of what you're saying.

My understanding was that Northern Ireland had always had a problem with racism but that it was less apparent because of the sectarian violence and low migration levels (because of the sectarian violence).

It’s a place where there are multiple walls to prevent people from attacking each other on he basis of their “group”.

Literal No Go areas for themuns.

The idea that such people might not love other kinds of incomers is just ridiculous, isn’t it?

Michael McFaul
@McFaul

Iran won this war. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, they forced Trump to capitulate without achieving any of his major war objectives.

I hope future presidents will study the lessons of this defeat. Too many people died, and too much money was spent for nothing.

https://x.com/McFaul/status/2067236048439329212

The Iran War fanbois and girl who were urging Starmer to hang onto Trump's coattails all seem to have left the building.

I think you can say that Iran 'won' the war, but to do so they also played their Trump card - closing the Straights. I assume all affected nations have looked at this and thought - how do we ensure this cannot happen again, be it pipelines, or canals or whatever it takes.

The Straits have obviously been very important, particularly in terms of pushing up gas prices in the US, and so damaging Trump directly.

But they weren't the only card Iran had to play. It was also the case that they were able to target military and fossil fuel infrastructure across the Middle East throughout the conflict, causing damage to US military bases and to oil and gas infrastructure, even after weeks of US strikes aimed at destroying their missile and drone capability.

We saw this previously with the Houthis, whee the US (& Britain, etc) were not able to prevent them Houthis from launching drones at ships in the Red Sea.

And we also see this in the Russo-Ukraine war, where thus far neither side is able to destroy the other's capability to launch long-range strikes.

So it would be reasonable to assume that Iran will have the capability to hit oil and gas infrastructure across the middle east in a future conflict, albeit they will have to do a lot of damage to match the impact of closing the Strait of Hormuz.

"Next Labour leader must abandon migrant crackdown, says union boss

The next Labour leader must abandon the party’s crackdown on migration, the boss of Britain’s largest trade union has demanded.

Andrea Egan, the general secretary of Unison, described reforms to the asylum system brought forward by Sir Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood as “a betrayal of our most basic values”.

Her remarks will probably put Unison on a collision course with Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham, who are expected to challenge the Prime Minister after the Makerfield by-election on Thursday."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/17/makerfield-live-news-keir-starmer-labour-burnham-streeting/

This has always been Labour’s fundamental tension. The traditional labour movement was built around working-class communities whose priorities were jobs, wages, housing and economic security, and many were socially quite conservative. The modern progressive wing is much more rooted in academia, the professions and activist circles, with a stronger focus on cultural and identity issues.

The problem for Labour is that these groups increasingly disagree on things like immigration. Union leaders and activists often assume they’re speaking for “the base”, but many ordinary union members and working-class voters hold rather different views.

Michael McFaul
@McFaul

Iran won this war. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, they forced Trump to capitulate without achieving any of his major war objectives.

I hope future presidents will study the lessons of this defeat. Too many people died, and too much money was spent for nothing.

https://x.com/McFaul/status/2067236048439329212

The Iran War fanbois and girl who were urging Starmer to hang onto Trump's coattails all seem to have left the building.

I think you can say that Iran 'won' the war, but to do so they also played their Trump card - closing the Straights. I assume all affected nations have looked at this and thought - how do we ensure this cannot happen again, be it pipelines, or canals or whatever it takes.

Richard Littlejohn from his gated community in Florida was never so ashamed to be British when Starmer didn't back up Trump over Iran.

I'm rarely more ashamed to be British than when I hear about Richard Littlejohn.

Michael McFaul
@McFaul

Iran won this war. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, they forced Trump to capitulate without achieving any of his major war objectives.

I hope future presidents will study the lessons of this defeat. Too many people died, and too much money was spent for nothing.

https://x.com/McFaul/status/2067236048439329212

The Iran War fanbois and girl who were urging Starmer to hang onto Trump's coattails all seem to have left the building.

I think you can say that Iran 'won' the war, but to do so they also played their Trump card - closing the Straights. I assume all affected nations have looked at this and thought - how do we ensure this cannot happen again, be it pipelines, or canals or whatever it takes.

Richard Littlejohn from his gated community in Florida was never so ashamed to be British when Starmer didn't back up Trump over Iran.

The media and many Labour MPs might end up reading too much into a clear Burnham victory .

The circumstances are unique and should be viewed with that in mind .

The circumstances are always unique Nico.

The by-election has turned into a proxy vote for PM in an area where Burnham is popular . I can’t think of any previous by-election where that’s the case .

Technically,

• Jenkins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Warrington_by-election
  
• Jenkins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Glasgow_Hillhead_by-election
  
• Douglas-Home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinross_and_Western_Perthshire#Elections_in_the_1960s