A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
Boris was Henry VIII, of course
Or Charles II ?
George IV
The problem is, Boris saw himself as Richard I or Henry V
FSB epically screwed up with the x-ray of the truck and the video of its inspection.
Attention to the pictures: there is no spare wheel on the x-ray, which can be seen on the footage from video surveillance. In addition, one axle in front of the truck magically disappeared.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
Which side are you going for? The anti woke Saudis or the woke West?
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
If Brown thought he was primes inter pares he should have bought our goldbach.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
You're a strange bod. One minute calling for chaos, and the next panicking when someone provides it.
Thank heavens you're a knapper and not a politician.
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
The problem with that idea is that it would make the executive position of Prime Minister even more powerful, because the prospect of an early general election would be used to intimidate backbenchers.
I think we should have more frequent general elections anyway, and/or expand the recall mechanism, so that voters have more influence on their representatives, but generally the constitutional changes we should still to make should weaken the Executive.
The quickest and easiest way to weaken Executive power would be to reform the House of Lords to give it more legitimacy and power relative to the Executive.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
...says the man who was promoting Putin as the saviour of western civilisation this time last year
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
Boris was Henry VIII, of course
Someone who's been in the cabinet for over a decade really isn't a Lady Jane Grey figure.
Truss is Mary I. A short-lived reign of a fanatical woman trying and failing to impose extremist policies.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
...says the man who was promoting Putin as the saviour of western civilisation this time last year
To be fair, @Leon was correct on this. Putin has United the Woke Democracies as never before.
FSB epically screwed up with the x-ray of the truck and the video of its inspection.
Attention to the pictures: there is no spare wheel on the x-ray, which can be seen on the footage from video surveillance. In addition, one axle in front of the truck magically disappeared.
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
Boris was Henry VIII, of course
Someone who's been in the cabinet for over a decade really isn't a Lady Jane Grey figure.
Truss is Mary I. A short-lived reign of a fanatical woman trying and failing to impose extremist policies.
That time shift was exactly what the DART mission aimed to accomplish. Scientists hoped the collision would push Dimorphos closer to Didymos and speed up its orbit, and they have been crunching data and taking more observations of the double-asteroid system to understand how effective this particular defense mechanism was. Scientists, according to Mr. Nelson, would have considered DART a huge success if it had only shortened Dimorphos’s orbit by 10 minutes. The reality — around three times that shift — delighted the team that managed the mission...
FSB epically screwed up with the x-ray of the truck and the video of its inspection.
Attention to the pictures: there is no spare wheel on the x-ray, which can be seen on the footage from video surveillance. In addition, one axle in front of the truck magically disappeared.
As reliable as they were with the MH17 dossier. They can’t even get the basics of lying right.
They don't care; in fact, this is the way they work. Throw enough sh*t, enough conflicting stories, so the truth gets buried. There's a story, a 'truth', for everyone. Then useful idiots just lap it up.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
Biden’s absolutely furious that gas (in the American sense) prices are back on the rise, less than a month before the mid-terms.
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
So how would you deal with circumstances where a PM and his very obvious soon-to-be successor run a general election effectively as a double act?
See Labour's first party political broadcast of 2005:
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
Boris was Henry VIII, of course
Someone who's been in the cabinet for over a decade really isn't a Lady Jane Grey figure.
Truss is Mary I. A short-lived reign of a fanatical woman trying and failing to impose extremist policies.
No, Mary was unpopular but competent, and pursued her policies with determination, and some success. Had she not died of illness, she likely would have been an extremely consequential monarch - though from our perspective, not in a good way.
EXCL: The India trade deal is on the "verge of collapse" after Indian ministers reacted furiously to Suella Braverman criticising migrants from their country:
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
The problem with that idea is that it would make the executive position of Prime Minister even more powerful, because the prospect of an early general election would be used to intimidate backbenchers.
I think we should have more frequent general elections anyway, and/or expand the recall mechanism, so that voters have more influence on their representatives, but generally the constitutional changes we should still to make should weaken the Executive.
The quickest and easiest way to weaken Executive power would be to reform the House of Lords to give it more legitimacy and power relative to the Executive.
I have no issue with MPs selecting a PM, the problem is that most voters think that THEY do so. As the electoral system needs to be replaced by one that is democratic we can fix this.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
Which side are you going for? The anti woke Saudis or the woke West?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 13m I was told by a senior Tory rebel Liz Truss has four months. If things carry on like this she'll be lucky to last another four weeks. The government basically isn't functioning.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
Which side are you going for? The anti woke Saudis or the woke West?
I choose President Elect Donald Trump, 2.0
Not sure the Saudis will accept a foreigner as President, but your side is very welcome to him.
The best thing Truss could do is call a general election for early next year. Assuming she loses, she will still have an honourable legacy and her brief tenure as PM will have legitimacy. At the moment she is looking like the worst PM in modern history.
And worse there may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'
Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of neo-Tudor British politics
Boris was Henry VIII, of course
Someone who's been in the cabinet for over a decade really isn't a Lady Jane Grey figure.
Truss is Mary I. A short-lived reign of a fanatical woman trying and failing to impose extremist policies.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
Biden’s absolutely furious that gas (in the American sense) prices are back on the rise, less than a month before the mid-terms.
And rightly so.
The MBS deal with Putin is a real f*ck you towards the US, and to the west in general. If he can't be relied on not to make deals with the west's principal opponent, what's the point of a relationship with the murderous despot ?
One interpretation is, of course, that he wants to see Trump back in office. As does Putin.
Exclusive: I had a chat with the former chair of the Conservative Party, @SayeedaWarsi, who said PM Liz Truss "had to just carry on with the 2019 manifesto – or go to the electorate”.
She “doesn’t have the mandate to do some of the things she’s doing”.
Gordon Brown carried on for 3 years without an election, and he wasn't even elected by members or MPs. He didn't stick to the same policies that Tony Blair would have pursued.
Not sure that's right, Andy.
The shocking truth about the Blair/Brown conflict was that ideologically there was precious little between them. It was a turf war, a pointless and unnecessary one.
The biggest event of Brown's Premiership was the Financial Crisis, which he handled well. I expect he would have done exactly the same if he had been Chancellor.
He was in my opinion a pretty poor PM, a position to which he was not well suited, but policy-wise he was not a whole lot different to his predecessor.
Blair held to a certain level of fiscal prudence. Brown used every accounting tick to try and hide increased spending. Simply under pricing large government projects, PFI etc
Adam Tooze makes the casual point that the BoE’s special monetary operation is basically a bail out of blackrock et al.
They should be eating the loss on their stupid LDI products.
Pretty outrageous, really.
Notable how much of the foreign commentary about this, after the initial event, isn’t about the incompetence of Truss & Kwasi, but instead surprise and confusion about how our pension schemes could end up arranged in this fashion.
Yes I agree. Some people merely wish to throw rotten fruit at Truss and Kwarteng regardless the truth here is something wrong with our pension scheme arrangements for a very long time.
So what exactly is the nub of our pension schemes arrangement that causes problem here where foreign schemes wouldn’t.
What and when were the legislative and pension practice way markers that brought us to this?
Yes - those are the good questions. Probably under Banking Bubble Brown, before sound money came in with Osborne?
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
That's true about it becoming presidential but I'm not sure about having that GE rule. Imagine a governing party behind in the polls midterm and with a leader who has revealed himself as dishonest and corrupt, therefore unfit to be PM. Ditching him is the right thing to do but if it triggers a GE they probably won't.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
Liz Truss’s flagship trade deal with India is on the “verge of collapse” after Indian ministers reacted furiously to comments by Suella Braverman criticising migrants from their country.
Last week the home secretary said she had “concerns” about the trade deal because it would increase migration to the UK and Indians represented the largest group of visa overstayers.
She told The Spectator magazine: “I do have some reservations. Look at migration in this country — the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.”
The comments sparked a furious reaction from Indian government ministers and officials, sources from both governments have told The Times.
A source in Delhi said they were “shocked and disappointed” by the “disrespectful” remarks.
Looking at the detail in that story, it seems that my kids lost their rights to live, work and study in 30 European countries, so that Indians under the age of 35 can have the right to live, work and study in the UK.
Just what the Red Wall voted for.
Braverman seems to at least have her political antennae switched on. We are so far through the looking glass.
They have a wee bit of a problem. Any deal they do with someone like India opens the door to migration. So many of the people who voted for Brexit had at least a parochial bigotry approach when it comes to outsiders who aren't exactly like them. So a flood from the subcontinent is not what they expected when they voted to send the forrin home to stop taking their jobs and their benefits.
However, we *need* migrants. We're a nation of migrants, and there are a whole underclass of jobs that right-thinking Brits don't want to do. When tosspot government ministers say "just get a better job" to poor people, who do they imagine will do these essential jobs they leave behind? That's right - MIGRANTS.
Fun times ahead.
Because most people don't follow politics closely, it's broadly true that they only worry about one or two things at a time. At the moment, most people aren't especially thinking about migrants, despite the best efforts of the Express and Leon and indeed Braverman, and it would take some enormous Merkel-like decision to fling open the borders to get them focused on it again. I think the Government could get away with some quiet relaxation of the rules - indeed if I'm not mistaken they already have. Wasn't there something last week about more access for agricultural workers? Truss doesn't seem especially dogmatic on the issue.
The imaginative thing would be, set up a jobcentre on Dover beach and hand out contracts of employment as they come ashore.
No - give them a 7 year contract in the Royal Navy as they get hauled out of the boat.
“Lost your documents? Refuse to give your name? No problem. Since you were navigating the boat, we’ll rate you Able Seaman. Seaman Staines.”
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
So complete blind eye to human rights, but put up the price of oil a couple of $ and...
Probably more as we move towards net zero Saudis strategic power wanes and their ability to both go against US interests whilst receiving its protection has been massively reduced. Geopolitical reality shift rather than morals or price imo.
We should be actively striving to undermine the Saudi regime. Encourage an Iranian style insurrection
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
Which side are you going for? The anti woke Saudis or the woke West?
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
EXCL: The India trade deal is on the "verge of collapse" after Indian ministers reacted furiously to Suella Braverman criticising migrants from their country:
Exclusive: I had a chat with the former chair of the Conservative Party, @SayeedaWarsi, who said PM Liz Truss "had to just carry on with the 2019 manifesto – or go to the electorate”.
She “doesn’t have the mandate to do some of the things she’s doing”.
Gordon Brown carried on for 3 years without an election, and he wasn't even elected by members or MPs. He didn't stick to the same policies that Tony Blair would have pursued.
Not sure that's right, Andy.
The shocking truth about the Blair/Brown conflict was that ideologically there was precious little between them. It was a turf war, a pointless and unnecessary one.
The biggest event of Brown's Premiership was the Financial Crisis, which he handled well. I expect he would have done exactly the same if he had been Chancellor.
He was in my opinion a pretty poor PM, a position to which he was not well suited, but policy-wise he was not a whole lot different to his predecessor.
Blair held to a certain level of fiscal prudence. Brown used every accounting tick to try and hide increased spending. Simply under pricing large government projects, PFI etc
OTOH Blair wanted to ramp up public spending earlier and Brown told him no. So, swings and roundabouts.
If Truss backs Rees-Mogg, that may signal to market a Govt rift with Bank of England, especially given Jon Cunliffe letter stating clearly minibudget the cause. If she doesn't back Rees-Mogg, sends signal ministers are breaching collective Cabinet responsibility + freelancing. https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1580102501197832192
Wasn't Andrew Bailey chosen by the Tory government as BoE governor because of his "soundness" on Brexit?
One bad idea drives another...
How is he a “government place-man” if it’s independent?
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
Biden’s absolutely furious that gas (in the American sense) prices are back on the rise, less than a month before the mid-terms.
A lot depends on control of Congress post-November. If one was a conspiracy theorist, one may think DJT had a chat with MBS.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 13m I was told by a senior Tory rebel Liz Truss has four months. If things carry on like this she'll be lucky to last another four weeks. The government basically isn't functioning.
JRM was excruciatingly smarmy and patronising on R4 this morning. He ended up accusing the interviewer of being in breach of the BBC Charter because she had the temerity to suggest that there was a link between the 'mini-budget' and the subsequent market turmoil. He denied any such link. The BBC is, of course, another enemy within and part of the anti-growth coalition.
I'm not sure that JRM is right, and the BBC (and 99% of commentators) wrong on this. He's insufferable.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 13m I was told by a senior Tory rebel Liz Truss has four months. If things carry on like this she'll be lucky to last another four weeks. The government basically isn't functioning.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
EXCL: The India trade deal is on the "verge of collapse" after Indian ministers reacted furiously to Suella Braverman criticising migrants from their country:
I remember having discussions with a friend who worked in comms post the Brexit referendum, and how he was doing these presentations to boards and such about how, if the government is really set on stopping FOM, that the inevitable move would be more immigration from elsewhere - namely South East Asia, India and Africa. We need migrants, at the end of the day, and if we want these big trade deals, these countries will have more clout to demand their citizens get preferential treatment because that would be popular with their populace. So this is what Brexit Britain looks like; small and alone and easily told off for our illusions of grandeur and influence.
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
That's true about it becoming presidential but I'm not sure about having that GE rule. Imagine a governing party behind in the polls midterm and with a leader who has revealed himself as dishonest and corrupt, therefore unfit to be PM. Ditching him is the right thing to do but if it triggers a GE they probably won't.
Major taking over in 1990 fits this pattern. If the tories needed to have an election in Winter 1991 they would not have outsed Thatcher out.
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
Biden’s absolutely furious that gas (in the American sense) prices are back on the rise, less than a month before the mid-terms.
And rightly so.
The MBS deal with Putin is a real f*ck you towards the US, and to the west in general. If he can't be relied on not to make deals with the west's principal opponent, what's the point of a relationship with the murderous despot ?
One interpretation is, of course, that he wants to see Trump back in office. As does Putin.
The end of fossil fuels just cannot come too soon. Even better if the Saudi despots have blown most of the proceeds on Dustin Johnson.
I think Brown should have called an immediate election. And May. And Truss.
The mandate problem was/is there for all of them.
The reality is we’ve morphed from primes inter pares to a system with executive dominance. Our modern election campaigns reflect this reality. They’ve become more and more presidential and personalised around the leaders. It’s time for our constitution to adjust.
Any replacement PM triggers an election within 3 months.
That's true about it becoming presidential but I'm not sure about having that GE rule. Imagine a governing party behind in the polls midterm and with a leader who has revealed himself as dishonest and corrupt, therefore unfit to be PM. Ditching him is the right thing to do but if it triggers a GE they probably won't.
I am really struggling to imagine a dishonest and corrupt PM, surely our great parties wouldn't impose such a chancer on us? For some reason I currently find it easier to imagine an incompetent ideologue who is innumerate in their dealings with both the HoC and the financial markets.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I'm struggling to think of circumstances where the West or Ukraine would formally recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
It's possible that there could be a compromise where, de facto, it was agreed that there would be no further military attempt to retake it. Consider, for example, the status of Western Sahara. This was seized by Morocco nearly 50 years ago, and is still not internationally recognised as part of Morocco, but there aren't any particularly active attempts to end Morocco's control of the territory.
To formally recognise Russian control of Crimea would be a massive break with existing international norms. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Putin, and a major defeat for Western democracies. I don't know why you keep on suggesting it.
If Truss somehow gets out of this mess she'll deserve to win the next election. Unlikely.
Is there any way the stars can align for Liz Truss? If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops, which might be enough to convince the OBR that Kwasi can afford (some of) his tax cuts without needing to decimate departmental spending. Trouble is, a lot of people will still have a pretty wretched Christmas and winter.
John, You keep posting that “If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops” I don’t think you really understand it.
We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” whiny argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
1. We haven’t had an OBR on how much, we can forecast today, Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone. 2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market? 3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by more expensive borrowing costs? Out of the two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
You lost me at “Elon Musk isn’t clever”
If everything we know about him doesn't convince you of this, fine, we potentially have an entire discovery process in a trial coming up that will almost certainly show it.
Being extremely wealthy is not a sign of intelligence. It is a sign that you a) probably started out life if not already extremely wealthy than at least well off and b) you don't have too many scruples about how you make more money. Neither of those things need much intelligence. Growing up with diamonds in your pocket will more likely than not allow you to grow up into a man with lots of money.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
You made good points regarding his political interventions, but the critique of his business abilities is overdone.
Exclusive: I had a chat with the former chair of the Conservative Party, @SayeedaWarsi, who said PM Liz Truss "had to just carry on with the 2019 manifesto – or go to the electorate”.
She “doesn’t have the mandate to do some of the things she’s doing”.
Gordon Brown carried on for 3 years without an election, and he wasn't even elected by members or MPs. He didn't stick to the same policies that Tony Blair would have pursued.
Despise Brown, but I disagree with your point. Had Blair still been in charge at the time of the GFC he would have pursued identical policies for the very good reason that Brown would have made most of them anyway as Chancellor. And while Darling was undoubtedly more important than Brown let on, the essential outline came from Brown's personal team, the likes of Vadera.
In foreign affairs it's quite hard to think of any meaningful changes Brown made as well. While in say, education, BSF was an extension of Brown's own obsession with PFI.
It suited Brown to pretend he was doing lots of radical new stuff and Blair to say that Labour lost because they abandoned his ethos. But the truth is rather the reverse. Brown had nothing new left to do, and after 13 years, financial implosion and rather too many dodgy dossiers Blairism was discredited.
Yes, and overlapping with the points I made above, while the clown may be chuckling over his breakfast at how good he thinks he might now look in retrospect, the truth is that his poisonous legacy is significantly responsible for the demise of Truss, alongside her ability to recognise it for what it is.
There are only two types of Chancellor politician - those who fail and those who get out just in time.
Brown was right about that, but failed to apply the logic to himself. Had he retired in 2005 he would have been remembered as one of the greatest and most influential Chancellors of all time. Becoming PM trashed his legacy.
Johnson, however, yet again, has got out just before his politics blew up around him and will be able to pretend for the rest of his life he was a great PM brought down by a bottle of wine.
Life's really unfair sometimes.
Except we all know it wasn't that he got brought down by a bottle of wine, but by a lie about a bottle of wine.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I'm struggling to think of circumstances where the West or Ukraine would formally recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
It's possible that there could be a compromise where, de facto, it was agreed that there would be no further military attempt to retake it. Consider, for example, the status of Western Sahara. This was seized by Morocco nearly 50 years ago, and is still not internationally recognised as part of Morocco, but there aren't any particularly active attempts to end Morocco's control of the territory.
To formally recognise Russian control of Crimea would be a massive break with existing international norms. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Putin, and a major defeat for Western democracies. I don't know why you keep on suggesting it.
Not sure how it's more of a break than western recognition of Kosovo
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h The govt currently has no credible plan for reducing the fiscal exposure of the energy package if energy prices don't fall. It urgently needs to do that if it is to restore market confidence.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I'm struggling to think of circumstances where the West or Ukraine would formally recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
It's possible that there could be a compromise where, de facto, it was agreed that there would be no further military attempt to retake it. Consider, for example, the status of Western Sahara. This was seized by Morocco nearly 50 years ago, and is still not internationally recognised as part of Morocco, but there aren't any particularly active attempts to end Morocco's control of the territory.
To formally recognise Russian control of Crimea would be a massive break with existing international norms. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Putin, and a major defeat for Western democracies. I don't know why you keep on suggesting it.
Let alone the other occupied territories - which is what Musk is advocating. In this he's a dickhead, whose intervention is quite the opposite of productive.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
If you are rich enough then you can buy clever people. He certainly is a cunning entrepreneur, but that is not always a transferable skill into areas such as international diplomacy.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I'm struggling to think of circumstances where the West or Ukraine would formally recognise Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
It's possible that there could be a compromise where, de facto, it was agreed that there would be no further military attempt to retake it. Consider, for example, the status of Western Sahara. This was seized by Morocco nearly 50 years ago, and is still not internationally recognised as part of Morocco, but there aren't any particularly active attempts to end Morocco's control of the territory.
To formally recognise Russian control of Crimea would be a massive break with existing international norms. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Putin, and a major defeat for Western democracies. I don't know why you keep on suggesting it.
Not sure how it's more of a break than western recognition of Kosovo
Really? You see no difference between recognising a conquest and recognising independence?
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Gates got lucky because IBM thought that software would the trivial component of home computers.
Nobody is buying our long-term debt except for the BoE.
We’re funding our deficit by debasing the currency. We’re not even pretending any more.
Perhaps those who have taken out large mortgages aren’t so foolish, after all.
QE(forev)eeeeeeeeeer!
The British economy must develop urgently into one where we make or do things that people want and are willing to pay for.
However, this prognosis is unnecessarily gloomy. Others are prepared to buy our debt - but not when the BOE is determined to flog off £80bn of it in a year. It's a crazy, irresponsible, hairpin turn of a policy. Fortunately for the bank (and unfortunately for everyone else) the public doesn't really understand such matters, and assumes automatically that the bank is acting out of necessity in the interests of the British economy. Neither is true.
Don’t the Tories have a buck the market for two and a half years policy that costs a quarter of a trillion they have told the world they are financing solely by borrowing, in your view of it?
According to HUR, Belarusian officials plan to send an additional 13 trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified matériel from five different Belarusian bases to the Kamenska (Kamensk-Shakhtinsky) and Marchevo (Taganrog) railway stations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast on an unspecified future date.
ISW says that open-source social media footage supports this HUR report as geolocated footage showed “at least two Belarusian trains transporting Belarusian T-72 tanks and Ural military trucks in Minsk and Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile launchers in Orsha (Vitebsk Oblast)” on October 11...
A large, possibly complete realignment of US policy towards Saudi Arabia seems to be underway.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/10/dems-rage-at-saudis-over-oil-cut-vow-to-block-weapons-sales-00061123 ...“From unanswered questions about 9/11, the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the exporting of extremism, to dubious jailing of peaceful dissidents and conspiring with Vladimir Putin to punish the U.S. with higher oil prices, the Saudi royal family has never been a trustworthy ally of our nation,” Durbin said. “It’s time for our foreign policy to imagine a world without this alliance with these royal backstabbers.”
And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said several legislative responses are under consideration, including a bill taking aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. The legislation, referred to as NOPEC, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year in a 17-4 vote.
“What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” Schumer said in a statement last week. “We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill.”
Lawmakers are also calling for a drawdown of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia as a consequence of the oil production cut...
Good for them, though I suspect it won’t be long until there is a reversal
Good, or breathtakingly cynical? They (and us to be fair) haved given the Saudis everything that they have wanted and needed for years, despite the fomenting of terror abroad and brutal repression at home. And now, America has suddenly renembered that KSA is a brutal repressive regime because they didn't get their way over something. If and when the Saudis change policy, we'll be back to forgetting their misdeeds.
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Well, in terms of intelligence, you’ve successfully proved that you’re a fucking idiot. So there’s that
I am going to open like this, this morning: LIZ TRUSS COULD HAVE BEEN AN EXCELLENT PRIME MINISTER.
I note the discussion down thread about how a decent number had rated Liz OK as she rose through the ranks and wondered why, suddenly, this decent minister had turned into an awful PM (bear with me if you think the signs were there, I'm developing from the arguments of others here...).
In that thinking, I'm minded of the, was it Nick Hornby regarding Gus Caesar, argument of a kid who is an excellent footballer at all levels but suddenly, unexpectedly just doesn't have that spark to cut it at the top level. But I don't think that is why Truss has failed.
The jobs Truss has risen in, International Trade, CST, FS have all been jobs where (a) the path to take is pretty much laid down for you and (b) there has been decent alignment with Truss's own ideology. "Make a load of rollover free trade deals" - Liz will go at it with more gusto than anyone else. "help, with others, to arm Ukraine and oppose Russia" - ditto.
What Liz could have done was recognise all the Scyllas and Charybdes of the current situation and navigated the narrow course with more gusto than anyone else heading to where the course widened. Could she have done that better than Sunak? - possibly, yes. Simply by recognising that her PMship was under many of b the same constraints as her prebious jobs, yes.
But, to have done that, we have to acknowledge that, this time, it required her to put some of her ideological traits in a box. To resist the siren call - and she knew damn well it was a siren call - onto the rocks. To import a couple of lumps of cheese into her ears and steer the good course, as she knew she should.
And here is where it gets a bit "if my aunt had balls". She is Liz Truss. She doesn't believe in resisting temptation. The siren calls were too great. Cheese was not an option. And so came Disgrace. And it had to be like this.
Too early to make that call. Thatcher had the unions, Truss has vested interests within our Central Bank, Civil Service and political class. They are the real anti-growth coalition. It's definitely round one to them; let's see how round 2 goes.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
Bezos is much closer to a bond villain than Musk.
Kwarteng is surely the current bond villain?
He’s too clownishly inept to be a Bond villain. Good Bond villains exude a menacing prowess, at least at first, so you are scared but impressed
One has to wonder just how poor Truss’s judgement is when she installs the stain on humanity Braverman as Home Secretary.
Braverman can cause a lot of trouble and is busy building up her stock with the Tory membership .
Also keeping JRM. A sign that her cabinet is not serious.
These two are now what is keeping her in place though, I think it can be argued. Because if they ditch Truss and give the membership another go then it will be one of them or Johnson I strongly suspect.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
Bezos is much closer to a bond villain than Musk.
Kwarteng is surely the current bond villain?
He’s too clownishly inept to be a Bond villain. Good Bond villains exude a menacing prowess, at least at first, so you are scared but impressed
Kwarteng??!
Bond with lower case b was my point. As in crashing the bond market.
For Sid Meier's Civilisation fans we now have a new lowest entry on the leaderboard to replace Dan Quayle at the end of the game for the very lowest of scores.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
Except that Crimea is Ukranian, and that Putin’s idea of “Peace” gives him Crimea and a a couple of hundred thousand square miles of Ukraine.
Any deal for actual peace, requires Russians to go back to Russia, to repair the damage they’ve done to Ukraine, and to let Ukraine be sovereign in the future.
Liz Truss’s flagship trade deal with India is on the “verge of collapse” after Indian ministers reacted furiously to comments by Suella Braverman criticising migrants from their country.
Last week the home secretary said she had “concerns” about the trade deal because it would increase migration to the UK and Indians represented the largest group of visa overstayers.
She told The Spectator magazine: “I do have some reservations. Look at migration in this country — the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.”
The comments sparked a furious reaction from Indian government ministers and officials, sources from both governments have told The Times.
A source in Delhi said they were “shocked and disappointed” by the “disrespectful” remarks.
Looking at the detail in that story, it seems that my kids lost their rights to live, work and study in 30 European countries, so that Indians under the age of 35 can have the right to live, work and study in the UK.
Just what the Red Wall voted for.
Braverman seems to at least have her political antennae switched on. We are so far through the looking glass.
They have a wee bit of a problem. Any deal they do with someone like India opens the door to migration. So many of the people who voted for Brexit had at least a parochial bigotry approach when it comes to outsiders who aren't exactly like them. So a flood from the subcontinent is not what they expected when they voted to send the forrin home to stop taking their jobs and their benefits.
However, we *need* migrants. We're a nation of migrants, and there are a whole underclass of jobs that right-thinking Brits don't want to do. When tosspot government ministers say "just get a better job" to poor people, who do they imagine will do these essential jobs they leave behind? That's right - MIGRANTS.
Fun times ahead.
Because most people don't follow politics closely, it's broadly true that they only worry about one or two things at a time. At the moment, most people aren't especially thinking about migrants, despite the best efforts of the Express and Leon and indeed Braverman, and it would take some enormous Merkel-like decision to fling open the borders to get them focused on it again. I think the Government could get away with some quiet relaxation of the rules - indeed if I'm not mistaken they already have. Wasn't there something last week about more access for agricultural workers? Truss doesn't seem especially dogmatic on the issue.
The imaginative thing would be, set up a jobcentre on Dover beach and hand out contracts of employment as they come ashore.
No - give them a 7 year contract in the Royal Navy as they get hauled out of the boat.
“Lost your documents? Refuse to give your name? No problem. Since you were navigating the boat, we’ll rate you Able Seaman. Seaman Staines.”
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Well, in terms of intelligence, you’ve successfully proved that you’re a fucking idiot. So there’s that
A mistake that intelligent people so often make is thinking they are good at everything. The current PM and CoE are both highly intelligent, just severely deficient in other skills like empathy and communication, hence their current poor performance. I suspect Musk is similar. Once outside the entrepreneurial domain he is clueless.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 13m I was told by a senior Tory rebel Liz Truss has four months. If things carry on like this she'll be lucky to last another four weeks. The government basically isn't functioning.
You made good points regarding his political interventions, but the critique of his business abilities is overdone.
Yeah, based on results he's clearly pretty good at business. My view tends to be that as a society we overvalue the kind of cleverness, talent and other attributes that make you good at business, because capitalism makes it easy to view money as the only scoreboard that really counts. So Musk is good at what he does, but he's overly prominent in public discourse and gets touted for stuff that's massively out of his wheelhouse (like Ukraine peace-deal brokering) because we over-value being rich and undervalue, say, being a really competent and experienced international diplomat.
(The other reason he's overly-prominent in public discourse is the toxic interaction between journalism and twitter...)
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Well, in terms of intelligence, you’ve successfully proved that you’re a fucking idiot. So there’s that
A mistake that intelligent people so often make is thinking they are good at everything. The current PM and CoE are both highly intelligent, just severely deficient in other skills like empathy and communication, hence their current poor performance. I suspect Musk is similar. Once outside the entrepreneurial domain he is clueless.
The lack of empathy and communication would be fine if their policies were any bloody good.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
A man who has the world's most valuable electric vehicle brand and created a company that landed rockets (Something never done before) is not clever ???
He just owns it - he doesn't do any of the work to design rockets or cars - that's the Galt / Tony Stark image he wants to project, but it isn't reality - he has workers to do that for him. He's not clever, he's rich. Also - Tesla is mostly valuable because it is conceived of as a luxury item, not because they're great cars or mass producible. He's a good spin guy, sure.
Musk is a parody of the Simpson's Hank Scorpio. But I think you're being a little unfair. He isn't a rocket scientist, but he has the vision for the business and challenges all of the "we do rockets like this" standards that nobody else has. And Tesla? I can't think of a competitor to my Model Y that does everything it does so seamlessly. Production numbers now ramping rapidly with gigafactories in Texas, Shanghai and Berlin with more to come.
Bezos is much closer to a bond villain than Musk.
Kwarteng is surely the current bond villain?
He’s too clownishly inept to be a Bond villain. Good Bond villains exude a menacing prowess, at least at first, so you are scared but impressed
Kwarteng??!
Bond with lower case b was my point. As in crashing the bond market.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
You lost me at “Elon Musk isn’t clever”
What Musk is very good at is driving implantation of innovation.
Plenty of people were building hi performance electric cars - as one off, custom conversions. Turning that into a mass production thing upended the car industry, globally. When I worked in the energy business, the car companies were always promising that they would send us a prototype of their hydrogen powered car. Next year. When the time was right. When they’d washed their hair….
Everyone and his dog had plans for reusable rockets and making rockets cheaper. Musk drove actually doing this - and the rest of the world is still playing catch-up.
LEO data constellations have been attempted before - getting one to market, not so much.
This skill has nothing to do with skill in geopolitics. Or any other kind of politics.
I am reminded of the disgusting and appalling remarks by Albert Einstein during the Korean War, to Sidney Hook and others.
JRM was excruciatingly smarmy and patronising on R4 this morning. He ended up accusing the interviewer of being in breach of the BBC Charter because she had the temerity to suggest that there was a link between the 'mini-budget' and the subsequent market turmoil. He denied any such link. The BBC is, of course, another enemy within and part of the anti-growth coalition.
I'm not sure that JRM is right, and the BBC (and 99% of commentators) wrong on this. He's insufferable.
He so is. And his much vaunted "politeness" is nothing of the sort, it's just another supercilious class war putdown technique. I'm afraid I can't listen to him without wishing him harm on a personal level. Nothing physical, I don't mean that, I'm not a monster, but a complete loss of wealth and status and the misery and sense of humiliation that (I sense) would flow from this.
Shit. Next you'll be telling me Jeff Bezos won't be personally delivering my packages. And Bill Gates isn't personally installing software onto PCs.
Well, quite. These people didn't get rich because they were brilliant - they were in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, started out already with a lot of money.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Well, in terms of intelligence, you’ve successfully proved that you’re a fucking idiot. So there’s that
A mistake that intelligent people so often make is thinking they are good at everything. The current PM and CoE are both intelligent, just severely deficient in other skills like empathy and communication skills, hence their current poor performance. I suspect Musk is similar. Once outside the entrepreneurial domain he is clueless.
I understand the desire to want to believe that rich people must be deserving of their wealth and therefore just have talents most mere mortals don't have, otherwise it is really difficult to justify why rich people have their wealth and other people don't. But most geniuses don't become amazingly wealthy, and most amazingly wealthy people are not geniuses. The modern bunch of self made billionaires may have had some good ideas, and implemented them, but they aren't titans. They're guys whose family had cash and had opportunities most other people didn't who got lucky. At a certain level of wealth it's hard to stop being rich; see Trump - another bad business man who still managed to keep being rich either by luck or just crime stuff.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
You lost me at “Elon Musk isn’t clever”
If everything we know about him doesn't convince you of this, fine, we potentially have an entire discovery process in a trial coming up that will almost certainly show it.
Being extremely wealthy is not a sign of intelligence. It is a sign that you a) probably started out life if not already extremely wealthy than at least well off and b) you don't have too many scruples about how you make more money. Neither of those things need much intelligence. Growing up with diamonds in your pocket will more likely than not allow you to grow up into a man with lots of money.
Almost the very faintest trace of chippiness showing up here. Brunel, Carnegie, Sugar, Ratcliffe.
You find it “encouraging”, that one of the richest and most influential men in the world now appears to be shilling for Putin?
Yes - and seriously
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good 2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise 3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea 4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
I mean, your thought process folds at the first hurdle. I know many people like the Galt like image Musk presents, but he isn't clever, or particularly influential (beyond his capital, at least). He invested in Paypal at the right time, and has, over time, moved his money into companies of interest and potentially played the markets to make his shares go up. He is a high class con man, which to be fair most rich people are.
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
You lost me at “Elon Musk isn’t clever”
If everything we know about him doesn't convince you of this, fine, we potentially have an entire discovery process in a trial coming up that will almost certainly show it.
Being extremely wealthy is not a sign of intelligence. It is a sign that you a) probably started out life if not already extremely wealthy than at least well off and b) you don't have too many scruples about how you make more money. Neither of those things need much intelligence. Growing up with diamonds in your pocket will more likely than not allow you to grow up into a man with lots of money.
Almost the very faintest trace of chippiness showing up here. Brunel, Carnegie, Sugar, Ratcliffe.
Carnegie? Hell of a dissonance in that man - sending his henchman to organise armed attacks on his workers while he conveniently went on holiday.
Comments
This is it. The gloves are off. The West and the Best versus the Rest of these Fucks. War
Choose your sides, gentlemen
Or the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland?
Thank heavens you're a knapper and not a politician.
I think we should have more frequent general elections anyway, and/or expand the recall mechanism, so that voters have more influence on their representatives, but generally the constitutional changes we should still to make should weaken the Executive.
The quickest and easiest way to weaken Executive power would be to reform the House of Lords to give it more legitimacy and power relative to the Executive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/science/nasa-dart-asteroid-spacecraft.html
...The spacecraft not only connected with Dimorphos, it altered the space rock’s orbit, shortening its trip around a larger asteroid by 32 minutes.
That time shift was exactly what the DART mission aimed to accomplish. Scientists hoped the collision would push Dimorphos closer to Didymos and speed up its orbit, and they have been crunching data and taking more observations of the double-asteroid system to understand how effective this particular defense mechanism was. Scientists, according to Mr. Nelson, would have considered DART a huge success if it had only shortened Dimorphos’s orbit by 10 minutes. The reality — around three times that shift — delighted the team that managed the mission...
Witness PutinsGuy1943.
See Labour's first party political broadcast of 2005:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?186261-1/british-labour-party-televised-message
Had she not died of illness, she likely would have been an extremely consequential monarch - though from our perspective, not in a good way.
https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1580091335763075075
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
13m
I was told by a senior Tory rebel Liz Truss has four months. If things carry on like this she'll be lucky to last another four weeks. The government basically isn't functioning.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1580108536415023104
The MBS deal with Putin is a real f*ck you towards the US, and to the west in general.
If he can't be relied on not to make deals with the west's principal opponent, what's the point of a relationship with the murderous despot ?
One interpretation is, of course, that he wants to see Trump back in office. As does Putin.
IF this story is true it means
1. Someone clever and influential in the West is talking peace with Putin: good
2. That means Putin can be tempted to compromise
3. It reveals a genuine Putin red line: Crimea
4. Putin isn’t minded to go nuclear any time soon
Peace - if it happens - will be something like this. Global recognition that Crimea is Russian. Everywhere else Putin loses and Ukraine wins
Putin is humiliated but survives and can claim one minor victory: Crimea. Ukraine survives, is rebuilt, and can claim a famous victory. Defeating its much larger neighbour
If peace ever comes, it will look something like this
“Lost your documents? Refuse to give your name? No problem. Since you were navigating the boat, we’ll rate you Able Seaman. Seaman Staines.”
I do feel prouder seeing us export electricity rather than import it. Shouldn't really make any difference to how I feel, but it does.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1577839258714476544
Whilst this may be what peace has to look like, if it is true that it is coming through the likes of men like Musk it shows something is deeply broken in democratic states - one awful rich guy is the go between the head of a kleptocracy and the rest of the world... Yay...
I'm not sure that JRM is right, and the BBC (and 99% of commentators) wrong on this. He's insufferable.
It's possible that there could be a compromise where, de facto, it was agreed that there would be no further military attempt to retake it. Consider, for example, the status of Western Sahara. This was seized by Morocco nearly 50 years ago, and is still not internationally recognised as part of Morocco, but there aren't any particularly active attempts to end Morocco's control of the territory.
To formally recognise Russian control of Crimea would be a massive break with existing international norms. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Putin, and a major defeat for Western democracies. I don't know why you keep on suggesting it.
We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” whiny argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
1. We haven’t had an OBR on how much, we can forecast today, Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone.
2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market?
3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by more expensive borrowing costs? Out of the two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
Being extremely wealthy is not a sign of intelligence. It is a sign that you a) probably started out life if not already extremely wealthy than at least well off and b) you don't have too many scruples about how you make more money. Neither of those things need much intelligence. Growing up with diamonds in your pocket will more likely than not allow you to grow up into a man with lots of money.
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
·
1h
The govt currently has no credible plan for reducing the fiscal exposure of the energy package if energy prices don't fall. It urgently needs to do that if it is to restore market confidence.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1580103244155523076
In this he's a dickhead, whose intervention is quite the opposite of productive.
Bezos had the bright idea of "shopping but on the internet" and just happened to have the money up front to get their first and do it at a price that undercut competitors in the short term, allowing him to monopolise in the long term when his competitors went bust.
Gates benefited from the early wild west of internet culture and then became a crusader for intellectual property, lifting the drawbridge behind him. He also had parents wealthy enough to make sure his school had an early PC for them to use. Oh, and also he dabbled in monopoly.
Again, not a lot of genius here - good ideas and products, but more luck, and up front cash, alongside the ability to make losses in the short term because they were already comfy compared to competitors who couldn't afford that.
Musk is the same. He put his money into things that made more money, and took the credit for it. Woop de doo.
Braverman can cause a lot of trouble and is busy building up her stock with the Tory membership .
Are your sure about that?
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/12/russia-likely-extracting-ammo-from-belarus-bases-which-doesnt-suggest-future-attack-from-belarus-isw/
...On 11 October, the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) reported a train with 492 tons of ammunition from the Belarusian 43rd Missile and Ammunition Storage Arsenal in Gomel arrived at the Kirovska Railway Station in occupied Crimea on an unspecified recent past date.
According to HUR, Belarusian officials plan to send an additional 13 trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified matériel from five different Belarusian bases to the Kamenska (Kamensk-Shakhtinsky) and Marchevo (Taganrog) railway stations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast on an unspecified future date.
ISW says that open-source social media footage supports this HUR report as geolocated footage showed “at least two Belarusian trains transporting Belarusian T-72 tanks and Ural military trucks in Minsk and Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile launchers in Orsha (Vitebsk Oblast)” on October 11...
Well, in terms of intelligence, you’ve successfully proved that you’re a fucking idiot. So there’s that
Kwarteng??!
Liz Truss.
Any deal for actual peace, requires Russians to go back to Russia, to repair the damage they’ve done to Ukraine, and to let Ukraine be sovereign in the future.
Labour members actually have more power as once candidates are nominated they go straight to the membership and supporters and affiliates vote
(The other reason he's overly-prominent in public discourse is the toxic interaction between journalism and twitter...)
Then my sincere apologies. Nice subtle wordplay
Plenty of people were building hi performance electric cars - as one off, custom conversions. Turning that into a mass production thing upended the car industry, globally. When I worked in the energy business, the car companies were always promising that they would send us a prototype of their hydrogen powered car. Next year. When the time was right. When they’d washed their hair….
Everyone and his dog had plans for reusable rockets and making rockets cheaper. Musk drove actually doing this - and the rest of the world is still playing catch-up.
LEO data constellations have been attempted before - getting one to market, not so much.
This skill has nothing to do with skill in geopolitics. Or any other kind of politics.
I am reminded of the disgusting and appalling remarks by Albert Einstein during the Korean War, to Sidney Hook and others.