The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
I have to mea culpa on this. I was very pissed off by what looked like a typical fawning performance by a PM in Washington on Thursday, and then a worrying silence yesterday after the ambush. But it does seem Starmer and his advisers knew what they were doing.
Let’s see if it bears fruit. It’s encouraging that Britain and France are working in synch this weekend.
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all after witnessing what basically seemed like two bullies punching the guy in a wheelchair while handing the keys to his house to the person who put him in it. No shame in it at all.
Some people had a disagreement in an office. The response here has been cringeworthy.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
BREAKING: CNN is covering the hundreds of protesters who lined the roads in Vermont to protest JD Vance’s visit. One person held a sign that read, “Go ski in Russia, traitor.”
The fallout from yesterday’s meeting is massive. Americans are pissed off.
Much as I would like it to be otherwise, the number of protesters in the CNN clip could charitably be described as “dozens”. And in Bernie Sanders country. I’m a straw clutched with the best of them, but…
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
Here's hoping. Now in the strange position of wishing ill on the US economy.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
BREAKING: CNN is covering the hundreds of protesters who lined the roads in Vermont to protest JD Vance’s visit. One person held a sign that read, “Go ski in Russia, traitor.”
The fallout from yesterday’s meeting is massive. Americans are pissed off.
There was never a problem finding people to protest Trump and Vance. The problem was the country remained split about 50/50, give or take a few percent, no matter what either side does. Until opportunities to see if the GOP will be on lower end of their very high floor take place, the only area of meaningful challenge is in the courts?
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
Via @BMGResearch, 25-26 Feb. Changes w/ 28-29 Jan.
Before 28th February verbal assault on decency by Trump and his bullies
Let's see how this pans out over the next few weeks
Voting Reform is voting for Farage and Trump
The only thing is, I'm not sure most of the people that have switched from CON and LAB to REF will necessarily care about Ukraine and in some cases might even support Russia.
However, these developments much limit Reforms potential for further growth, at least in the short term?
This polling has occurred before Oval-office gate, but well after mineral gate, when we were told that Reform's polling would already be down.
The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
Right, so Starmer cuddles up to Trump (quite literally), and is now trying to build bridges between him and Zelensky, and you solemnly pat him on the back, but because Farage doesn't spit bile at Trump, he should go and live in Moscow.
Do you not see a slight lack of logic here?
No
Starmer is doing what any UK PM should do in these extreme circumstances and attempting to calm waters
Farage is a Trump and Putin supporter and anyone voting Reform is endorsing the bullies in the White House
OK. So it’s fine to be supportive of Trump as long as you're lying.
The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
I have to mea culpa on this. I was very pissed off by what looked like a typical fawning performance by a PM in Washington on Thursday, and then a worrying silence yesterday after the ambush. But it does seem Starmer and his advisers knew what they were doing.
Let’s see if it bears fruit. It’s encouraging that Britain and France are working in synch this weekend.
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all after witnessing what basically seemed like two bullies punching the guy in a wheelchair while handing the keys to his house to the person who put him in it. No shame in it at all.
Some people had a disagreement in an office. The response here has been cringeworthy.
It must be painful always being the smartest guy in the room. Someone so insightful, so all knowing, that the great matters of state are to him mere bagatelles.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 @ScooterCasterNY · 4h NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
I have to mea culpa on this. I was very pissed off by what looked like a typical fawning performance by a PM in Washington on Thursday, and then a worrying silence yesterday after the ambush. But it does seem Starmer and his advisers knew what they were doing.
Let’s see if it bears fruit. It’s encouraging that Britain and France are working in synch this weekend.
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all after witnessing what basically seemed like two bullies punching the guy in a wheelchair while handing the keys to his house to the person who put him in it. No shame in it at all.
Some people had a disagreement in an office. The response here has been cringeworthy.
Whereas the US President and Vice-President really downplayed it all I suppose? Senators and Secretaries of State have tried to calm the waters so that people don't overreact?
Yes it is all overly emotional and people are probably saying things they won't be in a week, but the situation is a genuine diplomatic incident according to the people involved in it, it's trying a bit too hard to suggest online commentators who react to things like council by-elections are supposed to be ice veined stoics about it, really. That's not even unreasonable given the international reactions.
The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
I have to mea culpa on this. I was very pissed off by what looked like a typical fawning performance by a PM in Washington on Thursday, and then a worrying silence yesterday after the ambush. But it does seem Starmer and his advisers knew what they were doing.
Let’s see if it bears fruit. It’s encouraging that Britain and France are working in synch this weekend.
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all after witnessing what basically seemed like two bullies punching the guy in a wheelchair while handing the keys to his house to the person who put him in it. No shame in it at all.
Some people had a disagreement in an office. The response here has been cringeworthy.
It must be painful always being the smartest guy in the room. Someone so insightful, so all knowing, that the great matters of state are to him mere bagatelles.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
It's "A Year in Provence", not "Une année à Preston".
"We run the world. This is America's world. It’s our proxy. It will end when we say it's over," — Fox News host Jesse Watters on Ukraine and President Zelensky. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1895762952516735196
They really are quite insane.
It may not seem like it now, but there are some worse people than Trump in the GOP. He is scary - but at the end of the day he is an self-centred, self-preserving idiot. There are some far more sinister characters we should really hope don’t follow on from him.
Can't see the difference now between these people on Fox News and those who are on nightly TV news shows in Moscow saying 'Putin will nuke the whole of Berlin tomorrow' if x or y does not happen.
Yes, the MAGA people come over like brainwashed automatons. There was one on Newsnight yesterday. Black is white, she kept saying, with a bright smile.
"brainwashed automatons"
Yep. It is a cult. Probably the most dangerous cult of all time.
BREAKING: CNN is covering the hundreds of protesters who lined the roads in Vermont to protest JD Vance’s visit. One person held a sign that read, “Go ski in Russia, traitor.”
The fallout from yesterday’s meeting is massive. Americans are pissed off.
There was never a problem finding people to protest Trump and Vance. The problem was the country remained split about 50/50, give or take a few percent, no matter what either side does. Until opportunities to see if the GOP will be on lower end of their very high floor take place, the only area of meaningful challenge is in the courts?
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
Mail leading tonight on outrage over Trump and the state visit.
Two days ago even the Mail was praising Starmer for how he managed Trump. The Mail back to hating Starmer as a traitor is really quite reassuring. I suspect we were all a bit discombobulated by their Friday front page.
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 @ScooterCasterNY · 4h NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
Short of a military coup, civil war or a natural death, we're stuck with Trump until January 2028, but if there's any justice in the world we will get to see Elon Musk and his companies going bust in the next four years.
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 @ScooterCasterNY · 4h NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
Short of a military coup, civil war or a natural death, we're stuck with Trump until January 2028, but if there's any justice in the world we will see Elon Musk and his companies going bust in the next four years.
Rachel Reeves @RachelReevesMP · 1h Today @SergiiMarchenk3 and I signed the UK-Ukraine Bilateral Agreement to deliver £2.26bn of new funding to Ukraine.
This will be repaid using profits from sanctioned Russian sovereign assets.
Action, not just words - Britain stands with Ukraine.
The prime minister has spoken to President Zelenskyy, and President Trump and President Macron this evening, with the intent of bridging the rift between Zelenskyy and Trump
Credit where it is due
I have to mea culpa on this. I was very pissed off by what looked like a typical fawning performance by a PM in Washington on Thursday, and then a worrying silence yesterday after the ambush. But it does seem Starmer and his advisers knew what they were doing.
Let’s see if it bears fruit. It’s encouraging that Britain and France are working in synch this weekend.
It's easy to get caught up in the emotion of it all after witnessing what basically seemed like two bullies punching the guy in a wheelchair while handing the keys to his house to the person who put him in it. No shame in it at all.
Some people had a disagreement in an office. The response here has been cringeworthy.
Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
Can you recognise seriousness? Or is it all a bore?
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
I assume they mean at an annualised rate (which is how Americans report their GDP), but still not good.
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair many of the posters here are Gen X, the generation that was taught to be cynical about everything, that earnestness was as square as having a rucksack on both shoulders, so it’s no surprise there’s a desire amongst some to cultivate a suitably worldly persona, peppering posts with arch one liner quips or knowing references to “SMO” and “Ukraine ultras”.
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair to PB, excepting a couple of the usual Trumpton fluffers, the response to the Oval Office mugging has been very measured which is more than we can say about the BBC and now ITN. Why do they continue to apportion equal blame to Zelensky and Trump/Vance/ wanker planted journos and fanbois?
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 @ScooterCasterNY · 4h NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
Short of a military coup, civil war or a natural death, we're stuck with Trump until January 2028, but if there's any justice in the world we will see Elon Musk and his companies going bust in the next four years.
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
I assume they mean at an annualised rate (which is how Americans report their GDP), but still not good.
Unfortunately a recession in the US probably means a recession here. Unless it’s driven purely by federal spending cuts, rather than faltering business investment.
Business confidence was up quite sharply here in February. I was a little surprised given the downbeat vibes generally, although it did seem to chime with my own experience. There is a lot of dry powder in the UK economy. Private (household and business) debt is the lowest it’s been since the 90s. There’s a lot of cash around. The trouble is there’s very limited spare capacity in the system so any growth will be inflationary.
Rachel Reeves @RachelReevesMP · 1h Today @SergiiMarchenk3 and I signed the UK-Ukraine Bilateral Agreement to deliver £2.26bn of new funding to Ukraine.
This will be repaid using profits from sanctioned Russian sovereign assets.
Action, not just words - Britain stands with Ukraine.
🇬🇧🇺🇦
Credit where it's due. Good move from SKS and Rachel. 👍
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
In the USA they annualise their GDP data.
So that would be the equivalent of a 0.4% drop.
I would have thought that, given the number of Federal employees who have lost their jobs in the last month or fear losing them in the next along with a substantial fall in domestic demand from cancelled contracts, that a fall in GDP was pretty much inevitable.
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
I meant a colonial power, not we colonised France. I’ve unwittingly kicked off another round of PB favourite “re take France.” 🤦♀️
Anyway, I’ll leave you with exert from when Britain and France were at war with each other in the 20th Century, told in the real James Bonds own words…
‘ low over the field at midday we saw to our astonishment a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember seeing bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over. It was a Sunday morning and the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building. We went round again, but this time we were no longer a surprise and they were ready for us with their ground defences, and I am afraid that our chivalry resulted in damage to several of our Hurricanes, including my own. But we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.”
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair to PB, excepting a couple of the usual Trumpton fluffers, the response to the Oval Office mugging has been very measured which is more than we can say about the BBC and now ITN. Why do they continue to apportion equal blame to Zelensky and Trump/Vance/ wanker planted journos and fanbois?
Because a lot of journalists have been schooled since 2016 to believe that Trump somehow represents the will of the people, and they have to “understand” him. Which leads to excessive balance in reporting.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
OK, sure. I agree there are problems with this sort of polling. So, do you think there is a mechanism between elections “so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker”, as per rcs1000’s suggestion?
Yes: every week there should be a byelection in a random seat. That means that - over the course of a four year parliament - there are about 220 byelections.
Are you just trying to increase exponentially the number of posts on a well-known political betting site? Are you paid by the post volume or something?
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
It's really important his approval ratings plummet at home.
Negative 1.5% GDP in the first quarter predicted by Atlanta Fed. That would be quite remarkable. And i suspect would lead to quite a few statisticians needing new jobs.
In the USA they annualise their GDP data.
So that would be the equivalent of a 0.4% drop.
I would have thought that, given the number of Federal employees who have lost their jobs in the last month or fear losing them in the next along with a substantial fall in domestic demand from cancelled contracts, that a fall in GDP was pretty much inevitable.
Indeed.
The tariff situation will also be adding to the uncertainty.
As will any talk of cuts to health spending.
Uncertainty leads to fear leads to lower spending.
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair to PB, excepting a couple of the usual Trumpton fluffers, the response to the Oval Office mugging has been very measured which is more than we can say about the BBC and now ITN. Why do they continue to apportion equal blame to Zelensky and Trump/Vance/ wanker planted journos and fanbois?
I've not seen PB so united since before 23rd June 2016!
Even @Leon has decided to keep his head down for now 😂
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
I doubt all, or even many, of those jobs will disappear.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
OK, sure. I agree there are problems with this sort of polling. So, do you think there is a mechanism between elections “so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker”, as per rcs1000’s suggestion?
Yes: every week there should be a byelection in a random seat. That means that - over the course of a four year parliament - there are about 220 byelections.
Are you just trying to increase exponentially the number of posts on a well-known political betting site? Are you paid by the post volume or something?
The Christmas week by-election could become a new tradition in of itself.
Labour wins the next election on current trends IMHO. This is peak Reform.
Bit early to say that. Let's see if any deal is actually signed or not. And foreign policy doesn't generally win elections (maybe the Falklands is the exception but that could be said to be domestic policy)
"We run the world. This is America's world. It’s our proxy. It will end when we say it's over," — Fox News host Jesse Watters on Ukraine and President Zelensky. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1895762952516735196
They really are quite insane.
It may not seem like it now, but there are some worse people than Trump in the GOP. He is scary - but at the end of the day he is an self-centred, self-preserving idiot. There are some far more sinister characters we should really hope don’t follow on from him.
Can't see the difference now between these people on Fox News and those who are on nightly TV news shows in Moscow saying 'Putin will nuke the whole of Berlin tomorrow' if x or y does not happen.
Yes, the MAGA people come over like brainwashed automatons. There was one on Newsnight yesterday. Black is white, she kept saying, with a bright smile.
At least there’s been a merciful pause in the ‘we need to understand more, judge less’ stuff, but I’m sure it’s only temporary. A tweet to keep in mind.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 @ScooterCasterNY · 4h NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
Short of a military coup, civil war or a natural death, we're stuck with Trump until January 2028, but if there's any justice in the world we will get to see Elon Musk and his companies going bust in the next four years.
If Trump shuffles of this mortal coil, we get Vance, which I am sorry to say looks to be an even worse proposition.
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair to PB, excepting a couple of the usual Trumpton fluffers, the response to the Oval Office mugging has been very measured which is more than we can say about the BBC and now ITN. Why do they continue to apportion equal blame to Zelensky and Trump/Vance/ wanker planted journos and fanbois?
I've not seen PB so united since before 23rd June 2016!
Even @Leon has decided to keep his head down for now 😂
Leon the Don Rimmer!
and that’s not nearly as rude a punchline as the joke about the Volga Boatmen.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Dunno, Blair managed to form a position on Iraq largely outside the EU mainstream while still being in the EU. Didn’t really turn out for the best, mind.
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
I doubt all, or even many, of those jobs will disappear.
There might be a big drop in overtime though.
Given that the Trump administration is planning on cutting military spending by around 8% this year, and that it is a lot easier to cut procurement than soldiers, my guess is that the defense industry might see more than a drop in overtime.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Brexit looks even more stupid today than it did yesterday
Rt Hon Alistair Burt @AlistairBurtUK · 2h I’m rather proud of our PM at present. Once one of his predecessors spoke of the new world coming to the liberation of the old. Not today, for it is old world which shames the new. And when the US President visits, the streets will be full so he can hear us.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Brexit looks even more stupid today than it did yesterday
The UK was in the EU in 2014 and it ended up with the Minsk process led by France and Germany.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
I've agreed with most of your comments over the last few days. But I don't believe for a moment that Macron (or Starmer, for that matter) would have behaved any differently if the UK were still in the EU. Since 1973, there have been a multitude of instances where Britain and France have taken foreign policy stances independently of any collective view of the EU.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Brexit looks even more stupid today than it did yesterday
I really dont think Brexit matters in the context of yesterday or what is coming.
We don't need to be in the EU to be leading the fellowship of the ring against the forces of Sauron and his orange-faced orc chief.
Presidents and Vice-Presidents launching blistering attacks on others, European leaders putting out urgent statements and senior political figures on all sides ratcheting up the rhetoric, to the backdrop of an ongoing war and potentially floundering 'peace' deal.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
To be fair to PB, excepting a couple of the usual Trumpton fluffers, the response to the Oval Office mugging has been very measured which is more than we can say about the BBC and now ITN. Why do they continue to apportion equal blame to Zelensky and Trump/Vance/ wanker planted journos and fanbois?
I've not seen PB so united since before 23rd June 2016!
Even @Leon has decided to keep his head down for now 😂
He’s probably asleep, as in a different time zone,
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
I've agreed with most of your comments over the last few days. But I don't believe for a moment that Macron (or Starmer, for that matter) would have behaved any differently if the UK were still in the EU. Since 1973, there have been a multitude of instances where Britain and France have taken foreign policy stances independently of any collective view of the EU.
Not true, when Russia annexed Crimea it was an EU led resolution which was completely useless and watered down to the extent that Russia were emboldened to launch a full invasion just a few years later. With the UK sitting outside if the EU there's no real question around EU involvement this time around because not all parties are in it. It is beneficial. Wrt prior situations where the UK and France have acted independently of the EU, either alone or together, the game has changed since then, the EU now has pretensions of being a foreign policy superpower and would undoubtedly be attempting to involve itself and shoehorn VdL into phonecalls between Macron and Starmer.
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
I doubt all, or even many, of those jobs will disappear.
There might be a big drop in overtime though.
Given that the Trump administration is planning on cutting military spending by around 8% this year, and that it is a lot easier to cut procurement than soldiers, my guess is that the defense industry might see more than a drop in overtime.
Is it ? Or are they just reallocating the spending ?
It’s not very clear to me (FWIW). If they’re going to spend it on missile defence, that’s not going to upset the industry too much.
I think actual cuts might be predicated on some sort of agreement with China.
(Apart from, possibly, the closure of European bases.)
Do Reform UK voters support Brexit overwhelmingly? I would assume so?
Therefore is there some limit on their support assuming that the majority continue to think Brexit was a very bad idea and Farage was one of its cheerleaders?
Just spotted this on YouTube, from Rep. Keith Self’s town hall in Wylie, Texas earlier today. Another large, angry crowd at a Republican town hall in a deep red district. https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1895910348882133109
Mail leading tonight on outrage over Trump and the state visit.
Two days ago even the Mail was praising Starmer for how he managed Trump. The Mail back to hating Starmer as a traitor is really quite reassuring. I suspect we were all a bit discombobulated by their Friday front page.
Actually, the Mail hasn’t gone back to outright Starmer bashing, at least not on front page. I’ll let you know what’s inside when I read it tomorrow.
In fact Number 10 would be happy with all these front pages. is this a sort of “rally to the flag moment” going on now?
Other stories jump out to me from these papers. Star running a festival one, though a silly take. One paper has pictures of Trump and convicted sex trafficker of underage age girls Maxwell together calling them close pals. The Times has Labour U turn on plan for a workers right to a switch off to protect mental health now getting scrapped. Sometimes I sort of understand what BJO means by Red Tories, quite a lot this governments worker and welfare positions are right of centre.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Brexit looks even more stupid today than it did yesterday
He gets served Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding on his away day tomorrow! Properly cooked, not served containing a pulse. 😆
If I recall the complaints of an american ambassador from years past, at British diplomatic events they tend to endlessly serve lamb apparently, to the point they were getting sick of it.
"We run the world. This is America's world. It’s our proxy. It will end when we say it's over," — Fox News host Jesse Watters on Ukraine and President Zelensky. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1895762952516735196
They really are quite insane.
It may not seem like it now, but there are some worse people than Trump in the GOP. He is scary - but at the end of the day he is an self-centred, self-preserving idiot. There are some far more sinister characters we should really hope don’t follow on from him.
Can't see the difference now between these people on Fox News and those who are on nightly TV news shows in Moscow saying 'Putin will nuke the whole of Berlin tomorrow' if x or y does not happen.
Yes, the MAGA people come over like brainwashed automatons. There was one on Newsnight yesterday. Black is white, she kept saying, with a bright smile.
At least there’s been a merciful pause in the ‘we need to understand more, judge less’ stuff, but I’m sure it’s only temporary. A tweet to keep in mind.
John Bolton: "Russians are better than anyone at taking concessions, putting them in their pockets, and then coming back and saying 'what have you got for me now' "
He gets served Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding on his away day tomorrow! Properly cooked, not served containing a pulse. 😆
If I recall the complaints of an american ambassador from years past, at British diplomatic events they tend to endlessly serve lamb apparently, to the point they were getting sick of it.
He gets served Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding on his away day tomorrow! Properly cooked, not served containing a pulse. 😆
If I recall the complaints of an american ambassador from years past, at British diplomatic events they tend to endlessly serve lamb apparently, to the point they were getting sick of it.
British Lamb - Great Choice. 🤗
"Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?"
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
Brexit looks even more stupid today than it did yesterday
Its over, you've lost, and your dream of an isolated Britain cut off while Europe leads on without us is over too.
Brexit has not diminished Britain on the world stage, if anything the opposite. We have moved on and it is our new normal and nobody cares but you.
The leader of the free world. Keir Starmer. Almost nowt is implausible in upside down world. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness. Nor is emptiness other than form.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
"We run the world. This is America's world. It’s our proxy. It will end when we say it's over," — Fox News host Jesse Watters on Ukraine and President Zelensky. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1895762952516735196
They really are quite insane.
It may not seem like it now, but there are some worse people than Trump in the GOP. He is scary - but at the end of the day he is an self-centred, self-preserving idiot. There are some far more sinister characters we should really hope don’t follow on from him.
I think you are right. And I think Vance is one of them.
I know Sir Keir too struggled at the start against Johnson but I feel like even he was trying to do something. Badenoch I’m afraid just feels so utterly out to sea.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
The leader of the free world. Keir Starmer. Almost nowt is implausible in upside down world. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness. Nor is emptiness other than form.
But form is temporary, whilst lack of vision thing and charisma is permanent.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
What happens if we do that and the next day Russia continues bombing as usual?
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
I think the line for Starmer and others is whether the Ukrainians accept a 'deal'. None may like it but they may have little choice. The difference with Trump is he's trying to force a deal and also humiliate Ukraine and Zelensky, not that Europe will manage to fund and support eternal resistance. They would like a Ukrainian victory and place in NATO but neither is likely, but they are rightly mire willing to push for better support, and if Ukraine then 'chooses' that marginally better option? Starmer's sentiment remains.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
What happens if we do that and the next day Russia continues bombing as usual?
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
I doubt all, or even many, of those jobs will disappear.
There might be a big drop in overtime though.
Given that the Trump administration is planning on cutting military spending by around 8% this year, and that it is a lot easier to cut procurement than soldiers, my guess is that the defense industry might see more than a drop in overtime.
They seem to be firing a lot of soldiers from politically disfavoured groups which should be a hiring opportunity for European armies that clearly don't have enough people for the world they now live in.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
If in a deal from talks, Putin doesn’t sign such a deal, so the war goes on. The only deal Putin will sign is a deal leaving a weak and exposed Ukraine his country can interfere with.
The security guarantees you suggest outside of negotiated deal? To be honest, UK and France won’t sign that, or anything with security guarantees from them that could easily trigger a bigger crisis than this one, drag them into this or a larger conflict. If I’m right, then yes, all these hugs are very short termist and very hollow.
How would you answer the question of how independent is the UK nuclear deterrent, to be able to commit it as you suggest? All the Chagos investigation I have been doing, has left me with impression UK defence and security is so very much woven in with the US. UK has down the decades become locked and interlocked with US on defence and intelligence, I think it is in part what has led us to the Chagos Deal US and India want us to sign, and leaves a genuine question how quickly UK could untangle itself from US and become independent, if it really needed to. If I am right in that as well, we have to acknowledge the part it plays in all Whitehall decisions taken.
I don’t see any posts to PB taking into account how deeply UK is in bed with US on military technology and intelligence, and acknowledging the huge impact this has on political decision making.
Comments
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
👀 UK’s highest circulation Sunday paper headlines on stripping President of his historic State Visit to see the King…
Treaty of Troyes!
Oliya Scootercaster 🛴
@ScooterCasterNY
·
4h
NOW: Crowd chants "Zelenskyy is a hero" outside of Tesla Dealership in Manhattan as Anti-Elon protesters occupy the inside.
https://x.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1895903191528849460
Yes it is all overly emotional and people are probably saying things they won't be in a week, but the situation is a genuine diplomatic incident according to the people involved in it, it's trying a bit too hard to suggest online commentators who react to things like council by-elections are supposed to be ice veined stoics about it, really. That's not even unreasonable given the international reactions.
Yep. It is a cult. Probably the most dangerous cult of all time.
But no no, PB alone is supposed to be cool and collected about it, sure, that's totally cringy that people would reaction passionately about things.
People aren't automatons, and if we cannot fly off the handle on the internet where the hell can we?
@RachelReevesMP
·
1h
Today @SergiiMarchenk3 and I signed the UK-Ukraine Bilateral Agreement to deliver £2.26bn of new funding to Ukraine.
This will be repaid using profits from sanctioned Russian sovereign assets.
Action, not just words - Britain stands with Ukraine.
🇬🇧🇺🇦
Can you recognise seriousness? Or is it all a bore?
So that would be the equivalent of a 0.4% drop.
It’s about the failure of managerial politics - the Consensus of The Process State. Taxes go up, but there seems to be less and less result.
Business confidence was up quite sharply here in February. I was a little surprised given the downbeat vibes generally, although it did seem to chime with my own experience. There is a lot of dry powder in the UK economy. Private (household and business) debt is the lowest it’s been since the 90s. There’s a lot of cash around. The trouble is there’s very limited spare capacity in the system so any growth will be inflationary.
Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with exert from when Britain and France were at war with each other in the 20th Century, told in the real James Bonds own words…
‘ low over the field at midday we saw to our astonishment a bunch of girls in brightly coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes with glasses in their hands having drinks with the French pilots, and I remember seeing bottles of wine standing on the wing of one of the planes as we went swooshing over. It was a Sunday morning and the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircraft to them, which was a very French thing to do in the middle of a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one of us held our fire on that first pass over the flying field and it was wonderfully comical to see the girls all dropping their wine glasses and galloping in their high heels for the door of the nearest building. We went round again, but this time we were no longer a surprise and they were ready for us with their ground defences, and I am afraid that our chivalry resulted in damage to several of our Hurricanes, including my own. But we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.”
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
The tariff situation will also be adding to the uncertainty.
As will any talk of cuts to health spending.
Uncertainty leads to fear leads to lower spending.
Even @Leon has decided to keep his head down for now 😂
There might be a big drop in overtime though.
Paul Mason
@paulmasonnews
·
3h
Keir Starmer is tonight the leader of the free world
https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/1895924399813132347
https://x.com/aespolitics1/status/1895865391462957066?s=46&t=fJymV-V84rexmlQMLXHHJQ
and that’s not nearly as rude a punchline as the joke about the Volga Boatmen.
Rt Hon Alistair Burt
@AlistairBurtUK
·
2h
I’m rather proud of our PM at present. Once one of his predecessors spoke of the new world coming to the liberation of the old. Not today, for it is old world which shames the new. And when the US President visits, the streets will be full so he can hear us.
https://x.com/AlistairBurtUK/status/1895937077738684908
We don't need to be in the EU to be leading the fellowship of the ring against the forces of Sauron and his orange-faced orc chief.
No way to back out of this now.
He'll have to resign if he ends up somehow having to dump Zelensky for Trump's Putinist USA.
These are the highest of stakes a PM gets to play.
UK Prime Minister
@10DowningStreet
The UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
https://x.com/10DowningStreet/status/1895950498576154630
It’s not very clear to me (FWIW). If they’re going to spend it on missile defence, that’s not going to upset the industry too much.
I think actual cuts might be predicated on some sort of agreement with China.
(Apart from, possibly, the closure of European bases.)
Therefore is there some limit on their support assuming that the majority continue to think Brexit was a very bad idea and Farage was one of its cheerleaders?
Just spotted this on YouTube, from Rep. Keith Self’s town hall in Wylie, Texas earlier today. Another large, angry crowd at a Republican town hall in a deep red district.
https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1895910348882133109
In fact Number 10 would be happy with all these front pages. is this a sort of “rally to the flag moment” going on now?
Other stories jump out to me from these papers. Star running a festival one, though a silly take. One paper has pictures of Trump and convicted sex trafficker of underage age girls Maxwell together calling them close pals. The Times has Labour U turn on plan for a workers right to a switch off to protect mental health now getting scrapped. Sometimes I sort of understand what BJO means by Red Tories, quite a lot this governments worker and welfare positions are right of centre.
https://x.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1895843081020494250
Brexit has not diminished Britain on the world stage, if anything the opposite. We have moved on and it is our new normal and nobody cares but you.
https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1895936778483482645
Keir Starmer.
Almost nowt is implausible in upside down world.
Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
Form is not other than emptiness. Nor is emptiness other than form.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
GBN Updates
@GBNUpdates
📢 ANNOUNCEMENT:
@darrengrimes_ Departs GB News
Torsten Bell
@TorstenBell
·
4h
We stand with Ukraine, now and for as long as it takes
Time for my proposed Anglo-Canadian agreement.
A third pole between US and the EU.
European Trans Foreign Legion, make it happen.
The security guarantees you suggest outside of negotiated deal? To be honest, UK and France won’t sign that, or anything with security guarantees from them that could easily trigger a bigger crisis than this one, drag them into this or a larger conflict. If I’m right, then yes, all these hugs are very short termist and very hollow.
How would you answer the question of how independent is the UK nuclear deterrent, to be able to commit it as you suggest? All the Chagos investigation I have been doing, has left me with impression UK defence and security is so very much woven in with the US. UK has down the decades become locked and interlocked with US on defence and intelligence, I think it is in part what has led us to the Chagos Deal US and India want us to sign, and leaves a genuine question how quickly UK could untangle itself from US and become independent, if it really needed to. If I am right in that as well, we have to acknowledge the part it plays in all Whitehall decisions taken.
I don’t see any posts to PB taking into account how deeply UK is in bed with US on military technology and intelligence, and acknowledging the huge impact this has on political decision making.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14451179/Trumps-wink-Marjorie-Taylor-Greens-boyfriend-Brian-Glenn-White-House-Zelensky.html