An American Dr Who fan speaks on the kerfuffle regarding the Disney/BBC debacle (TL:DR: it's not the woke nor the viewing figures, it's Disney resiling from streaming generally). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGbk6WDdJQ
Keir Starmer's former No 10 Director of Strategy has hit out at the "Stakeholder State"
He says Civil Servants mentioned the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah with "such regularity" that it became a "running joke" inside No 10 about Whitehall's "sheer weirdness"
"We are only seeing a tiny part of it. Like an iceberg, the vast mass remains hidden from view, buttressed in silence"
What next for Stamerville?
“Liz Truss was right”????!!!???
Labour was once the political wing of the British people. Starmer's government is the political wing of the Tony Blair Institute. Stealth privatisation of the NHS. Comms surveillance. ID cards.
There is another excellent long article for SMO enthusiasts in the NYT this morning - available via the paywall busting technology of your choice.
It's doesn't tell much that seasoned observers of matters in the Donyetskiy Bassein didn't already know but it's well written and entertaining.
- Hegseth is a craven fucking bootlicker who just wants to please Trump even when it's not apparent what exactly would please Trump. - Kellog is a cold war dinosaur who should have been pensioned off and let nowhere near the SMO. I didn't know the Russians had tried to assassinate him at an embassy dinner with a lethal injection. Fucking LOL. - Zelenskiy, as we already know, doesn't listen to anybody and sporadically fucks himself and by extension Ukraine by not doing so. - All of Trump's court eunuchs (Lutnick, that lanky cum stain Jared, etc.) run independent and competing foreign policies. - Trump is Trump. - The only person who seems to have a clear eyed strategy in the whole farrago is Just Dance. He thinks aiding Ukraine only helps Europe and is a complete misallocation of resources that should be going to the Pacific. He's probably right in strictly instrumental terms.
Is the JD view correct? Because right now, the only winner from the Ukraine war is China, which is increasingly reducing Russia to vassal status
JD Vance is not correct. His policy on Ukraine, Russia and Europe generally serves no purpose except he takes pleasure in humiliating Europeans. At least Trump is transactional. He and his family expect to make a lot of money out of Russia.
I wouldn't say the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a win for China. It wasn't what they wanted but they have so far avoided being dragged into it.
Yes, Vance has a real hillbilly sized chip on his shoulder when dealing with Europeans. He is jealous of a class above him, which may be why he got on so well with Lammy. Vance doesn't see Lammy as part of that European elite, and I think Lammy has a similar chip on his shoulder.
Vance is a chameleon in human form, a sort of Talented Mr Ripley. I think he is even more susceptible to flattery than Trump. Getting him onside is probably mostly a matter of getting him some red carpet type treatment next time he comes here.
Damn stupid to have removed David Lammy from the Foreign Office where he'd struck up useful relationships (not just with Washington; remember Lammy also got Starmer front and centre at the D-Day celebrations after Rishi unaccountably bailed) and replaced him with that serial non-entity Yvette Cooper. I do wonder if Lammy had been caught up in a credit war with Lord Mandelson, our US Ambassador, and lost. A crying shame if so because, of course, Mandelson was next out of the door.
Comments
Weston Gavin used to show up at the Alleycat on Denmark Street every fortnight to sing at my mate Dom’s jam night
I got to know him well, and found out that he was the actor who played the alleyway villain who first shot Superman in a movie
He sang and strummed well too. Please wish Weston well X