He really has gone mad. It’s not hyperbole. He’s bonkers.
The only small problem is he has been for years (he was talking about stealing Greenland in his first term, about the same time he wanted to nuke hurricanes and just before he started suggesting bleach and Ivermectin as cures for Covid) and the American electorate and government not only do fuck all about it, they re-elected him having got rid of him.
It makes you despair, it really does.
I mean, he is getting worse but after 6th January 2021 anyone who still supported him has no excuse at all. They're traitors supporting a murderous dictator.
He really has gone mad. It’s not hyperbole. He’s bonkers.
The only small problem is he has been for years (he was talking about stealing Greenland in his first term, about the same time he wanted to nuke hurricanes and just before he started suggesting bleach and Ivermectin as cures for Covid) and the American electorate and government not only do fuck all about it, they re-elected him having got rid of him.
It makes you despair, it really does.
I mean, he is getting worse but after 6th January 2021 anyone who still supported him has no excuse at all. They're traitors supporting a murderous dictator.
I think that's usually diagnosed as "Trump Derangement Syndrome", though haven't heard that term being bandied around in the last few days. WG seems to have gone quiet as well, has he died of embarassment?
It seriously is like a couple of my grandparents in the end. Bonkers and bitter, and we forgave them because it wasn’t their fault. I’m less forgiving of this man because he started out unpleasant.
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the Arctic island’s population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, Bloomberg reports.
What preparation are they going to do? Seriously, not many options.
Stockpile medicines, food, water and fuel since any conflict is likely to interrupt supplies.
There are limited options for preparing armed resistance, but there are things they can do to make it more difficult for the US, and to raise the price to a level that might be deemed unacceptable.
I don't know much about living in Greenland but surely given the climate and population density you'd stockpile those already?
Maybe it's just the Molotov cocktail recipe then.
That would be beyond pointless at great personal risk.
More seriously, the Nordic countries have long had plans for partisan resistance movements in the event of Russian invasion. They've been work with the Ukrainians to help the resistance in occupied Ukraine, although the feeling seems to be that their tactics and doctrine is out of date for a modern digital world.
The Ukrainian resistance is regularly carrying out attacks that can be broadly classified into three types - providing intelligence for Ukrainian drone attacks, assassination/arson to intimidate the occupation authorities and collaborators, sabotage of enemy logistics.
Greenland is 50,000 people, the biggest town has 20,000 people. There is no point in organising any resistance. This isn't Norway being invaded or Afghanistan or Vietnam. Think Loughborough and environs.
The US is unlikely to occupy the place with 50,000 soldiers either, so there's as much point to armed resistance as there would be anywhere else. With the same tradeoffs.
There isn't room for 50,000 soldiers in Nuuk. I'm not sure there's room for more than a couple of thousand. And it's not like it's a place where you'd like to hang around outside, especially in winter.
The effing loon is now proclaiming himself the saviour of NATO.
With virtually every European nation now refusing to meet him in private at Davos to “negotiate,” the utterly unhinged president of the US has now began writing an endless stream of nonsensical tweets. https://x.com/Daractenus/status/2013658554247319927
As my dad succumbed to dementia, he was prey to all sorts of nonsensical ideas, but he retained an essential politeness to the end.
Trump, in turn, seems to be retaining his inner raging arsehole.
The refusing to negotiate strategy is -as I've said from the start- the only one that works.
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
Reminds me of the time British Rail porters at Kings Cross went on a work to rule.
They had to abandon it after a week as there were so many comments on the dramatic improvement in the level of service.
Just a thought listening to the news about the Chinese Embassy. Do the UK, and probably Europe, forsee a strategic alignment with China against the combined forces of the USA and Russia?
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the Arctic island’s population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, Bloomberg reports.
What preparation are they going to do? Seriously, not many options.
Stockpile medicines, food, water and fuel since any conflict is likely to interrupt supplies.
There are limited options for preparing armed resistance, but there are things they can do to make it more difficult for the US, and to raise the price to a level that might be deemed unacceptable.
I don't know much about living in Greenland but surely given the climate and population density you'd stockpile those already?
Maybe it's just the Molotov cocktail recipe then.
That would be beyond pointless at great personal risk.
More seriously, the Nordic countries have long had plans for partisan resistance movements in the event of Russian invasion. They've been work with the Ukrainians to help the resistance in occupied Ukraine, although the feeling seems to be that their tactics and doctrine is out of date for a modern digital world.
The Ukrainian resistance is regularly carrying out attacks that can be broadly classified into three types - providing intelligence for Ukrainian drone attacks, assassination/arson to intimidate the occupation authorities and collaborators, sabotage of enemy logistics.
Greenland is 50,000 people, the biggest town has 20,000 people. There is no point in organising any resistance. This isn't Norway being invaded or Afghanistan or Vietnam. Think Loughborough and environs.
The US is unlikely to occupy the place with 50,000 soldiers either, so there's as much point to armed resistance as there would be anywhere else. With the same tradeoffs.
There isn't room for 50,000 soldiers in Nuuk. I'm not sure there's room for more than a couple of thousand. And it's not like it's a place where you'd like to hang around outside, especially in winter.
As I posted earlier the highest ratio in Afghanistan was 1:300 which would be about 160 soldiers. Why would they want 1 soldier to follow round each citizen!?
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
Reminds me of the time British Rail porters at Kings Cross went on a work to rule.
They had to abandon it after a week as there were so many comments on the dramatic improvement in the level of service.
It’s been observed in a number of professions that smaller numbers of more deeply skilled people achieve a higher overall productivity than a large number of less skilled.
This is why software development is more productive in the U.K. than in India, for some areas.
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the Arctic island’s population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, Bloomberg reports.
What preparation are they going to do? Seriously, not many options.
Stockpile medicines, food, water and fuel since any conflict is likely to interrupt supplies.
There are limited options for preparing armed resistance, but there are things they can do to make it more difficult for the US, and to raise the price to a level that might be deemed unacceptable.
I don't know much about living in Greenland but surely given the climate and population density you'd stockpile those already?
Maybe it's just the Molotov cocktail recipe then.
That would be beyond pointless at great personal risk.
More seriously, the Nordic countries have long had plans for partisan resistance movements in the event of Russian invasion. They've been work with the Ukrainians to help the resistance in occupied Ukraine, although the feeling seems to be that their tactics and doctrine is out of date for a modern digital world.
The Ukrainian resistance is regularly carrying out attacks that can be broadly classified into three types - providing intelligence for Ukrainian drone attacks, assassination/arson to intimidate the occupation authorities and collaborators, sabotage of enemy logistics.
Greenland is 50,000 people, the biggest town has 20,000 people. There is no point in organising any resistance. This isn't Norway being invaded or Afghanistan or Vietnam. Think Loughborough and environs.
The US is unlikely to occupy the place with 50,000 soldiers either, so there's as much point to armed resistance as there would be anywhere else. With the same tradeoffs.
There isn't room for 50,000 soldiers in Nuuk. I'm not sure there's room for more than a couple of thousand. And it's not like it's a place where you'd like to hang around outside, especially in winter.
As I posted earlier the highest ratio in Afghanistan was 1:300 which would be about 160 soldiers. Why would they want 1 soldier to follow round each citizen!?
The issue is more that they couldn’t sustain a force in Greenland without Canada agreeing. Which is a worry…
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
Reminds me of the time British Rail porters at Kings Cross went on a work to rule.
They had to abandon it after a week as there were so many comments on the dramatic improvement in the level of service.
It’s been observed in a number of professions that smaller numbers of more deeply skilled people achieve a higher overall productivity than a large number of less skilled.
This is why software development is more productive in the U.K. than in India, for some areas.
And it’s why in the civil service and the senior end of the military….
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
The NHS managers should offer the resident doctors a pay cut and pass the savings on to consultants, on the basis that it improves patient care.
It seems as if the exact moment of 3i/Atlas being precisely aliigned between the Sun and the earth will be on Thursday at 1om, a bit like a cometsry eclipse.
Don't worry, the chances of anything coming from 3i/Atlas are a million to one...
Some perspective: The S&P opened down -1.3% on Trump's Greenland saber-rattling. That's $750 billion of wealth destroyed -- roughly equal to estimates of the value of Greenland.
And so ~in dollar terms~ his shenanigans have already cost the US one Greenland, and we've got nothing to show for it.
Sarah Smith North America editor at the White House Donald Trump seems very quiet and low key as he arrives in the briefing room. Even though he is talking about one of his favourite topics – his immigration crackdown – he doesn’t have his usual passion and bombast. In the room I can barely hear some of what he is saying. We know he was up late last night posting on social media about Greenland and criticising European leaders. Maybe he didn't get enough sleep...
Some perspective: The S&P opened down -1.3% on Trump's Greenland saber-rattling. That's $750 billion of wealth destroyed -- roughly equal to estimates of the value of Greenland.
And so ~in dollar terms~ his shenanigans have already cost the US one Greenland, and we've got nothing to show for it.
It seems as if the exact moment of 3i/Atlas being precisely aliigned between the Sun and the earth will be on Thursday at 1om, a bit like a cometsry eclipse.
Don't worry, the chances of anything coming from 3i/Atlas are a million to one...
But still they come.
To save us from Trump?
Well, it is a quote from Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’, so you never know.
High Court clears the way for Reform to challenge the cancelled local elections
Good.
As fiscal conservatives, why do we want to see good money which can be spent on services, simply wasted?
One word - democracy
These areas are being combined to save costs, elections being held on eve they become merged, is to some extent pointless and precious money wasted isn’t it?
My point though is this is got up from anti Labour bias, opportunistic opportunism from oppositions, not actual concern for democracy. Oppositions being Trumpian and not behaving proper.
If Lady Thatcher was in power, Conservative councils asking to save money that should be spent on services would have this request accepted, and Lady Thatcher would explain as such at PMQs, to the game playing opposition, backed to the hilt by the fiscal Conservative supporting press. Taking care of the finances, and no time for silly games from opponents, isn’t this what made Lady Thatcher great and electable?
Cancelling elections, in order to save trivial sums, is a wretched excuse.
Some perspective: The S&P opened down -1.3% on Trump's Greenland saber-rattling. That's $750 billion of wealth destroyed -- roughly equal to estimates of the value of Greenland.
And so ~in dollar terms~ his shenanigans have already cost the US one Greenland, and we've got nothing to show for it.
Noteworthy that one party sticks out again as the Quisling Party.
I wonder why Reform are like that. They certainly see themselves as patriotic.
Is it that they admire Trump's might is right philosophy? Or that they really hate Europe so quite like the idea of an invasion?
Trump is on their side. Therefore Trump must be right.
Imagine if Biden were US President and the same question was asked - Reform would likely be most opposed.
That's one reason to be sceptical of the strength of the Green response.
This has to be the most ludicrous both-sidesing in Trumpian history.
“Imagine if Biden were threatening to annex Greenland. What then, libtards?”
Er, that's not what my post is about.
My post is about the well-known effect whereby people's willingness to support or oppose policies varies depending on the partisan label attached to it.
Noteworthy that one party sticks out again as the Quisling Party.
I wonder why Reform are like that. They certainly see themselves as patriotic.
Is it that they admire Trump's might is right philosophy? Or that they really hate Europe so quite like the idea of an invasion?
Trump is on their side. Therefore Trump must be right.
Imagine if Biden were US President and the same question was asked - Reform would likely be most opposed.
That's one reason to be sceptical of the strength of the Green response.
This has to be the most ludicrous both-sidesing in Trumpian history.
“Imagine if Biden were threatening to annex Greenland. What then, libtards?”
Er, that's not what my post is about.
My post is about the well-known effect whereby people's willingness to support our house policies varies depending on the partial label attached to it.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
Occasionally there's laughter, but I'm not sure if it's hostage-situation laughter.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
We’ve had one US party go along with a President with clear cognitive decline, at a cost to them.
Are we seeing another ?
We’re not watching Trump. Catching up on last weeks TV as we were in Lanzarote.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
Occasionally there's laughter, but I'm not sure if it's hostage-situation laughter.
You would swear he's drunk if you did not know he was teetotal.
On another topic entirely, I found this news item on a Doctors.net news page:
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested. The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
Occasionally there's laughter, but I'm not sure if it's hostage-situation laughter.
You would swear he's drunk if you did not know he was teetotal.
Perhaps that’s his problem. He needs to have a drink.
I wonder if he’ll offer a view on Brooklyn Beckham.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
We’ve had one US party go along with a President with clear cognitive decline, at a cost to them.
Are we seeing another ?
We’re not watching Trump. Catching up on last weeks TV as we were in Lanzarote.
Clever intervention by Trump. Not only undermines Starmer but throws an irresistible bone to the UK hard right in politics and the media, giving them a reason to side with an aggressive foreign authoritarian, just as they did in the 1930s…
Trying to sell the idea that giving up a strategic territory because of an advisory ruling, and having to pay out tens of billions for the privilege, is acceptable to all but the 'hard right' is gaslighting of the worst kind.
This is extraordinary. It's like watching your crazy old uncle who's had too much sherry rambling on, and nobody dares to shut him up and lead him away.
We’ve had one US party go along with a President with clear cognitive decline, at a cost to them.
Are we seeing another ?
We’re not watching Trump. Catching up on last weeks TV as we were in Lanzarote.
Yes, it cost them the 2020 election and he's got much worse since then.
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 41 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? +2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 60
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 47 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform 12%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 19
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 9
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Kair Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £137bn
11.UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 2.3%
12 Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Brazil
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
It is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from a drunk late at night in a cheap bar in the midwest. It is the ranting of a pub boor.
Sarah Smith North America editor at the White House Donald Trump seems very quiet and low key as he arrives in the briefing room. Even though he is talking about one of his favourite topics – his immigration crackdown – he doesn’t have his usual passion and bombast. In the room I can barely hear some of what he is saying. We know he was up late last night posting on social media about Greenland and criticising European leaders. Maybe he didn't get enough sleep...
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
Not the most bizarre. He hopes Renee Good's parents still love him...
High Court clears the way for Reform to challenge the cancelled local elections
Good.
As fiscal conservatives, why do we want to see good money which can be spent on services, simply wasted?
One word - democracy
These areas are being combined to save costs, elections being held on eve they become merged, is to some extent pointless and precious money wasted isn’t it?
My point though is this is got up from anti Labour bias, opportunistic opportunism from oppositions, not actual concern for democracy. Oppositions being Trumpian and not behaving proper.
If Lady Thatcher was in power, Conservative councils asking to save money that should be spent on services would have this request accepted, and Lady Thatcher would explain as such at PMQs, to the game playing opposition, backed to the hilt by the fiscal Conservative supporting press. Taking care of the finances, and no time for silly games from opponents, isn’t this what made Lady Thatcher great and electable?
Cancelling elections, in order to save trivial sums, is a wretched excuse.
Reform are quite correct to challenge this.
And claiming that Maggie would have been a fan of such behaviour is really scraping the barrel.
Mark Carney delivering a very good speech in Davos declaring we are in the midst of a rupture, not a crisis
Multilateral institutions are are risk
We will be principled and pragmatic
We will engage strategically and are recalibrating our relationship to maximise our values
We stand with Greenland and Denmark and strongly oppose tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks
He is championing efforts to build a bridge between the trans pacific partnership and the EU to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people ...............
The comparision with Starmer is stark and why is he not speaking like this.
A trans pacific - EU partnersip has to be welcomed by everyone as it solves the problem of UK - EU membership and excludes the madman in the White House
Carney is a really great guy. All power to him.
I wasn't impressed previously, but his speech was outstanding and Canada is fortunate to have him at this time
I wish we had a comparable PM
Starmer may not be great, but I can't imagine any of the last 3 PMs doing a better job.
More importantly, it's hard to imagine Badenoch, Davey, Polanski or Farage doing a better job.
He could take a leaf out of Macron's book. i've just been reading up on what they are doing and it makes Starmer's pusillanimity feel very much the wrong thing to do. Certainly politically. I'm sure his popularity would improve considerably if he would follow Macron's lead. It's wonderful seeing an eloquent European saying it as it is.
Vive La France!
The best example is not Macron but Carney who is far and away the best leader in this crisis
Canada is lucky to have him
It's both actually. They're both giving Starmer a lesson. This is humiliating and the British with their history do not enjoy watching their Prime Minister humiliate himself. They are making fun of him. Someone asked if they have kneepads for Starmer. The man needs a backbone but and the eloquence of Macron. Even Newsom from California is laughing at him.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 41 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? +2 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 60
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 47 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only). Reform 12%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 19
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 9
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Kair Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025). £137bn
11.UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025). 2.3%
12 Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup. Brazil
Pardon me, Nick, I don't see the #competition keyword an entry needs.
High Court clears the way for Reform to challenge the cancelled local elections
Good.
As fiscal conservatives, why do we want to see good money which can be spent on services, simply wasted?
Democracy, who needs it !!
I know you are not one of this people ignorant of how local government works, so to you is this simply cancelling normal election schedule? Are you saying this years elections are not at all tied into unitary authority elections - there’s no actual link between them in this change over period? These elections will result in full value for money?
So how long is this reorganisation taking ?
What happens if it drags on another year, cancel those too ?
Last year they were cancelled and barely a murmur.
This year look at who is cancelling and where. Mostly Labour where they will get battered. Only 1 Lib Dem wants to cancel and some Tories.
Either cancel all that are affected by reorganisation or none. At the moment the cancellations seem largely cynical political ploys to prevent embarrassing defeats.
The planned elections, in affected councils, that will go ahead will only be for a single year term, anyway - although Hampshire has asked for a two year term.
I agree a consistent approach should be adopted, but of course the government wanted councils to ‘ask’ rather than be told, so that they could try and duck the blame
And, by a happy coincidence, most of them asking were labour councils at a time when they are massively unpopular.
After Reform have failed to stop council tax rises in all the council they run they now want to waste taxpayers money on stunts like this
I see you can manage to avoid posting completely in lower case when you try.
Unnecessarily chippy Taz.
If you want to give a poster a good slap, I'm still here.
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
It is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from a drunk late at night in a cheap bar in the midwest. It is the ranting of a pub boor.
I am going to keep "expansive and enigmatic" as a decent euphemism for alarmingly demented.
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
It is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from a drunk late at night in a cheap bar in the midwest. It is the ranting of a pub boor.
High Court clears the way for Reform to challenge the cancelled local elections
Good.
As fiscal conservatives, why do we want to see good money which can be spent on services, simply wasted?
Democracy, who needs it !!
I know you are not one of this people ignorant of how local government works, so to you is this simply cancelling normal election schedule? Are you saying this years elections are not at all tied into unitary authority elections - there’s no actual link between them in this change over period? These elections will result in full value for money?
So how long is this reorganisation taking ?
What happens if it drags on another year, cancel those too ?
Last year they were cancelled and barely a murmur.
This year look at who is cancelling and where. Mostly Labour where they will get battered. Only 1 Lib Dem wants to cancel and some Tories.
Either cancel all that are affected by reorganisation or none. At the moment the cancellations seem largely cynical political ploys to prevent embarrassing defeats.
The planned elections, in affected councils, that will go ahead will only be for a single year term, anyway - although Hampshire has asked for a two year term.
I agree a consistent approach should be adopted, but of course the government wanted councils to ‘ask’ rather than be told, so that they could try and duck the blame
And, by a happy coincidence, most of them asking were labour councils at a time when they are massively unpopular.
After Reform have failed to stop council tax rises in all the council they run they now want to waste taxpayers money on stunts like this
I see you can manage to avoid posting completely in lower case when you try.
Unnecessarily chippy Taz.
If you want to give a poster a good slap, I'm still here.
I'm not following the Trump conference, but according to the BBC coverage when asked about Renee Good's murder: He said he felt "terrible" when he learned that Good's father was a "Trump fan". Sort of sums him up - he would have been fine about it if her father had been a Biden fan.
Chagos was an open goal for Trump, and he's right. His narrative on Greenland is that 'Europe' (in Greenland's case Denmark) will fail to defend territories in its control, ceding more and more power until an independent Greenland is gobbled up by Chinese money.
That's exactly what has happened in Chagos. We can bung Mauritius all the money we want, but we cannot stop them gradually undermining the security of Diego Garcia (from an American perspective) by aligning progressively with China's ambitions in the region. We have been weak, and US security has suffered. It doesn't matter that we've stuffed the Mauritian's mouths with gold to do what we want - without it being British sovereign territory we have no ability to enforce it.
It also completely undermines Starmer's argument that the Greenlanders have a right to self determination. What self-determination has he given to the Chagossians? The man is a moral vacuum, totally unable to spot his own glaring hypocrisy.
Trump's argument isn't perfect. The biggest counterargument is that the US could have as many more soldiers in Greenland as it likes under the current arrangement.
However, the fact that Starmer's antipatriotic Chagos policy has given Trump a case study in European weakness to highlight is nobody's fault but Starmer's.
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious. Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
It is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from a drunk late at night in a cheap bar in the midwest. It is the ranting of a pub boor.
I am going to keep "expansive and enigmatic" as a decent euphemism for alarmingly demented.
The effing loon is now proclaiming himself the saviour of NATO.
With virtually every European nation now refusing to meet him in private at Davos to “negotiate,” the utterly unhinged president of the US has now began writing an endless stream of nonsensical tweets. https://x.com/Daractenus/status/2013658554247319927
As my dad succumbed to dementia, he was prey to all sorts of nonsensical ideas, but he retained an essential politeness to the end.
Trump, in turn, seems to be retaining his inner raging arsehole.
I watch a lot of Mary Trump's analysis. Niece and psychoanalyst. Mary maintains Donald was always an over indulged misogynist child and manchild.
The effing loon is now proclaiming himself the saviour of NATO.
With virtually every European nation now refusing to meet him in private at Davos to “negotiate,” the utterly unhinged president of the US has now began writing an endless stream of nonsensical tweets. https://x.com/Daractenus/status/2013658554247319927
As my dad succumbed to dementia, he was prey to all sorts of nonsensical ideas, but he retained an essential politeness to the end.
Trump, in turn, seems to be retaining his inner raging arsehole.
I watch a lot of Mary Trump's analysis. Niece and psychoanalyst. Mary maintains Donald was always an over indulged misogynist child and manchild.
Chagos was an open goal for Trump, and he's right. His narrative on Greenland is that 'Europe' (in Greenland's case Denmark) will fail to defend territories in its control, ceding more and more power until an independent Greenland is gobbled up by Chinese money.
That's exactly what has happened in Chagos. We can bung Mauritius all the money we want, but we cannot stop them gradually undermining the security of Diego Garcia (from an American perspective) by aligning progressively with China's ambitions in the region. We have been weak, and US security has suffered. It doesn't matter that we've stuffed the Mauritian's mouths with gold to do what we want - without it being British sovereign territory we have no ability to enforce it.
It also completely undermines Starmer's argument that the Greenlanders have a right to self determination. What self-determination has he given to the Chagossians? The man is a moral vacuum, totally unable to spot his own glaring hypocrisy.
Trump's argument isn't perfect. The biggest counterargument is that the US could have as many more soldiers in Greenland as it likes under the current arrangement.
However, the fact that Starmer's antipatriotic Chagos policy has given Trump a case study in European weakness to highlight is nobody's fault but Starmer's.
It's about legal process. Under the conventions of decolonisation, a colony must be given back to whatever political unit (checks notes) has some kind of administrative claim to it. Then the colony can try for independence. No democracy is involved in the first steps.
Because when the conventions on decolonisation were created, most countries in the world weren't democracies. And even more states regarded democratic self determination of sub-units as treason.
So, according to The Process, we must give Chagos to Mauritius.
Comments
And Farage is his best mate
Anyone voting Reform needs to wake up
WG seems to have gone quiet as well, has he died of embarassment?
Preferably while he was standing next to Vance so both of them get knocked down.
The NHS may have inadvertently benefited from December's resident doctors' strike, with health leaders suggesting that senior consultants covering for their younger colleagues helped ease winter pressures through more confident clinical decision-making.
Experienced doctors were often quicker to discharge patients, helping hospitals avoid bed pressures, it is suggested.
The five-day industrial action before Christmas appears to have contributed to stronger NHS performance this winter compared to recent years.
Speaking on an NHS Confederation podcast, Nick Hulme, who recently retired as chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while the strikes were challenging, they had acted as “a bit of a fire break” as a result of senior decision makers “discharging patients a bit earlier, not ordering so many diagnostic tests, not admitting as many patients through the front door”.
Mr Hulme noted that "walking into Colchester hospital on Christmas morning with 100 empty beds is something I hadn't done for probably five years".
Several health officials, speaking to the Financial Times, confirmed that accident and emergency departments ran more smoothly during the walk out because senior consultants made quicker discharge decisions and ordered fewer diagnostic tests.
One unnamed hospital boss observed that A&E "works so much better when there is a strike" due to consultants’ more confident decision-making.
Bed occupancy rates fell to 81.2% on Christmas Day – comfortably below the 85% threshold deemed safe by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Only a handful of hospitals declared "critical incidents" this winter, compared to potentially two to four times that number in severe winters, according to Rory Deighton, director of the Acute Network at the NHS Confederation.
However, health leaders cautioned against oversimplifying the situation. Deighton pointed to far more detailed pre-winter planning and reforms promoting closer collaboration between hospitals and community services as important factors. Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King's Fund, suggested the NHS had "got lucky" by avoiding severe demand-side pressures, though flu arrived earlier than usual before levelling off from mid-December.
The British Medical Association responded strongly to suggestions that strikes had improved NHS performance. Dr Helen Neary and Dr Shanu Datta, consultants committee co-chairs, said it was "interesting" that politicians and NHS leaders previously warned of health service collapse during strikes, yet managers now suggested "the opposite in fact happened".
They had to abandon it after a week as there were so many comments on the dramatic improvement in the level of service.
My wife is so disgusted she has gone to bed in utter despair
In her 86 years and my 82 we have never watching anything as serious and out of control
Goodness only knows what he is going say
This is why software development is more productive in the U.K. than in India, for some areas.
Oh, no, wait. As you were.
Trump seems 'very quiet and low key'
Sarah Smith
North America editor at the White House
Donald Trump seems very quiet and low key as he arrives in the briefing room.
Even though he is talking about one of his favourite topics – his immigration crackdown – he doesn’t have his usual passion and bombast.
In the room I can barely hear some of what he is saying. We know he was up late last night posting on social media about Greenland and criticising European leaders.
Maybe he didn't get enough sleep...
Reform are quite correct to challenge this.
1 +5
2 +3
3 60
4 42
5 Reform, +12
6 19%
7 10
8 Keir Starmer
9 No
10 £140bn
11 0.9%
12 England
My post is about the well-known effect whereby people's willingness to support or oppose policies varies depending on the partisan label attached to it.
See also:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx2k7gv0znmt
https://news.sky.com/story/greenland-live-trump-tariffs-nobel-peace-prize-latest-starmer-13489831
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/
I would have thought that was obvious from context.
People are really unnecessarily touchy.
Corruption is a system optimised for corruption, rather than rationality.
Are we seeing another ?
We’re not watching Trump. Catching up on last weeks TV as we were in Lanzarote.
I wonder if he’ll offer a view on Brooklyn Beckham.
Oh, you didn't mean Trump?
FFS BBC.
..This is the president in his most enigmatic and expansive mood. During the campaign this used to be called "the weave" – meandering from subject to subject, often the connections not immediately obvious.
Then there are the odd little interludes – the most bizarre this time when he mused about a ring binder when he closed it and joked it could have taken his finger off...
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House?
41
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate?
+2
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election?
60
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election?
47
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage? (British Polling Council registered pollsters only).
Reform 12%
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC?
19
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026?
9
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026?
Kair Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026?
No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025).
£137bn
11.UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025).
2.3%
12 Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.
Brazil
I understand Kemi might have opined that Trump wouldn't be threatening Greenland if Kemi was PM.
General election now!
If you want to give a poster a good slap, I'm still here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Table_Talk
Sadist to Masochist - ‘No’
I’m here all week. Try the fish,
Maybe SeanF is right, and this is a Ceaușescu moment.
Sort of sums him up - he would have been fine about it if her father had been a Biden fan.
But carefully shuffled aside in the latter.
The $ has been dropping for a couple of days but seems to have stabilised now. Maybe the currency traders have concluded he will be led away soon.
That's exactly what has happened in Chagos. We can bung Mauritius all the money we want, but we cannot stop them gradually undermining the security of Diego Garcia (from an American perspective) by aligning progressively with China's ambitions in the region. We have been weak, and US security has suffered. It doesn't matter that we've stuffed the Mauritian's mouths with gold to do what we want - without it being British sovereign territory we have no ability to enforce it.
It also completely undermines Starmer's argument that the Greenlanders have a right to self determination. What self-determination has he given to the Chagossians? The man is a moral vacuum, totally unable to spot his own glaring hypocrisy.
Trump's argument isn't perfect. The biggest counterargument is that the US could have as many more soldiers in Greenland as it likes under the current arrangement.
However, the fact that Starmer's antipatriotic Chagos policy has given Trump a case study in European weakness to highlight is nobody's fault but Starmer's.
Will Newsom make the next Presidential Election?
https://x.com/luetin09/status/2013569385990877510?s=12
Even the Slovenian ones.
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
We are all going to die of natural causes before Trump stops ranting today. This is incredible.
https://x.com/atrupar
But he should be in care, not the White House.
This shit is gonna fuck everyday americans.
Because when the conventions on decolonisation were created, most countries in the world weren't democracies. And even more states regarded democratic self determination of sub-units as treason.
So, according to The Process, we must give Chagos to Mauritius.