Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
I wonder if there is any merit for breaking up the Defence Budget as one block and break it down into its constituent parts to be considered very separately on the basis of need rather than having internal bunfights between the services.
This already happens. I am now at the age where some of my old comrades are very senior and I occasionally get a glimpse behind the tattered curtain at the MoD. The Navy and RAF are in throes of ecstasy over Ajax, the Army and Navy very sincerely hope that GCAP is a colossal, expensive and very visible failure, etc. They all know they have to fight each other much harder than they'll ever have to fight the Russians or fuck knows who for a bigger portion of the same pile of taxpayers' money.
The solution would be a much more unified UK Defence Force with lots of 'purple' roles at the top but the Daily Mail wouldn't stand for it.
What's a "purple" role?
One that combines oversight of all armed services. Purple being the notional shade of all of the uniform colours mixed.
There's also the ‘Purple Zone’ - the intersection of responsibilities/powers of elected parliamentarians (‘Blue Zone’) and those of the civil service (‘Red Zone’).
I don't think we do that particularly well, either.
Families to save in biggest home upgrade plan in British history
Government launches Warm Homes Plan to upgrade the nation's homes, help families cut their energy bills, and tackle fuel poverty.
Government launches £15 billion Warm Homes Plan to help millions of families benefit from solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation that can cut energy bills.
Does it help people who live in leasehold flats? Asking for a friend called "me".
Yes but over a longish period for landlords to make improvements. From the linked release:-
NEW PROTECTIONS FOR RENTERS:
Today, 1.6 million children live in private accommodation suffering from cold, damp, or mould.
The government believes in a simple principle that if you rent a home, private or social, a landlord has a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, warm, and affordable.
I own (well, the bank does via the mortgage) the leasehold on the flat. The flat is one of several in the block. The freehold company owns the freehold.
The package in the linked release says it is also for owner occupiers.
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
The EU, though, if von der Leyen's announcement yesterday proves out, is set to become a far more integrated market still, with EU wide company law and capital markets.
It might well run into the sands, but it also has the potential to become a serious counterbalance to the US and China.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
Why? He was comfortable in Dubya's company
Not keen on Dubya either, but given him or Trump (etc) .......
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Starmer is really struggling to defend his position on Chagos.
Did you listen to the same broadcast as I did. It was a poor gotcha question from Badenoch, and yes his answer wasn't very convincing, but no more than usual. He got the better of her by the end. He also very unusually got the better of Ed.
The EU and the CPTPP differ profoundly in terms of scope and depth. Closer links are of course desirable, but to think that such links remove the question of Britain’s deeper access to the European single market are simply ignorant.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
He fraternised with Putin in the early 2000's and had private dealings with at least one dictatorship (Azeri). Course his biggest black mark is taking money from Ellison.
I hope Trump vetoes the Mauritius deal its a real dog.
If Starmer cant face up to owning some real estate in the Indian Ocean, he shpuld hand it over to the US
US gets permanence for a key base US can offer citizenship to Chagossians whereas UK treats them like shit UK taxpayer saves £100million a year rent.
Starmer really is a dimwit.
I thought it was a Tory scheme..... in particular, Cleverly's ....... originally.
And there will be one major objection, in Trump's 'mind' to offering the Chagossiams citizenship.
This is the standard drivel coming from the Left.
You spend 14 years saying everything the Tories did was wrong and then you accelerate the fk ups they have made instead of killing them dead and saying they were wrong.
Cleverly was wrong and so is Starmer.
I didn't say that the scheme, was "right". However it does seem to me that if we, or anyone else, have military bases on someone else's territory, there should a quid pro quo of some kind. I do think that the Chagossians should have the choice of whether they become citizens of Mauritius or independent. Or, perchance, Sri Lankans.
The moral approach could have been to
1) identify the Chagossians 2) implement a digital id for them (since they are scattered). It could be a test of creating digital id without vast databases and stupid over reach. See the systems that are used in Estonia, for example. 3) using the digital id, they get to elect some representatives 4) negotiate a deal with those representatives 5) have a referendum among the Chagossians to seal the deal. 6) implement the deal
I’m sure someone will claim that this wouldn’t be cricket.
Cricket, based on the recent Ashes, involves poor planning by England leadership and then capitulation in short order. More like the current deal.
But seriously - surely such a process would meet the ICJ requirements?
It might upset others, but trying to sell the line “democratically consulting the displaced people on what to do about their displacement, and paying any compensation/lease money to their directly elected representatives is bad” wouldn’t get far?
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
When America left the TPP discussions, and it became the CPTPP, all the America-specific clauses were removed. How many EU-specific clauses would the CPTPP members allow to be added for the prize of the EU joining?
In fact, the CPTPP would be the harder organization to marshal: every country has a veto. Whereas the EU can sign trade agreements as it chooses, without veto.
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
He fraternised with Putin in the early 2000's and had private dealings with at least one dictatorship (Azeri). Course his biggest black mark is taking money from Ellison.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
I hope Trump vetoes the Mauritius deal its a real dog.
If Starmer cant face up to owning some real estate in the Indian Ocean, he shpuld hand it over to the US
US gets permanence for a key base US can offer citizenship to Chagossians whereas UK treats them like shit UK taxpayer saves £100million a year rent.
Starmer really is a dimwit.
I thought it was a Tory scheme..... in particular, Cleverly's ....... originally.
And there will be one major objection, in Trump's 'mind' to offering the Chagossiams citizenship.
This is the standard drivel coming from the Left.
You spend 14 years saying everything the Tories did was wrong and then you accelerate the fk ups they have made instead of killing them dead and saying they were wrong.
Cleverly was wrong and so is Starmer.
I didn't say that the scheme, was "right". However it does seem to me that if we, or anyone else, have military bases on someone else's territory, there should a quid pro quo of some kind. I do think that the Chagossians should have the choice of whether they become citizens of Mauritius or independent. Or, perchance, Sri Lankans.
The moral approach could have been to
1) identify the Chagossians 2) implement a digital id for them (since they are scattered). It could be a test of creating digital id without vast databases and stupid over reach. See the systems that are used in Estonia, for example. 3) using the digital id, they get to elect some representatives 4) negotiate a deal with those representatives 5) have a referendum among the Chagossians to seal the deal. 6) implement the deal
I’m sure someone will claim that this wouldn’t be cricket.
Cricket, based on the recent Ashes, involves poor planning by England leadership and then capitulation in short order. More like the current deal.
But seriously - surely such a process would meet the ICJ requirements?
It might upset others, but trying to sell the line “democratically consulting the displaced people on what to do about their displacement, and paying any compensation/lease money to their directly elected representatives is bad” wouldn’t get far?
It would be "the right thing to do" and so, as Sir Humphrey once noted, would create a dangerous precedent.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
I hope Trump vetoes the Mauritius deal its a real dog.
If Starmer cant face up to owning some real estate in the Indian Ocean, he shpuld hand it over to the US
US gets permanence for a key base US can offer citizenship to Chagossians whereas UK treats them like shit UK taxpayer saves £100million a year rent.
Starmer really is a dimwit.
I thought it was a Tory scheme..... in particular, Cleverly's ....... originally.
And there will be one major objection, in Trump's 'mind' to offering the Chagossiams citizenship.
This is the standard drivel coming from the Left.
You spend 14 years saying everything the Tories did was wrong and then you accelerate the fk ups they have made instead of killing them dead and saying they were wrong.
Cleverly was wrong and so is Starmer.
I didn't say that the scheme, was "right". However it does seem to me that if we, or anyone else, have military bases on someone else's territory, there should a quid pro quo of some kind. I do think that the Chagossians should have the choice of whether they become citizens of Mauritius or independent. Or, perchance, Sri Lankans.
The moral approach could have been to
1) identify the Chagossians 2) implement a digital id for them (since they are scattered). It could be a test of creating digital id without vast databases and stupid over reach. See the systems that are used in Estonia, for example. 3) using the digital id, they get to elect some representatives 4) negotiate a deal with those representatives 5) have a referendum among the Chagossians to seal the deal. 6) implement the deal
I’m sure someone will claim that this wouldn’t be cricket.
Cricket, based on the recent Ashes, involves poor planning by England leadership and then capitulation in short order. More like the current deal.
But seriously - surely such a process would meet the ICJ requirements?
It might upset others, but trying to sell the line “democratically consulting the displaced people on what to do about their displacement, and paying any compensation/lease money to their directly elected representatives is bad” wouldn’t get far?
It would be "the right thing to do" and so, as Sir Humphrey once noted, would create a dangerous precedent.
But yes, a good approach.
I don’t see more danger than the current agreement.
It’s both moral and meets the spirit of the ICJ judgement.
Trump launching Spectre (with Tony Blair as Number Two) is just as fascinating as his Greenland push. He literally wants to rewrite the global order in his own image.
Carney's speech was top drawer. Take the sign out of the window, the old order is gone. Even if Trump drops dead later we aren't going to see MAGA pull back from this.
This is not "lets rejoin the EU" because I am certain we are now to see that evolve significantly with its relationships globally. A trade block that doesn't have Canada and the UK and Japan and South Korea in it is pointless. So yes, lets glue together the relevant pieces. Defence is no longer just military, its economic and electronic.
I must say I thought better of Tony Blair than that he would sit on a committee with Trump, Putin and so on.
'The BBC has announced a landmark deal with YouTube, which will see the corporation make content that is tailor-made for the video streaming service.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Carney's speech yesterday. Watch from 11 minutes in. Extraordinarily powerful stuff, a must watch.
I just watched the whole thing and would recommend it.
It's the most clear sighted account of the changing world we are facing and how countries like the UK should be responding.
Would recommend watching it all.
Agree. Fabulous and let's await Starmer following the lead.
However the speech resolves in outline every middle ranking nation's strategy except for one question: What precisely does Canada do if, having annexed Greenland in 2026, the USA armed forces enter Canada in 2027 and seek to take over?
It was delusional to ask, but now it isn't. We know why Carney didn't touch on it, but it is still a question. Is he in fact accidentally saying to Trump: If you want to take over Canada you had better do it quickly because we are getting ready?
Canadian defence spending is growing very quickly, albeit from a low base. It was up by 39% above inflation last year. (UK defence spending rose by 4.4% above inflation last year)
I guess it's the sort of thing that you would want to do in private as much as possible, but Britain really ought to be working hard to make sure that the nuclear deterrent can be sustained with US obstructionism. One of the benefits of an Anglo-Canadian Union would be extending Britain's nuclear deterrent to cover Canada, but that's no good if the US can put it out of action.
The latest figures from NATO on defence spending (pdf) are interesting to look at. There are obviously some countries that are responding with an appropriate level of seriousness in terms of rapidly increasing their spending on defence, particularly if you look at countries that are already above the old 2% target that are still increasing their spending rapidly:
Denmark +45% Finland +17% Latvia +13% Lithuania +34% Netherlands +26% Norway +50% Poland +22% Sweden +11% Turkiye +12%
The UK sticks out as a country already above the 2% target that is doing very little to increase spending further. Britain has a self-image of being stronger on defence then the continental Europeans, but we're starting to become a laggard now.
How do we know they're not doing what the UK did a while back, and redefining what constitutes 'defence' spending to embrace previously excluded categories? There's an accepted NATO definition, but the UK now adds in a proportion of security services spending, cybersecurity activity, various non-MoD R&D.
Other countries already do such things - Italy, for example, credits its entire spend on the Carabinieri as defence spending, despite their day to day activities mostly being humdrum stuff like roadside checks on drivers. Indeed the US is the biggest spender, but also uses the broadest definition of all, including its entire intelligence community (all 18 agencies), all of its space expenditure, all of its nuclear expenditure, the myriad veterans' benefits such as their medical scheme (which alone, in cash terms, exceeds what many NATO members spend on defence in total!), coastguard, homeland security, multi-agency R&D - such that comparing defence spending between nations can be a pretty meaningless exercise, unless you are willing to go do a lot of work breaking the spending down into categories.
And even where there's an accepted definition - for example armed forces' pensions count as defence spending, and comprise almost a tenth of UK's declared total - that money's not going to help us fend off the Russkies, is it?
The UK should strip out the nuclear deterrent from the defence budget as it’s not likely to be used so doesn’t help anyone with planning etc - if it’s ever used then budgets mean nothing anymore anyway.
I wonder if there is any merit for breaking up the Defence Budget as one block and break it down into its constituent parts to be considered very separately on the basis of need rather than having internal bunfights between the services.
So for example the RAF have to go to the treasury and explain what they need and why they need it and agree their own budget, the Navy and Army the same. It might focus politicians minds on which areas are more important and what our role actually should/can be.
In a world where Putin, Trump and Xi have nuclear weapons, using the UK nuclear weapons would be foolhardy.
Instead we would be reliant on protection from the French nuclear missile umbrella until a more amendable US President is elected
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
You are reading into it more than what is there.
Here's what he actually said: ...On plurilateral trade, we’re championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific partnership (sic) and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people on critical minerals..
And that part of his speech was subordinate to the bit where he talked about Canada's actual trade and security deals.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Far too early to read the fallout of defections in the polls but interesting the Greens took a seat off Reform yesterday
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
Tell them to go f*** themselves and move on, what have we got to lose?
From the government's perspective, and not one I particularly share... If the UK, a traditional champion of the rules based international order, decided just to wipe its arse on an already signed agreement then the consequences would be the destruction of the credibility of the ICJ (it may as well not exist at that point), reputational damage to the UK (post Brexit everybody hates us and we don't care anywhere) and creates legal, if not actual, uncertainty over the status of NSF Diego Garcia.
Trump banging on about it possibly helps SKS domestically because just about everybody in the UK fucking hates him and will gravitate to an opposing position.
Not really, it brings attention to something that previously nobody was aware of or understood. There's nobody actually stupid enough to be made aware of the policy and think it is a good one *present company excepted.
Ergo, the elites abandoned renewables and climate change justice overnight.
The Chinese AI boom is being fuelled almost entirely by renewables.
There's some interesting commentary on that which suggests they're actually focused on building sufficient grid power for mass robotics (which will likely require more power than current AI demands) in the anticipation that they can get ahead of the US in that, and catch up later in AI.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Far too early to read the fallout of defections in the polls but interesting the Greens took a seat off Reform yesterday
Advance also stood and took some Reform votes and looks like was Labour and LD tactical voting for the Greens who were second in that seat last year to Reform
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
I’m not following Parliament, but Starmer sounds 100% correct there. I do hope Badenoch is not playing a cynical game during this moment of acute crisis, her own positioning has been totally erratic.
'The BBC has announced a landmark deal with YouTube, which will see the corporation make content that is tailor-made for the video streaming service.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
ITV has also been using YouTube but so far no purpose-made content sfaict. Just this morning I was watching the pilot episode of Endeavour.
As for the Winter Olympics, I suspect dumping half of it onto YouTube will cause sighs of relief for the channel controllers. It is also a reminder that Netflix is said to regard YouTube and not the other streamers as its main competitor, and Netflix has had limited success with live events, although they will no doubt catch up fast.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Far too early to read the fallout of defections in the polls but interesting the Greens took a seat off Reform yesterday
Advance also stood and took some Reform votes and looks like was Labour and LD tactical voting for the Greens who were second in that seat last year to Reform
It looks like conservative and labour tactical voting to. keep out reform
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Far too early to read the fallout of defections in the polls but interesting the Greens took a seat off Reform yesterday
There were two by-elections in Amber Valley (Derbyshire) yesterday. Real Reform country - a Con/Lab marginal where they came a strong second at the General Election - nearly 30% vote share, with the sitting Tory MP knocked back into third.
The county council result - which Reform were defending, they were handily beaten by the Greens. Obvs tactical voting. The district council result, OTOH, (a Labour defence) Reform very handily won.
Make of that what you will, (though I would have expected Reform to have won both comfortably)
And even where there's an accepted definition - for example armed forces' pensions count as defence spending, and comprise almost a tenth of UK's declared total - that money's not going to help us fend off the Russkies, is it?
People aren't going to join the armed forces without a decent pension scheme, so I think pensions should count as defence spending.
Think of this the other way around: if armed forces' pensions aren't defence spending, what are they? They're not education spending!
Of course, but it depends on the purpose of making these comparisons, or in challenging countries where the total spend appears low.
Having a massive army that are all retired so you're spending £££ on pensions but not much else, isn't going to defend the country!
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
100%, although most acutely for Starmer who is supposed to be the PM.
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing. Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
I agree, but I don’t blame Starmer for making the right noises on maintaining alliances with the US if in the background he is laying the groundwork for that shift.
What worries me is I see very limited movement on that. We need to be bolder.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
That is what Carney was suggesting, but such an approach has its limits. Look at the time it has taken for the Coalition of the Willing to come to with a plan for assisting post-ceasefire Ukraine. It's very slow. You are herding cats on every issue.
You need some sort of system with centralised executive authority to be able to react rapidly and decisively in a crisis situation. I don't know the details of how NATO works, and how far the authority of SACEUR extends in responding to a Russian incursion into Estonia, for example, but I think we need to think about pooling executive authority to be able to react better to events, while having more distributed authority for those issues where there is less urgency to decide on the details.
So looks like the main beneficiaries of Jenrick's defection were Starmer and Davey, with Labour and LDs both up 1% with MiC in a poll taken entirely after the Jenrick defection and the Tories and Reform unchanged.
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Far too early to read the fallout of defections in the polls but interesting the Greens took a seat off Reform yesterday
There were two by-elections in Amber Valley (Derbyshire) yesterday. Real Reform country - a Con/Lab marginal where they came a strong second at the General Election - nearly 30% vote share, with the sitting Tory MP knocked back into third.
The county council result - which Reform were defending, they were handily beaten by the Greens. Obvs tactical voting. The district council result, OTOH, (a Labour defence) Reform very handily won.
Make of that what you will, (though I would have expected Reform to have won both comfortably)
The takeways appear to be:
- people like voting Reform to chuck out an incumbent from one of the "failed" parties, but once Reform becomes the incumbent, their appeal drops away;
- centre-left voters really are up for tactical voting against Reform
The 'new EU' stumbles at its first hurdle. This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
BARTIROMO: I mean, we talk about evil action from Putin going into Ukraine. People are looking at Greenland and saying, 'How is it possible the US can acquire another country even though they're pushing back?'
LUTNICK: I don't remember Greenland being another country. We're not taking over Denmark.
'The BBC has announced a landmark deal with YouTube, which will see the corporation make content that is tailor-made for the video streaming service.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
ITV has also been using YouTube but so far no purpose-made content sfaict. Just this morning I was watching the pilot episode of Endeavour.
As for the Winter Olympics, I suspect dumping half of it onto YouTube will cause sighs of relief for the channel controllers. It is also a reminder that Netflix is said to regard YouTube and not the other streamers as its main competitor, and Netflix has had limited success with live events, although they will no doubt catch up fast.
BARB thinks that YouTube already has a higher monthly reach than any of the other broadcast groups it tracks.
It gets a barnacle off the underside of the boat and the actual people themselves don't want the transfer iirc.
The views of the Chagossians are mixed. Some support the transfer.
Is there some value in sticking to international law at this time? Can we see any examples where ignoring international law has led a country to poor decisions?
I am happy to return the Chagos to Mauritius and aid resettlement of the Chaggossians who wish to return there.
I don't see why we should pay to rent the US base their. Let the Yanks pay Mauritius.
When were the Chagos owned by Mauritius?
Until we illegally detached them in 1968 according to the UN and International Court of Justice:
The fact that we deported the Chaggossians to Mauritius and Seychelles indicates that we recognised that they were Mauritians. We denied them UK passports until 2002.
We did this purely in order to furnish the USA with a military base.
That would be the ICJ ruling that is explicitly non-binding?
Tell them to go f*** themselves and move on, what have we got to lose?
Then everyone else ignore ICJ rulings, and the bottom of that slippery slope is Trump and Miller saying the US should own Greenland by right of force.
They already do. What's the problem?
If every other country starts doing similar.
They already do.
Countries already do place their own interests first.
Countries already do have to invest in defence to prevent invasions.
We do not need to pretend international law is fine and dandy and followed by everyone, we need to invest in the military and send aid to allies like Ukraine so they can defeat any invaders.
That’s available in his software update version 12.1.1 - currently in alpha testing
There were some good jokes from Starmer and he quickly pivoted to serious mode when Jenrick asked a question about a specific murder rather than going off on a Reform rant.
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
100%, although most acutely for Starmer who is supposed to be the PM.
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing. Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
That’s available in his software update version 12.1.1 - currently in alpha testing
There were some good jokes from Starmer and he quickly pivoted to serious mode when Jenrick asked a question about a specific murder rather than going off on a Reform rant.
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
You may have missed Starmer's repeated reference to the highest defence spending since the last Labour government. As in almost everything, Kemi faces the problem of 14 blue years.
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
100%, although most acutely for Starmer who is supposed to be the PM.
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing. Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
There was. It was just empty,
Nah. An empty Ming vase is still a thing of beauty - and value.
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
You may have missed Starmer's repeated reference to the highest defence spending since the last Labour government. As in almost everything, Kemi faces the problem of 14 blue years.
Which is fine as rhetoric. But the reality is that the increase in defence spending is for now insignificant.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
Absolutely.
The lesson we should take from Trump, Orban etc is the same that was commonly mentioned during Covid, the importance of redundancy and the Swiss Cheese Model of risk management.
Those suggesting we should have a single European defence to counterbalance America have drawn completely the wrong answer. That leads to a single point of failure in Europe. What happens if Europe is led by a Trump.
Far better is divergence and looser alliances with redundancy. Yes, redundancy is more expensive and less efficient, but as the Swiss Cheese Model shows, when it comes to Defence and Risk Management then redundancy works, by not allowing single Critical Control Points that can fail.
The 'new EU' stumbles at its first hurdle. This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
US Members of Congress and the leader of Romania's far-right pro-Russian AUR party, long known to be a Russian agent, cutting pieces off a Greenland cake. Reality has been warped to the point it no longer feels real.
The 'new EU' stumbles at its first hurdle. This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
There must be serious questions about dealing with the Mercosur grouping, what with Venezuela now being governed by one Donald Trump (albeit their membership is suspended).
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
Just like NATO. I still hold that our vest way forward is to restructure NATO without the Americans
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
Just like NATO. I still hold that our vest way forward is to restructure NATO without the Americans
I have not posted for about 2 weeks and more relevant I have not been lurking either during this time. I decided I needed a break. I'm not flouncing and I may well be back in time, but even with my modest level of posting I do spend a lot of time lurking and I do have a busy life.
Mostly I will miss the superb humour and the news. I was going to list out those that I will miss most, but realised I would miss too many out.
The deciding factor was again being sucked into one of those pointless debates, which is such a waste of time, but which sadly I fall into the trap of rather than dealing with, with wit and humour, like most of you do so well.
It was the debate on driving (U turns, 70mph across roundabouts, bends, stopping at roundabouts, etc). As some of you will be aware from my past posts I have quite a few friends who are existing, or ex-cops, including a retired Chief Superintendent, a Royal Protection Officer and a number of blue light drivers, all with the highest driving qualifications. I showed some of them the posts being made by 'we all know who', and typical comments were 'What a load of bollocks' and 'Shouldn't be allowed behind a steering wheel'.
But more relevant was why did I feel the need to do that? So before I do the same again and waste more of my time I am taking a break for a bit.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
Just like NATO. I still hold that our vest way forward is to restructure NATO without the Americans
Realistically, our best way forward is to try to get through two or three years then hope the next American president is less erratic.
'The BBC has announced a landmark deal with YouTube, which will see the corporation make content that is tailor-made for the video streaming service.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
ITV has also been using YouTube but so far no purpose-made content sfaict. Just this morning I was watching the pilot episode of Endeavour.
As for the Winter Olympics, I suspect dumping half of it onto YouTube will cause sighs of relief for the channel controllers. It is also a reminder that Netflix is said to regard YouTube and not the other streamers as its main competitor, and Netflix has had limited success with live events, although they will no doubt catch up fast.
BARB thinks that YouTube already has a higher monthly reach than any of the other broadcast groups it tracks.
While I was waiting in the chemist last week an older chap, must have been at least 70, came in and was chatting with one of the staff. She asked if he'd seen something (Traitors, maybe, can't remember) on TV last night and he replied, no, he didn't watch TV any more, only YouTube. I do wonder if that's a lot more widespread than we think.
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
I’m not following Parliament, but Starmer sounds 100% correct there. I do hope Badenoch is not playing a cynical game during this moment of acute crisis, her own positioning has been totally erratic.
We're in a tricky place where we have to keep the relationship with the US alive for as long as possible while preparing as quickly as possible for its future collapse. In that context I see Starmer's public statements as sensible, but the evidence of defence spending increases (of less than 5% last year in real terms) is that Starmer is not preparing Britain for the future where the relationship with the US deteriorates to the point that they won't support a British nuclear deterrence.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
Just like NATO. I still hold that our vest way forward is to restructure NATO without the Americans
Realistically, our best way forward is to try to get through two or three years then hope the next American president is less erratic.
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
100%, although most acutely for Starmer who is supposed to be the PM.
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing. Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
There was. It was just empty,
Nah. An empty Ming vase is still a thing of beauty - and value.
What Mark Carney has done, although incidentally, is expose the failure of Starmer and Kemi to outline any sort of political philosophy for their parties.
100%, although most acutely for Starmer who is supposed to be the PM.
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing. Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
There was. It was just empty,
Nah. An empty Ming vase is still a thing of beauty - and value.
There was no Ming vase.
Winning the election, from Starmer's point of view, was the thing of beauty and value.
I have not posted for about 2 weeks and more relevant I have not been lurking either during this time. I decided I needed a break. I'm not flouncing and I may well be back in time, but even with my modest level of posting I do spend a lot of time lurking and I do have a busy life.
Mostly I will miss the superb humour and the news. I was going to list out those that I will miss most, but realised I would miss too many out.
The deciding factor was again being sucked into one of those pointless debates, which is such a waste of time, but which sadly I fall into the trap of rather than dealing with, with wit and humour, like most of you do so well.
It was the debate on driving (U turns, 70mph across roundabouts, bends, stopping at roundabouts, etc). As some of you will be aware from my past posts I have quite a few friends who are existing, or ex-cops, including a retired Chief Superintendent, a Royal Protection Officer and a number of blue light drivers, all with the highest driving qualifications. I showed some of them the posts being made by 'we all know who', and typical comments were 'What a load of bollocks' and 'Shouldn't be allowed behind a steering wheel'.
But more relevant was why did I feel the need to do that? So before I do the same again and waste more of my time I am taking a break for a bit.
See you all soon.
It was ridiculous debate and sorry you feel you need to take a break
I have on occasions felt I should take a break but it is an important forum for political and topical debate
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
You may have missed Starmer's repeated reference to the highest defence spending since the last Labour government. As in almost everything, Kemi faces the problem of 14 blue years.
The partisan kickabout doesn't really bother or interest me. What I want to see is the government of the day taking the necessary action on defence, and opposition politicians putting pressure on them to do so.
Hodges jumping the gun there. In a later response to Davey Starmer said:
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity. ... Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
I’m not following Parliament, but Starmer sounds 100% correct there. I do hope Badenoch is not playing a cynical game during this moment of acute crisis, her own positioning has been totally erratic.
We're in a tricky place where we have to keep the relationship with the US alive for as long as possible while preparing as quickly as possible for its future collapse. In that context I see Starmer's public statements as sensible, but the evidence of defence spending increases (of less than 5% last year in real terms) is that Starmer is not preparing Britain for the future where the relationship with the US deteriorates to the point that they won't support a British nuclear deterrence.
That's an extremely dangerous failure.
We need to spend as much as necessary to extricate ourselves from our reliance on American weaponry. I don’t care whether it’s by tax rises or increasing borrowing.
Commentators on Sky pleading with leaders not to text Trump as he will put the texts out into the public domain
Also asking why Starmer is not in Davos to speak directly with Trump
Seems wide appoval for Carney as an example to other leaders
I am so old I remember when people like you used to criticise Starmer for going on foreign trips.
I am posting the media comments and on this occasion they are right
Thank you Lord Astor.
Starmer is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I am surprised he didn't go, but then it has the ingredients for a Trump shit show.
Is attending showing solidarity with our allies, or with Trump? Does Farage get an audience whilst Starmer is rejected by Trump? Starmer would look a right Charlie if that happened.
I don't know whether any on here know of Jeffrey Sachs but he really is worth listening to. I've just come to the end of the piece i posted earlier and he not only predicted exactly what the problems for Europe would be when Trump took over but what Europeans shold do about it. Basically ditch them permanently and understand Russia. Exactly the opposite of what Starmer has done.
As I said earlier Mark Carney has the answer with the merging of the trans pacfic and EU into one trading block without the US or China who are not members of the trans pacific block
No need for rejoining the EU debate either
The question is are the EU leaders upto the challenge ?
Sort of but Carney has included China who he has just signed a major trading agreement with
That was one aspect of his speech which was strangely off.
He quoted "Trans Pacific Partnership", which does not exists because the USA withdrew and killed it, which gave us CPTPP instead - of which China is not a member.
I hope that the UK is engaged with Canada in building CPTPP-EU links, as we have a veto over it from the CPTPP side. That is a bargaining chip in our relationship with Brussels.
I think Carney is after "links", not a merger. Institutionally and philosophically the EU and the CPTPP are very different.
Big_G's idea that it's an alternative to the EU is a bit misguided.
Not mine, but Mark Carney yesterday delivered it in Davos
Where did he call it an alternative to the EU ?
He didn't and I didn't
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
But would that be a block that reduces tariffs, or a single market with shared rules that allowed admin-free trade?
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
Carney certainly spoke about it as a trading block
The other take away from the era of Trump, Putin, Orban etc. is the need for flexible alliances that can work like Lego.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
The overall vote was as follows, listed in the order candidates appeared on the ballot:
John Cowings – Labour – 116 Adrian Miller – Liberal Democrats – 43 Amanda Paget – Conservative – 426 Lian Pizzey – Green Party – 1,341 Juliette Stevens – Reform UK – 1,091 Alex Stevenson – Advance UK – 57
Comments
@DPJHodges
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Starmer finally breaks properly from Trump.
It might well run into the sands, but it also has the potential to become a serious counterbalance to the US and China.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86v5lj39zpo
Sad all round.
Ed, poor too. Q1 allowed Starmer one of his least crap answers for a while.
He said the trans pacific and EU should merge to create a trading block of 1.5 billion people
That merger would de facto include the UK
So not out of character.
It might upset others, but trying to sell the line “democratically consulting the displaced people on what to do about their displacement, and paying any compensation/lease money to their directly elected representatives is bad” wouldn’t get far?
In fact, the CPTPP would be the harder organization to marshal: every country has a veto. Whereas the EU can sign trade agreements as it chooses, without veto.
@ElectionMapsUK
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 31% (=)
CON: 21% (=)
LAB: 20% (+1)
LDM: 13% (+1)
GRN: 11% (-1)
SNP: 2% (=)
Via @Moreincommon, 16-19 Jan.
Changes w/ 10-13 Jan."
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/2013891339063111692
The first is a lot thinner and less useful than the second, but it's hard to see how you get the second without all the politics stuff that brings some out in hives.
But yes, a good approach.
If we had an EU defence policy, Orban and others would be vetoing any action on Ukraine, for example.
A sensible response to that is a looser structure, where one country dropping out over a particular issue doesn’t collapse the whole thing. Different coalitions for different issues.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-18/blair-distances-himself-from-trump-s-1-billion-peace-board-fee
It’s both moral and meets the spirit of the ICJ judgement.
The broadcaster has previously used YouTube, which is owned by Google, to promote clips and trailers for its own shows in the UK.
But the new move will see the BBC make content primarily aimed at YouTube's digital-native younger audience, although it may also be made available on the BBC's iPlayer and Sounds platforms.
The new programmes will feature adverts when viewed from outside of the UK, generating extra funds for the corporation at a time when its future funding model is being debated.
The content will include a mixture of entertainment, news and sport - starting with the Winter Olympics in February.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q4521pg28o
Greens down with MiC though in contrast to Yougov (who also had no bounce for Reform from gaining Jenrick)
Instead we would be reliant on protection from the French nuclear missile umbrella until a more amendable US President is elected
https://x.com/GBPolitcs/status/2013942924589879420?s=20
https://x.com/schneiderhome/status/2013566155454050789?s=20
Here's what he actually said:
...On plurilateral trade, we’re championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific partnership (sic) and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people on critical minerals..
And that part of his speech was subordinate to the bit where he talked about Canada's actual trade and security deals.
https://x.com/i/status/2013944937159528656
"But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity.
...
Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and [de]stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good."
The US has already served notice on that relationship. It will exist only so long as we stay in line. If Britain is to be able to preserve its sovereignty in Trump's new world order, we need to be able to act independently of the US, without defence and intelligence cooperation.
I hope Badenoch will be asking questions about the defence budget every week.
Advance UK third. Ahead of Tories.
That will be the attending one meeting in 6 months, perhaps?
I think that may well be my closest Green councillor, at about 8-9 miles.
As for the Winter Olympics, I suspect dumping half of it onto YouTube will cause sighs of relief for the channel controllers. It is also a reminder that Netflix is said to regard YouTube and not the other streamers as its main competitor, and Netflix has had limited success with live events, although they will no doubt catch up fast.
The county council result - which Reform were defending, they were handily beaten by the Greens. Obvs tactical voting.
The district council result, OTOH, (a Labour defence) Reform very handily won.
Make of that what you will, (though I would have expected Reform to have won both comfortably)
Having a massive army that are all retired so you're spending £££ on pensions but not much else, isn't going to defend the country!
Starmer has no vision, no policy, nothing.
Turns out there simply was no Ming vase.
What worries me is I see very limited movement on that. We need to be bolder.
You need some sort of system with centralised executive authority to be able to react rapidly and decisively in a crisis situation. I don't know the details of how NATO works, and how far the authority of SACEUR extends in responding to a Russian incursion into Estonia, for example, but I think we need to think about pooling executive authority to be able to react better to events, while having more distributed authority for those issues where there is less urgency to decide on the details.
- people like voting Reform to chuck out an incumbent from one of the "failed" parties, but once Reform becomes the incumbent, their appeal drops away;
- centre-left voters really are up for tactical voting against Reform
This is likely to delay the deal by two years.
n a shock result, the European Parliament has just voted to refer 🇪🇺President @VonDerLeyen 's signature of the #Mercosur agreement to the EU's high court by razor-edge vote on 334 to 324.
A heavy blow to the EU's geopolitical ambitions.
https://x.com/DaveKeating/status/2013944096465760574
BARTIROMO: I mean, we talk about evil action from Putin going into Ukraine. People are looking at Greenland and saying, 'How is it possible the US can acquire another country even though they're pushing back?'
LUTNICK: I don't remember Greenland being another country. We're not taking over Denmark.
https://www.barb.co.uk/four-screen-viewing/?period=202512
Countries already do place their own interests first.
Countries already do have to invest in defence to prevent invasions.
We do not need to pretend international law is fine and dandy and followed by everyone, we need to invest in the military and send aid to allies like Ukraine so they can defeat any invaders.
Read the effing room.
Also asking why Starmer is not in Davos to speak directly with Trump
Seems wide appoval for Carney as an example to other leaders
There was no Ming vase.
But the reality is that the increase in defence spending is for now insignificant.
The lesson we should take from Trump, Orban etc is the same that was commonly mentioned during Covid, the importance of redundancy and the Swiss Cheese Model of risk management.
Those suggesting we should have a single European defence to counterbalance America have drawn completely the wrong answer. That leads to a single point of failure in Europe. What happens if Europe is led by a Trump.
Far better is divergence and looser alliances with redundancy. Yes, redundancy is more expensive and less efficient, but as the Swiss Cheese Model shows, when it comes to Defence and Risk Management then redundancy works, by not allowing single Critical Control Points that can fail.
Where’s the UK-Mercosur deal?
Oh, there isn’t one.
Fray Bentos must be tearing their hair out.
An evolution of Corbyn’s trope. “I was neither present nor involved.”
US Members of Congress and the leader of Romania's far-right pro-Russian AUR party, long known to be a Russian agent, cutting pieces off a Greenland cake. Reality has been warped to the point it no longer feels real.
https://x.com/Daractenus/status/2013943121357262927?s=20
Mostly I will miss the superb humour and the news. I was going to list out those that I will miss most, but realised I would miss too many out.
The deciding factor was again being sucked into one of those pointless debates, which is such a waste of time, but which sadly I fall into the trap of rather than dealing with, with wit and humour, like most of you do so well.
It was the debate on driving (U turns, 70mph across roundabouts, bends, stopping at roundabouts, etc). As some of you will be aware from my past posts I have quite a few friends who are existing, or ex-cops, including a retired Chief Superintendent, a Royal Protection Officer and a number of blue light drivers, all with the highest driving qualifications. I showed some of them the posts being made by 'we all know who', and typical comments were 'What a load of bollocks' and 'Shouldn't be allowed behind a steering wheel'.
But more relevant was why did I feel the need to do that? So before I do the same again and waste more of my time I am taking a break for a bit.
See you all soon.
That's an extremely dangerous failure.
I have on occasions felt I should take a break but it is an important forum for political and topical debate
Hope you return soon
Best
💚 Congratulations to Lian Pizzey on being elected in Horsley division on Derbyshire County Council!
Starmer is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I am surprised he didn't go, but then it has the ingredients for a Trump shit show.
Is attending showing solidarity with our allies, or with Trump? Does Farage get an audience whilst Starmer is rejected by Trump? Starmer would look a right Charlie if that happened.
The overall vote was as follows, listed in the order candidates appeared on the ballot:
John Cowings – Labour – 116
Adrian Miller – Liberal Democrats – 43
Amanda Paget – Conservative – 426
Lian Pizzey – Green Party – 1,341
Juliette Stevens – Reform UK – 1,091
Alex Stevenson – Advance UK – 57
I think only @Luckyguy1983 has consistently positioned himself as a U.S.-sceptic, and he’s stark staring bonkers.