'Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey is calling on the government to start building a "fully independent British nuclear deterrent" to end the UK's reliance on the US.
The UK has operational control of its nuclear arsenal, including British-built warheads, but it depends on the US to supply and maintain the Trident missiles that would deliver them.
In a speech to his party's spring conference in York on Sunday, Sir Ed will argue the UK's continued reliance on US support is an unacceptable risk to national security..France, the only other European country with nuclear weapons, has always maintained a fully independent system.
The Lib Dems say France's approach proves a sovereign British capability is achievable.
They argue it could be done in two stages - developing a way to maintain the existing Trident weapons system domestically, and in the longer term manufacturing a fully British-made replacement.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dz1k0rr4o
I'm a bit worried that there may have been something odd in my tea this morning. I agree with Ed!
The way to do it would be to buy the South Korean Hyunmoo-5, invest in their program and go from there.
The important tech is winding large carbon fibre solid fuel rocket casings, and building large nozzles for the rocket. Grain pouring in large sizes is also a bit of an art.
You’d build a factory to build them here, test facilities. Once you have the skills on line, you’d develop the next one as about double the mass. Same as Trident D5
I presume we have many of the skills anyway in that we do make smaller missile systems.
Also, is the idea of one big multi-warhead missile still the best in terms of 'getting through'?
At a random finger in the air guess, a Hyunmoo-5 with a single warhead (or maybe 3?) woukd have the same range as Minuteman 3. The South Koreans have given it an 8 ton conventional warhead - to disguise they are building and deploying an ICBM
Not exactly. It's a genuine non-nuclear deterrent designed to be able to kill Kim however deep he might burrow. But potential nuclear capability is an obvious and intended side effect of that. And it's both a reminder to the US that they aren't indispensable, and insurance against the almost inevitable betrayal if MAGA stays in power.
If S Korea is capable of building it, then so are we. But we'd best sort out our defence procurement incapacity before we even think about trying to do so.
It’s just a variant on what the Japanese did with their 3 stage solid fueled “space launcher”
The South Korean one is really in your face - take a look at the road transporter for it. Copied from Soviet ICBM transporter designs.
Thats the Bombe AI that was also reported for London Theres an article in the Mail on the overall picture - it has Labour fourth in wards won iosing 1700 seats
If the CIA knew that he was talking to the Iranians, then President Trump would have known that also, when he invited Tucker into the Oval a few days before the strike.
Which means Trump may have used Tucker to deceive the Iranians about the likelihood of an impending attack
That would require planning, forethought, some idea of what is going on.
That's three reasons why it didn't happen.
Of course, Fucker Carlson may *think* he has been used that way, which would be epically funny because it would cause him to turn on Trump and give us one positive from this shitshow.
Alien versus Predator
Fucker Carlson like the Veep is one of the few people in the Western world that is worse than Trump.
...Super Kemi in joint 3rd/4th place behind Starmer is intriguing....
After the Article From Hell goes up, I'll have a look at the Con share. There's a tickle in the back of my head that says the Kemissance is artefactual, a combination of using a LOESS curve and pollster publication schedules.
Thats the Bombe AI that was also reported for London Theres an article in the Mail on the overall picture - it has Labour fourth in wards won iosing 1700 seats
Thats the Bombe AI that was also reported for London Theres an article in the Mail on the overall picture - it has Labour fourth in wards won iosing 1700 seats
Thats the Bombe AI that was also reported for London Theres an article in the Mail on the overall picture - it has Labour fourth in wards won iosing 1700 seats
The new gold standard?
There is no Gold Standard
FoN? Ashcroft?
The description 'no gold standard' should clarify that
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
LD seats won't necessarily bear much relation to LD polling. In up to 100 seats they are the centre left proxy for Labour, and come the next election the Not Reform vote (a majority) will coalesce around seat by seat consideration of which of Labour, Green, S/W Nat and LD is best placed. The parties will abjure and hate it, the LOC voters will do it anyway.
A figure to watch is the Left of Centre v Right of Centre total. In this poll its 45% ROC, about 49% LOC. This continues the anti ROC tendency in the last months.
If things are anything like they are now (a big 'if' of course), the Tories will really struggle to deal with the slogan 'A Tory Vote Is A Reform Vote'. Which will mean if you want Reform vote Reform, if you don't, then don't vote Reform or Tory.
If I am right (another big 'if') a Tory decline and a Labour recovery through gritted teeth are both already baked in. DYOR, bet accordingly.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
The Russian arms industry for export has crashed because, admittedly the Ukraine war has demonstrated their products have been shown to be crap, but also because the delivery dates have gone backwards because they need the weapons fo rthwir own purposes.
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
Move fast and break things has consequences. Your problem matey.
Tell America we're willing to help once they have a President who can behave like an adult. Their choice.
Thereby both gratuitously and pointlessly insulting the current President, and positioning us to be involved in whatever global dickery the next one gets involved in, as long as they ask nicely. Great idea.
Why are you called "Lucky" when you are invariably on the wrong side of history? Trump and Truss to name two examples.
Generally a big fan of yours on here Pete, but the phrase "wrong side of history" boils my piss in multiple ways. We left liberal types tend to employ it as if history takes sides.
Take the Vandals. Wrong side of history, which has literally appropriated their name as a word for indiscriminate destruction. Yet, when I hear the phrase "wrong side of history" I imagine some well-meaning young Roman in 455 telling a Vandal ransacking his house
"Stop! Don't you know you're on the wrong side of history?!?".
"Oh, well, I hadn't thought of it like that. Guys, we need to stop sacking Rome! This young gent in a toga has told me we're on the wrong side of history"
Of course, they didn't care, and don't because they're all dead, in fact they established some successful kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa that lasted a while before the Byzantines conquered them. Gibbon famously regarded the Byzantines as being "on the wrong side of history".
Similarly, I don't think "wrong side of history" is the killer line to today's reactionaries we think it is. Sorry to be critical but, as I say, it's a phrase that boils my piss.
'The wrong side of history' can have a sort of meaning in the short term and a particular context. Supporters of hand written manuscripts were on the wrong side WRT old style printing, who are on the wrong side WRT computer created material, etc. But they will all be on the wrong side of something else. And humanity as a whole (it seems to me) will be on the wrong side of history WRT spiders and beetles if you wait long enough.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I am sure he has, what with golden showers and teenage kicks right through the night. Although I suspect even with this detail you are still mistakenly attempting to rationalise the irrational. The man is certifiably bonkers, and incredibly thick, both skinned and in the head.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I think Trump genuinely admires Putin. I don't think there's any kompromat at all. Trump simply wants to be an American Putin.
Move fast and break things has consequences. Your problem matey.
Tell America we're willing to help once they have a President who can behave like an adult. Their choice.
Thereby both gratuitously and pointlessly insulting the current President, and positioning us to be involved in whatever global dickery the next one gets involved in, as long as they ask nicely. Great idea.
Why are you called "Lucky" when you are invariably on the wrong side of history? Trump and Truss to name two examples.
Generally a big fan of yours on here Pete, but the phrase "wrong side of history" boils my piss in multiple ways. We left liberal types tend to employ it as if history takes sides.
Take the Vandals. Wrong side of history, which has literally appropriated their name as a word for indiscriminate destruction. Yet, when I hear the phrase "wrong side of history" I imagine some well-meaning young Roman in 455 telling a Vandal ransacking his house
"Stop! Don't you know you're on the wrong side of history?!?".
"Oh, well, I hadn't thought of it like that. Guys, we need to stop sacking Rome! This young gent in a toga has told me we're on the wrong side of history"
Of course, they didn't care, and don't because they're all dead, in fact they established some successful kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa that lasted a while before the Byzantines conquered them. Gibbon famously regarded the Byzantines as being "on the wrong side of history".
Similarly, I don't think "wrong side of history" is the killer line to today's reactionaries we think it is. Sorry to be critical but, as I say, it's a phrase that boils my piss.
'The wrong side of history' can have a sort of meaning in the short term and a particular context. Supporters of hand written manuscripts were on the wrong side WRT old style printing, who are on the wrong side WRT computer created material, etc. But they will all be on the wrong side of something else. And humanity as a whole (it seems to me) will be on the wrong side of history WRT spiders and beetles if you wait long enough.
Well, yes, don’t disagree. But the specific context I refer to is left liberal types (of which I’m one) using it. The phrase rests on an assumption that history is a march to some teleologically preordained end. Which is dangerous and lazy.
Left wing thought in England tends to be suffused with either Whiggish or Marxist historical interpretation. Which both tend towards the teleological.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I think Trump genuinely admires Putin. I don't think there's any kompromat at all. Trump simply wants to be an American Putin.
Oh, I am sure there is, although whether Trump believes any of it harms him electorally is another question.
The other thing with the komrpomat material is that literally nothing Trump has said or done has damaged him with his supporters at all. He's essentially impossible to blackmail.
Had dinner with someone who was in Coventry when it was bombed in WWII.
Plenty of wine; convivial, but sobering.
My dad can remember bombs falling during the Second World War, not far from Coventry oddly enough.
The impact of WW2 bombing on the UK was more than many realise. The numbers make me think it through again whenever I see them,
3.5-4 million dwellings were damaged or destroyed in the UK; that was just under 30% of the housing stock.
The breakdown is approximately 200k destroyed, 250k seriously damaged, the rest being minor. 1 million in London, 2.5 to 3 million in the rest of the country.
My mother was in a shelter next to their house on Biggar Bank, Walney Island - A mine was dropped on the beach - The planes came in from the Irish Sea to bomb Barrow shipyards. The mine went off later the blast breaking a rim round the top of glasses that were stored upside down. The shipyard wasn't hit. Recently was shown a dummy factory on Walney Island that was designed to mislead the bombers.
Good morning
My mother, father, sister and I, as a baby, sheltered under a steel table in our kitchen in north Manchester when a v bomb engine stopped above us.
Apparently it was terrifying as we waited and it hit a neighbours house killing 6
Hardly believable we are talking about something similar in 2026
Trump has made the same miscalculation Putin did over Ukraine, and as with that war it is impossible to know how this ends
Maybe the poor state of readiness of our Navy will prove to be a blessing as we cannot provide any tangeable contribution to the Straits of Hormuz defence
Here's an extract from a letter my Dad sent to my Mum not long after he'd been enlisted and was undergoing training at Stanmore:
Usual address
Mon Oct 14th 1940
My darling wife, I got away from here at 1-15 yesterday but it took over two hours to get to Liverpool St. I thought at first I might be able to get down to Upminster but there would have been no time. I just missed Dad [who was working at nearby Broad Street station] so I thought I would go along to see Daisy and Arthur. I got on a bus but only got as far as Shoreditch Church as Kingsland Rd [a main thoroughfare linking Shoreditch to Dalston] was hit on both sides about 15 minutes before I got there. One of the railway bridges was down and the air-raid was still on. I didn’t think it would be any good going to Aunt Sarah’s as they were probably over the shelters and things were a bit hot so I went back to L’pool St, had something to eat & returned to Kingsbury. Lucky I did. Some of the chaps from here who left it a bit later had a H--- of a job to get back. Wembley Station was hit about half an hour after I passed through there. Also one or two places along the line. When I got back here I ran into a chap who used to play for Lee United & he made me come and have a drink with him. Ada darling I could do with that underwear, but if you have not already sent it, perhaps it would be best to give it to me on Sat. if I see you then. We have been issued with our overcoats now & have to collect the remainder of the equipment to-night. We have heard that we are going from here next Monday & I think we will, because we have all our stuff now (except Gas-masks) and have learned all our drills. On Sat. last we had to go through the gas-chamber and when we came out we were all crying like babies for about 15 minutes. We did look funny. I will have to see you this week-end, precious, because I don’t know where I will be next week or when I shall be able to see you again.....
It all seems so matter of fact and very recognisable of that generation
And my grandmother's christian name was Ada
Matter of fact indeed. I read that and his other war letters for the first time about two years ago and as I read it I was mentally screaming 'Get into a shelter you crazy bastard.' But they were like that. So phlegmatic, and more concerned about visiting their relatives than having their arses blown of.
This piece is from one of four hundred letters I inherited and was able to sort and transcribe on to a hard disk. They cover the period from Sept 1940 when he arrived for training at Stanmore to October 1948 when he wrote to my Mum who was in hospital having just delivered me. Most of the letters cover his army experiences in North Africa, his convalescence in South Africa after he was wounded at Tobruk, his much delayed journey home, and then various postings around the UK until his demob in 1946. I am currently turning them into a book comprising the edited versions of the best and most interesting letters along with various anecdotes he told me which will help to flesh them out for the reader. Marf, once of this parish, will be adding some illustrations.
In view of your kind remarks, you may have a signed copy free of charge.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I am sure he has, what with golden showers and teenage kicks right through the night. Although I suspect even with this detail you are still mistakenly attempting to rationalise the irrational. The man is certifiably bonkers, and incredibly thick, both skinned and in the head.
Thick headed, yes, but surely the constant whining about his innumerable reverses and the legitimate criticisms made of him suggest he's even thinner skinned than Amanda Spielman?
The problem with this is that the “World War” appellation is arbitrary. 1939 (earlier if you’re Chinese) to 1945 was a genuinely global conflict. However, the Seven Years War had major theatres in America, Europe, and South Asia, yet the 1914-1918 conflict which was largely confined to Europe (with due regard to Gallipolli, Arab Revolt etc, but even they were “Europe adjacent”) is labelled WW1.
You can argue the toss but the point is we might have a world war and not recognise it. WW3 is pre-recognised as a nuclear exchange, possible, but other scenarios exist.
WW1 was originally called the Great War until the second one happened. And there were certainly campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, and transatlantic and Pacific naval war. And the USA and Japan were belligerents.
The Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars were fairly global too, there was certainly an African campaign (Egypt) and Malacca was surrendered to the British as a result for example.although I don't think much action was seen in the colonies. And the War of 1812 can be regarded as a theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, much as the Pacific and European wars were separate until Pearl Harbor.
I always liked The Great War's moniker 'The war to end all wars'.
Rubbish title. We want our money back.
And our generation of young men.
Indeed, the pals battalions had such noble intentions but the reality was disastrous.
Yes, unintended consequences sadly.
About 15 years ago I bought a 10 CD boxset of interviews with former WW1 veterans. It was harrowing.
The pals battalions were a disaster. Whole towns or districts lost many of their young men.
Yep. And there are horrific stories of the telegrams arriving to multiple houses in a street on the same day. I can’t imagine what it was like to go to war with your mates and see them killed all around you. Bad enough when it’s men you’ve only known through the army.
The chap I was talking to last night was moved several times during the war ... ending up in Coventry. He remembers going back to school one morning, and finding three newly empty desks in his classroom.
The destruction of Coventry, Larkin's hometown, has a significant place in his early and underrated novel 'Jill'.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
Except that theory doesn't make sense.
Likewise the 'Trump is a paedo and the Epstein files would prove it' doesn't make sense.
Because for either to make sense it would require the Biden administration to have supressed the evidence.
And surely even the Biden administration didn't fall to that level of stupidity and inaction.
Now a theory that does fit is that Trump has a 'might is right, democracy is decadent, Russia is strong' mentality which hasn't changed since the 1980s.
See Trump's 'department store' comment as a further example of how Trump is mentally stuck in the past.
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
The problem with this is that the “World War” appellation is arbitrary. 1939 (earlier if you’re Chinese) to 1945 was a genuinely global conflict. However, the Seven Years War had major theatres in America, Europe, and South Asia, yet the 1914-1918 conflict which was largely confined to Europe (with due regard to Gallipolli, Arab Revolt etc, but even they were “Europe adjacent”) is labelled WW1.
You can argue the toss but the point is we might have a world war and not recognise it. WW3 is pre-recognised as a nuclear exchange, possible, but other scenarios exist.
WW1 was originally called the Great War until the second one happened. And there were certainly campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, and transatlantic and Pacific naval war. And the USA and Japan were belligerents.
The Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars were fairly global too, there was certainly an African campaign (Egypt) and Malacca was surrendered to the British as a result for example.although I don't think much action was seen in the colonies. And the War of 1812 can be regarded as a theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, much as the Pacific and European wars were separate until Pearl Harbor.
I always liked The Great War's moniker 'The war to end all wars'.
Rubbish title. We want our money back.
And our generation of young men.
Indeed, the pals battalions had such noble intentions but the reality was disastrous.
Yes, unintended consequences sadly.
About 15 years ago I bought a 10 CD boxset of interviews with former WW1 veterans. It was harrowing.
The pals battalions were a disaster. Whole towns or districts lost many of their young men.
I was around 10 when I was told we suffered 57,000 casualties on the first day of The Battle of the Somme, I couldn't process that then and nearly 40 years later I still cannot.
That's nearly the capacity of Anfield.
Or just under 2 months for Russia in Ukraine where they have been fighting now for more than 4 years. The scale of their casualties and the demographic consequences of them is simply mind blowing.
Recent generations in this country are very fortunate that wars have been small and really a job for the professionals rather than amateurs. FWIW I am in the 7%, I think it is vanishingly unlikely that we will have a world war at all, let alone in the next 5-10 years. I can only hope this proves to be more accurate than my cricket predictions.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I think Trump genuinely admires Putin. I don't think there's any kompromat at all. Trump simply wants to be an American Putin.
Yes, the theory that the Russians are blackmailing Trump is bollox.
For one thing it requires people to believe that Trump would choose to act in a different way if he wasn't supposedly being blackmailed.
Move fast and break things has consequences. Your problem matey.
Tell America we're willing to help once they have a President who can behave like an adult. Their choice.
Thereby both gratuitously and pointlessly insulting the current President, and positioning us to be involved in whatever global dickery the next one gets involved in, as long as they ask nicely. Great idea.
Why are you called "Lucky" when you are invariably on the wrong side of history? Trump and Truss to name two examples.
Generally a big fan of yours on here Pete, but the phrase "wrong side of history" boils my piss in multiple ways. We left liberal types tend to employ it as if history takes sides.
Take the Vandals. Wrong side of history, which has literally appropriated their name as a word for indiscriminate destruction. Yet, when I hear the phrase "wrong side of history" I imagine some well-meaning young Roman in 455 telling a Vandal ransacking his house
"Stop! Don't you know you're on the wrong side of history?!?".
"Oh, well, I hadn't thought of it like that. Guys, we need to stop sacking Rome! This young gent in a toga has told me we're on the wrong side of history"
Of course, they didn't care, and don't because they're all dead, in fact they established some successful kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa that lasted a while before the Byzantines conquered them. Gibbon famously regarded the Byzantines as being "on the wrong side of history".
Similarly, I don't think "wrong side of history" is the killer line to today's reactionaries we think it is. Sorry to be critical but, as I say, it's a phrase that boils my piss.
'The wrong side of history' can have a sort of meaning in the short term and a particular context. Supporters of hand written manuscripts were on the wrong side WRT old style printing, who are on the wrong side WRT computer created material, etc. But they will all be on the wrong side of something else. And humanity as a whole (it seems to me) will be on the wrong side of history WRT spiders and beetles if you wait long enough.
Well, yes, don’t disagree. But the specific context I refer to is left liberal types (of which I’m one) using it. The phrase rests on an assumption that history is a march to some teleologically preordained end. Which is dangerous and lazy.
Left wing thought in England tends to be suffused with either Whiggish or Marxist historical interpretation. Which both tend towards the teleological.
Thanks. Yes. Teleological thinking is fascinating. My feeling is that it is built into human nature, but that may of course just be a cultural accretion. If in truth the architects of western modernity are Plato, Aristotle, Judaism and Christianity combined with an empirical interest in cause and effect, then the explanation is to hand. Marx gets his teleology from Hegel. The Whig tradition (I think) gets it from enlightened versions of Christianity.
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
IMO the UK government should be treating the re-opening of the strait as a strategic priority.
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
Very on topic post. China would see US blockading its ships as an act of war. Iran is almost irrelevant.
The problem with this is that the “World War” appellation is arbitrary. 1939 (earlier if you’re Chinese) to 1945 was a genuinely global conflict. However, the Seven Years War had major theatres in America, Europe, and South Asia, yet the 1914-1918 conflict which was largely confined to Europe (with due regard to Gallipolli, Arab Revolt etc, but even they were “Europe adjacent”) is labelled WW1.
You can argue the toss but the point is we might have a world war and not recognise it. WW3 is pre-recognised as a nuclear exchange, possible, but other scenarios exist.
WW1 was originally called the Great War until the second one happened. And there were certainly campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, and transatlantic and Pacific naval war. And the USA and Japan were belligerents.
The Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars were fairly global too, there was certainly an African campaign (Egypt) and Malacca was surrendered to the British as a result for example.although I don't think much action was seen in the colonies. And the War of 1812 can be regarded as a theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, much as the Pacific and European wars were separate until Pearl Harbor.
I always liked The Great War's moniker 'The war to end all wars'.
Rubbish title. We want our money back.
And our generation of young men.
Indeed, the pals battalions had such noble intentions but the reality was disastrous.
Yes, unintended consequences sadly.
About 15 years ago I bought a 10 CD boxset of interviews with former WW1 veterans. It was harrowing.
The pals battalions were a disaster. Whole towns or districts lost many of their young men.
Yep. And there are horrific stories of the telegrams arriving to multiple houses in a street on the same day. I can’t imagine what it was like to go to war with your mates and see them killed all around you. Bad enough when it’s men you’ve only known through the army.
The chap I was talking to last night was moved several times during the war ... ending up in Coventry. He remembers going back to school one morning, and finding three newly empty desks in his classroom.
The destruction of Coventry, Larkin's hometown, has a significant place in his early and underrated novel 'Jill'.
I grew up with a grandparents garden with an intact shelter still in it, it made a great den and a primary / junior that had shelters behind the playing fields that my mom had sheltered in.
My best mate lived in a Cul de Sac with waste ground next to it in between 2 houses courtesy of a stray German Bomb jetisoned on the bomb run out of Birmingham Spitfire factory and close to the old Round Oak Steel works
Even in the early 70s WW2 was never far away
My grandparents house even sat near a foundry that had been an Italian Pow camp. A lot of whom stayed and integrated in to local community.
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
IMO the UK government should be treating the re-opening of the strait as a strategic priority.
Maybe this has something to do with it? Dunno but possible
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
A possibility is a fascinating irresistible force versus immovable object coming up.
There is a majority for 'Get the Labour rascals out', and a majority for 'Make sure Reform don't get in'. What happens if and when the voting public come to the conclusion that it isn't possible to have both because in reality there is going to be either a Reform or Labour led government?
My guess is coalescing around Labour.
If I am right (though I never am) it means that the only interest in Labour's coming wipeout in May is that the leadership might change. Its effect on a 2029 GE would be small.
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
Very on topic post. China would see US blockading its ships as an act of war. Iran is almost irrelevant.
Scenario, Chinese tanker exits from Hormuz into the Arabian Sea. The US warship blockading the Strait has a choice. Does it open fire and sink the Chinese ship, or does it board the ship?
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
The Russian arms industry for export has crashed because, admittedly the Ukraine war has demonstrated their products have been shown to be crap, but also because the delivery dates have gone backwards because they need the weapons fo rthwir own purposes.
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
There’s a massive opportunity for the British arms industry to take advantage of the Russian export collapse.
Plenty of countries will buy last-generation equipment at a good price, and the development cost has already been accounted-for in first-round sales.
The British approach for next-gen tech probably needs to be a collaborative approach with other nations on the big-ticket items, but with all IP shared and production in multiple locations to avoid political uncertainty, while also working themselves or with Ukraine on the cheap stuff such as small drones.
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
IMO the UK government should be treating the re-opening of the strait as a strategic priority.
Chinese oil going through the Straits does preclude Iran mining them. So it is all about defence from missiles/small boats. That should be more manageable with the Iranian air defence destroyed (well, so says Trump...).
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
The Russian arms industry for export has crashed because, admittedly the Ukraine war has demonstrated their products have been shown to be crap, but also because the delivery dates have gone backwards because they need the weapons fo rthwir own purposes.
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
The whole of Europe should explain to Trump that they cannot partake in clearing up his mess in the Straits of Hormuz as they need to divert all weapons, ammunition and budgets to helping Ukraine due to the fact that Russia has been boosted by the oil price rise resulting from the war in Iran. They need to make it clear that Ukraine is the sole priority, it was made clear by Trump that it’s not America’s problem and so until the Ukraine war is ended without the Russian demands then they cannot help with any of his adventures and will also need to purely buy European and non US kit as clearly the US is prioritising its own kit for Iran and so they cannot risk delays.
Maybe the mystical arms industry of Hollywood lore will see the risk Trump is to them and arrange to remove the article with their shady operatives as per the movies.
The US president's position seems to be - Our allies are pathetic because they stand back when we need them. - We don't need them anyway. - They should help us solve this problem we created. - But if they do offer to help, we'll insult them, because we don't need their help.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
I hope we've never had "Rachel from Accounts" from you?
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
There does seem a determination on Trump's part to hand Catherine the Great's empire back to Putin's Russia.
Putin has a mountain of kompromat on Trump.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
I think Trump genuinely admires Putin. I don't think there's any kompromat at all. Trump simply wants to be an American Putin.
I believe Trump would be happy to have the world carved up between part under his control and part under Putin’s control, before they both gang up on China. I’m not sure which part of Western Europe he would want and which part he would agree for Putin to take.
The US president's position seems to be - Our allies are pathetic because they stand back when we need them. - We don't need them anyway. - They should help us solve this problem we created. - But if they do offer to help, we'll insult them, because we don't need their help.
It's a test of fealty (in the literal sense). He knows they are not needed but wants to see who takes the knee. Probably based on a deep sense of insecurity that he needs to constantly see who will bend.
I don't see them making much of a fist of it , they are in the shit and are just beginning to realise it. Should be told to F*** off and keep doing it.
If the CIA knew that he was talking to the Iranians, then President Trump would have known that also, when he invited Tucker into the Oval a few days before the strike.
Which means Trump may have used Tucker to deceive the Iranians about the likelihood of an impending attack
TBH that suggests a level of tactical intelligence (in the everyday sense) absent from the rest of the conduct of this war
You could have omitted the "tactical" and been totally correct
The Ukrainians say that Russia is now supplying Iran with Shahed drones manufactured in Russia, which is a bonus for Ukraine.
If that is true then Trump's announcement about "suspending" sanctions against Russia comes perilously close to treason.
Russia and MAGA are aligned on what they want to see in Europe. A surrender deal for Ukraine, far right white nationalist governments in power, the collapse of the EU.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
You just wonder how low the clown can stoop, he never fails to surprise
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
The Russian arms industry for export has crashed because, admittedly the Ukraine war has demonstrated their products have been shown to be crap, but also because the delivery dates have gone backwards because they need the weapons fo rthwir own purposes.
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
The whole of Europe should explain to Trump that they cannot partake in clearing up his mess in the Straits of Hormuz as they need to divert all weapons, ammunition and budgets to helping Ukraine due to the fact that Russia has been boosted by the oil price rise resulting from the war in Iran. They need to make it clear that Ukraine is the sole priority, it was made clear by Trump that it’s not America’s problem and so until the Ukraine war is ended without the Russian demands then they cannot help with any of his adventures and will also need to purely buy European and non US kit as clearly the US is prioritising its own kit for Iran and so they cannot risk delays.
Maybe the mystical arms industry of Hollywood lore will see the risk Trump is to them and arrange to remove the article with their shady operatives as per the movies.
Move fast and break things has consequences. Your problem matey.
Trump could walk away and say if you want oil, then sort this. US is to all intents an autarky.
American consumers would beg to differ. As @rcs1000 has often pointed out, the US is not self-sufficient in the type of oil that it needs. Admittedly, Trump and the morons who fawn over him, might not understand that.
The other thing with the komrpomat material is that literally nothing Trump has said or done has damaged him with his supporters at all. He's essentially impossible to blackmail.
He's doing what he's doing because he wants to.
Yes, this is one of two anti Trump chestnuts that I, despite being a full monty despiser of the man, do not buy. I don't think he's a Russian agent or being blackmailed by them with 'kompromat', and I don't think he's doing any of these military pyrotechnics to get Epstein off the front pages.
If the CIA knew that he was talking to the Iranians, then President Trump would have known that also, when he invited Tucker into the Oval a few days before the strike.
Which means Trump may have used Tucker to deceive the Iranians about the likelihood of an impending attack
I feel a version of Hanlon's Razor applies to some of your posts about Trump:
"Never attribute to intelligence that which is adequately explained by stupidity AND malice"
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Deary me...
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Deary me...
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
Oh come on. This argument is on a par with ‘I can’t be racist I’ve got black friends’
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Deary me...
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 23m US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
The Russian arms industry for export has crashed because, admittedly the Ukraine war has demonstrated their products have been shown to be crap, but also because the delivery dates have gone backwards because they need the weapons fo rthwir own purposes.
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
The whole of Europe should explain to Trump that they cannot partake in clearing up his mess in the Straits of Hormuz as they need to divert all weapons, ammunition and budgets to helping Ukraine due to the fact that Russia has been boosted by the oil price rise resulting from the war in Iran. They need to make it clear that Ukraine is the sole priority, it was made clear by Trump that it’s not America’s problem and so until the Ukraine war is ended without the Russian demands then they cannot help with any of his adventures and will also need to purely buy European and non US kit as clearly the US is prioritising its own kit for Iran and so they cannot risk delays.
Maybe the mystical arms industry of Hollywood lore will see the risk Trump is to them and arrange to remove the article with their shady operatives as per the movies.
Yes, concentrate on the defence of our own continent, which atm means Ukraine. It's not as if we're a military giant with money and resource to spread around the globe. Don't overstretch and do lots of things badly. Apply focus and discipline to do the most important things well.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
I hope we've never had "Rachel from Accounts" from you?
‘ The status of WWE’s upcoming shows in Saudi Arabia this year and WrestleMania 43 are reportedly under discussion following the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.’
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
‘ The status of WWE’s upcoming shows in Saudi Arabia this year and WrestleMania 43 are reportedly under discussion following the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.’
F1 have cancelled Grands Prix in Saudi and Bahrain. The biggest issue is official travel advice and insurance.
US and UK Govs are currently recommending against travel to the entire MENA region, which in practice means that insurance companies treat it as a war zone even if the reality is quite different.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Deary me...
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
I don’t think Coutinho lightweight. She’s effective against Ed Miliband
I’ve also been impressed by Helen Whately taking the govt to task over private pensions where the original voluntary agreement on contributions ‘mansion house’is potentially being torn up and Torsten Bell, who has been pretty good is floundering and blocking people.
‘ The status of WWE’s upcoming shows in Saudi Arabia this year and WrestleMania 43 are reportedly under discussion following the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.’
F1 have cancelled Grands Prix in Saudi and Bahrain. The biggest issue is official travel advice and insurance.
US and UK Govs are currently recommending against travel to the entire MENA region, which in practice means that insurance companies treat it as a war zone even if the reality is quite different.
I’m chuckling at the WWE as Hunter and the rest are all die hard Trump fanatics and this will cost them a fortune.
Superb snippet in the Craigie Column in the Courier yesterday:
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
Superb snippet in the Craigie Column in the Courier yesterday:
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
I'm with a bunch of sailors. Would you like some semen?
Superb snippet in the Craigie Column in the Courier yesterday:
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
I'm with a bunch of sailors. Would you like some semen?
Superb snippet in the Craigie Column in the Courier yesterday:
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
I'm with a bunch of sailors. Would you like some semen?
I’m with Marc Almond. Fancy a pint !!
Don't knock it. Almond milk is very popular these days.
Superb snippet in the Craigie Column in the Courier yesterday:
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
I'm with a bunch of sailors. Would you like some semen?
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
‘ The status of WWE’s upcoming shows in Saudi Arabia this year and WrestleMania 43 are reportedly under discussion following the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.’
F1 have cancelled Grands Prix in Saudi and Bahrain. The biggest issue is official travel advice and insurance.
US and UK Govs are currently recommending against travel to the entire MENA region, which in practice means that insurance companies treat it as a war zone even if the reality is quite different.
I’m chuckling at the WWE as Hunter and the rest are all die hard Trump fanatics and this will cost them a fortune.
Might be best for F1
New cars are a joke
Time to abort the joke and bring 2025 out of mothballs
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
No idea where this Government is going to get "huge" anything.
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
An announcement of a clear strategy and plans IF xyz happens after next price cap is announced after Locals and National Assembly votes in early May is coherently planned and announced after Easter mid to late April it could make May results less poor than thought.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
"Ooh, look, another ToRy woman to be misogynistic about..."
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Deary me...
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
I don’t think Coutinho lightweight. She’s effective against Ed Miliband
I’ve also been impressed by Helen Whately taking the govt to task over private pensions where the original voluntary agreement on contributions ‘mansion house’is potentially being torn up and Torsten Bell, who has been pretty good is floundering and blocking people.
Helen Whataley has improved from being a bomb scare in Government to a competent shadow minister.
Torsten Bell is a classic example of an intellectual, who can't communicate or do political hard miles.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Increasingly convinced our creaking grid is the root cause of UK energy problems, but one gets no public attention. It's not fit for current use, let alone future electrification. Fix the grid and a lot of the issues to do with new energy sources and energy security would be minimised, if they don't disappear entirely.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
The wind figure at 21.79GW is phenomenal but it is still not enough. We have a long way to go to become a consistent energy exporter.
From that link:
Between 12th January 1882, when the world’s first coal-fired power station opened at 57 Holborn Viaduct in London, and 30th September 2024, when Great Britain’s last coal-fired power station closed, the country burnt 4.6 billion tonnes of coal, emitting 10.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Google informs us:
China is the world's largest consumer of coal, burning over 4.3 billion tonnes annually, which accounts for more than 50% of total global consumption.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
OT - Electing one of the world's most ignorant and stupid men to lead one of the world's major powers was never going to end well. Will it lead to the end of the world? Depends on whether Trump gets bad health news. If he does then we are all in very deep trouble.
Big energy curtailment day today. Current marginal elec price is negative: -16.67.
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
Storage is the big item here, I think.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
I did the calculation and IRC land equivalent to 0.5% of current farmland would cover the entire electricity demand of the UK through solar - not that anyone would do that of course.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
Interesting note re Farmers.
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms
Comments
It’s obviously lower than that
The South Korean one is really in your face - take a look at the road transporter for it. Copied from Soviet ICBM transporter designs.
Fucker Carlson like the Veep is one of the few people in the Western world that is worse than Trump.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧
@WarMonitor3
·
23m
US has told key European allies that arms supplies that have been bought for Ukraine may be delayed due to prioritisation of the war in the Middle East-FT
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2033135291284754521
So Trump starts a war against Russia's key ally, Iran, with Russia coming in on the Persian side and the upshot is Putin gets tons of oil $ and a diversion of weapons away from Ukr and the West's economies are shafted.
Stop making sense.
As a muttered aside Ed M told Laura K when she mentioned energy prices reaching an average of £3.5K per household as it did in Lizz Truss brief reign: 'we aint gonna let that happen'.
So huge energy support package incoming if this goes on into the summer?
And how many of that 53/54% would support defence and security cuts to fund more energy subsidies ?
Other than a huge kicking from the voters in May.
No other reading of US history over the past 50-80 years makes any sense.
A figure to watch is the Left of Centre v Right of Centre total. In this poll its 45% ROC, about 49% LOC. This continues the anti ROC tendency in the last months.
If things are anything like they are now (a big 'if' of course), the Tories will really struggle to deal with the slogan 'A Tory Vote Is A Reform Vote'. Which will mean if you want Reform vote Reform, if you don't, then don't vote Reform or Tory.
If I am right (another big 'if') a Tory decline and a Labour recovery through gritted teeth are both already baked in. DYOR, bet accordingly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBXKCnrS__M
Trump snaffling arms for his own war is as good a reason for Europe to go buy kit from elsewhere.
The US is no longer reliable in any favourable way on any metric.
Left wing thought in England tends to be suffused with either Whiggish or Marxist historical interpretation. Which both tend towards the teleological.
He's doing what he's doing because he wants to.
This piece is from one of four hundred letters I inherited and was able to sort and transcribe on to a hard disk. They cover the period from Sept 1940 when he arrived for training at Stanmore to October 1948 when he wrote to my Mum who was in hospital having just delivered me. Most of the letters cover his army experiences in North Africa, his convalescence in South Africa after he was wounded at Tobruk, his much delayed journey home, and then various postings around the UK until his demob in 1946. I am currently turning them into a book comprising the edited versions of the best and most interesting letters along with various anecdotes he told me which will help to flesh them out for the reader. Marf, once of this parish, will be adding some illustrations.
In view of your kind remarks, you may have a signed copy free of charge.
Likewise the 'Trump is a paedo and the Epstein files would prove it' doesn't make sense.
Because for either to make sense it would require the Biden administration to have supressed the evidence.
And surely even the Biden administration didn't fall to that level of stupidity and inaction.
Now a theory that does fit is that Trump has a 'might is right, democracy is decadent, Russia is strong' mentality which hasn't changed since the 1980s.
See Trump's 'department store' comment as a further example of how Trump is mentally stuck in the past.
@keiranpedley
Important observation from today's @Ipsos_in_the_UK voting intention figures. Reform vote share has clearly fallen over past 6 months
Here is the Sept vs today
Reform 34% ~ 28%
Labour 22% ~ 21%
Conservative 14% ~ 17%
Greens 12% ~ 17%
Lib Dems 12% ~ 9%
So a 6 point fall for Reform in this past 6 months.
https://x.com/keiranpedley/status/2033124890144838058
Recent generations in this country are very fortunate that wars have been small and really a job for the professionals rather than amateurs. FWIW I am in the 7%, I think it is vanishingly unlikely that we will have a world war at all, let alone in the next 5-10 years. I can only hope this proves to be more accurate than my cricket predictions.
Nothing like a national crisis to impact local votes
Coutinho offering to cut a tax rising in September, that almost certainly won't happen anyway, is a sure sign that the Tories are clueless on the issue.
For one thing it requires people to believe that Trump would choose to act in a different way if he wasn't supposedly being blackmailed.
Iran is continuing to sell oil to China. Why doesn't the US blockade all oil shipments leaving the Strait of Hormuz until Iran agrees to allow safe passage for all ships? The Iranians wouldn't agree to it?
IMO the UK government should be treating the re-opening of the strait as a strategic priority.
My best mate lived in a Cul de Sac with waste ground next to it in between 2 houses courtesy of a stray German Bomb jetisoned on the bomb run out of Birmingham Spitfire factory and close to the old Round Oak Steel works
Even in the early 70s WW2 was never far away
My grandparents house even sat near a foundry that had been an Italian Pow camp. A lot of whom stayed and integrated in to local community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China–Central_Asia–West_Asia_Economic_Corridor
There is a majority for 'Get the Labour rascals out', and a majority for 'Make sure Reform don't get in'. What happens if and when the voting public come to the conclusion that it isn't possible to have both because in reality there is going to be either a Reform or Labour led government?
My guess is coalescing around Labour.
If I am right (though I never am) it means that the only interest in Labour's coming wipeout in May is that the leadership might change. Its effect on a 2029 GE would be small.
Plenty of countries will buy last-generation equipment at a good price, and the development cost has already been accounted-for in first-round sales.
The British approach for next-gen tech probably needs to be a collaborative approach with other nations on the big-ticket items, but with all IP shared and production in multiple locations to avoid political uncertainty, while also working themselves or with Ukraine on the cheap stuff such as small drones.
Just fuck off.
Your contribution here just reinforces why Labour has had no woman leader, let alone a female PM.
Maybe the mystical arms industry of Hollywood lore will see the risk Trump is to them and arrange to remove the article with their shady operatives as per the movies.
https://amzn.eu/d/05usIo7r
Is a very good read on female leadership and the patterns of male opposition to it. You see certain tropes again and again.
"Never attribute to intelligence that which is adequately explained by stupidity AND malice"
All the abuse from the right to Lab, LD, Green SNP women... That's all OK is it.
Coutinho is lightweight and vacuous not because she lacks a cock, but because she's lightweight and vacuous.
I've praised many Tory women.
I've repeatedly been told off for praising Penny Mordaunt as an example, ditto Edwina Currie, Theresa May amongst others.
So shut the fuck up about mysoginsts, you've picked the wrong one to bully.
Twits throwing words like mysoginst around really are pathetic clear sign they have no grounds to argue
Clueless, lightweight, vacuous are not mysoginst terms, you only have to look at Chris Philp and Richard Holden.
Or just fuck off.
‘ The status of WWE’s upcoming shows in Saudi Arabia this year and WrestleMania 43 are reportedly under discussion following the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.’
https://x.com/wrestleops/status/2033013572226216135?s=46&t=d8CnRhyZJ-m4vy0k55W8XQ
US and UK Govs are currently recommending against travel to the entire MENA region, which in practice means that insurance companies treat it as a war zone even if the reality is quite different.
I’ve also been impressed by Helen Whately taking the govt to task over private pensions where the original voluntary agreement on contributions ‘mansion house’is potentially being torn up and Torsten Bell, who has been pretty good is floundering and blocking people.
A wife sends a romantic message to her husband.
"If you are sleeping send me your dreams. If you are laughing send me your smile. If you are eating send me a bite. If you are drinking send me a sip. If you are crying send me your tears. I love you!"
The husband replied: "I am on the toilet. Please advise."
A day where if we’d managed to sort transmission, and electrified heating and transport more quickly, we’d be happily looking on at the Straits of Hormuz with a sense of detachment.
We'll done Ed
New cars are a joke
Time to abort the joke and bring 2025 out of mothballs
The wind figure at 21.79GW is phenomenal but it is still not enough. We have a long way to go to become a consistent energy exporter.
Torsten Bell is a classic example of an intellectual, who can't communicate or do political hard miles.
Ideal behind the scenes not on public view.
When solar + storage drops a bit further - maybe 2-5 years - it will be the cheapest option. I'm talking 12 hours of storage, by the way.
And before the "using up farmland" nonsense starts a - a chap I know whose converting to solar farming doesn't even dig footings for the panel frames - they are held down with weights, just sitting on the ground. At first they used concrete blocks - now he uses rock gabions. Just a mesh cage attached to the frame leg. Put the frame in place, pour in rocks....
He runs sheep in and around the panels.
Even the power electronics are put in a small shed that's bolted to a concrete slab that's just placed on the ground.
Between 12th January 1882, when the world’s first coal-fired power station opened at 57 Holborn Viaduct in London, and 30th September 2024, when Great Britain’s last coal-fired power station closed, the country burnt 4.6 billion tonnes of coal, emitting 10.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Google informs us:
China is the world's largest consumer of coal, burning over 4.3 billion tonnes annually, which accounts for more than 50% of total global consumption.
The supposedly "impressive" Coutinho is one of those tilting at that particular windmill, so to speak.
NEW THREAD
A number round Devon reducing Cattle, increasing lamb and pork as can sit along side solar farms