If the Iran invasion is illegal then facilitating attacks on them by the Americans and Israelis is also illegal.
Starmer out.
It’s a grey area .
Because it’s classed as protecting ships from being attacked so goes down as defensive in No 10 . I wish we had nothing at all to do with any of this but as opposed to the rest of Europe Starmer can’t afford a total rupture with the US administration.
No policy change at all
No RAF involvement.
Attacking Iranian sites that are military and attacking Straits of Hormuz
If Ships start moving oil will be another win for Statesman Starmer.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
Well I’m expecting the price of petrol to come down next month.
How’s about you guys?
I don't give a F**k either way
Natasha Bertrand @NatashaBertrand A recent internal assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that was circulating inside the Pentagon in recent weeks determined that Iran could potentially keep the passage shut for anywhere from one to six months, four sources familiar with the document told CNN. But White House and Pentagon officials insisted that the assessment — particularly the longer end timeframe, which some consider a worst-case scenario — was not being seriously considered.
As I said yesterday you can listen to the people who know — because that $100 billion a year buys a lot of very, very specialist knowledge — or you can just go with the thoughts of one of the dumbest people on Earth.
If the Iran invasion is illegal then facilitating attacks on them by the Americans and Israelis is also illegal.
Starmer out.
It’s a grey area .
Because it’s classed as protecting ships from being attacked so goes down as defensive in No 10 . I wish we had nothing at all to do with any of this but as opposed to the rest of Europe Starmer can’t afford a total rupture with the US administration.
No policy change at all
No RAF involvement.
Attacking Iranian sites that are military and attacking Straits of Hormuz
If Ships start moving oil will be another win for Statesman Starmer.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
Well there was at least one PBer who pointed that out 15 years ago.
And also predicted that student tuition fees would also end in disaster.
However, that PBer was told that any such problems would be decades away and would be sorted out beforehand.
I reckon I referred to the golden generation within my first 100 PB posts
23000 posts later and me now part of the TL gravy train I still believe it should be in the bin and retrospectively adjusted downwards
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
The question was "could" not "should". You might think the government could afford to keep the triple lock (borrow more) but that doesn't mean they should.
they need to clear out all the crazy government spending. Minimum 10% efficiency saving across the board , including all benefits, except defense. Illegal immigration minimum 50% cut on hosting them. Should be very simple
I wonder why no-one has tried efficiency savings before?
If the Iran invasion is illegal then facilitating attacks on them by the Americans and Israelis is also illegal.
Starmer out.
It’s a grey area .
Because it’s classed as protecting ships from being attacked so goes down as defensive in No 10 . I wish we had nothing at all to do with any of this but as opposed to the rest of Europe Starmer can’t afford a total rupture with the US administration.
No policy change at all
No RAF involvement.
Attacking Iranian sites that are military and attacking Straits of Hormuz
If Ships start moving oil will be another win for Statesman Starmer.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
I think there's something to be said for shorting people who go heavy on identity politics.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
The question was "could" not "should". You might think the government could afford to keep the triple lock (borrow more) but that doesn't mean they should.
they need to clear out all the crazy government spending. Minimum 10% efficiency saving across the board , including all benefits, except defense. Illegal immigration minimum 50% cut on hosting them. Should be very simple
I wonder why no-one has tried efficiency savings before?
Cowardice and wishing to keep supping at the trough at all costs
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship and polarisation, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I've posted this before, and it pertains to Trump's first victory in 2016 - but IMO this is still the best answer to that question - written by someone from red America who escaped to blue America so understands both sides.
I'm thankful not to be one of those having to make choices for the country. I know pensioners who are already finding it impossible to make ends meet, fulltime working people ditto, longterm sick/disabled ditto.
I know far too many longterm sick/disabled people who are utterly genuine 'cases', in some cases whole families of them. Not ill-wishing anybody but sometimes it seems our society has turned Darwin on its head.
Sometimes it seems that comment sections up and down the internet are filled with innumerate geniuses who have calculated that £600 a night to lock someone away for years on end in a hospital is cheaper, kinder, and better than giving someone £100 a week in PIP. People that they won't employ and pretend it's out of kindness, and when they are employed, a system is set up that makes employment insurance unaffordable for this subset such that they can only fall back on benefits. Which everyone cries about them getting.
Ultimately we already have UBI - 40% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, many of whom are working in the brutally overstretched sectors of Health and Social Care that haven't had pay rises in 15 years. One OT said to me, "the drive for efficiency leads no room for compassion, but the only thing that will help us survive the drive for effifciency is compassion," and we had a good laugh about that.
sounds like bollox unless they were paid above current minimum wage 15 years ago, usual leftie claptrap.
Ch4 News is so much better than anything the BBC can offer. How are the mighty fallen. The fuel crisis is worldwide the worst in history. How long will the Americans be prepared to live with Trumps colossal folly?
A fairly recent piece of polling that depressed me was that people still wanted to tax millionaires more, even if that meant less tax coming in. I mean the mess the nappy stupidity of it.
Whoever comes in, the public will need to be consciously trained to become more resilient, the way that socialism has consciously trained them (and trains them still) to become ever more helpless and dependent.
One good polling question would be:
Would you prefer to see more / fewer / zero rich people in the UK ?
I see little evidence that the presence of the ultra-rich actually does much for everyone else. They’re too good at avoiding tax. Whereas greater income equality is associated with greater happiness and better health.
So, I would prefer to move to greater equality, by which I mean levels we saw in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when there was still plenty of rich people, and plenty of innovation/growth.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality
It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.
At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it
Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.
Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election
As I keep saying -
1) Merge employee NI And IT 2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially. 3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable. 4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....
Taxation is the best way to deal with this.
I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.
The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).
You merge employee NI and IT
That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.
This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.
But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.
So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is
No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.
Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.
Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway
The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.
Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.
1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now. 2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.
Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).
The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.
It's about messaging
1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance 2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax. 3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.
A friend worked in charity fundraising. She said the perfect charity to fundraise for would be Kittens for Kids with Kancer (except for the initials).
In the subject of KKK I was scrolling Facebook this morning and saw this and for a good moment o thought the chap on the right was dressed interestingly.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
It's remarkable how many problems he created are now becoming both serious and blindly obvious...
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
The Germans (temporarily) capturing Moscow would have been strategically irrelevant.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality
It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.
At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it
Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.
Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election
As I keep saying -
1) Merge employee NI And IT 2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially. 3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable. 4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....
Taxation is the best way to deal with this.
I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.
The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).
You merge employee NI and IT
That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.
This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.
But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.
So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is
No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.
Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.
Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway
The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.
Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.
1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now. 2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.
Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).
The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.
It's about messaging
1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance 2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax. 3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.
A friend worked in charity fundraising. She said the perfect charity to fundraise for would be Kittens for Kids with Kancer (except for the initials).
In the subject of KKK I was scrolling Facebook this morning and saw this and for a good moment o thought the chap on the right was dressed interestingly.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality
It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.
At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it
Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.
Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election
As I keep saying -
1) Merge employee NI And IT 2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially. 3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable. 4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....
Taxation is the best way to deal with this.
I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.
The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).
You merge employee NI and IT
That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.
This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.
But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.
So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is
No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.
Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.
Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway
The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.
Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.
1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now. 2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.
Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).
The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.
It's about messaging
1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance 2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax. 3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.
A friend worked in charity fundraising. She said the perfect charity to fundraise for would be Kittens for Kids with Kancer (except for the initials).
In the subject of KKK I was scrolling Facebook this morning and saw this and for a good moment o thought the chap on the right was dressed interestingly.
I'm thankful not to be one of those having to make choices for the country. I know pensioners who are already finding it impossible to make ends meet, fulltime working people ditto, longterm sick/disabled ditto.
I know far too many longterm sick/disabled people who are utterly genuine 'cases', in some cases whole families of them. Not ill-wishing anybody but sometimes it seems our society has turned Darwin on its head.
Sometimes it seems that comment sections up and down the internet are filled with innumerate geniuses who have calculated that £600 a night to lock someone away for years on end in a hospital is cheaper, kinder, and better than giving someone £100 a week in PIP. People that they won't employ and pretend it's out of kindness, and when they are employed, a system is set up that makes employment insurance unaffordable for this subset such that they can only fall back on benefits. Which everyone cries about them getting.
Ultimately we already have UBI - 40% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, many of whom are working in the brutally overstretched sectors of Health and Social Care that haven't had pay rises in 15 years. One OT said to me, "the drive for efficiency leads no room for compassion, but the only thing that will help us survive the drive for effifciency is compassion," and we had a good laugh about that.
sounds like bollox unless they were paid above current minimum wage 15 years ago, usual leftie claptrap.
Universal Credit began in 2013.
Prior to that there was a whole lot of tax credits that paid money well beyond average wages as I qualified for them and I've never been badly paid.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
The Germans (temporarily) capturing Moscow would have been strategically irrelevant.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship and polarisation, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I've posted this before, and it pertains to Trump's first victory in 2016 - but IMO this is still the best answer to that question - written by someone from red America who escaped to blue America so understands both sides.
Five out of six of his reasons are just rural v urban. I think that’s one factor, but I don’t think it explains everything. It also massively overlooks the rural (46 million) v suburban (175 million) v urban (98 million) split. Trump didn’t win because of rural voters. He won because of suburban voters.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
If the Iran invasion is illegal then facilitating attacks on them by the Americans and Israelis is also illegal.
Starmer out.
It’s a grey area .
Because it’s classed as protecting ships from being attacked so goes down as defensive in No 10 . I wish we had nothing at all to do with any of this but as opposed to the rest of Europe Starmer can’t afford a total rupture with the US administration.
No policy change at all
No RAF involvement.
Attacking Iranian sites that are military and attacking Straits of Hormuz
If Ships start moving oil will be another win for Statesman Starmer.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
It's remarkable how many problems he created are now becoming both serious and blindly obvious...
On the face of it, the triple lock doesn't seem a bad way to gradually raise pensions there were pretty low, though of course it could only ever be a temporary measure. But of course temporary measures have a habit of becoming permanent and we're still stuck with the bloody thing. Surely the pension becoming equal to the tax free allowance can be used as a reason to end the triple lock and instead tie the state pension to the tax free allowance?
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship and polarisation, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I've posted this before, and it pertains to Trump's first victory in 2016 - but IMO this is still the best answer to that question - written by someone from red America who escaped to blue America so understands both sides.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
Osborne represented the response of the "centre right" to the financial crisis of 2008 which destroyed "centre left" economic policy completely.
The response was to look at the crisis in public finances and argue it was the spending side which needed to be reigned in - in the first Coalition Budget, if memory serves, it was £5 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax rises but the problem was the hostages to fortune by both Clegg (student tuition fees) and Cameron (no cutbacks in the NHS or Education).
This meant other areas of the public finances had to take a disproportionate hit (step forward defence. local Government and the criminal justice system).
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
The question was "could" not "should". You might think the government could afford to keep the triple lock (borrow more) but that doesn't mean they should.
they need to clear out all the crazy government spending. Minimum 10% efficiency saving across the board , including all benefits, except defense. Illegal immigration minimum 50% cut on hosting them. Should be very simple
I wonder why no-one has tried efficiency savings before?
Cowardice and wishing to keep supping at the trough at all costs
What they never do is give Civil Servants a budget, and incentivise them to have some of it left over at the end of March, while delivering their objectives. Instead, they cut the budget which means the wrong things get cut. Also there is this bizarre fetish that treats civil servant headcount as something different to budget. It doesn't matter how many people you employ, it matters how much it costs.
Also, civil service managers are paid according to the size of their budget and/or the people they manage so there is no incentive to deliver your objectives at lower cost.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship and polarisation, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I've posted this before, and it pertains to Trump's first victory in 2016 - but IMO this is still the best answer to that question - written by someone from red America who escaped to blue America so understands both sides.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
I'm thankful not to be one of those having to make choices for the country. I know pensioners who are already finding it impossible to make ends meet, fulltime working people ditto, longterm sick/disabled ditto.
I know far too many longterm sick/disabled people who are utterly genuine 'cases', in some cases whole families of them. Not ill-wishing anybody but sometimes it seems our society has turned Darwin on its head.
Sometimes it seems that comment sections up and down the internet are filled with innumerate geniuses who have calculated that £600 a night to lock someone away for years on end in a hospital is cheaper, kinder, and better than giving someone £100 a week in PIP. People that they won't employ and pretend it's out of kindness, and when they are employed, a system is set up that makes employment insurance unaffordable for this subset such that they can only fall back on benefits. Which everyone cries about them getting.
Ultimately we already have UBI - 40% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, many of whom are working in the brutally overstretched sectors of Health and Social Care that haven't had pay rises in 15 years. One OT said to me, "the drive for efficiency leads no room for compassion, but the only thing that will help us survive the drive for effifciency is compassion," and we had a good laugh about that.
sounds like bollox unless they were paid above current minimum wage 15 years ago, usual leftie claptrap.
Universal Credit began in 2013.
Prior to that there was a whole lot of tax credits that paid money well beyond average wages as I qualified for them and I've never been badly paid.
Almost as if it's UBI. I can tell you I work in Health and Social Care, I've been involved in funding meetings with the IJB, and the continual direction of travel in that sector is - do more work for less money. People don't stay in the same job, and when jobs are repackaged to new providers, the new providers advertise the jobs at lower pay.
I suppose it's nice to believe everything in Health and Social Care is rosy and everyone is looked after. The truth is you have people running the IJB paid enough for three or four posts who'll tell you they have Key Performance Indicators for human moral sentiment whilst sitting 50 yards from a statue of David Hume.
And we know this - people can't move on from the hospital, which is taking £600 a night, because no one can fill a package of care that amounts to going in for ten minutes to make sure they take their Clozapine, which is a legal condition for their release, because they can't get care workers in. The care workers are overstretched to the point that finding parking in EH3 regularly that allows them to see all the clients they would need to is simply not possible.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
It's remarkable how many problems he created are now becoming both serious and blindly obvious...
On the face of it, the triple lock doesn't seem a bad way to gradually raise pensions there were pretty low, though of course it could only ever be a temporary measure. But of course temporary measures have a habit of becoming permanent and we're still stuck with the bloody thing. Surely the pension becoming equal to the tax free allowance can be used as a reason to end the triple lock and instead tie the state pension to the tax free allowance?
Except the tax free allowance used to be below the state pension and will be again next year.
Now I have zero problems with implementing it but you would still need something to make sure the state pension increased every year otherwise there would be multiple incentives to leave it where it currently is.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
Osborne represented the response of the "centre right" to the financial crisis of 2008 which destroyed "centre left" economic policy completely.
The response was to look at the crisis in public finances and argue it was the spending side which needed to be reigned in - in the first Coalition Budget, if memory serves, it was £5 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax rises but the problem was the hostages to fortune by both Clegg (student tuition fees) and Cameron (no cutbacks in the NHS or Education).
This meant other areas of the public finances had to take a disproportionate hit (step forward defence. local Government and the criminal justice system).
And it was the local Government costs that are probably the reason behind Brexit..
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
The mighty David Allen Green on the subject of Reform's plan to legislate so they also can do all the sensible things Trump does without asking anybody like trash the economy, destroy Switzerland in a nuclear attack, give free money to Reform voters, abolish elections and start WWIII. Like Leon I see no problem with this at all. DAG is making a fuss about nothing.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality
It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.
At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it
Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.
Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election
As I keep saying -
1) Merge employee NI And IT 2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially. 3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable. 4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....
Taxation is the best way to deal with this.
I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.
The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).
You merge employee NI and IT
That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.
This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.
But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.
So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is
No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.
Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.
Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway
The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.
Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.
1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now. 2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.
Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).
The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.
It's about messaging
1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance 2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax. 3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.
A friend worked in charity fundraising. She said the perfect charity to fundraise for would be Kittens for Kids with Kancer (except for the initials).
In the subject of KKK I was scrolling Facebook this morning and saw this and for a good moment o thought the chap on the right was dressed interestingly.
Human culture knows no end to creating silly hats, it is a universal value.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
Trump has repeatedly and openly declared his willingness and intent to shift policy day to day if individuals say things he does not like - aside from any other points, it means no country can plan long term with the USA, and needs to separate so they are not hurt by such capriciousness.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
That may have been true once - I don't know enough about the younger Trump to comment - but if it was it's clear the Trump of today cannot think through from action to consequence. I say this as one with a higher than average level of contempt for the type of politicians the Democratic Party spits out at voters nowadays, but even the lightest-weight Dem politician - and they come considerably more lightweight than Harris - would have handled this situation immeasurably better than Trump has.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Someone at clientco had their mobile stolen outside the office in Baker Street on Thursday. I suspect it was opportunist but it rather upset her and a large number of her colleagues.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Is any of what you report different to Charles Dicken's day?
If that was the case Bradford and Southall / Ealing would be on the list.
Not necessarily. There can't be Islamophobia with 0% or 100% Muslim population, so peak Islamophobia would be somewhere in between. The places you mention may be the other side of the peak. Safety in numbers.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Your last para rather damns Newham by very faint praise.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
I leave the blood on the body armour, in a style of a Punisher logo, before I go out.
I'm trying to get to get the chap who runs the real Italian deli to stock .338 Lapua - never know what may go down after the second espresso.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
No need to tell us, we can all see how well qualified he is and how that's paying off for him.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
He never was and he never will be a geopolitical heavyweight nor a military strategist.
The man is quite probably a semi literate grifter. Please don't sane-wash the madness.
So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.
Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again
It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality
It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.
At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it
Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.
Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election
As I keep saying -
1) Merge employee NI And IT 2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially. 3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable. 4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....
Taxation is the best way to deal with this.
I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.
The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).
You merge employee NI and IT
That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.
This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.
But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.
So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is
No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.
Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.
Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway
The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.
Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.
1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now. 2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.
Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).
The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.
It's about messaging
1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance 2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax. 3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.
A friend worked in charity fundraising. She said the perfect charity to fundraise for would be Kittens for Kids with Kancer (except for the initials).
In the subject of KKK I was scrolling Facebook this morning and saw this and for a good moment o thought the chap on the right was dressed interestingly.
Human culture knows no end to creating silly hats, it is a universal value.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Is any of what you report different to Charles Dicken's day?
In Dickens' day, stodge's high street was probably a farm track.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
Osborne represented the response of the "centre right" to the financial crisis of 2008 which destroyed "centre left" economic policy completely.
The response was to look at the crisis in public finances and argue it was the spending side which needed to be reigned in - in the first Coalition Budget, if memory serves, it was £5 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax rises but the problem was the hostages to fortune by both Clegg (student tuition fees) and Cameron (no cutbacks in the NHS or Education).
This meant other areas of the public finances had to take a disproportionate hit (step forward defence. local Government and the criminal justice system).
Spending had to be cut. The bubble had burst.
It was protecting pensioners, and slashing defence and justice that really rankled with me.
And I'm not sure the corporation tax cuts were all they were made out to be either.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
I thought you weren't doing this 'LOL' schtick anymore? Drat and double drat.
One less frequently remarked aspect of the Suez crisis was that following a botched operation for gall bladder Eden was in constant pain, for which he took heavy doses of drugs, including amphetamine and aspirin. These seriously affected his judgment and led to his innumerable disastrous mistakes.
It is a good job that no modern leaders are suffering acute medical issues that lead them to overdose on over the counter medicine and may impact their judgement by leading them into disastrous wars that block key shipping routes.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
He never was and he never will be a geopolitical heavyweight nor a military strategist.
The man is quite probably a semi literate grifter. Please don't sane-wash the madness.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
He never was and he never will be a geopolitical heavyweight nor a military strategist.
The man is quite probably a semi literate grifter. Please don't sane-wash the madness.
Are you not familiar with Mr Glenn?
I wouldn’t say he’s a grifter. He appears to do it for free.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
One of your most barking posts ever.
I can only assume you've been drinking.
It’s 2026 and you’ve suddenly realised that Osborne maybe wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
One of your most barking posts ever.
I can only assume you've been drinking.
It’s 2026 and you’ve suddenly realised that Osborne maybe wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
One of your most barking posts ever.
I can only assume you've been drinking.
It’s 2026 and you’ve suddenly realised that Osborne maybe wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Westminster is a bit of a surprise. I don't live there but it is where my job is - and I've never felt in the least unsafe walking around the area. I would say Channel 4 journalists considerably outnumber the muggers on its streets.
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
The Germans (temporarily) capturing Moscow would have been strategically irrelevant.
Might have made a difference if Stalin had scuttled off to the Urals with the rest of the nomenklatura rather than holding fast in Moscow. He was a horrible monster but I don’t think he could be called a coward.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
Yes, great post, but 2 edits:
Not America, not really ... Donald Trump.
But, yes, America because America reelected him with all his stupidity and sociopathy on open display.
So the even bigger date for infamy is Nov 5th 2024.
Voters believe in the Magic Money Tree, and it's partner, the Reform Fairy - where money for X can always be found through vague references to 'reform' or 'efficiency', predicated on the assumption no one has ever thought about making things more efficient before.
And because they do, politicians rely on both, and we'll be screwed.
I’m coming to the view that there are people who would rather be enslaved than see an end to the triple lock.
What a fool Osborne was to create it.
I'm increasingly of the view that Osborne was one of the most short-sighted politicians of the 21st Century.
Osborne represented the response of the "centre right" to the financial crisis of 2008 which destroyed "centre left" economic policy completely.
The response was to look at the crisis in public finances and argue it was the spending side which needed to be reigned in - in the first Coalition Budget, if memory serves, it was £5 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax rises but the problem was the hostages to fortune by both Clegg (student tuition fees) and Cameron (no cutbacks in the NHS or Education).
This meant other areas of the public finances had to take a disproportionate hit (step forward defence. local Government and the criminal justice system).
Spending had to be cut. The bubble had burst.
It was protecting pensioners, and slashing defence and justice that really rankled with me.
And I'm not sure the corporation tax cuts were all they were made out to be either.
And Local Government was also disproprortionally cut, savings could have been found in non frontline NHS spending and overseas aid without protecting them from cuts too
"The commander in chief was reportedly told that the mullahs might not agree to go gently into the night, but he seems to have waved away such concerns because he was so convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse almost immediately. According to The Wall Street Journal, when General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned the president that a U.S. attack would prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, Trump “told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait—and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.” "
...
"[Putin and Trump] made classic strategic errors. They engaged in what analysts call “scriptwriting”: They decided what they wanted to happen, and then wrote out a kind of script in which their adversaries would dutifully play their part and recite their lines. They also both seem to have ignored the standard war-gaming caution to plan for what the enemy can do, not for what you would prefer that it do."
Before the battle of Midway, some impudent juniors in the IJN won the war game of the battle, playing the Americans.
They were told to apologise for their rudeness.
History then proceeded.
The same thing almost happened when Zhukov war gamed the Germans capturing Moscow, and Stalin’s lackeys condemned him. But, Stalin was more in touch with reality than Trump is.
Donald Trump is away with the fairies and a horrible human being, ignorant, imbecilic and cruel, all of these things being blindingly obvious, yet at the same time he is the duly elected leader of a (very) large and (very) prosperous western democracy. There's no precedent for this. We can talk till the cows come home about grocery bills, EDI and other woke excesses, partisanship, charisma, Dem mistakes, social media, post truth, Musk, Russian interference, borders etc, but it remains fundamentally inexplicable by the metrics that we are used to dealing in. Anybody thinking they understand it in those terms is imo kidding themselves. To really understand it you'd need to get America on the couch. Create the right therapeutic atmosphere and ask, "Ok, so why did you really do it? You're safe here. Tell me." And then listen.
I think the reason he won the second time is…
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
That is pretty much how I'd analyse it in trad terms. But even as I do it I sense it's inadequate. It's not 'wrong', not at all, it's just not quite explaining something so simultaneously dark and bizarre.
Occam's razor suggests that he won because he was the better candidate.
Customer always right? No, that doesn't apply to elections.
Trump was going toe-to-toe with heavyweight journalists like Polly Toynbee on his Iran strategy as long ago as the 1980s. He was eminently more qualified for the job than Kamala Harris.
He never was and he never will be a geopolitical heavyweight nor a military strategist.
The man is quite probably a semi literate grifter. Please don't sane-wash the madness.
Are you not familiar with Mr Glenn?
Which one? The Eurofederalist or Trump dictatorship advocate.
So lunatic Trump and sleazy war criminal Netanyahu have the world to the brink of economic ruin. Do the right-wing shits who live on this blog still support this madness?
Just Barty, I think.
There is some logic in doing it with groundtroops as well, to remove the Iranian regime still hanging protestors and homosexuals and oppressing women. However doing it with strikes alone is just leaving the regime in place and leading to surging oil prices
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
Yes, great post, but 2 edits:
Not America, not really ... Donald Trump.
But, yes, America because America reelected him with all his stupidity and sociopathy on open display.
So the even bigger date for infamy is Nov 5th 2024.
I say Feb 26 because that is the Rubicon moment.
Even tariffs could be explained by some primitive logic around the need to protect industry versus China. In other words, it could be argued that it was in line with U.S. hegemonic interests.
Greenland on the other hand, as much as it enraged Europe, could be dismissed as a kind of mad, erratic blip.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
One of your most barking posts ever.
I can only assume you've been drinking.
On the contrary. An excellent post. Something you haven't managed for quite a while.
I'm thankful not to be one of those having to make choices for the country. I know pensioners who are already finding it impossible to make ends meet, fulltime working people ditto, longterm sick/disabled ditto.
I know far too many longterm sick/disabled people who are utterly genuine 'cases', in some cases whole families of them. Not ill-wishing anybody but sometimes it seems our society has turned Darwin on its head.
Sometimes it seems that comment sections up and down the internet are filled with innumerate geniuses who have calculated that £600 a night to lock someone away for years on end in a hospital is cheaper, kinder, and better than giving someone £100 a week in PIP. People that they won't employ and pretend it's out of kindness, and when they are employed, a system is set up that makes employment insurance unaffordable for this subset such that they can only fall back on benefits. Which everyone cries about them getting.
Ultimately we already have UBI - 40% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, many of whom are working in the brutally overstretched sectors of Health and Social Care that haven't had pay rises in 15 years. One OT said to me, "the drive for efficiency leads no room for compassion, but the only thing that will help us survive the drive for effifciency is compassion," and we had a good laugh about that.
sounds like bollox unless they were paid above current minimum wage 15 years ago, usual leftie claptrap.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Is any of what you report different to Charles Dicken's day?
In Dickens' day, stodge's high street was probably a farm track.
One of the most evocative sentences I have ever read, from a book published in 1937:
"It is incredible to look at a picture of St Giles's Church in Cripplegate within the memory of a living man and to see it in a country lane."
(Cripplegate is a few hundred yards from St Paul's Cathedral.)
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
Yes, great post, but 2 edits:
Not America, not really ... Donald Trump.
But, yes, America because America reelected him with all his stupidity and sociopathy on open display.
So the even bigger date for infamy is Nov 5th 2024.
I say Feb 26 because that is the Rubicon moment.
Even tariffs could be explained by some primitive logic around the need to protect industry versus China. In other words, it could be argued that it was in line with U.S. hegemonic interests.
Greenland on the other hand, as much as it enraged Europe, could be dismissed as a kind of mad, erratic blip.
Feb 26 is a cutting loose of allies, wholesale.
With potentially catastrophic consequences globally. I haven't totally ruled out Armegeddon. But, sunnier side up, I also haven't totally ruled out that America wakes up, wises up, finds a way back. Please let it be so.
Personally, I think Feb 26 will “go down in infamy”.
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really. It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
Yes, great post, but 2 edits:
Not America, not really ... Donald Trump.
But, yes, America because America reelected him with all his stupidity and sociopathy on open display.
So the even bigger date for infamy is Nov 5th 2024.
I say Feb 26 because that is the Rubicon moment.
Even tariffs could be explained by some primitive logic around the need to protect industry versus China. In other words, it could be argued that it was in line with U.S. hegemonic interests.
Greenland on the other hand, as much as it enraged Europe, could be dismissed as a kind of mad, erratic blip.
Feb 26 is a cutting loose of allies, wholesale.
28th February. The attack was launched on 28th February.
If that was the case Bradford and Southall / Ealing would be on the list.
The voters haven't responded correctly to the "Diversity is our strength" indoctrination. Unless being scared to walk down the street at night is seen as a strength
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Westminster is a bit of a surprise. I don't live there but it is where my job is - and I've never felt in the least unsafe walking around the area. I would say Channel 4 journalists considerably outnumber the muggers on its streets.
There are less salubrious bits of Westminster, housing estates round Paddington mostly.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Westminster is a bit of a surprise. I don't live there but it is where my job is - and I've never felt in the least unsafe walking around the area. I would say Channel 4 journalists considerably outnumber the muggers on its streets.
There are less salubrious bits of Westminster, housing estates round Paddington mostly.
So lunatic Trump and sleazy war criminal Netanyahu have the world to the brink of economic ruin. Do the right-wing shits who live on this blog still support this madness?
Just Barty, I think.
I support regime change.
Not this hit them, but don't hit their oil and don't stop their ships, and don't do too much damage, but keep hitting them madness of Trump's.
Well, I'm in the number 1 area so I always make sure the suit of armour is cleaned before I venture forth.
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
Westminster is a bit of a surprise. I don't live there but it is where my job is - and I've never felt in the least unsafe walking around the area. I would say Channel 4 journalists considerably outnumber the muggers on its streets.
There are less salubrious bits of Westminster, housing estates round Paddington mostly.
That’s where the Channel 4 journalists hang out in the shadows.
“Want a documentary on artisan spoon making? Real cheap, mate?”
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he added.
As the president was leaving the White House on Friday afternoon, he told reporters that he believes the US has “won” its war with Iran
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he added.
As the president was leaving the White House on Friday afternoon, he told reporters that he believes the US has “won” its war with Iran
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he added.
As the president was leaving the White House on Friday afternoon, he told reporters that he believes the US has “won” its war with Iran
So basically he is saying "I've just shat all over your doorstep, I think you will find cleaning it up very rewarding".
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he added.
As the president was leaving the White House on Friday afternoon, he told reporters that he believes the US has “won” its war with Iran
So basically he is saying "I've just shat all over your doorstep, I think you will find cleaning it up very rewarding".
Old gang trick was shitting in a newspaper, then setting it on fire and leaving it outside an rivals door. They come out - stomp to try and put it out - and... have a bit of a surprise.
I'm thankful not to be one of those having to make choices for the country. I know pensioners who are already finding it impossible to make ends meet, fulltime working people ditto, longterm sick/disabled ditto.
I know far too many longterm sick/disabled people who are utterly genuine 'cases', in some cases whole families of them. Not ill-wishing anybody but sometimes it seems our society has turned Darwin on its head.
Sometimes it seems that comment sections up and down the internet are filled with innumerate geniuses who have calculated that £600 a night to lock someone away for years on end in a hospital is cheaper, kinder, and better than giving someone £100 a week in PIP. People that they won't employ and pretend it's out of kindness, and when they are employed, a system is set up that makes employment insurance unaffordable for this subset such that they can only fall back on benefits. Which everyone cries about them getting.
Ultimately we already have UBI - 40% of Universal Credit claimants are in work, many of whom are working in the brutally overstretched sectors of Health and Social Care that haven't had pay rises in 15 years. One OT said to me, "the drive for efficiency leads no room for compassion, but the only thing that will help us survive the drive for effifciency is compassion," and we had a good laugh about that.
sounds like bollox unless they were paid above current minimum wage 15 years ago, usual leftie claptrap.
Trump: “I think we've won. We've knocked out (Iran's) navy, their air force. We've knocked out their anti-aircraft. We've knocked out everything... From a military standpoint, they're finished."
Trump: “I think we've won. We've knocked out (Iran's) navy, their air force. We've knocked out their anti-aircraft. We've knocked out everything... From a military standpoint, they're finished."
So next step: Trump visits Kharg Island, stands and points at Tehran...
Comments
People don’t like inflation and blamed the incumbents
The US has a very strong 2-party system, so if you don’t vote D, you have to vote R
So much US traditional media and even more social media is completely polarised and based on entertaining outrage rather than truth
We'll be lucky if this doesn't turn into WW III.
23000 posts later and me now part of the TL gravy train I still believe it should be in the bin and retrospectively adjusted downwards
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
So, I would prefer to move to greater equality, by which I mean levels we saw in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when there was still plenty of rich people, and plenty of innovation/growth.
Or maybe it was just the weather.
Where in England & Wales are people most likely to say they feel unsafe in their local area?
1. Newham: 43%
2. Barking & Dagenham: 36%
3. Brent: 34%
4. Sandwell: 29%
5. Leicester: 29%
6. Luton: 29%
7. Westminster: 28%
8. Birmingham: 28%
9. Hounslow: 28%
10. Wolverhampton: 27%
yougov.com/en-gb/articles…
https://x.com/yougov/status/2035021336158822643?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The response was to look at the crisis in public finances and argue it was the spending side which needed to be reigned in - in the first Coalition Budget, if memory serves, it was £5 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax rises but the problem was the hostages to fortune by both Clegg (student tuition fees) and Cameron (no cutbacks in the NHS or Education).
This meant other areas of the public finances had to take a disproportionate hit (step forward defence. local Government and the criminal justice system).
Also, civil service managers are paid according to the size of their budget and/or the people they manage so there is no incentive to deliver your objectives at lower cost.
I suppose it's nice to believe everything in Health and Social Care is rosy and everyone is looked after. The truth is you have people running the IJB paid enough for three or four posts who'll tell you they have Key Performance Indicators for human moral sentiment whilst sitting 50 yards from a statue of David Hume.
And we know this - people can't move on from the hospital, which is taking £600 a night, because no one can fill a package of care that amounts to going in for ten minutes to make sure they take their Clozapine, which is a legal condition for their release, because they can't get care workers in. The care workers are overstretched to the point that finding parking in EH3 regularly that allows them to see all the clients they would need to is simply not possible.
Now I have zero problems with implementing it but you would still need something to make sure the state pension increased every year otherwise there would be multiple incentives to leave it where it currently is.
Surely not!
The U.S., seemingly led by Israel, treacherously junked peace negotiations with Iran and murdered the negotiators. It almost immediately went on to commit war crimes in the Indian Ocean while Israel was given free rein to continue its wars of colonial expansion.
It failed to consult allies, and has - precisely in accordance with predictions by any half-decent Middle East analyst - unleashed a global economic crisis. Supposed allies in the Pacific are now counting down the days left of oil supply.
Basically, it’s signalled that America is ultimately less interested in defending the economic security of allies than promoting the interests of Israel’s kleptocratic regime.
While we are still in the fog of war, I think the long term effect is more profound than you might think: no ally can any longer trust the U.S. I expect to see increasing partnership across the liberal middle powers - Canada, UK, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia - to find ways of shoring up defence, economic and digital sovereignty.
It’s the end of American power, really.
It will of course retain significant economic heft and the largest military force in the world.
But it will become a rather expensive and useless toy set. Nobody trusts them anymore. They are too fickle, deceitful and cruel.
https://theemptycity.com/blog/2026/03/the-prospect-of-executive-orders-being-used-by-an-incoming-illiberal-government/
Do I feel "unsafe"? I've lived most of my life in London and there's an element of common sense and keeping your wits which is important. Waving a new mobile phone around isn't a good idea near the tube station and there is persistent low-level criminality (pickpocketing, shoplifting) which is, I suspect, linked to a small number of rough sleepers who in turn have addiction and mental health issues.
I wouldn't walk down the High Street at midnight but during the day, for the most part, it's fine.
https://x.com/Mollyploofkins/status/2034956631503495665
I'm trying to get to get the chap who runs the real Italian deli to stock .338 Lapua - never know what may go down after the second espresso.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzS_XtbudmE
The man is quite probably a semi literate grifter. Please don't sane-wash the madness.
It was protecting pensioners, and slashing defence and justice that really rankled with me.
And I'm not sure the corporation tax cuts were all they were made out to be either.
I can only assume you've been drinking.
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/2035078774362886452
Russia's main TV channel is airing songs about how great life is without the internet. Getting even closer to North Korea.
It is a good job that no modern leaders are suffering acute medical issues that lead them to overdose on over the counter medicine and may impact their judgement by leading them into disastrous wars that block key shipping routes.
So come back to me in a decade or so.
Not America, not really ... Donald Trump.
But, yes, America because America reelected him with all his stupidity and sociopathy on open display.
So the even bigger date for infamy is Nov 5th 2024.
Even tariffs could be explained by some primitive logic around the need to protect industry versus China. In other words, it could be argued that it was in line with U.S. hegemonic interests.
Greenland on the other hand, as much as it enraged Europe, could be dismissed as a kind of mad, erratic blip.
Feb 26 is a cutting loose of allies, wholesale.
"It is incredible to look at a picture of St Giles's Church in Cripplegate within the memory of a living man and to see it in a country lane."
(Cripplegate is a few hundred yards from St Paul's Cathedral.)
Not this hit them, but don't hit their oil and don't stop their ships, and don't do too much damage, but keep hitting them madness of Trump's.
“Want a documentary on artisan spoon making? Real cheap, mate?”
Trump on the Strait of Hormuz:
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them,” he added.
As the president was leaving the White House on Friday afternoon, he told reporters that he believes the US has “won” its war with Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyvQUCGuA
Trump: “I think we've won. We've knocked out (Iran's) navy, their air force. We've knocked out their anti-aircraft. We've knocked out everything... From a military standpoint, they're finished."