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Reform’s Trump love presents problems for Farage – politicalbetting.com
Reform’s Trump love presents problems for Farage – politicalbetting.com
With Donald Trump seeming to suggest that Ukraine is responsible for the war with Russia, just 3% of Britons would agreeRussia is entirely/mostly responsible: 77% Both sides are equally responsible: 8%Ukraine is entirely/mostly responsible: 3%yougov.co.uk/topics/polit…
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R is for Russia
Is Badenoch smart enough to take it? Of course not.
Poilievre's (Canadian Conservative) certainly has. The Liberals, if led by Mark Carney, are back in with a shot and even Trudeau's popularity has markedly improved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sowVRYaqjDI
It’s up to the media to stick the boot in .
https://bsky.app/profile/tseofpb.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/starter-pack/mattwardman.bsky.social/3lfk4fvp5yv26
https://x.com/LiddleSavages/status/1892351307320598685
Will they? Probably not. They’ll just style it out, telling porkies, stirring up trouble online as usual, aided by the algorithm.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
It's fairly long, but begins:
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.
The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”
President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests; but neither Bush nor Gorbachev at that point (or for that matter, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl) expected so soon the collapse of East Germany or the speed of German unification.[2]
The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn (see Document 1) informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’”
The diaries of Simon Hart, the Conservative chief whip, have revealed that the prime minister had deep reservations about the promotion during a reshuffle in 2023.
The book, serialised in The Times, claims that Sunak felt he had no choice but to go ahead with the appointment, and admitted to Hart “we can’t get rid of her”.
Hart has not disclosed the name of the minister but in the February reshuffle three women were promoted to the cabinet or given enhanced briefs.
The most senior was Kemi Badenoch, now Tory leader, who was handed the business brief on top of her role as international trade secretary.
Michelle Donelan, who had previously been culture secretary, was promoted to become science and technology secretary. She got the job after Michael Gove turned it down.
Lucy Frazer was promoted to the cabinet as culture secretary, having previously been the housing minister.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rishi-sunak-cabinet-minister-useless-8fnkbjr27
I'll have to give it a go.
PMQs would have been interesting.
https://www.thefp.com/p/kemi-badenoch-i-dont-think-doge-is
We dodged a bullet in 2023, she could have been worse than Truss.
Will the Conservatives ever be fit to form a government again? The signs are not good.
The progressive left should take this seriously; they probably won't.
Leftwing activists less likely to work with political rivals than other UK groups, study finds
Exclusive: Lack of understanding by ‘progressive activists’ of other voting blocs has led to rise of far right, authors argue
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/19/leftwing-activists-less-likely-work-political-rivals-other-uk-groups-study
(Led to the rise in support for the far right would be a better way of phrasing it.)
That’s the story of the British right.
Mentioned before about what does Putin (not Russia) have that could possibly be of interest to Trump? Not photos but good relations with Iran and North Korea. Both are avowed self-declared enemies of the US. If Putin can leash them for 4 years then Pax Trumpana would put him in position to argue he should remain CiC for longer (Ed: define longer)
Russia (as opposed to Putin) offers opportunities for American 'know-how' and finance in return for their resources and any ancillary ones picked up from neighbouring states.
The US internal politics is sewn up so and being run by GOP/Musk so he has free time to stroll the world stage and get that Nobel Peace Prize.
As someone suggested earlier, everyone else are non-playing characters in Trump's video game.
Meanwhile back in Leftbehindby, none of that has any bearing. Real people watch Dating Naked, not the news, and any news they get on social media is clips of GB News and similar outlets.
So do what he's good at - talk about these people's communities and their families and what he's going to do about it. Talk up defence not as a reaction to Trump but as a way to make Britain strong again - with lots of jobs into the bargain. Talk about pride in the flag and the need to rebuild our armed forces after decades of wanton destruction.
Energy network owners have made £3.9bn from higher bills, says report
Citizens Advice believes Ofgem made flawed interest rate calculation for companies in Great Britain
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/20/energy-network-owners-have-made-39bn-from-higher-bills-says-report
The money would have paid for some of the network upgrades we require.
Which no doubt the operators will say justify further bill increases.
You might as well argue that the UK is currently opposed to a unified Germany because Thatcher was in 1989.
Edit - “aligned with Russian propaganda” is lazy of me, sorry. You, as a poster, are not one of their shills like some on here.
I've mentioned on here Elon has made it close to impossible to embed tweets in PB thread headers.
Twitter threads don't show properly, photos are automatically cropped, you have to faff around with embed codes, that again do not always work.
But nothing like a nice warm bowl of smug lefty moral superiority in the morning.
A lot of the British right can’t stand Trump and Musk and their autocratic/kleptocratic values and their economic idiocy.
But you won't ever get this
Any assurances on NATO beyond East Germany would have been about de-escalating the Cold War. But by 1991 the Russians hated Communism more than the Americans did and there was no reason to expect it would recur.
The FSB coup that put Putin into power was the result of a combination of factors, but suggesting NATO expansion was critical is I think to underplay the role of economics and especially megalomania.
The correct analogy would be:
People post that Thatcher was always in favour of German reunification, and I post documentary evidence that in 1989 she was opposed.
Listen to yourselves
It's Russias aggressions and subversion that have led to NATO expansion, not vice versa.
Turns out it was a scene from a Batman film.
Pillock.
What are views on this?
I'm probably attracted to wordpress.com, but substack may be possible. It's probably not worth me running a Wordpress Install for.
One of the things I'm after is a place to drop the occasional longer comments I put on PB as a light-weight archive.
Kudos to Starmer for clearly siding with Zelensky following Trump's pathetic 'dictator' comment.
He's inciting racial hatred. He would love there to be a race war in the UK.
Edit: as typos go, that was a good one.
Bon voyage et bon chance.
It has been the one constant in the twenty-one years of PB.
Inconceivable
Children born after commercial surrogacy abroad may be stateless and parentless
The motives of two women who decided to become parents in their late sixties “would seem to have been entirely self-centred, with no thought as to the long-term welfare of the resulting children”, the president of the High Court family division said in a judgment published yesterday.
Sir Andrew McFarlane had been astonished to learn that the couple had not given any consideration to the impact on their children of having parents who were so much older. He thought the children were likely to become teenage carers when their parents were in their eighties.
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/inconceivable
The most interesting result from all of this though, IMHO, is how the Labour Party responds.
Might this now give the government that sense of purpose it has been sorely lacking? Can Starmer move the Labour Party even further away from its natural instincts and create a strong national defence policy? It immediately helps get spades in the ground on defence projects. It even gives some political cover for more tax rises and spending cuts. I’m not sure how well Starmer (and particularly Reeves) can sell any of this stuff, but this is the path forward for Labour.
(I quite like the "Gen Z are terrified of capital letters".)
People denying that any assurances were ever given that NATO wouldn't expand eastwards are actually helping Kremlin propaganda.
But, as they say, truth is the first casualty of war.
1) Putin has overplayed his hand. There was a landing zone for a peace deal that was relatively favourable for Russia but that Ukraine felt obliged to accept due to the threat to the US withdrawing her troops. However, the basis of negotiations so far are so favourable to Russia, including Trump spouting Russian propaganda we're usually subject to on a Saturday morning, that is not viable. Ukraine will keep on fighting without US aid rather than accept such terms. We will support them in doing so.
2) Trump will cosy up to Russia regardless and loosen sanctions / do business deals. He will blame Ukraine for his deal being scuppered and cast Zelenskyy as a scapegoat.
3) Europe and the UK will maintain sanctions on Russia, which will make things complicated for multinationals. In the absence of US sanctions I think the UK will become important in applying financial pressure regarding banking etc. Military spending is also going to rise well above 2.5% of GDP now that the US no longer protects Europe.
Perhaps the compromises are only one way, with centre / centre-right parties unwilling to move slightly left on policy.
Compromise requires movement in both directions.
The west's "incipient slide into facism" is being driven by a media controlled by a small number of right wing billionaires, not by left wing activists refusing to adopt their policies.
Onto my third cuppa but it's like there's a hole in my stomach and my body ain't absorbing the fluid.
It will take time, but eventually the dam will burst.
@kamski
"It would have been better if the West just left Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence until the West was capable of properly standing up to Putin."
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In other words, realpolitik rather than liberal interventionism.
The West's Drang nach Osten (drive to the East) since 2007 has led to disaster with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives due to the failure to consider geo-political reality. Encroaching on Russia is very difficult, as the leaders of Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, France and Germany learnt to their cost in the 17th century, 1708-9, 1812 and 1941-4 respectively.
Whatever one might think of Trump, at least he is trying to stop this horrific conflict as soon as possible. Only history will be the judge of the wisdom of his approach.
But he speaks as if protecting those countries - which had finally and bravely broken free from Soviet dictatorship and been on the receiving end of Russian aggression and imperialism for centuries - from renewed Russian adventurism, is a bad thing?
If we are smart we will take this opportunity to reset European relations and take a closer look at how Europe can work. With Merz likely to take power in Germany and Macron’s developing radical instincts, there is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually get Europe to think about its purpose, objectives and reform, to actually help create the big tent and ease some of the more dogmatic policies.
You may be able to adopt a child if you’re aged 21 or over (there’s no upper age limit) and either:
https://www.gov.uk/child-adoption
Bet you that some fuel rods are already in nitric acid…
You are the one helping Kremlin propaganda. When the Kremlin says "it's NATO’s fault for breaking the promise not to expand" and the response is to make an absolute denial that any kind of promise was ever made, it helps Kremlin propaganda. Because people who might not be well-informed might nevertheless hear this exchange, find out that you are factually incorrect, and therefore be more likely to believe the Kremlin's many actual lies.
The correct response is to point out no formal promise was given, things changed a lot rapidly, and to ask why former Warsaw Pact countries were so keen to join NATO, which as sovereign countries they have every right to do. And say other countries joining NATO is no excuse for an unprovoked illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Nobody disputes that NATO promised no NATO soldiers would be stationed in East Germany without Soviet agreement in the event of reunification, and that Soviet agreement would not be presumed. That was due to the very sensitive position of Germany at the time and the diplomatic complexities of reunification.
Similarly, nobody disputes that there were discussions about what would happen were other countries to leave the Warsaw Pact. It was agreed the Soviet Union as a Pact member had an interest in those proceedings if they came about. This was, again, so as not to startle the horses over Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe which Gorbachev was having enough trouble getting past his hardliners as it was.
The issue is that some of those people you quote re-read those as a cast iron guarantee that NATO would not seek eastward expansion ever under any circumstances. Which they were not.
Had the USSR survived it may have been different, but Russia was a separate state (it actually declared independence from the USSR) and so were the countries surrounding it. The diplomatic discussions referred to, which again were not guarantees, became moot.
To give you another example, the position of American troops in Europe as a whole was discussed. America was actually willing to withdraw from Europe entirely in exchange for a diplomatic settlement, if that was needed. But it wasn’t (and Gorbachev said, in fact, he thought that would be unwise anyway for a whole host of reasons). If American forces had left under such a deal and there was a civil war in Italy or Germany, or indeed American peacekeepers needed in Northern Ireland, would that have been a reason to refuse them?
Russia did not object to the expansion of NATO until Kosovo, by which time it was experiencing major financial turmoil. And Ukraine wouldn’t have talked of joining but for Russian meddling in its politics and economy from as long ago as 2003. It’s really not true to say that cast iron pledges were broken and that security concerns were a factor. This is about the Russian government’s greed for an empire.
So no, Leon is not right in this, and we can all relax until the Orange Haired one goes off again.
Why would that be? Hmm.
"The countries we keep invading or dreaming of invading want to join a defensive coalition. This is highly provocative."
Just because Trump makes up any old bollocks to suit himself, doesn't mean we have to do the same.
Which is what Trumps doing .