Domestically, it's regrettable Reeves has chosen the easy way out and will slash welfare spending. It's not of course easy for those who will lose out whether they are "scroungers" or not.
Big Council Tax rises for many in the next few weeks won't help and I do question the necessity of spending millions on local Government reorganisation when issues like adult social care and SEN funding as well as funding of temporary accommodation for homeless families remain unresolved.
I've had significant experience of the interface problems between District and County levels, for example around trying to get necessary Planning Conditions relating to County responsibilities imposed on planning permissions given by the District, and vice versa getting local considerations into County level projects.
So I welcome it.
It is yet another example of making our politicians more centralised and less accountable.
It flys, it delivers whatever bomb you like, and it's not American.
At 45,000 it is a sitting duck for every SAM made since 1955.
Most airframes are though. For the crew it's a disaster. What matters though is being able to deliver a truck load of drone munitions.
And it also operates at a little above 0ft.
The Vulcan and Victor - and Valiant now someone's mentioned it - were disasters for their crews in other ways. No ejection seats for 60% of them, and the pilots (who did) probably stayed too long trying to save their fellows, all too often.
No word for the Sperrin?!
At zero feet, the Vulcan and Victor wore out very rapidly. The planned low level Valiant would have been better - except still made of cheese.
At high speed, the Mach tuck on the Vulcan was interesting. Always liked the very matter of fact account by the Vulcan pilot who got into a high speed dive. Since he couldn't get the nose up, or slow down, he was about to roll inverted (at Mach 0.98) so he could pull out with negative G.... then the descending aircraft hit denser air and slowed down....
Long range ballistic missiles arrive at Mach 24. Which stretches even the best interceptors systems to breaking point.
Which is why things like the B-70 were cancelled - the payload of a B-52, carried at 75,000 feet at Mach 3.
Vulcan pilots loved Vulcans.
Edit: Actually I don't know this to be true. At least one pilot loved his Vulcan, and he told me that all did.
Domestically, it's regrettable Reeves has chosen the easy way out and will slash welfare spending. It's not of course easy for those who will lose out whether they are "scroungers" or not.
Big Council Tax rises for many in the next few weeks won't help and I do question the necessity of spending millions on local Government reorganisation when issues like adult social care and SEN funding as well as funding of temporary accommodation for homeless families remain unresolved.
I've had significant experience of the interface problems between District and County levels, for example around trying to get necessary Planning Conditions relating to County responsibilities imposed on planning permissions given by the District, and vice versa getting local considerations into County level projects.
So I welcome it.
I'm not saying the current two tier system is perfect - far from it. However, I simply question the cost of moving to unitary authorities which will be considerable.
Some of the back office costs can be mitigated by sharing facilities but as an example Surrey has 11 second tier authorities (Borough/District councils) each of whom collects its council tax in its own way. These will all need to be amalgamated into the new West and East Surrey Councils (presumably).
I also distinctinctly remember a lot of left-of-centre people in the late '80s and early '90s immediately being shouted down as Bolsheviks, whenever they raised the question of how much Trident's dependence on the U.S. , had not been honestly explained.
It was considered too delicate, and as the article mentions, it was , of all Tharcher's policies, the one to which she countenanced the least dissent.
Thatcher was extremely starry eyed about the US alliance. I think it was the war. And the Cold War. Ironically she was also the last one who seemed to challenge the US view on occasion (over the Falklands for example) possibly because she had a more innocent view of the relationship.
Recently, only Truss has challenged the US. And that ended badly.
While the State dept. wanted to play neutral, Reagan came out heavily on the UK side.
Which was why the NSA was sending the UK the cracked intercepts of Argentine communications. Often Norwood had the translated messages before their intended recipients in the Argentine military.
The Americans even moved satellites to get better coverage and realtimed electronic intelligence to the UK. Which is why Woodward knew the takeoff times of the Argentine strikes against the task force, long *before* they took off - the US was listening in on preparations at Argentine airfields. Apparently, the Argentine airforce loved using walkie talkies on the ground.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
“We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation.”
Having no choice but to sign the Chagos Agreement is a buy (sic) product of this “special relationship” too, I would like to explain. For anyone who still doesn’t understand why the first Chagos Deal (with UK doing the ethnic cleansing leg work for our masters) and the new Chagos deal India and US want us to sign was always certain to happen, for any person implying UK has a choice in this matter is simply uninformed and ignorant, take a gander at this:
“Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it of course is absolutely not,” “UK – unlike France – is highly intertwined with the US when it comes to maintaining its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement.” “Developing a replacement for Trident or adapting it for use without the US would be “hugely complicated” and costly” “difficult to conceive” of the US not wanting to maintain its relationship with the UK,
They make it, it’s expensive, and we have zero choice but to buy it - at mates rates in return for “other services rendered.” “"We're going to have some discussions about Chagos Deal very soon.” Said Donald Trump. “And I have a feeling it's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he sat beside Starmer. "They're talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually. That's a long time, and I think we'll be inclined to go along with your country."
But I throw the question back at you Lucky, for you to explain the downsides of your alternate plan. That is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of project failure. And that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS were created in first place for good reason - strength in Union and sharing for like minded friends.
The very special UK US relationship makes us their bitch, you can argue - but all things considered, all pro’s and cons, do we really want to break free? Can we even seriously consider it?
The downside of any move toward the goal of autonomy when one has previously been subservient is that it upsets and offends those who have previously been in the driving seat. In this case, that's the US. That's why you need to know when to shut up, when to give in, when to flatter, when to dissemble, when to push back, and when to draw the line. There's a big skill of diplomacy. We don't have that at the moment because the entire civil service is geared to subservience to whomever asks for it.
On Chagos, I think the issue is far simpler than you make out. We just say we won't pay. Offer the deal of giving up Chagos to Mauritius, and they can make whatever deal they want with America. We could explain that we can no longer afford to pay due to the new defence 'realities'. We could even spend the money on some defence geegaws that we needed anyway from America and dress it up as a 'deal' with Trump. At least we'd be getting something. Mauritius would drop their claim like a hot brick. And if they didn't, who gives a shit? Even if the giveaway were not a choice, the payoff is.
Bizarrely, I think your first strong paragraph explained why your second paragraph “I think the issue is far simpler than you make out, We just say we won't pay” really isn’t so simple after all. 😀
Mauritius PM has said if the US say no, they will continue pursuing it. The Indians want us to sign this, and the US supports the Indians as they wish to cosy up on trade and security in the region. No deal, and none of those interested parties are happy. US want the base, the long range bombing was very useful in Iraq and Afghanistan and the upcoming regime change in Iran SMO.
The key bit, this pretence UK pays this cost lease, not US, is a bit weak now because we know we have been paid by US for this so far (our hands dirty on ethnic cleansing etc) via a club discount card in US weapons store - arguably like your money back via a free bet, but still helping UK taxpayer in the round. That club discount card needs to be taken into account when you hear what the Chagos lease costs are, and it’s a weaker argument when you don’t admit this.
But most of all, the weakness of all your PB posts is you don’t ever share both Pros and Cons. you see what I mean, you didn’t attempt to tackle independent UK nuclear weapons is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of complex project failure, and that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS created in first place for good reasons being strength in Union and sharing costs together with like minded friends. Which is what dragged us into this place to start with!
I didn't say it because it's not the case.
I think you missed that I am talking about a tactical nuclear programme, with missiles delivered by conventional methods, not a strategic one. Of course that is still a fairly complex and costly project, but it has never to my knowledge carried the same price tag as Trident or Polaris. If we phase out of doomsday strategic nukes (where it's very questionable in our case whether they would even fire) and move into tactical ones that can be delivered via multiple methods and have various payloads, we would still be a nuclear power and far scarier in a wider variety of scenarios - and it would be cheaper overall.
Okay. I’ve given that post a like. But it’s not questionable our strategic nukes fire though, it’s true to say you press a button and out they come, and I’m proud of that. That they inexplicably turn 180 degrees going off in wrong direction to blow an ally up, that’s different.
But when you are ingrained in a master servant relationship since 1958, with no quick way out, it’s going to affect what you can and can’t do, is my point. UK has no choice but sign latest Chagos deal when told to by Trump, all this making out we have a choice is just not being honest with British people in my book.
Also, there was a piece this week in Spectator telling us Chagos deal is a threat to US national security, because surrendering sovereignty allows the Chinese to more easily “survey, encircle and examine the base.”
Perhaps they are smarter people than me writing this in UK press and arguing it in US Senate too, I’m not entirely sure there is huge argument there. What does everyone else make of this argument? Chagos lease comes with ongoing Environment Protection Clause over the archipelago and its waters, on environmental grounds we carry on intercepting the little Sri Lankan registered fishing junks, impounding its spying equipment.Just as likely Iran owned than Chinese, I would think.
Compared with US bases everywhere in world continually getting spied on from space, by snoopers with cameras and press badges, drones and weather balloons, even with this change, the Chagos type base will continue to be hard to get near, let alone encircle and examine as the argument supposedly goes. Surely Iran and China start from already knowing the Chagos Base takes long distance bombers and Nuclear Subs, it’s what is actually going on today, anything new or change recently they need to know? And satellites, other spying methods like intercepting comms gives them all that info much more immediately and efficiently than fishing boats department can compete with?
So what dramatically changes on the national security aspect with Chagos Lease Deal, when comparatively it will still remain similarly easier to spy on bases on UK and US soil, than get near the Chagos base?
I wouldn’t put much faith in an article in the Spectator!
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
It flys, it delivers whatever bomb you like, and it's not American.
At 45,000 it is a sitting duck for every SAM made since 1955.
Most airframes are though. For the crew it's a disaster. What matters though is being able to deliver a truck load of drone munitions.
And it also operates at a little above 0ft.
The Vulcan and Victor - and Valiant now someone's mentioned it - were disasters for their crews in other ways. No ejection seats for 60% of them, and the pilots (who did) probably stayed too long trying to save their fellows, all too often.
No word for the Sperrin?!
At zero feet, the Vulcan and Victor wore out very rapidly. The planned low level Valiant would have been better - except still made of cheese.
At high speed, the Mach tuck on the Vulcan was interesting. Always liked the very matter of fact account by the Vulcan pilot who got into a high speed dive. Since he couldn't get the nose up, or slow down, he was about to roll inverted (at Mach 0.98) so he could pull out with negative G.... then the descending aircraft hit denser air and slowed down....
Long range ballistic missiles arrive at Mach 24. Which stretches even the best interceptors systems to breaking point.
Which is why things like the B-70 were cancelled - the payload of a B-52, carried at 75,000 feet at Mach 3.
Vulcan pilots loved Vulcans.
Edit: Actually I don't know this to be true. At least one pilot loved his Vulcan, and he told me that all did.
The psychology that means that ship captains love their ships, no matter what, was long remarked upon. Something similar happens with pilots. They nearly always find something to love in a plane.
Domestically, it's regrettable Reeves has chosen the easy way out and will slash welfare spending. It's not of course easy for those who will lose out whether they are "scroungers" or not.
Big Council Tax rises for many in the next few weeks won't help and I do question the necessity of spending millions on local Government reorganisation when issues like adult social care and SEN funding as well as funding of temporary accommodation for homeless families remain unresolved.
I've had significant experience of the interface problems between District and County levels, for example around trying to get necessary Planning Conditions relating to County responsibilities imposed on planning permissions given by the District, and vice versa getting local considerations into County level projects.
So I welcome it.
Nottinghamshire seems to be unable to get to a single tier solution mainly because the various councils near the city are all trying to avoid the hospital pass of either partial or full integration into the city council. A north Notts unitary, which obviously I'd be in being near the top of Bassetlaw would make sense to my mind. Where precisely the boundaries would be I'm not sure though.
(The Cat has 870k followers vs 315k for Rupert the Bear.)
(I'm interested to know why Rupert has more followers than the Leeanderthal Man. That should be the other way round.)
Why would you expect them to be the other way round? Lowe has been very hardworking and cultivated a following and Anderson isn't exactly a household name.
Also the cat is a fraud. Gaining followers by impersonating an animal and then using it for political activism is poor form.
It is also, however, exactly what a real cat would do.
I also distinctinctly remember a lot of left-of-centre people in the late '80s and early '90s immediately being shouted down as Bolsheviks, whenever they raised the question of how much Trident's dependence on the U.S. , had not been honestly explained.
It was considered too delicate, and as the article mentions, it was , of all Tharcher's policies, the one to which she countenanced the least dissent.
Thatcher was extremely starry eyed about the US alliance. I think it was the war. And the Cold War. Ironically she was also the last one who seemed to challenge the US view on occasion (over the Falklands for example) possibly because she had a more innocent view of the relationship.
Recently, only Truss has challenged the US. And that ended badly.
While the State dept. wanted to play neutral, Reagan came out heavily on the UK side.
Which was why the NSA was sending the UK the cracked intercepts of Argentine communications. Often Norwood had the translated messages before their intended recipients in the Argentine military.
The Americans even moved satellites to get better coverage and realtimed electronic intelligence to the UK. Which is why Woodward knew the takeoff times of the Argentine strikes against the task force, long *before* they took off - the US was listening in on preparations at Argentine airfields. Apparently, the Argentine airforce loved using walkie talkies on the ground.
I know their support was vital, but as you say, it was not a given. Thatcher on the other hand gave her unstinting support to the US in every conflict, and forgave them very quickly for Grenada.
I also distinctinctly remember a lot of left-of-centre people in the late '80s and early '90s immediately being shouted down as Bolsheviks, whenever they raised the question of how much Trident's dependence on the U.S. , had not been honestly explained.
It was considered too delicate, and as the article mentions, it was , of all Tharcher's policies, the one to which she countenanced the least dissent.
Thatcher was extremely starry eyed about the US alliance. I think it was the war. And the Cold War. Ironically she was also the last one who seemed to challenge the US view on occasion (over the Falklands for example) possibly because she had a more innocent view of the relationship.
Recently, only Truss has challenged the US. And that ended badly.
Note though that Thatcher was the last PM to have personal memories of WW2 - she was born in 1925. And had personal experience of the impact of war. She was in Grantham, then Oxford from 1943.
That would I think, inform her relationship with the USA and the strength of her interventions.
Roberts spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned a tobacconist's and a grocery shop. In 1938, before the Second World War, the Roberts family briefly gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl who had escaped Nazi Germany. With her pen-friending elder sister Muriel, Margaret saved pocket money to help pay for the teenager's journey. .. outside school, while the Second World War was ongoing, she voluntarily worked as a fire watcher in the local ARP service.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
“We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation.”
Having no choice but to sign the Chagos Agreement is a buy (sic) product of this “special relationship” too, I would like to explain. For anyone who still doesn’t understand why the first Chagos Deal (with UK doing the ethnic cleansing leg work for our masters) and the new Chagos deal India and US want us to sign was always certain to happen, for any person implying UK has a choice in this matter is simply uninformed and ignorant, take a gander at this:
“Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it of course is absolutely not,” “UK – unlike France – is highly intertwined with the US when it comes to maintaining its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement.” “Developing a replacement for Trident or adapting it for use without the US would be “hugely complicated” and costly” “difficult to conceive” of the US not wanting to maintain its relationship with the UK,
They make it, it’s expensive, and we have zero choice but to buy it - at mates rates in return for “other services rendered.” “"We're going to have some discussions about Chagos Deal very soon.” Said Donald Trump. “And I have a feeling it's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he sat beside Starmer. "They're talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually. That's a long time, and I think we'll be inclined to go along with your country."
But I throw the question back at you Lucky, for you to explain the downsides of your alternate plan. That is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of project failure. And that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS were created in first place for good reason - strength in Union and sharing for like minded friends.
The very special UK US relationship makes us their bitch, you can argue - but all things considered, all pro’s and cons, do we really want to break free? Can we even seriously consider it?
The downside of any move toward the goal of autonomy when one has previously been subservient is that it upsets and offends those who have previously been in the driving seat. In this case, that's the US. That's why you need to know when to shut up, when to give in, when to flatter, when to dissemble, when to push back, and when to draw the line. There's a big skill of diplomacy. We don't have that at the moment because the entire civil service is geared to subservience to whomever asks for it.
On Chagos, I think the issue is far simpler than you make out. We just say we won't pay. Offer the deal of giving up Chagos to Mauritius, and they can make whatever deal they want with America. We could explain that we can no longer afford to pay due to the new defence 'realities'. We could even spend the money on some defence geegaws that we needed anyway from America and dress it up as a 'deal' with Trump. At least we'd be getting something. Mauritius would drop their claim like a hot brick. And if they didn't, who gives a shit? Even if the giveaway were not a choice, the payoff is.
Bizarrely, I think your first strong paragraph explained why your second paragraph “I think the issue is far simpler than you make out, We just say we won't pay” really isn’t so simple after all. 😀
Mauritius PM has said if the US say no, they will continue pursuing it. The Indians want us to sign this, and the US supports the Indians as they wish to cosy up on trade and security in the region. No deal, and none of those interested parties are happy. US want the base, the long range bombing was very useful in Iraq and Afghanistan and the upcoming regime change in Iran SMO.
The key bit, this pretence UK pays this cost lease, not US, is a bit weak now because we know we have been paid by US for this so far (our hands dirty on ethnic cleansing etc) via a club discount card in US weapons store - arguably like your money back via a free bet, but still helping UK taxpayer in the round. That club discount card needs to be taken into account when you hear what the Chagos lease costs are, and it’s a weaker argument when you don’t admit this.
But most of all, the weakness of all your PB posts is you don’t ever share both Pros and Cons. you see what I mean, you didn’t attempt to tackle independent UK nuclear weapons is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of complex project failure, and that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS created in first place for good reasons being strength in Union and sharing costs together with like minded friends. Which is what dragged us into this place to start with!
I didn't say it because it's not the case.
I think you missed that I am talking about a tactical nuclear programme, with missiles delivered by conventional methods, not a strategic one. Of course that is still a fairly complex and costly project, but it has never to my knowledge carried the same price tag as Trident or Polaris. If we phase out of doomsday strategic nukes (where it's very questionable in our case whether they would even fire) and move into tactical ones that can be delivered via multiple methods and have various payloads, we would still be a nuclear power and far scarier in a wider variety of scenarios - and it would be cheaper overall.
Okay. I’ve given that post a like. But it’s not questionable our strategic nukes fire though, it’s true to say you press a button and out they come, and I’m proud of that. That they inexplicably turn 180 degrees going off in wrong direction to blow an ally up, that’s different.
But when you are ingrained in a master servant relationship since 1958, with no quick way out, it’s going to affect what you can and can’t do, is my point. UK has no choice but sign latest Chagos deal when told to by Trump, all this making out we have a choice is just not being honest with British people in my book.
Also, there was a piece this week in Spectator telling us Chagos deal is a threat to US national security, because surrendering sovereignty allows the Chinese to more easily “survey, encircle and examine the base.”
Perhaps they are smarter people than me writing this in UK press and arguing it in US Senate too, I’m not entirely sure there is huge argument there. What does everyone else make of this argument? Chagos lease comes with ongoing Environment Protection Clause over the archipelago and its waters, on environmental grounds we carry on intercepting the little Sri Lankan registered fishing junks, impounding its spying equipment.Just as likely Iran owned than Chinese, I would think.
Compared with US bases everywhere in world continually getting spied on from space, by snoopers with cameras and press badges, drones and weather balloons, even with this change, the Chagos type base will continue to be hard to get near, let alone encircle and examine as the argument supposedly goes. Surely Iran and China start from already knowing the Chagos Base takes long distance bombers and Nuclear Subs, it’s what is actually going on today, anything new or change recently they need to know? And satellites, other spying methods like intercepting comms gives them all that info much more immediately and efficiently than fishing boats department can compete with?
So what dramatically changes on the national security aspect with Chagos Lease Deal, when comparatively it will still remain similarly easier to spy on bases on UK and US soil, than get near the Chagos base?
I wouldn’t put much faith in an article in the Spectator!
I too think that there's not a huge security implication in the change of ownership. But don't forget, on the US side there's also no benefit really. That money will not go to them. Divert off some of that money to buy US arms, and Trump would be far happier.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
“We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation.”
Having no choice but to sign the Chagos Agreement is a buy (sic) product of this “special relationship” too, I would like to explain. For anyone who still doesn’t understand why the first Chagos Deal (with UK doing the ethnic cleansing leg work for our masters) and the new Chagos deal India and US want us to sign was always certain to happen, for any person implying UK has a choice in this matter is simply uninformed and ignorant, take a gander at this:
“Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it of course is absolutely not,” “UK – unlike France – is highly intertwined with the US when it comes to maintaining its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement.” “Developing a replacement for Trident or adapting it for use without the US would be “hugely complicated” and costly” “difficult to conceive” of the US not wanting to maintain its relationship with the UK,
They make it, it’s expensive, and we have zero choice but to buy it - at mates rates in return for “other services rendered.” “"We're going to have some discussions about Chagos Deal very soon.” Said Donald Trump. “And I have a feeling it's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he sat beside Starmer. "They're talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually. That's a long time, and I think we'll be inclined to go along with your country."
But I throw the question back at you Lucky, for you to explain the downsides of your alternate plan. That is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of project failure. And that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS were created in first place for good reason - strength in Union and sharing for like minded friends.
The very special UK US relationship makes us their bitch, you can argue - but all things considered, all pro’s and cons, do we really want to break free? Can we even seriously consider it?
The downside of any move toward the goal of autonomy when one has previously been subservient is that it upsets and offends those who have previously been in the driving seat. In this case, that's the US. That's why you need to know when to shut up, when to give in, when to flatter, when to dissemble, when to push back, and when to draw the line. There's a big skill of diplomacy. We don't have that at the moment because the entire civil service is geared to subservience to whomever asks for it.
On Chagos, I think the issue is far simpler than you make out. We just say we won't pay. Offer the deal of giving up Chagos to Mauritius, and they can make whatever deal they want with America. We could explain that we can no longer afford to pay due to the new defence 'realities'. We could even spend the money on some defence geegaws that we needed anyway from America and dress it up as a 'deal' with Trump. At least we'd be getting something. Mauritius would drop their claim like a hot brick. And if they didn't, who gives a shit? Even if the giveaway were not a choice, the payoff is.
Bizarrely, I think your first strong paragraph explained why your second paragraph “I think the issue is far simpler than you make out, We just say we won't pay” really isn’t so simple after all. 😀
Mauritius PM has said if the US say no, they will continue pursuing it. The Indians want us to sign this, and the US supports the Indians as they wish to cosy up on trade and security in the region. No deal, and none of those interested parties are happy. US want the base, the long range bombing was very useful in Iraq and Afghanistan and the upcoming regime change in Iran SMO.
The key bit, this pretence UK pays this cost lease, not US, is a bit weak now because we know we have been paid by US for this so far (our hands dirty on ethnic cleansing etc) via a club discount card in US weapons store - arguably like your money back via a free bet, but still helping UK taxpayer in the round. That club discount card needs to be taken into account when you hear what the Chagos lease costs are, and it’s a weaker argument when you don’t admit this.
But most of all, the weakness of all your PB posts is you don’t ever share both Pros and Cons. you see what I mean, you didn’t attempt to tackle independent UK nuclear weapons is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of complex project failure, and that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS created in first place for good reasons being strength in Union and sharing costs together with like minded friends. Which is what dragged us into this place to start with!
I didn't say it because it's not the case.
I think you missed that I am talking about a tactical nuclear programme, with missiles delivered by conventional methods, not a strategic one. Of course that is still a fairly complex and costly project, but it has never to my knowledge carried the same price tag as Trident or Polaris. If we phase out of doomsday strategic nukes (where it's very questionable in our case whether they would even fire) and move into tactical ones that can be delivered via multiple methods and have various payloads, we would still be a nuclear power and far scarier in a wider variety of scenarios - and it would be cheaper overall.
Okay. I’ve given that post a like. But it’s not questionable our strategic nukes fire though, it’s true to say you press a button and out they come, and I’m proud of that. That they inexplicably turn 180 degrees going off in wrong direction to blow an ally up, that’s different.
But when you are ingrained in a master servant relationship since 1958, with no quick way out, it’s going to affect what you can and can’t do, is my point. UK has no choice but sign latest Chagos deal when told to by Trump, all this making out we have a choice is just not being honest with British people in my book.
Also, there was a piece this week in Spectator telling us Chagos deal is a threat to US national security, because surrendering sovereignty allows the Chinese to more easily “survey, encircle and examine the base.”
Perhaps they are smarter people than me writing this in UK press and arguing it in US Senate too, I’m not entirely sure there is huge argument there. What does everyone else make of this argument? Chagos lease comes with ongoing Environment Protection Clause over the archipelago and its waters, on environmental grounds we carry on intercepting the little Sri Lankan registered fishing junks, impounding its spying equipment.Just as likely Iran owned than Chinese, I would think.
Compared with US bases everywhere in world continually getting spied on from space, by snoopers with cameras and press badges, drones and weather balloons, even with this change, the Chagos type base will continue to be hard to get near, let alone encircle and examine as the argument supposedly goes. Surely Iran and China start from already knowing the Chagos Base takes long distance bombers and Nuclear Subs, it’s what is actually going on today, anything new or change recently they need to know? And satellites, other spying methods like intercepting comms gives them all that info much more immediately and efficiently than fishing boats department can compete with?
So what dramatically changes on the national security aspect with Chagos Lease Deal, when comparatively it will still remain similarly easier to spy on bases on UK and US soil, than get near the Chagos base?
I wouldn’t put much faith in an article in the Spectator!
I too think that there's not a huge security implication in the change of ownership. But don't forget, on the US side there's also no benefit really. That money will not go to them. Divert off some of that money to buy US arms, and Trump would be far happier.
Until he woke up the next day and suspended the deal, and then the day after re-instated, and then the day after imposed tariffs on Mauritius and India, then the day after removed them….
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
Shhhhhh... Don't ask naughty questions.
Haven't statisticians reviewed mortality rates across various metrics and said that on Letby's watch they were within expected margins. I suspect Letby's Lawyers will be all over that. It is most likely to add doubt rather than confirm her guilt. Lies, damn lies and statistics.
I am nervous that there is a demand to appeal Letby's guilt yet if she was a Bangladeshi or Nigerian nurse we would be demanding a capital sentence. Although David Davis has made a compelling case that her defence team were at David Waddington levels of incompetence.
Discover a choice of #BMW models on the #Motability Scheme. A brand new car every 3 years with insurance for up to 3 drivers, accident and breakdown cover, and all servicing costs included.
Owned by Lloyds Bank. Monthly rental tends to be the same as monthly PIP amounts.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it
Welcome back!
Thanks!
I've kept myself busy brewing beer
This is from the first batch of Dairy Farm pale ale. We've bottled another fifty litres since, and have seventy five litres more fermenting
And it's really rather good, if I do day so myself
Nice to see you back Blanche
I start brewing again around end of April.
Starting with raisin wine
I'll be taking a brewing break around then. I've booked my flight to Biarritz for the 26th, and back from Montpellier on May 20th, with a four hundred and fifty mile stroll in between
Sounds great. Is it a GR or some other route - perhaps ending in Rome?
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
AIUI, they dropped as soon as Letby was suspended. But the Letby truthers are hardcore believers.
Perhaps the doctors and nurses started to pull their fingers out and did their jobs better.
I remember visiting my wife in a hospital ward in Wales to find at least half a dozen nurses around the nurses station playing on computers whilst the patients in their beds waiting to be attended to for bedpans and so on.
Good news: seen Mercury for the first time in years.
Bad news: doesn't show up on a photo too well!
Right now, it's just below and to the left of Venus. Will set by 7.40pm (London latitude) though.
The Sunil is a stargazer? Who knew!
Probably best to look again between 6.30 and 7pm tomorrow. Mercury reached its eastern elongation (maximum angular distance from the Sun) today, so it's gonna rapidly become less visible over the next week or so.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
Between my Mum's death and my Dad going into the Princess of Wales the standard of care was substantially improved. The Management clearly had pulled their finger out. Even the dried mucous that someone had gobbed all over a fire door window which I noted on my fist visit and was still there when we were called in for her expiry two months later had been cleaned off by the time my dad was admitted six years later.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
Between my Mum's death and my Dad going into the Princess of Wales the standard of care was substantially improved. The Management clearly had pulled their finger out. Even the dried mucous that someone had gobbed all over a fire door window which I noted on my fist visit and was still there when we were called in for her expiry two months later had been cleaned off by the time my dad was admitted six years later.
After we gave them a rocket over my father's treatment (near thing on dehydration), they went overboard on plugging IVs of saline into every patient. I'll bet their stats changed for a bit.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it
Welcome back!
Thanks!
I've kept myself busy brewing beer
This is from the first batch of Dairy Farm pale ale. We've bottled another fifty litres since, and have seventy five litres more fermenting
And it's really rather good, if I do day so myself
Nice to see you back Blanche
I start brewing again around end of April.
Starting with raisin wine
I'll be taking a brewing break around then. I've booked my flight to Biarritz for the 26th, and back from Montpellier on May 20th, with a four hundred and fifty mile stroll in between
Sounds great. Is it a GR or some other route - perhaps ending in Rome?
I don't know if it's a recognised route, though I will certainly be joining some on the way. I think I go off-piste a bit by heading for Perpignan (where I walked to from Girona on my first walking holiday three years ago, hence wanting to join them up)
I'm definitely headed to Rome though.. but I don't think I'll get there for a few years. Next year I want to do Brittany to Biarritz, and I reckon the year after Lisbon to Santiago
Doesn't sound as though the Russians are interested in the orange imbecile's peace plan.
https://x.com/Blake_Allen13/status/1898463149424316808 So far, it looks like the major Russian operation to take Sudza and collapse the Kursk front have been beaten back. The VDV took heavy losses - with video now coming out - from their attempted infiltration of the city through a major gas pipeline. Dozens of paratroopers KIA..
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
A "tactical" nuclear weapon that has a range in the hundreds of miles and yields in 3 digits of kilotons *is* a strategic weapon.
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
Off topic: what's Genoa like? Planning a rail trip to Switzerland via Nice, and getting to Switzerland via Genoa and Milan up to Lugano looks to be an interesting route.
Should I stay a couple of days in Genoa or stay in Milan instead? (I have become allergic to single-night stopovers. It's two or none.)
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
A "tactical" nuclear weapon that has a range in the hundreds of miles and yields in 3 digits of kilotons *is* a strategic weapon.
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
No, they're genuinely non nuclear. With very large conventional warheads to ensure they are a credible threat to even the deepest N Korean bunker.
Of course the corollary of that is that with a (lighter) nuclear warhead, they'd have a significantly longer range.
Off topic: what's Genoa like? Planning a rail trip to Switzerland via Nice, and getting to Switzerland via Genoa and Milan up to Lugano looks to be an interesting route.
Should I stay a couple of days in Genoa or stay in Milan instead? (I have become allergic to single-night stopovers. It's two or none.)
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
AIUI, they dropped as soon as Letby was suspended. But the Letby truthers are hardcore believers.
Uncertainty principle applies.
If the deaths were due to substandard care provided by the organisation, then the spotlight being shone by a murder arrest should see them drop anyway even if there were no murderer.
I don't know if she is guilty or not, but I think the statistics have been well and truly abused which is problematic. As too was the abuse of notes which could just be a nurse feeling guilty over her charges dying even without foul play.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Private Eye's podcast (and indeed their weird 'paper thing' they still make) went into it in a bit of detail last year - this episode I think :
Off topic: what's Genoa like? Planning a rail trip to Switzerland via Nice, and getting to Switzerland via Genoa and Milan up to Lugano looks to be an interesting route.
Should I stay a couple of days in Genoa or stay in Milan instead? (I have become allergic to single-night stopovers. It's two or none.)
Genoa is ok - nice harbour with some Columbus era ships on display..,and a submarine
A group of Brits - maybe a dozen of us - got "detained" in the docks at Genoa. Beautiful day, wandering around looking at the ships - when a small van roars up and an unfeasably large number of police burst out of it. They jabbered at us in Italian. But we knew how to defuse the situation.
"English!" we said.
The man in charge, like the rest, spoke no English. However, as he slapped his forehead with his palm, we knew we had got through.
There then followed an entertainment they probably still tell at gatherings as we were asked for our passports. We then, by mime show, somehow persuaded them that yes we had passports - but they were all retained at the campsite in the hills at Pegli some miles away.
Satisfied, kinda, that we were just English idiots who had wandered into a restricted zone of th port, we were "escorted from the premises".
To this day, we are sure we passed nothing that said entry was forbidden in any language.
But the people were lovely. We had another mime show when our tin-opener broke, and people in the main department store ran around helpfully holding up things they thought we meant.
Go. You can see the huge bomb the Brits dropped on the cathedral. Thankfully, a dud.
I did the same one time I lost my way on a cycling day tour and inadvertently ended up on the wrong side of the Czech/Austrian border without my passport. Only time I haven’t told foreigners how proud I am to be Scottish😄
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
A "tactical" nuclear weapon that has a range in the hundreds of miles and yields in 3 digits of kilotons *is* a strategic weapon.
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
No, they're genuinely non nuclear. With very large conventional warheads to ensure they are a credible threat to even the deepest N Korean bunker.
Of course the corollary of that is that with a (lighter) nuclear warhead, they'd have a significantly longer range.
Just like the solid fueled “satellite launchers” the Japanese have been building for years. Which look so very like an MX ICBM…
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
A "tactical" nuclear weapon that has a range in the hundreds of miles and yields in 3 digits of kilotons *is* a strategic weapon.
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
No, they're genuinely non nuclear. With very large conventional warheads to ensure they are a credible threat to even the deepest N Korean bunker.
Of course the corollary of that is that with a (lighter) nuclear warhead, they'd have a significantly longer range.
All of which, to me, makes it silly that we continue to put on all of our nuclear eggs in the Trident basket.
Yes, I probably miscategorised my proposed nuclear idea as 'tactical' - what I meant was not have a continuous at sea tactical nuclear doomsday revenge weapon.
It flys, it delivers whatever bomb you like, and it's not American.
At 45,000 it is a sitting duck for every SAM made since 1955.
Most airframes are though. For the crew it's a disaster. What matters though is being able to deliver a truck load of drone munitions.
And it also operates at a little above 0ft.
The Vulcan and Victor - and Valiant now someone's mentioned it - were disasters for their crews in other ways. No ejection seats for 60% of them, and the pilots (who did) probably stayed too long trying to save their fellows, all too often.
No word for the Sperrin?!
At zero feet, the Vulcan and Victor wore out very rapidly. The planned low level Valiant would have been better - except still made of cheese.
At high speed, the Mach tuck on the Vulcan was interesting. Always liked the very matter of fact account by the Vulcan pilot who got into a high speed dive. Since he couldn't get the nose up, or slow down, he was about to roll inverted (at Mach 0.98) so he could pull out with negative G.... then the descending aircraft hit denser air and slowed down....
Long range ballistic missiles arrive at Mach 24. Which stretches even the best interceptors systems to breaking point.
Which is why things like the B-70 were cancelled - the payload of a B-52, carried at 75,000 feet at Mach 3.
Vulcan pilots loved Vulcans.
Edit: Actually I don't know this to be true. At least one pilot loved his Vulcan, and he told me that all did.
The psychology that means that ship captains love their ships, no matter what, was long remarked upon. Something similar happens with pilots. They nearly always find something to love in a plane.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
So how are you going to pay for that because the cost of doing it yourself won't be 2.5% of GDP going on defence it would be 60% extra at the very least..
And remember all defence manuafacturers wish to have an export market for which there is a quid pro quo that if someone elsewhere makes a better version of something you want - you purchase it from there as it's cheaper than creating your own (probably inferior version). And we aren't exactly going to go to war with France nowadays
I don't see my solution being vastly different to the proposed other solutions in terms of cost, just very differently focused.
I am not a defence expert, but I also think that there's a great deal of wastage and gold-plating in MOD procurement at present that could be exploited. Look at Ukraine's (and who knows, perhaps Russia's) speed of innovation in this war. By contrast, we measure our projects in decades and billions.
I would not be planning to develop a British Trident replacement, I would revive the tactical nuclear programme the Blair Government scrapped.
I would also consider giving the EU (even better if they pay) one of the carriers. I don't consider them a worthwhile or useful thing to have at this juncture. That would be a saving and free up resource elsewhere.
If you would like to know about the British Army Cold War Nuclear Artillery approach (shells from in-theatre cannon as opposed to the RAF approach of dropping nukes from aircraft or firing missiles from UK airfields), here is a YouTube explainer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxA_2-SV7A (55 mins).
Thanks!
Tactical nukes just hold a few tanks at risk. Strategic nukes threaten Putin's life. Which do you think he cares about?
I think that's a daft exaggeration of the limitations of tactical nuclear weapons. And a massive overexaggeration of Trident's autonomy.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
The problem with large tactical nuclear weapons is that no-one likes evaporating themselves on the battlefield. So unless you use them against rear area targets they are useless. And using them against rear-area targets is just strategic use with fig leaf.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
Yes. What I would envisage does blur the lines - it would not have purely battlefield applications. It could be used on other targets.
A "tactical" nuclear weapon that has a range in the hundreds of miles and yields in 3 digits of kilotons *is* a strategic weapon.
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
No, they're genuinely non nuclear. With very large conventional warheads to ensure they are a credible threat to even the deepest N Korean bunker.
Of course the corollary of that is that with a (lighter) nuclear warhead, they'd have a significantly longer range.
All of which, to me, makes it silly that we continue to put on all of our nuclear eggs in the Trident basket.
Yes, I probably miscategorised my proposed nuclear idea as 'tactical' - what I meant was not have a continuous at sea tactical nuclear doomsday revenge weapon.
Once you are buying long range missiles and submarines to put them in, the cost difference between Poseidon (which is what the South Koreans are replicating) and Trident isn’t very much. And they are as “tactical” as each other. Trident downloaded to 1 or 2 warheads can hit *anywhere* on the planet in 30 min or less.
As putting them on subs - this makes them virtually impossible to find.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
Between my Mum's death and my Dad going into the Princess of Wales the standard of care was substantially improved. The Management clearly had pulled their finger out. Even the dried mucous that someone had gobbed all over a fire door window which I noted on my fist visit and was still there when we were called in for her expiry two months later had been cleaned off by the time my dad was admitted six years later.
After we gave them a rocket over my father's treatment (near thing on dehydration), they went overboard on plugging IVs of saline into every patient. I'll bet their stats changed for a bit.
My dad didn't make a fuss. He should have. She spent most of her last day in a private room on her own on the floor. It all kicked off a couple of months later. No managers were harmed during the subsequent inquiry.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it
Welcome back!
Thanks!
I've kept myself busy brewing beer
This is from the first batch of Dairy Farm pale ale. We've bottled another fifty litres since, and have seventy five litres more fermenting
And it's really rather good, if I do day so myself
Nice to see you back Blanche
I start brewing again around end of April.
Starting with raisin wine
I'll be taking a brewing break around then. I've booked my flight to Biarritz for the 26th, and back from Montpellier on May 20th, with a four hundred and fifty mile stroll in between
Sounds great. Is it a GR or some other route - perhaps ending in Rome?
I don't know if it's a recognised route, though I will certainly be joining some on the way. I think I go off-piste a bit by heading for Perpignan (where I walked to from Girona on my first walking holiday three years ago, hence wanting to join them up)
I'm definitely headed to Rome though.. but I don't think I'll get there for a few years. Next year I want to do Brittany to Biarritz, and I reckon the year after Lisbon to Santiago
So you'll know that when you get to Biarritz airport you don't follow the other walkers as they are going west to Santiago. Have done Lisbon to Santiago. Portuguese are very proud of the links between England and Portugal. And they make you so welcome - but there are only so many pastel de nata you can eat.
Off topic: what's Genoa like? Planning a rail trip to Switzerland via Nice, and getting to Switzerland via Genoa and Milan up to Lugano looks to be an interesting route.
Should I stay a couple of days in Genoa or stay in Milan instead? (I have become allergic to single-night stopovers. It's two or none.)
Genoa is ok - nice harbour with some Columbus era ships on display..,and a submarine
A group of Brits - maybe a dozen of us - got "detained" in the docks at Genoa. Beautiful day, wandering around looking at the ships - when a small van roars up and an unfeasably large number of police burst out of it. They jabbered at us in Italian. But we knew how to defuse the situation.
"English!" we said.
The man in charge, like the rest, spoke no English. However, as he slapped his forehead with his palm, we knew we had got through.
There then followed an entertainment they probably still tell at gatherings as we were asked for our passports. We then, by mime show, somehow persuaded them that yes we had passports - but they were all retained at the campsite in the hills at Pegli some miles away.
Satisfied, kinda, that we were just English idiots who had wandered into a restricted zone of th port, we were "escorted from the premises".
To this day, we are sure we passed nothing that said entry was forbidden in any language.
But the people were lovely. We had another mime show when our tin-opener broke, and people in the main department store ran around helpfully holding up things they thought we meant.
Go. You can see the huge bomb the Brits dropped on the cathedral. Thankfully, a dud.
Last night, I was at dinner in France with Spanish and South American friends. Conversation got onto communicating abroad: the British were voted the worst of all.
The resolute insistence of the vast majority on speaking English, the failure to make an effort to learn even a few words in the relevant foreign language.
"Imperialistic" "stupid" "intellectually limited" "insular" "lazy". Nothing positive to be said about it.
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
“We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation.”
Having no choice but to sign the Chagos Agreement is a buy (sic) product of this “special relationship” too, I would like to explain. For anyone who still doesn’t understand why the first Chagos Deal (with UK doing the ethnic cleansing leg work for our masters) and the new Chagos deal India and US want us to sign was always certain to happen, for any person implying UK has a choice in this matter is simply uninformed and ignorant, take a gander at this:
“Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it of course is absolutely not,” “UK – unlike France – is highly intertwined with the US when it comes to maintaining its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement.” “Developing a replacement for Trident or adapting it for use without the US would be “hugely complicated” and costly” “difficult to conceive” of the US not wanting to maintain its relationship with the UK,
They make it, it’s expensive, and we have zero choice but to buy it - at mates rates in return for “other services rendered.” “"We're going to have some discussions about Chagos Deal very soon.” Said Donald Trump. “And I have a feeling it's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he sat beside Starmer. "They're talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually. That's a long time, and I think we'll be inclined to go along with your country."
But I throw the question back at you Lucky, for you to explain the downsides of your alternate plan. That is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of complex project failure. And that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS were created in first place for good reason - strength in Union and sharing for like minded friends.
The very special UK US relationship makes us their bitch, you can argue - but all things considered, all pro’s and cons, do we really want to break free? Can we even seriously consider it?
The answer to that question was no throughout my entire life. Until 6 weeks ago. 6 weeks of Trump has changed my mind. Now, I think that we have no choice.
France has twice been vindicated in the last 3 years for its deliberately different approach to statecraft. First in its huge investment in nuclear energy which protected it from the worst of the fuel price shock after the invasion, and now in its truly independent defence setup.
Whether it has really capitalised on these is debatable, but they look to have been the right calls, made decades ago.
Another smart French move was choosing to be a leading member of the EU, while we refused to join, then when we did join exempted ourselves from the most useful bits like Schengen and the Euro, and then left in a huff. It's galling (no pun intended) to say it but the French have made much better choices than we have.
I thought not being in Schengen or the Euro was a super duper special deal we were throwing away by leaving? This is what many remainers told us.
Personally I'd join both. I guess the point is that we had a bespoke deal that appeared to offer us some positives of membership while keeping a degree of distance as a sop to eurosceptic opinion. I'd rather be all-in myself and embrace ever closer union as a means of making Europe a serious global player not a divided backwater to be picked over by bigger powers.
Making our elected politicians even more distant and unaccountable than they are now. No thanks. If anything I want to go the other way. Reduce centralisation and have Westminister only for foreign policy and defence.
That is the trade off, obviously. I'd like to see a lot more decentralisation and local autonomy, for sure. But the UK is too small to be an effective foreign policy or defence player on its own, and the world has just become a whole lot more dangerous. I'd be happy to live in an autonomous London city state in the United States of Europe. I suspect I'd be more prosperous and safer in that world than in the current one.
I don't agree with this at all. The UK is perfectly able to have its own defence and foreign policy and make alliances as it requires. We can no longer project force to the other side of the world but then I don't want us to. In case you missed it, the idea that the only way forward is to subsume our Governance to a superpower is exactly what got us in this mess in the first place.
This is a perfect example of the old Franklin adage (which he actually used twice in different circumstances)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
The analogy with our US relationship is misplaced. First, we never became part of the USA, we have simply been a subservient ally. So we've had no input into US decision-making, and we're vulnerable to tariffs and other threats from them. There's also the vastly under-rated issue of geography. We share common security threats with other countries in Europe, and that means we share interests. That's not the case for the US. To put it simply, they fear China, we fear Russia.
I don't think any liberty would be surrendered, especially if combined with decentralisation so that most decisions were delegated downwards not upwards. And actually, you can't enjoy liberty if you don't have security. Ask the Ukranians.
Off topic: what's Genoa like? Planning a rail trip to Switzerland via Nice, and getting to Switzerland via Genoa and Milan up to Lugano looks to be an interesting route.
Should I stay a couple of days in Genoa or stay in Milan instead? (I have become allergic to single-night stopovers. It's two or none.)
Genoa is ok - nice harbour with some Columbus era ships on display..,and a submarine
A group of Brits - maybe a dozen of us - got "detained" in the docks at Genoa. Beautiful day, wandering around looking at the ships - when a small van roars up and an unfeasably large number of police burst out of it. They jabbered at us in Italian. But we knew how to defuse the situation.
"English!" we said.
The man in charge, like the rest, spoke no English. However, as he slapped his forehead with his palm, we knew we had got through.
There then followed an entertainment they probably still tell at gatherings as we were asked for our passports. We then, by mime show, somehow persuaded them that yes we had passports - but they were all retained at the campsite in the hills at Pegli some miles away.
Satisfied, kinda, that we were just English idiots who had wandered into a restricted zone of th port, we were "escorted from the premises".
To this day, we are sure we passed nothing that said entry was forbidden in any language.
But the people were lovely. We had another mime show when our tin-opener broke, and people in the main department store ran around helpfully holding up things they thought we meant.
Go. You can see the huge bomb the Brits dropped on the cathedral. Thankfully, a dud.
Last night, I was at dinner in France with Spanish and South American friends. Conversation got onto communicating abroad: the British were voted the worst of all.
The resolute insistence of the vast majority on speaking English, the failure to make an effort to learn even a few words in the relevant foreign language.
"Imperialistic" "stupid" "intellectually limited" "insular" "lazy". Nothing positive to be said about it.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
Ukraine gave up nukes, post-soviet era, in exchange for security guarantees from USA.
UK threw everything it had post- war into the special USA relationship tightly bound on security, intelligence, equipment, policy - even sharing nukes. We gave them airfields and bases and went to war with them against their enemies as in Iraq.
I’ve a feeling Trumps Administration is growing cold on signing Ukraines offer of a mineral deal. What are the odds it is never signed? Because this is what I am predicting now. America won’t sign it.
Why? If serious about signing the Ukraine offer, Trumps Administration would be sitting down with industry to gauge their interest in being involved. Greater exposure of Trump and his team to people who genuinely understand the business, might find lukewarm interest at best from the Ukraine offer. I predict industry will talk Trump out of Ukraine deal in favour of doing a deal with Greenland instead. Trumps friends in the industry will convince him, reasserting U.S. industrial leadership and enhancing national security is better served from Greenland deal, than one with Ukraine.
When it comes to Greenland, Trump is a lucky General. What is about to happen in the Greenland General Election is a change of government to opposition party who want to sit down with Trump. First the new government will have to change the arrangement with Denmark, where Denmark controls Greenlands Foreign and Security policy - but this will be a formality, put to the Greenland electorate and easily passed within the next couple of years. It will be a formality because after recent exposure of genuine colonial scandals of terrible treatment of Greenlanders, Denmark has few friends in Greenland politics right now.
Trump will be drilling and mining Greenland before the end of this Presidential term. Will he sign a deal with Ukraine too. I suspect not.
Expressen seems to be a respected Swedish newspaper, and it reported yesterday that the U.S. had told NATO allies that it wasn't planning to take part in any further military exercise in Europe. This is unconfirmed by any other sources, but would obviously be pretty significant, if so.
Nigel Farage needs to take back control of Reform, and sack Zia Yusuf.
Seems Rupert is having second thoughts and hoping the whole thing can be hung around Zia Yusuf.
Nigel.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
That's very polite of you, William, and I have enormous respect for you, too.
Expressen seems to be a respected Swedish newspaper, and it reported yesterday that the U.S. had told NATO allies that it wasn't planning to take part in any further military exercise in Europe. This is unconfirmed by any other sources, but would obviously be pretty significant, if so.
That's good news since the only military exercise the US will be doing under Trump is with the Russians to practice swarming tanks across Poland or attacking Baltic states.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I’ve a feeling Trumps Administration is growing cold on signing Ukraines offer of a mineral deal. What are the odds it is never signed? Because this is what I am predicting now. America won’t sign it.
Why? If serious about signing the Ukraine offer, Trumps Administration would be sitting down with industry to gauge their interest in being involved. Greater exposure of Trump and his team to people who genuinely understand the business, might find lukewarm interest at best from the Ukraine offer. I predict industry will talk Trump out of Ukraine deal in favour of doing a deal with Greenland instead. Trumps friends in the industry will convince him, reasserting U.S. industrial leadership and enhancing national security is better served from Greenland deal, than one with Ukraine.
When it comes to Greenland, Trump is a lucky General. What is about to happen in the Greenland General Election is a change of government to opposition party who want to sit down with Trump. First the new government will have to change the arrangement with Denmark, where Denmark controls Greenlands Foreign and Security policy - but this will be a formality, put to the Greenland electorate and easily passed within the next couple of years. It will be a formality because after recent exposure of genuine colonial scandals of terrible treatment of Greenlanders, Denmark has few friends in Greenland politics right now.
Trump will be drilling and mining Greenland before the end of this Presidential term. Will he sign a deal with Ukraine too. I suspect not.
Do they only have a certain quantity of diggers in America?
The takes on this defence argument are completely anti-logical.
We have just been caught out because we've made our national defence a subsidiary of someone else's national defence, and now we suddenly find that they have elected someone not to our liking (I exclude myself from this) and we're suddenly regretting it.
Our favoured solution to this is apparently to jump into a whole new set of defence commitments and deals with a whole new set of countries who might also quite feasibly elect someone we don't like (it has happened once or twice before). I mean really?
It is absolutely clear that the only solution to this is the same as it has always been. Gradually, and in a cordial and respectful way, we need to work toward a situation where the UK posseses a strong basic national defence against invasion that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation. Anything else is Einstein's definiton of madness.
“We need to develop a nuclear programme that is not dependent upon the goodwill of any other nation. Security agencies that are not dependent on the goodwill of any other nation. And as a vastly less important secondary goal, develop the ability to project force overseas to advance our interests and help our allies, that is not dependent upon the good will of any other nation.”
Having no choice but to sign the Chagos Agreement is a buy (sic) product of this “special relationship” too, I would like to explain. For anyone who still doesn’t understand why the first Chagos Deal (with UK doing the ethnic cleansing leg work for our masters) and the new Chagos deal India and US want us to sign was always certain to happen, for any person implying UK has a choice in this matter is simply uninformed and ignorant, take a gander at this:
“Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it of course is absolutely not,” “UK – unlike France – is highly intertwined with the US when it comes to maintaining its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement.” “Developing a replacement for Trident or adapting it for use without the US would be “hugely complicated” and costly” “difficult to conceive” of the US not wanting to maintain its relationship with the UK,
They make it, it’s expensive, and we have zero choice but to buy it - at mates rates in return for “other services rendered.” “"We're going to have some discussions about Chagos Deal very soon.” Said Donald Trump. “And I have a feeling it's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he sat beside Starmer. "They're talking about a very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease, about 140 years actually. That's a long time, and I think we'll be inclined to go along with your country."
But I throw the question back at you Lucky, for you to explain the downsides of your alternate plan. That is greater costs on British tax payer, greater risk of complex project failure. And that NATO, 5 eyes and AUKUS were created in first place for good reason - strength in Union and sharing for like minded friends.
The very special UK US relationship makes us their bitch, you can argue - but all things considered, all pro’s and cons, do we really want to break free? Can we even seriously consider it?
The answer to that question was no throughout my entire life. Until 6 weeks ago. 6 weeks of Trump has changed my mind. Now, I think that we have no choice.
France has twice been vindicated in the last 3 years for its deliberately different approach to statecraft. First in its huge investment in nuclear energy which protected it from the worst of the fuel price shock after the invasion, and now in its truly independent defence setup.
Whether it has really capitalised on these is debatable, but they look to have been the right calls, made decades ago.
Another smart French move was choosing to be a leading member of the EU, while we refused to join, then when we did join exempted ourselves from the most useful bits like Schengen and the Euro, and then left in a huff. It's galling (no pun intended) to say it but the French have made much better choices than we have.
I thought not being in Schengen or the Euro was a super duper special deal we were throwing away by leaving? This is what many remainers told us.
Personally I'd join both. I guess the point is that we had a bespoke deal that appeared to offer us some positives of membership while keeping a degree of distance as a sop to eurosceptic opinion. I'd rather be all-in myself and embrace ever closer union as a means of making Europe a serious global player not a divided backwater to be picked over by bigger powers.
Making our elected politicians even more distant and unaccountable than they are now. No thanks. If anything I want to go the other way. Reduce centralisation and have Westminister only for foreign policy and defence.
That is the trade off, obviously. I'd like to see a lot more decentralisation and local autonomy, for sure. But the UK is too small to be an effective foreign policy or defence player on its own, and the world has just become a whole lot more dangerous. I'd be happy to live in an autonomous London city state in the United States of Europe. I suspect I'd be more prosperous and safer in that world than in the current one.
I don't agree with this at all. The UK is perfectly able to have its own defence and foreign policy and make alliances as it requires. We can no longer project force to the other side of the world but then I don't want us to. In case you missed it, the idea that the only way forward is to subsume our Governance to a superpower is exactly what got us in this mess in the first place.
This is a perfect example of the old Franklin adage (which he actually used twice in different circumstances)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
The analogy with our US relationship is misplaced. First, we never became part of the USA, we have simply been a subservient ally. So we've had no input into US decision-making, and we're vulnerable to tariffs and other threats from them. There's also the vastly under-rated issue of geography. We share common security threats with other countries in Europe, and that means we share interests. That's not the case for the US. To put it simply, they fear China, we fear Russia.
I don't think any liberty would be surrendered, especially if combined with decentralisation so that most decisions were delegated downwards not upwards. And actually, you can't enjoy liberty if you don't have security. Ask the Ukranians.
China has vastly more capability to organise an invasion of the UK than Russia does. So that's complete balls really isn’t it?
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
An independent expert witness went through all the deaths and categorised them as surprising or expected deaths, without knowing which were connected to Letby, first. The Letby-associated deaths were unexpected. This was all explained to the jury, I believe.
As you note, there was plenty of other, non-statistical evidence.
Nigel Farage needs to take back control of Reform, and sack Zia Yusuf.
Seems Rupert is having second thoughts and hoping the whole thing can be hung around Zia Yusuf.
Nigel.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
That's very polite of you, William, and I have enormous respect for you, too.
But I'm afraid I've no idea what you're on about.
I and William are trying to start a new political party. I know it sounds unlikely, but we also need your support in this venture. I trust we can rely on your help, against a background of media tittle-tattle and amusement. Yours, Oracle.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
The jury heard a lot of evidence. The defence were able to put a case. Why would you conclude that the jury weren't given a full picture? It's the Letby truthers who keep trying to give a biased picture, as they carefully skip over several aspects of the evidence against Letby.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
Isn't that Michelle Bannatyne, middle row, 2nd from left? Former Tory MSP, then ejected teddies from pram when she lost to Jackson Carlaw for Scon heidie, went independent (no, not that kind, the rustic tulchan, really Tory or at least righting unionist [edit] kind), then joined Reform UK and became leader in Scotland, resigned as a result, left RefUK in a row about an internet group.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
The jury heard a lot of evidence. The defence were able to put a case. Why would you conclude that the jury weren't given a full picture? It's the Letby truthers who keep trying to give a biased picture, as they carefully skip over several aspects of the evidence against Letby.
And people like you skip over the state of the NHS and the attempts to pretend it's up to standard..how many hospital trusts are in special measures again? 🤔
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
I’ve a feeling Trumps Administration is growing cold on signing Ukraines offer of a mineral deal. What are the odds it is never signed? Because this is what I am predicting now. America won’t sign it.
Why? If serious about signing the Ukraine offer, Trumps Administration would be sitting down with industry to gauge their interest in being involved. Greater exposure of Trump and his team to people who genuinely understand the business, might find lukewarm interest at best from the Ukraine offer. I predict industry will talk Trump out of Ukraine deal in favour of doing a deal with Greenland instead. Trumps friends in the industry will convince him, reasserting U.S. industrial leadership and enhancing national security is better served from Greenland deal, than one with Ukraine.
When it comes to Greenland, Trump is a lucky General. What is about to happen in the Greenland General Election is a change of government to opposition party who want to sit down with Trump. First the new government will have to change the arrangement with Denmark, where Denmark controls Greenlands Foreign and Security policy - but this will be a formality, put to the Greenland electorate and easily passed within the next couple of years. It will be a formality because after recent exposure of genuine colonial scandals of terrible treatment of Greenlanders, Denmark has few friends in Greenland politics right now.
Trump will be drilling and mining Greenland before the end of this Presidential term. Will he sign a deal with Ukraine too. I suspect not.
Do they only have a certain quantity of diggers in America?
USA already has a quantity of rare earth deals in South America, where there’s better pay lodes than Ukraine. My call is US Industry would signal not just preference for Greenland ahead of Ukraine, but many other places around the world to try before considering Ukraine.
What is specific, extra curricular about the Ukraine deal is for every reason Ukraine likes it, is a reason for any US Administration to be wary.
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
AIUI, they dropped as soon as Letby was suspended. But the Letby truthers are hardcore believers.
Perhaps the doctors and nurses started to pull their fingers out and did their jobs better.
Perhaps you should trust that two juries, who heard all the evidence, came to the correct conclusion.
Perhaps the first chunk of evidence was fixed, thus tainting the whole case?
To claim evidence was fixed would be tantamount to libel. If you or anyone else has evidence that the evidence about Letby was fixed, you should report this to the police forthwith as it would, of course, constitute a serious crime.
Letby's defence lawyers aren't claiming the evidence was fixed, just that it was coincidental and/or misinterpreted. But the jury heard a whole host of evidence. If you don't think juries can draw conclusions from a range of (potentially conflicting) evidence put in front of them, then what is the point of trial by jury?
If evidence was presented in a misleading way, an appeal would have been granted. All Letby's appeals have been turned down. The people who look at the case in detail, juries, appeal judges, don't see the problems that some claim here exist.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
A revolution will always eat itself in the end...
There’s quite a funny meme depicting all the people Nigel has fallen out with in the past. Something of a pattern:
Returning to an old topic: I note in passing that both Private Eye & Unherd now take it as a given that Lucy Letby is almost certainly innocent & the trial against her a travesty of justice:
It would be interesting to hear the statistics on infant mortality since LL was arrested.
One of the things that troubled me the most about this prosecution was that the jury was presented with a seemingly statistical conclusion, that these 17 kids had all died when Letby was on duty. But then you found out that there were other deaths in the unit when she wasn't on duty and that the death rate in this neonatal ward was not that exceptional.
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
Wasn’t there a bit of re-organisation after she was arrested? Need to compare like with like. I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
The jury heard a lot of evidence. The defence were able to put a case. Why would you conclude that the jury weren't given a full picture? It's the Letby truthers who keep trying to give a biased picture, as they carefully skip over several aspects of the evidence against Letby.
And people like you skip over the state of the NHS and the attempts to pretend it's up to standard..how many hospital trusts are in special measures again? 🤔
I am very familiar with the state of the NHS. The state of the NHS doesn't explain why Letby was seen behaving suspiciously, or why she stole medical records, or why the babies died in suspicious manners. This was all gone over in the trial.
Comments
Edit: Actually I don't know this to be true. At least one pilot loved his Vulcan, and he told me that all did.
Some of the back office costs can be mitigated by sharing facilities but as an example Surrey has 11 second tier authorities (Borough/District councils) each of whom collects its council tax in its own way. These will all need to be amalgamated into the new West and East Surrey Councils (presumably).
Which was why the NSA was sending the UK the cracked intercepts of Argentine communications. Often Norwood had the translated messages before their intended recipients in the Argentine military.
The Americans even moved satellites to get better coverage and realtimed electronic intelligence to the UK. Which is why Woodward knew the takeoff times of the Argentine strikes against the task force, long *before* they took off - the US was listening in on preparations at Argentine airfields. Apparently, the Argentine airforce loved using walkie talkies on the ground.
[Edit: see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_E ]
That would I think, inform her relationship with the USA and the strength of her interventions.
Roberts spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned a tobacconist's and a grocery shop. In 1938, before the Second World War, the Roberts family briefly gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl who had escaped Nazi Germany. With her pen-friending elder sister Muriel, Margaret saved pocket money to help pay for the teenager's journey.
..
outside school, while the Second World War was ongoing, she voluntarily worked as a fire watcher in the local ARP service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
A letter from local historian, Malcolm Knapp to Jeremy Rusk (College Principal) describes the deadly bombing and destruction that occurred in the town of Grantham from 6th September 1940 through 26th October 1942. Casualties and damage included as many as 88 people killed, 149 people injured, 71 homes destroyed, and 2,700 homes heavily damaged. Destruction from the air raids can still be found around town in Grantham today. Mr Knapp is quoting from an article published in The Grantham Journal, 20 October 1944.
https://harlaxtonmanorarchives.com/story-of-the-manor/second-world-war/ww2-grantham-air-raids/#:~:text=Air Raids Destroy Grantham&text=Casualties and damage included as,around town in Grantham today.
(2700 homes would be a big chunk of the town. It would be ~10% even now.)
(I did not know that Grantham was bombed. Eye witness memories:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/50/a6027950.shtml#:~:text=Grantham was quite badly bombed,Coventry which was badly bombed.)
It seemed to me that the jury were given a distorted picture where they were given a selective and incomplete image of what had been happening in the ward. Does that mean that she is innocent? Not at all. The suspicions of the doctors who had to work with her carry a lot of weight in my mind because they were more aware of what was happening and what was "normal" than anyone else. But I am not confident that these appeals are without merit.
I agree that looking at mortality post Letby would give us a clearer indication.
And I think if we had independent tactical nuclear warheads with a wide variety of delivery systems, that would be far more effective in deterring Putin than a weapon we will never use except in the event of nuclear annihilation, and even then would probably not fire.
I am nervous that there is a demand to appeal Letby's guilt yet if she was a Bangladeshi or Nigerian nurse we would be demanding a capital sentence. Although David Davis has made a compelling case that her defence team were at David Waddington levels of incompetence.
I think she ‘might’ be guilty. But I’m not sure that the jury were given a full picture.
Which where the old joke is that German villages are 2 kilotons apart comes from. If you use the cellars in one village you can survive a tactical nuke on the next one up the road.
At 2Kt, you are producing more than 1Kt of neutrons. So it's really a neutron bomb. Which means that you might kill a battalion of tanks with it, if they are manoeuvring in close order. Then someone does something unfair, like put a layer of polythene in the armour package for tanks, and the numbers get worse.
Take a look at the real, live test where they let off a an M388 Davy Crockett (its on youtube). Not Hiroshima.
And that is why tactical nukes fell out of favour with the rise of smart weapons. A single CBU-97 releases 40 Skeet weapons - smart anti-tank munitions. One would probably kill more tanks than a W54.
I'm definitely headed to Rome though.. but I don't think I'll get there for a few years. Next year I want to do Brittany to Biarritz, and I reckon the year after Lisbon to Santiago
https://x.com/Blake_Allen13/status/1898463149424316808
So far, it looks like the major Russian operation to take Sudza and collapse the Kursk front have been beaten back. The VDV took heavy losses - with video now coming out - from their attempted infiltration of the city through a major gas pipeline. Dozens of paratroopers KIA..
Then you want to make it launch from a wider range of places to make it less vulnerable. So the range creeps up.
The cost is not much different. See the entertaining stuff the South Koreans are doing with SLBMs - "Non-nuclear, honest guv"
https://beautifuliguria.com/2020/01/09/tour-best-noble-historical-palaces-genoa/
With very large conventional warheads to ensure they are a credible threat to even the deepest N Korean bunker.
Of course the corollary of that is that with a (lighter) nuclear warhead, they'd have a significantly longer range.
If the deaths were due to substandard care provided by the organisation, then the spotlight being shone by a murder arrest should see them drop anyway even if there were no murderer.
I don't know if she is guilty or not, but I think the statistics have been well and truly abused which is problematic. As too was the abuse of notes which could just be a nurse feeling guilty over her charges dying even without foul play.
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/118
https://x.com/rupertlowe10/status/1898454825366393311
Nigel Farage needs to take back control of Reform, and sack Zia Yusuf.
Yes, I probably miscategorised my proposed nuclear idea as 'tactical' - what I meant was not have a continuous at sea tactical nuclear doomsday revenge weapon.
As putting them on subs - this makes them virtually impossible to find.
Nigel.
I have enormous respect for you, but you know that this is an entirely false and poisonous narrative. Why remove the whip before any investigation has even started? Don’t you believe that we are all innocent until proven guilty? Why launch this malicious attack the day after my reasonable concerns were made public?
The timing is suspect, to say the least.
To suggest that my questions came after this vindictive process began is a falsehood. I gave the interview to the Daily Mail on the 25th of February in Westminster. I first received word of the Reform proceedings against me on the 28th of February. On a Friday afternoon from Lee Anderson, with no prior warning. What professionalism.
Honestly, the process has been handled so appallingly. I don’t even know if I remain in the party or not. Amateur is generous.
Asking reasonable questions of Reform structure, policy and communication may be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is entirely necessary. I will continue to do so. Difficult interrogation will only make any party stronger.
As you know, I have tried and tried to have a civilised dinner with you to discuss all of this. You have repeatedly refused. I offered once more today, again no response. This should have ALL happened behind closed doors. As I pushed for, over and over again.
This isn’t about me, or you, or any petty personal differences you may have with me.
This is about our members, our supporters, and our country.
This isn’t about us. It’s about them.
https://x.com/lanceforman/status/1898479390796709910
The resolute insistence of the vast majority on speaking English, the failure to make an effort to learn even a few words in the relevant foreign language.
"Imperialistic" "stupid" "intellectually limited" "insular" "lazy". Nothing positive to be said about it.
From 2007, with the Dap Kings, the brilliant Brooklyn band she recorded Back To Black with
https://youtu.be/yyueKHRizxU
I don't think any liberty would be surrendered, especially if combined with decentralisation so that most decisions were delegated downwards not upwards. And actually, you can't enjoy liberty if you don't have security. Ask the Ukranians.
What a talent she was. What more she could have achieved. Such a shame.
UK threw everything it had post- war into the special USA relationship tightly bound on security, intelligence, equipment, policy - even sharing nukes. We gave them airfields and bases and went to war with them against their enemies as in Iraq.
Both betrayed.
Why? If serious about signing the Ukraine offer, Trumps Administration would be sitting down with industry to gauge their interest in being involved. Greater exposure of Trump and his team to people who genuinely understand the business, might find lukewarm interest at best from the Ukraine offer. I predict industry will talk Trump out of Ukraine deal in favour of doing a deal with Greenland instead. Trumps friends in the industry will convince him, reasserting U.S. industrial leadership and enhancing national security is better served from Greenland deal, than one with Ukraine.
When it comes to Greenland, Trump is a lucky General. What is about to happen in the Greenland General Election is a change of government to opposition party who want to sit down with Trump. First the new government will have to change the arrangement with Denmark, where Denmark controls Greenlands Foreign and Security policy - but this will be a formality, put to the Greenland electorate and easily passed within the next couple of years. It will be a formality because after recent exposure of genuine colonial scandals of terrible treatment of Greenlanders, Denmark has few friends in Greenland politics right now.
Trump will be drilling and mining Greenland before the end of this Presidential term. Will he sign a deal with Ukraine too. I suspect not.
Expressen seems to be a respected Swedish newspaper, and it reported yesterday that the U.S. had told NATO allies that it wasn't planning to take part in any further military exercise in Europe.
This is unconfirmed by any other sources, but would obviously be pretty significant, if so.
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1898308261608390708
But I'm afraid I've no idea what you're on about.
As you note, there was plenty of other, non-statistical evidence.
I trust we can rely on your help, against a background of media tittle-tattle and amusement.
Yours,
Oracle.
Robert Reich
@RBReich
·
5h
The battle of our day is no longer about Democrats versus Republicans or left versus right.
The choice right now is democracy or dictatorship. And we're sliding faster than I ever thought possible into the latter.
Everyone must choose which side they’re on.
https://x.com/RBReich/status/1898403861649351158
I got 3.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kl2nmzrvo
Of course they can't stay united.
Er...
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the cause of soaring egg prices.
-CNN
https://x.com/outbreakupdates/status/1898107633623875677
What is specific, extra curricular about the Ukraine deal is for every reason Ukraine likes it, is a reason for any US Administration to be wary.
Letby's defence lawyers aren't claiming the evidence was fixed, just that it was coincidental and/or misinterpreted. But the jury heard a whole host of evidence. If you don't think juries can draw conclusions from a range of (potentially conflicting) evidence put in front of them, then what is the point of trial by jury?
If evidence was presented in a misleading way, an appeal would have been granted. All Letby's appeals have been turned down. The people who look at the case in detail, juries, appeal judges, don't see the problems that some claim here exist.
It was all Sleepy Joe's fault. Next.
WAR WITH SWEDEN