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Support for rearmament continues to grow – politicalbetting.com
Support for rearmament continues to grow – politicalbetting.com
The latest polling from Ipsos brings some good news for Sir Keir Starmer with his ratings improving but the most important polling is showing support for rearmament even if it means higher taxes and/or cuts to public services.
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Is that a first? My work here is done.
We've all got ADHD apparently..🤔💩
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io_Lt1KYU9w
(Should be called 'Lewis Hamilton's Day Off'.)
So.
On exact SAME DAY that President Trump appeared on White House lawn with Musk and a fleet of Teslas and bought one to support him, after halving of stock price….
Tesla itself wrote unsigned letter to US Trade Rep warning of exporters “inherently exposed” in trade war
https://x.com/faisalislam/status/1900451347972915258
Any further info or links, on this ?
I'd be interested to know which factions in Ref UK constitute the 20% difference. Commentary I have seen (TBF: social media of various types) suggests that they will be thinking "send the to the channel to stop the boats".
Trump has been good for incumbents worldwide, most spectacularly the Canadian Liberals but also Macron, Zelensky and Starmer.
You often see a rally-to-the-flag effect from enemies.
This must be the first time in history that it has come from our closest ally.
In this, as so often,Trump is completely and dismally unique.
Most Americans aren't completely illiterate regarding economics after all.
"Increased tariffs on imported goods will make groceries and other regular purchases more expensive"
Agree: 70%
Disagree: 16%
Ipsos / March 12, 2025 / n=1422
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1900266891060371607
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-13-2025
Public opinion can be led.
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1900457587335643348
A deterrent is a waste of money unless it's plausible that we would actually use it. No evidence of that so far - we'll just end up with a bunch of frigates impotently observing cable cutters buzz around the Baltic.
Starmer has done well on Ukraine but his domestic agenda is open to questions
Despite Reforms internal fued the polls are not picking up much of a decline as some hoped and Lord Ashcrofts poll on Frodsham election puts Reform as favourite
By any measure logic would say Reform are in trouble but certainly not yet
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2025/03/runcorn-by-election-reform-uk-in-pole-position/
https://x.com/BladeoftheS/status/1899815985009365202
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/14/uk-economy-shrinks-blow-to-rachel-reeves
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/friedrich-merz-in-der-union-wachsen-die-zweifel-am-knazlerkandidaten-a-180c5819-56ae-4ea1-9987-562a03a469fb
On Tuesday, the Bundestag will vote on Merz's multi-billion dollar package. He needs a two-thirds majority because it involves changes to the Basic Law, so he's dependent on the votes of the Greens – whom he and CSU leader Markus Söder strongly opposed during the election campaign. It's a complicated operation that requires considerable preparation and tact. Merz has shown little of either so far.
and
It remains to be seen whether he will succeed in winning over the Greens. But even if an agreement were ultimately reached, the CDU/CSU, SPD, and Greens would only have 31 votes over the required majority in the old Bundestag. That's assuming all representatives from the three parties are present and vote yes. Can Merz count on that?
...
The Green Party alone has 46 members who are no longer members of the new Bundestag. The SPD has 95, and the CDU/CSU has 48. How can the parliamentary group leadership put them under pressure now? Lure them with a position? In the final weeks of their term as members of parliament, they are more free and independent than ever before. For Merz, this is a huge problem.
...
The reckoning will come on Tuesday. If the CDU/CSU and SPD fail to pass their debt package in the Bundestag, the future of Europe could be at stake. If Germany fails to lead the way, the consequences for the continent are unforeseeable.
...
The question is whether he himself has fully realized what is at stake for him and the country these days. Many in the Union have doubts about this.
They are watching with growing concern as Merz prepares for the Bundestag vote with a careless lack of concern. Internal complaints are that the party leader makes many decisions alone, surrounds himself with yes-men, rarely asks for advice, and often enters crucial discussions with great self-confidence but poorly prepared.
and so on...
There's plenty of positive things for them to talk about were they willing to do so consistently and repeatedly, starting with NHS waiting lists. And lots of stats are due out between now and the byelection date, so it needs a ground operation.
When do we expect the byelection to be?
Some worrying comments from Musk this morning, considering that Thiel and Yarvin want to weaken the courts.
@elonmusk
Without judicial reform, which means at least the absolute worst judges get impeached, we don’t have real democracy in America
Totally fucking useless.
https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/about
Edit: one at random from a popular valley walk in the Pentlands (Howlet = owlet).
https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/midlothian-os-name-books-1852-1853/midlothian-volume-33/4
Its why sonething like January 6th was so devastating - once stuff like that is in effect declared acceptable by a large chunck of voters, theres no going back.
Meanwhile, in the Canadian province of British Columbia they just specifically pulled all Tesla models from their electric car and renewables subsidies worth thousands of dollars… in 2023 half of EVs in BC were Teslas, mostly Vancouver…
Food and Drink Federation say businesses are struggling to deal with added ‘complexity and bureaucracy’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/13/uk-food-and-drink-exports-to-the-eu-down-34-since-brexit
It could be 1990's Russia.
I've rarely felt more glad to be on this side of the Atlantic.
It’s the tactic of populists the world over to conflate democracy with majoritarianism. Except in America they’re not even representing the majority.
Even where it's possible to substitute domestic production, the Trump tariffs increase raw materials input costs, which will raise prices.
And the reduced price competition from imported gooods means that domestic producers have more scope to increase their prices.
And of course there is a huge range of consumer products - notably affordable clothing - where there is no real domestic production. Buying American can mean paying several times the imported price - and for most goods, domestic production barely exists.
..Russian Presidential Aide and former Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev claimed in an interview with Russian national security-focused magazine National Defense published on March 13 that NATO "traditionally" uses threats as its main instrument in interstate relations and that NATO's "European wing" is continuing its policy on "blocking" Russia in the Baltic region. Patrushev claimed that the United Kingdom (UK) is "orchestrating" NATO's "aggravation of the situation" as part of efforts to disrupt negotiations on Ukraine and Russian and American attempts to normalize their bilateral relations. Patrushev also claimed that the Finnish population, unlike Finnish authorities, is friendly to Russia and that the UK has approved Finnish authorities to "do everything to deprive their country [Finland] of its sovereignty." Patrushev threateningly claimed that the Gulf of Finland has a historical "geographic affiliation with Russia" and that "it should not be forgotten that Finland was part of the Russian Empire." Patrushev claimed that the Russian Empire "respected" and "preserved" the Finnish people and language in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Patrushev appeared to try to compare Russia's current war against Ukraine to the Soviet-Finnish Winter War in 1939–1940. Patrushev claimed that Finnish attempts to seize Soviet lands and "actively militarize" created a threat to the USSR and that Finland was "indiscriminately exterminating" the Slavic population in Karelia. Patrushev claimed that the West is "again turning [Finland] into a springboard" for aggression against Russia. The Kremlin has used similar false narratives about the Ukrainian government's discrimination of Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine..
Lots of negatives.
Few positives. Reintroducing beavers seems to be the main one.
Is Article 5 still a thing? Certainly not for the US it isn't. You have to consider NATO operating sans USA. That is the new reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/13/former-shadow-chancellor-ed-balls-says-plans-to-cut-disability-benefits-wont-work
Labour need some tactical voting by the Lib Dem’s and Greens and they need to go after Reform on their Putin admiration .
Of those I only know Asimov fairly well, and he has all sorts of half developed nostrums and dreams he wrote about speculatively.
I have yet to see the idea of a single selected-by-computer voter in the proposals of DOGE, however.
Plus workers rights, rental bill coming down the track very soon, and others.
There's plenty total about, if they get a media strategy and some self-confidence.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-urkaine-war-kremlin-keith-kellogg-special-envoy-barred-talks-rcna195981
Kellogg out.
Now Dan Hodges is tweeting Times saying that Witkoff is out too.
Putin pulling all the strings now.
Politically, he's clearly authoritarian, as his Straussian Moment essay shows, but economically he seems to be all over the place, from central control to dog'-eat-dog extreme libertartarianism.
Compared to Musk, though, who is the risk-taker, he's the coherent intellectual behind the scenes, and the networked.
He doesn't have much of a clue how to deal with the second coming.
Trump 1.0 was a bit of a sh*t show but at least there were some old hands within the administration. Trump 2.0 will simply be chaos. You don't have to be Sun Tzu to work out that now is the best time to take advantage of the headless chickens in the US. Especially since the chainsaw maniac is still wandering around looking for more chickens (also known as Democrats)
See Don Jr is being offered lots of opportunities by those wishing to court favour.
He's brought them all together, too.
https://archive.is/f8S4L
I think he makes some errors of fact: specifically his belief that that Canada and Mexico folded quickly. Will investigate further.
Vaguely on topic. I suspect even if there weren't a war in Ukraine, the incoming Trump administration would be making many of the same noises it made in its first incarnation.
The truth is we've prospered on America's dime since 1945 and as with so much else the party is over and the bill is on the table. Whether you think defence spending should be as much as 5% of GDP in time is a matter for discussion - it may be you can achieve big improvements in defensive capability without having to spend fortunes if you spend wisely.
Nonetheless, increasing defence spending means hard choices elsewhere and it would have been more interesting to see how those supportive of that spending would jump if it was a choice between raising taxes and cutting services. Fortunately, it may not be as it won't be an either/or but more likely a both/and but with stagnant growth, that means, to be blunt, we're all going to be worse off to pay to be safe (or to have the illusion or delusion of safety if you prefer).
Kemi at least largely supports her core vote.
Starmer meanwhile is hitting his public sector core vote at a time Labour is already polling below Foot 1983 or Corbyn 2019 levels
Triumph Hurdle: HELLO NEIGHBOUR
Mares Chase: ALLEGORIE DE VASSY
Albert Bartlett Hurdle: WENDIGO (each way)
Gold Cup: GALOPIN DES CHAMPS (win), CORBETTS CROSS (each way)
But, yes, Reeves may well take that dismal crown.
But:
- the alternatives are mostly even worse, and none of them are obviously any better
- replacing her won't get growth going - it's the government's policies that are at fault
- Starmer would be implicitly admitting that he showed very poor judgement in appointing her in the first place, and has basically wasted the first year of his government.
So I think she's safe.
Otherwise they would already be buying them.
You do realise even Biden imposed tariffs on cheap Chinese goods mass dumped on the US market given the damage it did US industry? The EU also imposed tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs etc
The pre WWI alliances, which included automatic declarations of war, were considered to have ensured the war. This is because of a deterrence failure - Type III in Herman Khan, IIRC - both sides had such automatic declarations. Which meant that once it started, it was a runaway train.
The League of Nations failed because it was an attempt at diplomacy and sanctions only.
The UN took on the diplomatic role. NATO was especcially designed as a flexible alliance - and umbrella for sub alliances. Totally voluntary - leaving has happened, without penalty and rejoining is easy.
As @JohnLilburne says, the response to an Article 5 declaration is entirely up to the member state. In theory, a diplomatic letter/note could meet the obligation.
The implication though, is that if a country does nothing, then when *they are threatened* then others might do the same - nothing.