FWIW I make it nearly a £5 trillion GDP (£4.72 trillion).
I think the USA National Security Strategy (TLDR: a written down version of Vance's Munich speech, approximately) embracing an authoritarian multi-polar world makes this an even more important area.
A fly-in-the-ointment may be just what will be left of the USA once the results of Trumpism have been absorbed, that is *if* the USA does not recover in some way.
I'm perhaps more inclined towards a "NATO sans the USA" as a next step, but there may not be political vision for that in the shorter term. Perhaps KC needs to bang some heads together.
I think we can keep NATO with the USA, but just with open eyes that we can not rely upon America so ensuring our own capabilities are operationally independent.
Co-operation, not reliance.
A problem with NATO sans USA, is leadership.
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Not to bash other people's hard-earned pleasure, but to me a life devoted to having a good time would be boring & futile. I'm thinking of those e.g. who go and live on a cruise ship.
I’d agree.
We did a two week cruise this year. By day 10 I was itching to come home.
It's a bugger when you get fleas on a cruise ship...
We have done many cruises from European, to Trans Atlantic, Trans Pacific, Scandinavian, the Artic, the Antarctic amongst others.
We did not go to any shows, dances or games nights, as most if not all were discovery and nature adventures, and we were there to see and learn about our World by experiencing it, and our love of the sea, and nature in it's natural environment
We did go to the travel lectures and interesting excursions, but good food and drink were not of any concern to us
Did my honeymoon on a proper cruise, Rome -> Sicily -> Venice but most of my other trips on vessels would not have qualified as "cruises" for herself! That said, I have seen the subantarctic islands, the Galapagos and Antarctica back to Cape Verde - and witnessed many wonders along the way.
WTAF is Heidi Alexander smoking, and where can I get some?
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that the new design "isn't just a paint job", and that it represents "a new railway, casting off the frustrations of the past and focused entirely on delivering a proper public service for passengers".
Actually I'm travelling at the moment, so a quick survey of Brookwood station tells me the two arrows logo is in use on posters for railcards, the station information poster, and a poster about the closure of London Waterloo over Christmas. It is also used in direction signs near stations. However a good 2/3 of the posters only have SWR (the train operator) branding.
The BBC article actually states that the logo is currently in use by National Rail.
FWIW I make it nearly a £5 trillion GDP (£4.72 trillion).
I think the USA National Security Strategy (TLDR: a written down version of Vance's Munich speech, approximately) embracing an authoritarian multi-polar world makes this an even more important area.
A fly-in-the-ointment may be just what will be left of the USA once the results of Trumpism have been absorbed, that is *if* the USA does not recover in some way.
I'm perhaps more inclined towards a "NATO sans the USA" as a next step, but there may not be political vision for that in the shorter term. Perhaps KC needs to bang some heads together.
I think we can keep NATO with the USA, but just with open eyes that we can not rely upon America so ensuring our own capabilities are operationally independent.
Co-operation, not reliance.
A problem with NATO sans USA, is leadership.
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
FWIW I make it nearly a £5 trillion GDP (£4.72 trillion).
I think the USA National Security Strategy (TLDR: a written down version of Vance's Munich speech, approximately) embracing an authoritarian multi-polar world makes this an even more important area.
A fly-in-the-ointment may be just what will be left of the USA once the results of Trumpism have been absorbed, that is *if* the USA does not recover in some way.
I'm perhaps more inclined towards a "NATO sans the USA" as a next step, but there may not be political vision for that in the shorter term. Perhaps KC needs to bang some heads together.
I think we can keep NATO with the USA, but just with open eyes that we can not rely upon America so ensuring our own capabilities are operationally independent.
Co-operation, not reliance.
A problem with NATO sans USA, is leadership.
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
The US has already says that it wants to hand on European leadership of NATO to Germany, but frankly the existing structure doesn't really work without the US.
If it is to be replaced, whatever takes its place needs rethinking. But that isn't a fast process.
Has this been done? Seems an odd hill to die on (not literally of course, that's the Palestinians) for a historically unpopular chancellor both within her party and more widely. Of course the Israeli PR operation is so crap that they'll consider this a major coup.
PoliticsHome @politicshome Progressive people "must be willing to say, unapologetically, I am a Zionist", Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Monday “I am a Zionist not in spite of my belief in democracy or freedom and equality, but exactly because of those beliefs"
I supported Israel, saw myself as Zionist adjacent. No longer. I cannot support genocide. The diggers erasing the olive groves, tree by tree, the bulldozers. The ethnic cleansing, mass murder, etc etc
Racism / religion / regional interests. Billions have paid a price, faced with watching or being the kind of people that look away.
Getting philosophical here.
The fossil fuel industry creates authoritarian regimes that will destabilise and destroy entire countries to forward its power base. The people of the Middle East are victims of a fascist patriarchy enabled by neoliberal economics, Palestine and Israel are early losers in the coming climate apocalypse.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
It takes time to adjust to such a shock, but the increases in European defence spending is a start.
Off topic betting post. This seems rather (extremely) unlikely, but another straw in the wind.
Former Marine Emerges As Surprise Name In Race To Succeed Keir Starmer https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/al-carns-surprise-name-labour-leadership ...PoliticsHome understands that the Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak considered a bid to succeed Angela Rayner as deputy Labour leader when she resigned from cabinet over unpaid stamp duty in September. In the end, he backed Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for the role, while also earning a promotion to the Ministry of Defence in the reshuffle.
Now, Labour MPs have told PoliticsHome that Carns has been sounding out support amid a growing feeling within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) that it is when, not if, the Prime Minister faces a challenge to his leadership.
“He [Carns] is the most extraordinary man and would be the most impressive leader this country has ever had”, said one particularly supportive Labour MP*..
*that wouldn't be Carns himself, would it ?
He reached the summit of Mount Everest, why not the summit of British politics?
Carns seems to have developed a small but significant coterie of supporters on the Labour backbenchers. I’ve been hearing about him for about a year (we have friends in common).
However, surely he needs some ministerial experience?
In the normal run of things I would see this sort of thing as being simply a way of him raising his profile in order to land a bigger job at the next reshuffle, or when someone else takes over as PM. Perhaps his ambition is to become Secretary of State for Defence?
But, well, we live in febrile times. And Britain does need someone with the ambition to not be bound by the way things have been done in the past.
Just wait until the Electoral Commission jumps into inaction
What are the consequences if Farage is found to have broken the spending limit?
Death. By bongo.
Hopefully.
Criminal prosecution and potentially loss of electoral office and a ban. Depends on whether it is determined to be accidental or deliberate.
Electoral commission will probably let him off, see Zac Goldsmith Electoral Commission‟s Director of Party and Election Finance, Lisa Klein, said: “We’ve looked carefully at all the evidence and we don’t believe it would be in the public interest to refer this case to the police for criminal investigation.”
"The former deputy prime minister was speaking in the Commons on Monday for the first time since the government abandoned its pledge in the bill to give workers protection against unfair dismissal "from day one" of a job, instead setting the bar at six months."
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Not to bash other people's hard-earned pleasure, but to me a life devoted to having a good time would be boring & futile. I'm thinking of those e.g. who go and live on a cruise ship.
I’d agree.
We did a two week cruise this year. By day 10 I was itching to come home.
Love the header essay. Almost as batshit, yet simultaneously interestingly plausible as the multiple times a British union with France was seriously proposed in the C20th.
(Honestly, we should have unified with France - it would have been worth it for the Franco-Anglo banter alone.)
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Not to bash other people's hard-earned pleasure, but to me a life devoted to having a good time would be boring & futile. I'm thinking of those e.g. who go and live on a cruise ship.
I’d agree.
We did a two week cruise this year. By day 10 I was itching to come home.
Bed bug infestation?
That would have been more fun than the second ‘at sea’ day.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
It is yet another area where the "good chap" assumption is proven to be utterly useless. The law should not be written around people who generally comply with the rules not breaking the rules, it should be written around the "bad actors" who intentionally break the rules, see USA for how much difficulty the UK could find itself in.
WTAF is Heidi Alexander smoking, and where can I get some?
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that the new design "isn't just a paint job", and that it represents "a new railway, casting off the frustrations of the past and focused entirely on delivering a proper public service for passengers".
Actually I'm travelling at the moment, so a quick survey of Brookwood station tells me the two arrows logo is in use on posters for railcards, the station information poster, and a poster about the closure of London Waterloo over Christmas. It is also used in direction signs near stations. However a good 2/3 of the posters only have SWR (the train operator) branding.
The BBC article actually states that the logo is currently in use by National Rail.
There's a mixed economy on stations, which complicates things.
My local mainline station (Alfreton) is run by EMR, as I discovered when inquiring as to who to talk to about the wheelchair blocking bollards on the wheelchair ramp, which means that users of larger wheelchairs are forced to enter via the vehicle entrance.
Lots of stuff about "approved", "inspected", "standards" and "no complaints *" all the rest from. Yet the Government's National Guidelines say they have to be 1.5m apart, not 1m, and have done for years.
(* That one is a bit fallacious. As per "no mobility track is required because no wheelchairs or cycles use the road; there is no demand. That would usually be the National Speed Limit death-trap road full of vehicles doing 50mph that is a risk to life and limb if you go near it.)
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
It takes time to adjust to such a shock, but the increases in European defence spending is a start.
The sad thing about the increase in European defence spending (and this is European not EU) is that the continent could spend as much as the US but we won’t get the benefit of that scale because of national interests and positioning.
Imagine if all European nations agreed to buy the same fighter jets. They put in an order with X manufacturer for 1000 and can negotiate the cost. All countries then benefit from being able to host each other’s airforces and service and arm which is massively useful. The Us obviously just buys US jets in large numbers so it works for them and they sell globally offsetting their costs but making other countries dependant.
The problem lies in the fact that different European countries want slightly different planes for marginal differences and the. You add in protectionism and you have the situation where different countries will go for (or did) F-16s, Raffale, Grippen, Eurofighter (I’m aware they all have differing capabilities but it’s a general point). You have bickering about next gen fighters as European conglomerates fight over workshare and so all benefits get lost.
We could have standardised infantry fighting vehicles which are interoperable across Poland, Germany, the UK.
Think of it as the standardisation of NATO ammunition writ large.
Until Europe can put aside its individual interests then it can never have the punch it should have for its wealth and industry.
Me as well. We were always paranoid about election expenses, but the 2015 action by the Tories in the 33 constituencies affected seems to drive a coach and horses through the limits. Most were not prosecuted. I think only one candidate and one agent went to trial and only the agent found guilty. I suspect a lot of pressure was put on candidates and agents trying to convince them this was national rather than local spending. This put them in an impossible position. I would not have wanted to be an agent under those circumstances.
As I have mentioned before, a long time ago I was a prosecution witness which involved a fraud resulting in over spending on local election expenses that the agent did not declare. It seemed cut and dry, but the CPS finally, after a long delay, decided not to prosecute. It seemed odd at the time, but finally made sense to me after the 2015 cases. In this case the agent was unaware of the fraud (and consequential over spend) at the time. He was told prior to completing the election expenses. He was left with the option of ignoring what had happened, which he did, or submitting expenses which broke the limit and would have disqualified the candidates who were elected. The law is an ass in these cases. Even though he was an opponent I considered the Agent a decent guy put into an impossible position with a criminal conviction hanging over his head for some time. However the elected councillors (who were also ignorant of what had happened) should have had their election nullified and it rerun as the over spend was clear and effective.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
I trust you don't tell them : "You'll be the death of me".
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
Growing up I simply assumed that I would marry & have children. Neither of those things happened; and not by any deliberate choice. I'm sorry I don't have children but there's no regret involved because it wasn't a choice. Likewise I've always been sorry not to have a life partner but again there's nothing to regret. At least I didn't put any children through the trauma of divorce.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
It takes time to adjust to such a shock, but the increases in European defence spending is a start.
We (Europe) only really have one direct military threat in the medium-term: Russia.
China is outside our sphere of influence. If they invade Taiwan or Russia or Mongolia, we're not going to condone it (except maybe for Russia), but nor are we going to do anything about it. At least not militarily. And we too geographically distant, and too good a market for exports, for China to be a military threat to Europe. If they go expansionist, we're a long way down the list.
Then you're left with Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Israel etc as regional military powers in our not-too-distant abroad. And each of them has far more pressing issues closer to home (on in Turkey's case, on its southern border). Any conflicts that arise between them are not the business of Europe in our new USA-less NATO world.
So that leaves Russia and Russia alone. It has the advantage of clarity and focus. So we just need to beef up our combined military and make clear an attack on one is an attack on all.
FWIW I make it nearly a £5 trillion GDP (£4.72 trillion).
I think the USA National Security Strategy (TLDR: a written down version of Vance's Munich speech, approximately) embracing an authoritarian multi-polar world makes this an even more important area.
A fly-in-the-ointment may be just what will be left of the USA once the results of Trumpism have been absorbed, that is *if* the USA does not recover in some way.
I'm perhaps more inclined towards a "NATO sans the USA" as a next step, but there may not be political vision for that in the shorter term. Perhaps KC needs to bang some heads together.
I think we can keep NATO with the USA, but just with open eyes that we can not rely upon America so ensuring our own capabilities are operationally independent.
Co-operation, not reliance.
A problem with NATO sans USA, is leadership.
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
Nobody.
We don't need an international executive, we need each nation to hold its own executive to account.
Canada's PM, Britain's PM etc co-operating, not one individual bossing about others they've not been elected to serve.
Me as well. We were always paranoid about election expenses, but the 2015 action by the Tories in the 33 constituencies affected seems to drive a coach and horses through the limits. Most were not prosecuted. I think only one candidate and one agent went to trial and only the agent found guilty. I suspect a lot of pressure was put on candidates and agents trying to convince them this was national rather than local spending. This put them in an impossible position. I would not have wanted to be an agent under those circumstances.
As I have mentioned before, a long time ago I was a prosecution witness which involved a fraud resulting in over spending on local election expenses that the agent did not declare. It seemed cut and dry, but the CPS finally, after a long delay, decided not to prosecute. It seemed odd at the time, but finally made sense to me after the 2015 cases. In this case the agent was unaware of the fraud (and consequential over spend) at the time. He was told prior to completing the election expenses. He was left with the option of ignoring what had happened, which he did, or submitting expenses which broke the limit and would have disqualified the candidates who were elected. The law is an ass in these cases. Even though he was an opponent I considered the Agent a decent guy put into an impossible position with a criminal conviction hanging over his head for some time. However the elected councillors (who were also ignorant of what had happened) should have had their election nullified and it rerun as the over spend was clear and effective.
He chose to submit knowingly false returns, he should have been convicted. Otherwise what is the point of having laws?
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Not necessarily. They may e.g. donate to charities which help children, such as students. And they may have nieces/nephews.
PS. When I was at uni I benefited from a fund set up by a couple (or perhaps the mother) whose child had died as a student at that university.
It was a joke, or an attempt at one. One I regretted making remembering @HYUFD's recent loss but I was too late trying to delete it.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
In our case my wife had no interest in children until she was in her late thirties. No interest at all. Then she suddenly started interacting with her sisters kids and that was it. But only one for us so far (and probably done)
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
I had no idea just how little time I would have as a parent. Extension finished a year ago - there is STILL diy jobs to do to finish it.
That will wind up the ‘you’re all flag shaggers’ if you like our flag brigade a treat 👍
It would be nice if the service from York to Newcastle was actually run competently. Last three times we’ve gone to use it the trains have been cancelled.
She wants to recreate BR.
What do you think will happen?
Eventually, the BR problems will resurface.
It's worse than that. They want to re-create BR, but instead of as one organisation, in loads of small siloed operations, with the trains still hired in from external owners and the whole thing completely reliant on external contractors to do virtually anything beyond routine driving of trains from a to b.
It's quite an impressive effort to ensure we get the worst aspects of both BR and privatisation at the same time.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
It takes time to adjust to such a shock, but the increases in European defence spending is a start.
The sad thing about the increase in European defence spending (and this is European not EU) is that the continent could spend as much as the US but we won’t get the benefit of that scale because of national interests and positioning.
Imagine if all European nations agreed to buy the same fighter jets. They put in an order with X manufacturer for 1000 and can negotiate the cost. All countries then benefit from being able to host each other’s airforces and service and arm which is massively useful. The Us obviously just buys US jets in large numbers so it works for them and they sell globally offsetting their costs but making other countries dependant.
The problem lies in the fact that different European countries want slightly different planes for marginal differences and the. You add in protectionism and you have the situation where different countries will go for (or did) F-16s, Raffale, Grippen, Eurofighter (I’m aware they all have differing capabilities but it’s a general point). You have bickering about next gen fighters as European conglomerates fight over workshare and so all benefits get lost.
We could have standardised infantry fighting vehicles which are interoperable across Poland, Germany, the UK.
Think of it as the standardisation of NATO ammunition writ large.
Until Europe can put aside its individual interests then it can never have the punch it should have for its wealth and industry.
There's significant standardisation already in armoured vehicles (the UK with the ridiculous Ajax and Challenger 3 programmes being an outlier). In aircraft there is Airbus, and other than France going it alone, there's also broad collaboration ifor next generation fighter aircraft. Similarly MBDA for missiles (again, France is an exception).
I think you exaggerate that problem (it's not as though the US doesn't have competing programs and manufacturers itself).
What would make by far the biggest difference would be if we didn't spend over half our procurement cash buying US systems. And the trend is now beginning to be in that direction.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
WTAF is Heidi Alexander smoking, and where can I get some?
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that the new design "isn't just a paint job", and that it represents "a new railway, casting off the frustrations of the past and focused entirely on delivering a proper public service for passengers".
Actually I'm travelling at the moment, so a quick survey of Brookwood station tells me the two arrows logo is in use on posters for railcards, the station information poster, and a poster about the closure of London Waterloo over Christmas. It is also used in direction signs near stations. However a good 2/3 of the posters only have SWR (the train operator) branding.
The BBC article actually states that the logo is currently in use by National Rail.
The "double arrow of indecision" as its known in the trade (referencing BRs tendency to be bad at decision making - eg the saga of the APT, which had a GDP of a small country thrown at it, only to have it's ass whooped by the HST which was developed for comparatively little cash, and actually worked pretty much out of the box).
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
Growing up I simply assumed that I would marry & have children. Neither of those things happened; and not by any deliberate choice. I'm sorry I don't have children but there's no regret involved because it wasn't a choice. Likewise I've always been sorry not to have a life partner but again there's nothing to regret. At least I didn't put any children through the trauma of divorce.
Your contribution to protecting the environment and combatting climate change is, like mine, thereby got off to such a flying start that no amount of cycling and recycling and eating vegetables would ever enable any parent to catch us up.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
For all our other disagreements you get a big like from me for this comment. Sadly mine are now just about off living their own lives.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
Ha, of course they do.
Their MPs Twitter feed is full of these leeches demands with Lib Dem simpletons demanding they get money.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
Ha, of course they do.
Their MPs Twitter feed is full of these leeches demands with Lib Dem simpletons demanding they get money.
I can assure you that if they ever got into a position to be influencing the decision, the WASPI women would find themselves reliving the experience of students post-2010.
The same experience that Labour is currently delivering.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
For some bizarre reason I misread that as ‘Ann Widdecombe.’
Which didn’t at all lead me down some really startling mental pathways.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
o_O
Your second sentence contradicts your first. Opposition politicians do have freedom of choice you know on these issues.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
Friedrich Merz may be a possible. I'm not sure about his integrity and clarity of purpose, but he certainly has right-wing kudos and seems keen to get on with revamping Germany's military.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
Yup. What they say in public & what they say behind closed doors are probably very, very different.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
Ha, of course they do.
Their MPs Twitter feed is full of these leeches demands with Lib Dem simpletons demanding they get money.
I can assure you that if they ever got into a position to be influencing the decision, the WASPI women would find themselves reliving the experience of students post-2010.
The same experience that Labour is currently delivering.
Do,you know what, I don’t doubt that for one minute. Reality trumps promises.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
Whilst I agree with you, I feel this is now at the point that we were with Macron and Putin. Macron was getting loads of criticism for talking to Putin every day and trying to get a negotiated resolution at the start of the most recent invasion. It failed but he was right to try. Eventually he accepted that failure and moved on to more practical assitance.
As controversial as it might sound to some I think we are at that stage now with Trump. We have all the evidence we could ever need that he is no longer our friend and ally and we need to stop trying to negotiate or pander to him and get on with the new world order where the US has, for now, sided with our enemy.
We like to say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It also works the other way around.
The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
For now, under Trump, the US is as good as our enemy.
Has this been done? Seems an odd hill to die on (not literally of course, that's the Palestinians) for a historically unpopular chancellor both within her party and more widely. Of course the Israeli PR operation is so crap that they'll consider this a major coup.
PoliticsHome @politicshome Progressive people "must be willing to say, unapologetically, I am a Zionist", Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Monday “I am a Zionist not in spite of my belief in democracy or freedom and equality, but exactly because of those beliefs"
Progressive people aren't generally supportive of ethnic-cleansing, appreciate that this is a controversial topic on here, but is anyone denying that zionism requires the displacement of the current inhabitants as seen in the West Bank for example?
I do question whether she actually understands the full implications of what she is saying.
I think Zionism is one of those terms whose meaning (like terrorism, genocide, war crime or indeed ethnic cleansing) depends very much on who is using it. In other words it’s become virtually useless when it comes to rational discourse. I agree that anyone extolling the virtues of Zionism uncritically is likely a fcking fool.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
If only Prince Philip was still alive, he would have Trump sorted in a jiffy.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Me as well. We were always paranoid about election expenses, but the 2015 action by the Tories in the 33 constituencies affected seems to drive a coach and horses through the limits. Most were not prosecuted. I think only one candidate and one agent went to trial and only the agent found guilty. I suspect a lot of pressure was put on candidates and agents trying to convince them this was national rather than local spending. This put them in an impossible position. I would not have wanted to be an agent under those circumstances.
As I have mentioned before, a long time ago I was a prosecution witness which involved a fraud resulting in over spending on local election expenses that the agent did not declare. It seemed cut and dry, but the CPS finally, after a long delay, decided not to prosecute. It seemed odd at the time, but finally made sense to me after the 2015 cases. In this case the agent was unaware of the fraud (and consequential over spend) at the time. He was told prior to completing the election expenses. He was left with the option of ignoring what had happened, which he did, or submitting expenses which broke the limit and would have disqualified the candidates who were elected. The law is an ass in these cases. Even though he was an opponent I considered the Agent a decent guy put into an impossible position with a criminal conviction hanging over his head for some time. However the elected councillors (who were also ignorant of what had happened) should have had their election nullified and it rerun as the over spend was clear and effective.
He chose to submit knowingly false returns, he should have been convicted. Otherwise what is the point of having laws?
Life is a lot more complicated than that. Election expenses have to be submitted very quickly. He was told, and not by an official source, with little notice. Because the amount was unknown he couldn't have completed an accurate return anyway by the deadline. He had no knowledge of what had happened prior to this. You have to have some sympathy for him.
I have little sympathy for what happened, particularly as 3 opponents got elected unfairly to the council, but the law was after the wrong person.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
"Jones reportedly became reliant on alcohol after she was shunned by her colleagues when she returned to the House of Commons in 1999; only 34 MPs signed an early day motion welcoming her back to the House of Commons after her conviction was quashed.[3][14] Her husband said that she refused to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in case she was recognised.[7]
"She was found dead by her husband at her home in Saxilby; reportedly she was surrounded by 15 empty vodka bottles.[3] Her cause of death was reported as alcoholism or alcoholic liver disease."
According to Wiki, our very own @NickPalmer was runner-up to her when she was selected.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
I am really not seeing what we get out of sucking up to Trump. He is completely unreliable and irrational. His peace plans for Ukraine were literally written in Russian. They are not in our interests, let alone Ukraine's. We need to face reality. Pretending is not achieving anything.
I agree with you about leadership. I have no doubt that Starmer is struggling to come out with the nonsense about Trump but genuinely believes that it is his duty to do so. I think he's wrong about that but I do not question his motives, only his judgement.
Scary article in the FT today about the sheer scale of Russian hybrid warfare activity against Europe.
Intelligence chiefs and police forces have foiled plots to derail crowded trains, burn down shopping centres, discharge a dam and poison water supplies. And these are just the ones we know about.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
For all our other disagreements you get a big like from me for this comment. Sadly mine are now just about off living their own lives.
Sadly??!!! That's what's they're effing well supposed to do, mate! Let 'em go. You may one day be amazed at what they become and what they produce, as I have been.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
"Jones reportedly became reliant on alcohol after she was shunned by her colleagues when she returned to the House of Commons in 1999; only 34 MPs signed an early day motion welcoming her back to the House of Commons after her conviction was quashed.[3][14] Her husband said that she refused to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in case she was recognised.[7]
"She was found dead by her husband at her home in Saxilby; reportedly she was surrounded by 15 empty vodka bottles.[3] Her cause of death was reported as alcoholism or alcoholic liver disease."
According to Wiki, our very own @NickPalmer was runner-up to her when she was selected.
Yep, distance had dulled my memory. I forgot she was actually found guilty and then it was overturned.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Yep, see my example below. It should be beyond the wit of man to identify that the election is unfair even if you do not successfully prosecute a person for the crime. In the above example she may not have been found guilty of a crime, but it is clear that election rules have been breached so the election should be nullified.
Unless you are an agent or candidate (and it appears even if you are) you can commit all sorts of crimes to get someone elected and although you may be sent to prison for a crime the election is usually not nullified even if you had a big impact on the result.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
For all our other disagreements you get a big like from me for this comment. Sadly mine are now just about off living their own lives.
Sadly??!!! That's what's they're effing well supposed to do, mate! Let 'em go. You may one day be amazed at what they become and what they produce, as I have been.
Happily.
Oh I know. Happy for them but sad I can no longer spend as much time with them.
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
o_O
Your second sentence contradicts your first. Opposition politicians do have freedom of choice you know on these issues.
You of all people should understand how the adversarial structure of our political system directs opposition parties to challenge and oppose everything the majority party is doing, right or wrong. Stand back, and the LD’s parliamentary party are actually doing a decent job of offering a relatively more constructive opposition than the Commons has ever witnessed prior.
Although we have grown accustomed to Reform's lead and - shudder - the prospect of Nige at No 10, it only takes a 5% swing to either Lab or Con to more than wipe out the lead. It's really not all that much if you think how things have oscillated in recent years.
No reason for complacency but the fat lady hasn't even begun to warm up.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
I think we'd have more chance of keeping Trump "onside" if we collectively stood up to him rather than fawning.
NATO Sec Gen Rutte is an example of how not to do it anymore.
It might have served a purpose when the US was still contributing to Ukraine. Now that it isn't, and is actively hostile to our interests, it's both humiliating and counterproductive.
FWIW I make it nearly a £5 trillion GDP (£4.72 trillion).
I think the USA National Security Strategy (TLDR: a written down version of Vance's Munich speech, approximately) embracing an authoritarian multi-polar world makes this an even more important area.
A fly-in-the-ointment may be just what will be left of the USA once the results of Trumpism have been absorbed, that is *if* the USA does not recover in some way.
I'm perhaps more inclined towards a "NATO sans the USA" as a next step, but there may not be political vision for that in the shorter term. Perhaps KC needs to bang some heads together.
I think we can keep NATO with the USA, but just with open eyes that we can not rely upon America so ensuring our own capabilities are operationally independent.
Co-operation, not reliance.
A problem with NATO sans USA, is leadership.
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
This is why the idea of a Union has merit above simply deepening alliances and cooperation. There are moments of crisis where you need a single executive figure to take a lead, and we certainly appear to be entering a period of time where such leadership will be required more often.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Canada, Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be better places to provide that leadership.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
It ought to be compulsory to care about your society.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Yep, see my example below. It should be beyond the wit of man to identify that the election is unfair even if you do not successfully prosecute a person for the crime. In the above example she may not have been found guilty of a crime, but it is clear that election rules have been breached so the election should be nullified.
Unless you are an agent or candidate (and it appears even if you are) you can commit all sorts of crimes to get someone elected and although you may be sent to prison for a crime the election is usually not nullified even if you had a big impact on the result.
Agree entirely. In any race if you break the rules then you should lose the prize.
Has this been done? Seems an odd hill to die on (not literally of course, that's the Palestinians) for a historically unpopular chancellor both within her party and more widely. Of course the Israeli PR operation is so crap that they'll consider this a major coup.
PoliticsHome @politicshome Progressive people "must be willing to say, unapologetically, I am a Zionist", Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Monday “I am a Zionist not in spite of my belief in democracy or freedom and equality, but exactly because of those beliefs"
Progressive people aren't generally supportive of ethnic-cleansing, appreciate that this is a controversial topic on here, but is anyone denying that zionism requires the displacement of the current inhabitants as seen in the West Bank for example?
I do question whether she actually understands the full implications of what she is saying.
I think Zionism is one of those terms whose meaning (like terrorism, genocide, war crime or indeed ethnic cleansing) depends very much on who is using it. In other words it’s become virtually useless when it comes to rational discourse. I agree that anyone extolling the virtues of Zionism uncritically is likely a fcking fool.
What I assume she means is "I think Israel should be allowed to exist". Possibly on its present borders? If she means "I think there should be a state of Israel and it should control all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip" it would be a surprisingly bold statement. But some clarity would have helped. Even from the point of someone who agrees with what the presumed point is.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
I find it more remarkable that most people don't do that. Objectively, you could have a much, much nicer life without children. You can do so much with your time. I reckon I get, what, five, six days to myself a year in which to watch cricket or go for a long, long walk, or a bike ride? Imagine having 100 days like that! But that's what life would be like without kids. And you could retire ten years earlier. Yet the number of people who voluntarily elect to take that path through life is a small minority. Of the childless I know, far more are childless by circumstance than choice. Certainly parenthood is not a choice I ever regret. (It did take, I grant you, a few months to get used to.)
Amy Winehouse complained that the Grammy Awards were "so boring without drugs". This is kind of how I feel when I do anything without my kids.
For all our other disagreements you get a big like from me for this comment. Sadly mine are now just about off living their own lives.
Sadly??!!! That's what's they're effing well supposed to do, mate! Let 'em go. You may one day be amazed at what they become and what they produce, as I have been.
Happily.
Oh I know. Happy for them but sad I can no longer spend as much time with them.
Yes, I recently joined the (partially; my step-daughter's still here and showing no signs of leaving anytime soon) empty nester club when my lad graduated and moved down to London to start his new job a few months ago. He's done really well for himself and I'm very happy for him (not to mention extremely proud), but it's awfully quiet without him around. I can't wait for Christmas when he'll be back again for a few days and we can catch up over a pint or two.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
It takes time to adjust to such a shock, but the increases in European defence spending is a start.
The sad thing about the increase in European defence spending (and this is European not EU) is that the continent could spend as much as the US but we won’t get the benefit of that scale because of national interests and positioning.
Imagine if all European nations agreed to buy the same fighter jets. They put in an order with X manufacturer for 1000 and can negotiate the cost. All countries then benefit from being able to host each other’s airforces and service and arm which is massively useful. The Us obviously just buys US jets in large numbers so it works for them and they sell globally offsetting their costs but making other countries dependant.
The problem lies in the fact that different European countries want slightly different planes for marginal differences and the. You add in protectionism and you have the situation where different countries will go for (or did) F-16s, Raffale, Grippen, Eurofighter (I’m aware they all have differing capabilities but it’s a general point). You have bickering about next gen fighters as European conglomerates fight over workshare and so all benefits get lost.
We could have standardised infantry fighting vehicles which are interoperable across Poland, Germany, the UK.
Think of it as the standardisation of NATO ammunition writ large.
Until Europe can put aside its individual interests then it can never have the punch it should have for its wealth and industry.
There's significant standardisation already in armoured vehicles (the UK with the ridiculous Ajax and Challenger 3 programmes being an outlier). In aircraft there is Airbus, and other than France going it alone, there's also broad collaboration ifor next generation fighter aircraft. Similarly MBDA for missiles (again, France is an exception).
I think you exaggerate that problem (it's not as though the US doesn't have competing programs and manufacturers itself).
What would make by far the biggest difference would be if we didn't spend over half our procurement cash buying US systems. And the trend is now beginning to be in that direction.
And of course France doesn't. Which is how it manages to afford its own fighter aircraft; military aircraft engines; nuclear deterrent; carrier; nuclear submarines etc.
They are not all state of the art, but it shows what even a medium sized nation is capable of.
Scary article in the FT today about the sheer scale of Russian hybrid warfare activity against Europe.
Intelligence chiefs and police forces have foiled plots to derail crowded trains, burn down shopping centres, discharge a dam and poison water supplies. And these are just the ones we know about.
Remember when the late Fiona Jones was prosecuted for having overspent by miles on her election expenses. It went to trial and she was found not guilty. Not because she hadn't overspent but because the court accepted the claim of herself and her election agent Des Whicher that the rules were too complicated to understand.
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Likewise Craig Mackinlay (now Lord Mackinlay; he was the chap who had his limbs amputated owing to sepsis).
The only candidate whose election was disallowed was Arthur Daley:-
When Arthur decides to stand as an independent candidate in the local council by-election, his rivals are prepared to try anything to unsteady him. https://www.itv.com/watch/minder/29175/696955
I see the Liberal Democrats are out in force here this morning to defend the Government.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
They also want to give billions to the undeserving WASPI women.
No, they don’t. Like every other party in opposition they just know how many WASPI women there are and how active is their campaign.
o_O
Your second sentence contradicts your first. Opposition politicians do have freedom of choice you know on these issues.
You of all people should understand how the adversarial structure of our political system directs opposition parties to challenge and oppose everything the majority party is doing, right or wrong. Stand back, and the LD’s parliamentary party are actually doing a decent job of offering a relatively more constructive opposition than the Commons has ever witnessed prior.
That reflexive assumption that oppositions should oppose everything is visible here when Kemi’s outriders are accusing Lib Dems of “defending the government” over a policy that until a week ago the government opposed and the Lib Dems supported vociferously.
If the party had to u-turn on its official platform every time the government of the day adopts a Lib Dem policy it’d be dizzy pretty quickly.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Two friends of mine with no children retired at 55 and spent 40 years living the high life. Cruises, a nice house, every luxury.
One day, a niece of the wife said, 'Gosh, you are spending uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
Back comes the reply, 'Yes, and then we're going to spend mine too.'
Some people are entirely content with the idea that "Apres moi, le deluge." They care nothing for their relatives nor their societies.
It ought to be compulsory to care about your society.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
Yup. What they say in public & what they say behind closed doors are probably very, very different.
I don't think it's as simple as that. Our institutions, and to a large extent our politicians and civil service, are still conditioned by the inertia of the last half century or more of successful alliance. And probably still believing this to be a temporary aberration.
The US might come back on side in the future, but it might well not. We simply cannot afford the risk of continuing to plan and act on the basis that it will.
(Nb I have changed my potion on this since the start of Trump's administration. He has done far more damage than I expected/hoped.)
Scary article in the FT today about the sheer scale of Russian hybrid warfare activity against Europe.
Intelligence chiefs and police forces have foiled plots to derail crowded trains, burn down shopping centres, discharge a dam and poison water supplies. And these are just the ones we know about.
I can't believe we still allow the Russians to have an embassy or any other official activity in London. Or that the Belgians are still messing around about confiscating those assets. Or that our aid to Ukraine is still so pitiful compared with what is needed.
We are still at 1936-7 levels of complacency about the Russian threat. We should follow Roosevelt and proclaim an unlimited national emergency until Russia is defeated in Ukraine and ourselves as the arsenal of democracy.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
Growing up I simply assumed that I would marry & have children. Neither of those things happened; and not by any deliberate choice. I'm sorry I don't have children but there's no regret involved because it wasn't a choice. Likewise I've always been sorry not to have a life partner but again there's nothing to regret. At least I didn't put any children through the trauma of divorce.
Your contribution to protecting the environment and combatting climate change is, like mine, thereby got off to such a flying start that no amount of cycling and recycling and eating vegetables would ever enable any parent to catch us up.
That argument is completely wrong-headed.
If we are to get to net zero, then we will be at net zero per capita, and it won't matter how many children people have had.
You can't get to net zero by reducing the population unless you kill everyone.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
Growing up I simply assumed that I would marry & have children. Neither of those things happened; and not by any deliberate choice. I'm sorry I don't have children but there's no regret involved because it wasn't a choice. Likewise I've always been sorry not to have a life partner but again there's nothing to regret. At least I didn't put any children through the trauma of divorce.
Your contribution to protecting the environment and combatting climate change is, like mine, thereby got off to such a flying start that no amount of cycling and recycling and eating vegetables would ever enable any parent to catch us up.
That argument is completely wrong-headed.
If we are to get to net zero, three we will be at net zero per capita, and it won't matter how many children people have had.
You can't get to net zero by reducing the population unless you kill everyone.
"COVID schemes' fraud and error cost taxpayers £11bn
Fraud and error in pandemic support programmes like furlough and Eat Out to Help Out cost taxpayers enough to fund free school meals for 2.7 million eligible children for eight years."
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
To slightly misquote Jane Austin it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a couple in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of children.
If they don't have them they will spend their money frivolously.
Not necessarily. They may e.g. donate to charities which help children, such as students. And they may have nieces/nephews.
PS. When I was at uni I benefited from a fund set up by a couple (or perhaps the mother) whose child had died as a student at that university.
It was a joke, or an attempt at one. One I regretted making remembering @HYUFD's recent loss but I was too late trying to delete it.
Oh, it didn't come over as unfortunate, just gently ironic. But it's a serious issue that you raised and worth considering, as is shown by Mr Osborne's RNRB in IHT - irrational in its conception especially in modern society.
Mind, the thing about Austen is that you really did need a good fortune to have children and maintain your social status! There is at least one very interesting paper on Austenomics.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Yes, I'd had similar thoughts and am very unsure about the wisdom of an outright ban. But we should at least learn something from it, and that will hopefully help us in the development of policy regarding social media consumption by children in the future.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Perhaps we will see some sort of revival of the traditional blog form ... ?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Yes, I'd had similar thoughts and am very unsure about the wisdom of an outright ban. But we should at least learn something from it, and that will hopefully help us in the development of policy regarding social media consumption by children in the future.
Plain email seems not to be banned? Or do I misread?
"COVID schemes' fraud and error cost taxpayers £11bn
Fraud and error in pandemic support programmes like furlough and Eat Out to Help Out cost taxpayers enough to fund free school meals for 2.7 million eligible children for eight years."
I think furlough was probably still worth doing even though it was obvious at the time that there was massive scope for fraud. I have, and had at the time, grave doubts about the wisdom of EOTHO.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
It might, or it might show how quickly and effectively young people can escape the tech controls of old people as they all start socialising elsewhere in the many non banned places online instead.
Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again' Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum. https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucking ..The forum is an annual gathering of senior military officers, defence and intelligence officials from across the free world, and representatives from the media, think tanks, large companies and civil society organizations whose work relates to defence and security issues or in some way seeks to promote and preserve a healthy democratic world. Funded by NATO, the Canadian government and private-sector sponsors, the event is a major part of Canada’s “soft power” offering to our allies — we host the big party and show everybody a good time. The actual schedule is split between on-the-record panel talks or presentations, off-the-record sessions, and informal time for mingling and schmoozing. I am grateful to have been invited to participate again this year.
Especially this year. I’ve been going to the forum for years, and the event always had a strongly American flavour.
Not anymore! Yankee went home.
Like, literally. He was ordered to go home, or stay there. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to avoid a series of high-profile annual defence summits. That includes Halifax, and others in places like Munich and Singapore, and even inside the United States itself. The reason, according to the Pentagon’s press apparatus, was that, and I swear to God this is the actual quote, such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”
Oh. Well, then...
..Let me be clear about one thing: there were indeed a great many Americans at the forum in Halifax. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. There was a large Congressional Delegation, or a “CODEL,” present at the forum, as there is every year. If anything, I think this year had an unusually large CODEL. And it was a bipartisan one, too. But I noticed something interesting. They were all senators. No House reps. I can’t help but suspect that’s because they’re either planning to retire (some have said already they will) or because the longer six-year term afforded senators gives them some ability to withstand White House anger that House reps, with two-year terms, don’t have.
There were plenty of other Americans from private companies, think tanks, academia, and many former and retired U.S. government officials. And I’m going to be extremely careful in how I describe this: I have a pretty good hunch that some U.S. military officers were indeed in attendance, because — gosh! what a coincidence! — they just happened to be in Halifax on vacation at the exact same time the forum was taking place...
..I was glad to see these Americans and had many fascinating chats with them. But I have to tell you all, dear readers, that the lack of official U.S. military and government representation was very obvious. And those brave Americans who did attend did not have an easy time...
...I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.
America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.
The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.
Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”
The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.
This wasn’t the only such moment at the forum this year, but it was, to me, the most interesting. And it was still being talked about the next day. “Thank God,” one allied official said to me. “Someone had to tell them.”
If there’s one thing I think people should take from my visit to Halifax, it’s that. America’s former role is gone. And I think that Americans themselves are having the hardest time of all coming to terms with what that might actually mean in the long run.
So - what are we going to do about it?
As far as I can tell the non-American West is still hoping they will wake up and find that this nightmare is over, and that things can go back to how they were before. I don't see much evidence of countries acting on an irrevocable loss of trust in the US.
I was disappointed that Zelenskyy's visit was not seized upon as an opportunity to address this. Instead, we had our PM embarrassing himself by fawning towards Trump about how hard he had worked for peace.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
I have some sympathy for that POV but, frankly, for the moment trying to keep Trump onside is the priority - for the sake of Ukraine.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
Whilst I agree with you, I feel this is now at the point that we were with Macron and Putin. Macron was getting loads of criticism for talking to Putin every day and trying to get a negotiated resolution at the start of the most recent invasion. It failed but he was right to try. Eventually he accepted that failure and moved on to more practical assitance.
As controversial as it might sound to some I think we are at that stage now with Trump. We have all the evidence we could ever need that he is no longer our friend and ally and we need to stop trying to negotiate or pander to him and get on with the new world order where the US has, for now, sided with our enemy.
We like to say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It also works the other way around.
The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
For now, under Trump, the US is as good as our enemy.
I think there is also a need to be open about this, to explain to the public how seismic the change is, and therefore that we need to take a correspondingly large amount of action in response.
This is why I do think it is fair to criticise Starmer on this. His Trump-appeasement policy has failed, and is seen to have failed. And he has been one of the European leaders most reluctant to increase defence spending in response to the new reality.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
That's a good point. I spent most of my evenings as a teenager chatting with friends while playing COD. Is that now banned too?
In Australia it's even more pronounced - a massive urban population, and a small minority of children living sometimes days away from their peers. I guess they have school hostels like the Hebrides?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Yes, I'd had similar thoughts and am very unsure about the wisdom of an outright ban. But we should at least learn something from it, and that will hopefully help us in the development of policy regarding social media consumption by children in the future.
Plain email seems not to be banned? Or do I misread?
No it is not included but even in the UK, children in rural communities rely upon social media for social contacts. When most of your friends live many miles away (my son's school was 9 miles away) then it becomes an important tool for avoiding isolation.
A fair test of who reads the header before commenting! Also, nice idea but Britain is nowhere near Canada and the Royal Navy is nowhere near big enough to defend Canadian waters.
We need a bigger Royal Navy
We've just decided to increase spending on families who don't work by £4bn.
Most of the families affected by the two child cap have got an adult in work.
Or are you thinking of pensioners?
"We need to improve our terrible birthrate and stop relying on immigration"
Also
"We need to stop helping out people in work on modest salaries who have larger families"
"We need to find a way of coping with a declining population"
Why try to think of ways of trying to get people to do something they don't want to, and instead face up to reality?
On average women end their child-bearing years wishing that they had one more children then they had. We should be working out what is preventing them from having the children they want to have.
My best guess is that it's down to women not finding the right person to have children with - so this is set to get worse as the incel generation matures, as we can see in South Korea with a complete collapse in the birth rate as women reject the patriarchal expectations they face.
So you have two options. Either make it easier for women to have children alone, or address the ways in which male culture and society more generally is hostile to women and motherhood.
Maybe people are being fussier about who they marry. You no longer need to be married to live a fulfilling life with lots of sex. You may never meet the right person. Why should you?
Maybe it is down to choices. Those women are choosing to have careers, travel, whatever. Of course it comes with a cost, all choices do.
As someone who has not had children, and does not think his life would be any better if he had them (but different of course) it seems to me that the breeders on here don't understand that people might have good, rational reasons for making the decisions they do
I am referencing here survey data - in aggregate people are not having as many children as they want. You seem to be the one not understanding other people.
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
Growing up I simply assumed that I would marry & have children. Neither of those things happened; and not by any deliberate choice. I'm sorry I don't have children but there's no regret involved because it wasn't a choice. Likewise I've always been sorry not to have a life partner but again there's nothing to regret. At least I didn't put any children through the trauma of divorce.
Your contribution to protecting the environment and combatting climate change is, like mine, thereby got off to such a flying start that no amount of cycling and recycling and eating vegetables would ever enable any parent to catch us up.
That argument is completely wrong-headed.
If we are to get to net zero, three we will be at net zero per capita, and it won't matter how many children people have had.
You can't get to net zero by reducing the population unless you kill everyone.
Nonsense
The nonsense is the convenient lie, told by governments, businesses and NGOs, that combating climate change is a matter of personal morality rather than at heart a problem of industrial waste management and regulation.
We didn’t congratulate people for not spreading cholera before modern sanitation, or blame sup-prime borrowers for the financial crisis. Making it about personal consumer choices just lets governments and industry off the hook.
Saw this yesterday. Since it hasn't been debunked in the last 24hrs, I'm assuming it's more likely than not true.
Per reports, yesterday, a Russian bomber parked in an aircraft shelter accidentally activated both of its ejector seats, sending both the pilot and navigator into the shelter roof.
Would the crew be sitting in the plane in a shelter? I always thought they pulled the planes out onto the tarmac and then the pilots got in once fuelled up etc - can’t imagine they are fuelled and armed inside a hangar although it is the Russians so can’t totally dismiss.
It's very common strap in and start up inside the HAS. Aircraft on alert are routinely fueled and armed inside.
The Malaysians, Austrialians, French and Red Arrows have also done similar to my knowledge.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
That's a good point. I spent most of my evenings as a teenager chatting with friends while playing COD. Is that now banned too?
In Australia it's even more pronounced - a massive urban population, and a small minority of children living sometimes days away from their peers. I guess they have school hostels like the Hebrides?
No idea. I am not clear on the scope of then new laws. Do they include Discord? Or the chat forums for online games?
Would a children friendly equivalent of PB have to ban under 16s from the chat?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it's a fascinating experiment, and it should provide some valuable data on the extent to which social media contributes to the various mental issues that seem so prevalent among children and young people nowadays.
I wonder about the effect on kids in isolated communities and farmsteads where their social life is entirely online.
Yes, I'd had similar thoughts and am very unsure about the wisdom of an outright ban. But we should at least learn something from it, and that will hopefully help us in the development of policy regarding social media consumption by children in the future.
Plain email seems not to be banned? Or do I misread?
No it is not included but even in the UK, children in rural communities rely upon social media for social contacts. When most of your friends live many miles away (my son's school was 9 miles away) then it becomes an important tool for avoiding isolation.
But how did they survive before social media (ie before about 2007)?
Comments
(I am Welsh!)
The US President is, by definition, "Leader of the Free World." That has become a grisly joke now.
But without the US who would provide the impetus and drive, and who would be the person with "the buck rests with me" on their desk?
Maybe the Secretary-General will have to be a far more political and consequential role with significant executive powers?
The BBC article actually states that the logo is currently in use by National Rail.
UK alone, no.
I'm a bit shocked. I remember worrying about it!
If it is to be replaced, whatever takes its place needs rethinking.
But that isn't a fast process.
Racism / religion / regional interests. Billions have paid a price, faced with watching or being the kind of people that look away.
Getting philosophical here.
The fossil fuel industry creates authoritarian regimes that will destabilise and destroy entire countries to forward its power base. The people of the Middle East are victims of a fascist patriarchy enabled by neoliberal economics, Palestine and Israel are early losers in the coming climate apocalypse.
It’s beyond depressing, it’s our future.
But, well, we live in febrile times. And Britain does need someone with the ambition to not be bound by the way things have been done in the past.
Depends on whether it is determined to be accidental or deliberate.
Electoral commission will probably let him off, see Zac Goldsmith
Electoral Commission‟s Director of Party and Election Finance, Lisa Klein, said: “We’ve looked carefully at all the evidence and we don’t believe it would be in the public interest to refer this case to the police for criminal investigation.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8r3vmvr0meo
"The former deputy prime minister was speaking in the Commons on Monday for the first time since the government abandoned its pledge in the bill to give workers protection against unfair dismissal "from day one" of a job, instead setting the bar at six months."
(Honestly, we should have unified with France - it would have been worth it for the Franco-Anglo banter alone.)
I have one child, but I always expected to have more. It did not happen for me, for various reasons. I also know people who chose not to have children - and good luck to them. I have no desire to force such people to have children. I'm talking about those people who would like to have children and don't for whatever reason.
The law should not be written around people who generally comply with the rules not breaking the rules, it should be written around the "bad actors" who intentionally break the rules, see USA for how much difficulty the UK could find itself in.
My local mainline station (Alfreton) is run by EMR, as I discovered when inquiring as to who to talk to about the wheelchair blocking bollards on the wheelchair ramp, which means that users of larger wheelchairs are forced to enter via the vehicle entrance.
Lots of stuff about "approved", "inspected", "standards" and "no complaints *" all the rest from. Yet the Government's National Guidelines say they have to be 1.5m apart, not 1m, and have done for years.
(* That one is a bit fallacious. As per "no mobility track is required because no wheelchairs or cycles use the road; there is no demand. That would usually be the National Speed Limit death-trap road full of vehicles doing 50mph that is a risk to life and limb if you go near it.)
Imagine if all European nations agreed to buy the same fighter jets. They put in an order with X manufacturer for 1000 and can negotiate the cost. All countries then benefit from being able to host each other’s airforces and service and arm which is massively useful. The Us obviously just buys US jets in large numbers so it works for them and they sell globally offsetting their costs but making other countries dependant.
The problem lies in the fact that different European countries want slightly different planes for marginal differences and the. You add in protectionism and you have the situation where different countries will go for (or did) F-16s, Raffale, Grippen, Eurofighter (I’m aware they all have differing capabilities but it’s a general point). You have bickering about next gen fighters as European conglomerates fight over workshare and so all benefits get lost.
We could have standardised infantry fighting vehicles which are interoperable across Poland, Germany, the UK.
Think of it as the standardisation of NATO ammunition writ large.
Until Europe can put aside its individual interests then it can never have the punch it should have for its wealth and industry.
As I have mentioned before, a long time ago I was a prosecution witness which involved a fraud resulting in over spending on local election expenses that the agent did not declare. It seemed cut and dry, but the CPS finally, after a long delay, decided not to prosecute. It seemed odd at the time, but finally made sense to me after the 2015 cases. In this case the agent was unaware of the fraud (and consequential over spend) at the time. He was told prior to completing the election expenses. He was left with the option of ignoring what had happened, which he did, or submitting expenses which broke the limit and would have disqualified the candidates who were elected. The law is an ass in these cases. Even though he was an opponent I considered the Agent a decent guy put into an impossible position with a criminal conviction hanging over his head for some time. However the elected councillors (who were also ignorant of what had happened) should have had their election nullified and it rerun as the over spend was clear and effective.
This kind of delusional fantasy cannot really go on, at least not without serious risks. Europe and Canada need to do some serious work to think about what comes next. I don't think @Gardenwalker's proposal is the solution but there is a lot of work to do. And it will be really important to bring home to the US that there are consequences of electing buffoons like Trump who appoint morons like Hegseth and RFK.
The fact is the government has lifted the two-child cap, which will cost taxpayers £4bn, and cancelled the abolition of the WFA, which has cost c. £1.5bn.
All that money, and the further welfare reforms they have trailed but failed to deliver should have gone into Defence.
China is outside our sphere of influence. If they invade Taiwan or Russia or Mongolia, we're not going to condone it (except maybe for Russia), but nor are we going to do anything about it. At least not militarily. And we too geographically distant, and too good a market for exports, for China to be a military threat to Europe. If they go expansionist, we're a long way down the list.
Then you're left with Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Israel etc as regional military powers in our not-too-distant abroad. And each of them has far more pressing issues closer to home (on in Turkey's case, on its southern border). Any conflicts that arise between them are not the business of Europe in our new USA-less NATO world.
So that leaves Russia and Russia alone. It has the advantage of clarity and focus. So we just need to beef up our combined military and make clear an attack on one is an attack on all.
We don't need an international executive, we need each nation to hold its own executive to account.
Canada's PM, Britain's PM etc co-operating, not one individual bossing about others they've not been elected to serve.
The buck rests with our Prime Minister.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-45890987
It's quite an impressive effort to ensure we get the worst aspects of both BR and privatisation at the same time.
In aircraft there is Airbus, and other than France going it alone, there's also broad collaboration ifor next generation fighter aircraft.
Similarly MBDA for missiles (again, France is an exception).
I think you exaggerate that problem (it's not as though the US doesn't have competing programs and manufacturers itself).
What would make by far the biggest difference would be if we didn't spend over half our procurement cash buying US systems.
And the trend is now beginning to be in that direction.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/09/do-not-lock-down-for-flu-outbreak-schools-told/"
I lost a lot of my faith in the system at that point. Imagine any other case where, as the sole person to be prosecuted out of 650, you can get off with it because you claim the law is too complicated.
Moreover she was allowed to take her seat even after it being roved she had overspent.
Their MPs Twitter feed is full of these leeches demands with Lib Dem simpletons demanding they get money.
I don't suppose Sir Keir likes "fawning" over Trump but a PM has to do what a PM has to do. I give him credit for that.
Perhaps the real problem is the lack of decent political leaders.
The only type-of-person who could tell Trump straight would be someone of unquestionable integrity and clarity of purpose, and with right-wing kudos to boot. Mrs Thatcher is about the only European leader of recent years I can think of who would have fitted the bill.
The same experience that Labour is currently delivering.
Ref 28.7%
Lab 20.1%
Con 19.7%
Grn 13.0%
LD 12.8%
SNP 2.7%
https://electionmaps.uk/polling/vi
Which didn’t at all lead me down some really startling mental pathways.
Your second sentence contradicts your first. Opposition politicians do have freedom of choice you know on these issues.
The quotes in this article about a recent NATO-ish summit in Canada is probably typical of the current level of feeling: https://arthursnell.substack.com/p/americas-weakness-europes-strength?publication_id=868705
As controversial as it might sound to some I think we are at that stage now with Trump. We have all the evidence we could ever need that he is no longer our friend and ally and we need to stop trying to negotiate or pander to him and get on with the new world order where the US has, for now, sided with our enemy.
We like to say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It also works the other way around.
The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
For now, under Trump, the US is as good as our enemy.
I have little sympathy for what happened, particularly as 3 opponents got elected unfairly to the council, but the law was after the wrong person.
The election should have been nullified.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Jones
"Jones reportedly became reliant on alcohol after she was shunned by her colleagues when she returned to the House of Commons in 1999; only 34 MPs signed an early day motion welcoming her back to the House of Commons after her conviction was quashed.[3][14] Her husband said that she refused to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in case she was recognised.[7]
"She was found dead by her husband at her home in Saxilby; reportedly she was surrounded by 15 empty vodka bottles.[3] Her cause of death was reported as alcoholism or alcoholic liver disease."
According to Wiki, our very own @NickPalmer was runner-up to her when she was selected.
I agree with you about leadership. I have no doubt that Starmer is struggling to come out with the nonsense about Trump but genuinely believes that it is his duty to do so. I think he's wrong about that but I do not question his motives, only his judgement.
Intelligence chiefs and police forces have foiled plots to derail crowded trains, burn down shopping centres, discharge a dam and poison water supplies. And these are just the ones we know about.
https://www.ft.com/content/2084e87d-d491-4852-8449-f90b73d4788b?shareType=nongift
Happily.
Unless you are an agent or candidate (and it appears even if you are) you can commit all sorts of crimes to get someone elected and although you may be sent to prison for a crime the election is usually not nullified even if you had a big impact on the result.
No reason for complacency but the fat lady hasn't even begun to warm up.
NATO Sec Gen Rutte is an example of how not to do it anymore.
It might have served a purpose when the US was still contributing to Ukraine. Now that it isn't, and is actively hostile to our interests, it's both humiliating and counterproductive.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Canada, Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be better places to provide that leadership.
Which is how it manages to afford its own fighter aircraft; military aircraft engines; nuclear deterrent; carrier; nuclear submarines etc.
They are not all state of the art, but it shows what even a medium sized nation is capable of.
(See also, recently, S Korea)
A "bad batch of chemicals" isn't exactly a good explanation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwy54q80gy9t
The only candidate whose election was disallowed was Arthur Daley:-
When Arthur decides to stand as an independent candidate in the local council by-election, his rivals are prepared to try anything to unsteady him.
https://www.itv.com/watch/minder/29175/696955
Is unsteady the right word there?
If the party had to u-turn on its official platform every time the government of the day adopts a Lib Dem policy it’d be dizzy pretty quickly.
Our institutions, and to a large extent our politicians and civil service, are still conditioned by the inertia of the last half century or more of successful alliance. And probably still believing this to be a temporary aberration.
The US might come back on side in the future, but it might well not. We simply cannot afford the risk of continuing to plan and act on the basis that it will.
(Nb I have changed my potion on this since the start of Trump's administration. He has done far more damage than I expected/hoped.)
We are still at 1936-7 levels of complacency about the Russian threat. We should follow Roosevelt and proclaim an unlimited national emergency until Russia is defeated in Ukraine and ourselves as the arsenal of democracy.
If we are to get to net zero, then we will be at net zero per capita, and it won't matter how many children people have had.
You can't get to net zero by reducing the population unless you kill everyone.
Fraud and error in pandemic support programmes like furlough and Eat Out to Help Out cost taxpayers enough to fund free school meals for 2.7 million eligible children for eight years."
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-schemes-fraud-and-error-cost-taxpayers-11bn-13481207
Mind, the thing about Austen is that you really did need a good fortune to have children and maintain your social status! There is at least one very interesting paper on Austenomics.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42003625 (jstor open access, just click the red button etc)
https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/64/264/289/1582045?redirectedFrom=fulltext
This is why I do think it is fair to criticise Starmer on this. His Trump-appeasement policy has failed, and is seen to have failed. And he has been one of the European leaders most reluctant to increase defence spending in response to the new reality.
The public need to be levelled with.
In Australia it's even more pronounced - a massive urban population, and a small minority of children living sometimes days away from their peers. I guess they have school hostels like the Hebrides?
We didn’t congratulate people for not spreading cholera before modern sanitation, or blame sup-prime borrowers for the financial crisis. Making it about personal consumer choices just lets governments and industry off the hook.
The Malaysians, Austrialians, French and Red Arrows have also done similar to my knowledge.
Would a children friendly equivalent of PB have to ban under 16s from the chat?