Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
Normal people do not have significant investments. The lower level of sterling means things cost more, and that applies to normal people.
It also makes British exports (and holidays) cheaper in comparison with foreign competitors.
So a wealth transfer from wealth consumers to wealth creators.
But that's beside the point as Jenrick said that savings were destroyed not that prices increased.
“Across Westminster, people are desperately talking up Badenoch. This simply isn’t reflected in polls on voting intention, and the party is heading towards oblivion.”
I fear so. Not certain, sure, but there's definite complacency.
25 is the magic number.
That’s the minimum NESV the Tories need to get in May or Badenoch’s in trouble.
No, as long as the Tories are ahead of Labour, even 20% to 19% in NEV then Kemi will be fine even if Reform still are first.
If the Tories come third in May behind Reform and Labour in NEV then Kemi may well face a VONC and replacement by Cleverly (who now Jenrick has gone is her main leadership rival, even if more loyal to her than BobbyJ ever was)
Technical question - in view of the limited number of local authorities holding elections in May, and considering the distorting influences of London, Scotland and Wales, what are the plausible polling numbers in these circumstances? Even if the Tories were popular, I think 25% from that particular electorate would be a bit of a stretch.
On the night, given Labour will likely win London (ahead of Reform and the Tories in the capital) and beat the Tories in Scotland and Wales and the big city councils up then in terms of councillors and councils and MSPs and MSs won then Starmer will likely be able to say Labour are the main alternative to Reform now.
However if after the academics do their number crunching in terms of what it means in NEV UK wide (given most of the more Tory English shires aren't voting in May) the Tories are second ahead of Labour Kemi should be OK. As you say on the night 25% is near impossible for the Tories on the mainly urban, Scottish and Welsh seats up
Thanks. I think the CCHQ spinners are going to have to work very hard to claim any sort of statistical superiority after the May elections - there simply aren't enough Conservative-voting heartlands going to the polls to give them a decent showing in the final calculations. That's tough on Badenoch - she's been a fairly "lucky general" up until now, but in May she is fighting in territories that are distinctly hostile to her. Even getting to a poor second place is going to be a bit of a stretch.
The reality is that the Tories could finish fifth in both devolved elections, 25% is the minimum in the NESV to show the party isn’t going backwards since 2024, that’s what two Tory MPs have told me independently.
They’d still have to be totally crazy to come for Kemi after the locals.
She’s clearly getting more airtime in a difficult situation at the moment, comes across as sensible as others towards the fringes depart for Reform.
And the biggest question of all, with whom would you replace her that could hit the ground running and do a better job?
Yes. It would be the height of stupidity to remove Badenoch this year - personally I think they should keep her til the GE now.
She’s not everyone’s cup of tea, she’s made mistakes, and she’s got a long way to go if she wants to lead the Tories back to relevance. But she is right that there’s no short term fix, and a panicked change of leader will set them back even more, not less. Do the Tories really want to reinforce the idea they go through ritual leader-sacrifice every 1-3 years right now? How does that help them?
You are basically right but if the voters put the Tories in 3rd in NEV in May for a second consecutive local elections year, ie not only behind Reform but behind Labour too then it will be clear that sadly the voters have made up their mind on Kemi, she is an also ran not a potential PM or even LOTO.
Then Tory MPs would likely hold a VONC in her or she would resign, with Cleverly likely replacing her who would be able to better pitch for the centre ground between Reform and Labour and anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats and to hold 2024 Sunak voters than she has been in that eventuality.
So Kemi has to ensure the Tories are at least second, ahead of Labour on NEV in May, to survive
If the Tories axe another leader so soon, I think they are done.
They either stick with things and play the long game, or they panic and they slide even further into irrelevance.
That’s the choice for them.
Others may disagree, but I find it very doubtful the public will take kindly to, or welcome back to government, a party that shows that it has not gotten over its obsession with leadership coups.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
What the fuck do Starmer's critics expect him to say? "I have to tell the nation. We are now at war with the USA"?
I have more sympathy than most with his position, and reckon he's doing about as well as could, diplomatically. He is dealing with a deranged POTUS who has an equally, if not even more, deranged back-up team. But they are also fickle and inconsistent, so nothing is set in stone other than their lunacy. As a result, knee-jerk responses are dangerous and likely to be overtaken by events. And while I might agree with Ed Davey's rhetoric, there's a huge difference between being in opposition and being in power.
You make a reasonable point but there are domestic considerations. The anger on the various phone-ins is tangible and the template is there from Macron and Carney both who are not pussy footing around as though they are dealing with a spoiled man-child who needs to be pandered to.
There's no evidence that kowtowing to his every whim even works. The UK should be allowed to see their leader is not subservient and at the moment that's not what we believe is we are seeing
Starmer is in a difficult position but this rather tedious, technocratic triangulation isn’t the message for the moment. He’d have been better issuing a statement if this was all he was going to say.
Claiming that Starmer "a close relationship with the US delivers concrete outcomes for the UK" is a crock of shit in this context, when Trump is about to impose an additional 10% tariff on us over Greenland.
He's freaking out about Trident. Tip of his tongue on the press questions. Some Admiral has laid it out to him and, to be fair, the first job is preserving the UK and no PM can put that at risk.
It's the one bit of additional defence spending that is fully justifiable - a fully independent deterrent that doesn't require a trip to Kings Bay every 5-10 years.
Surely we can buy other missiles?
Not ICBMs, no. The choices wound be:
a) Develop our own at a cost in the tens of billions* (thanking god we at least already have the warhead tech) to fit the missile tubes we have/will have and see AUKUS become “AUK” on the side;
b) See if the French will go halves as it’s ruinously expensive for them too, but in so doing see all the existing missile tubes become useless;
c) Switch to some sort of bomber force based around an adapted future cruise on GCAP; or
d) lose our nukes.
*though if we really fall out we can presumably save some cash reverse engineering the existing kit.
Someone posted here that certain aspects (including a very good missile, apparently) of our nuclear deterrent is jointly made/owned with the US, so that may not be a huge problem.
It’s a US. missile relying on US maintenance, in which we have a notional stake that doesn’t matter if Trump doesn’t want it to. It’s operationally independent but relies on the US for maintenance.
However, we do understand all the technology, so (as above) could reverse engineer our way into our own maintenance with enough beer tokens, you’d think.
We could.
The guidance and electronics is also not that big a deal - see D-17B. Which would fit on a single chip, today - and that using the basic lithographic process we can actually do in this country. Ballistic missiles don't need advanced computers - the clever tech is elsewhere.
If we cut off the usual Big & Expensive attitude, solid rocket motors are not actually that expensive. See in the US, where various new companies are going through the defence industry like a chainsaw through cheese. Sometimes offering solid rocket motors at an order of magnitude lower price than the incumbents.
So far. there, they have been kept out of the big SRM contacts - see the slow motion comedy of the Minuteman replacement. But "Stay in your lane" only works for so long, when the lower cost is there to tempt people.
Yep, give Palmer Luckey a billion or two, and he’ll likely be able to set up a team in the UK to make rockets.
For the non-nuclear ones, develop what the Ukranians are already doing very well in the face of an actual war.
But yes, no Big And Expensive, no cost-plus contracts, and with payment on delivery milestones.
Add in the factor that, for 99% of use cases (and almost all use cases we could live to comment on afterwards) you don’t actually need a strategic nuclear deterrent to work. All you need is for no adversary to have solid evidence that it doesn’t.
As demonstrated by Russia at the moment. Yes they have weapons but it's hard to know if the general ordered the replacement components or pocketed the money.
@maxseddon Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the Gaza "peace board," the Kremlin says.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, says Russia is "studying all details of the offer" and "hopes for discussions with Washington to go over all the nuances," per RIA Novosti.
Is The Donald toadying to Russia or is this 4d-chess? Stop the SMO and be invited back to normal superpower diplomacy.
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
@maxseddon Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the Gaza "peace board," the Kremlin says.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, says Russia is "studying all details of the offer" and "hopes for discussions with Washington to go over all the nuances," per RIA Novosti.
Is The Donald toadying to Russia or is this 4d-chess? Stop the SMO and be invited back to normal superpower diplomacy.
I think, by this point, that when it comes to Trump, we can be reasonably certain that the answer to is it something else or is it 4D chess is always not 4D chess!
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Hard agree. She's a huge electoral negative to whichever party takes her in.
She is a huge electoral negative, but the negativity has been worsened by the fact that the Tories bought into a Labour narrative on her time in office, and therefore offered a wound for Labour to keep kicking.
Jenrick’s intervention on this is distinctly strange. I doubt it comes from Farage, who seems to quite like Truss, despite being clear-eyed that she isn't an electoral asset.
It feels like a lot of right on right bloodletting just now. To the priapic delight of wet centrists. Righties really shouldn't be giving them these sorts of opportunities.
Truss has obviously goe a bit bonkers since her brief premiership which obviously scarred her badly. Everything that she had ever worked for collapsed and she wants to blame everyone but herself.
Should she be booted out by the party? I would say not. She isn't in parliament and while a bit paranoid in general, and perhaps hitting the bottle a bit hard, she hasn't undermined Badenoch or the party.
Whether she is a member as a private citizen makes little difference to the economic reputation of the party.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
@maxseddon Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the Gaza "peace board," the Kremlin says.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, says Russia is "studying all details of the offer" and "hopes for discussions with Washington to go over all the nuances," per RIA Novosti.
Is The Donald toadying to Russia or is this 4d-chess? Stop the SMO and be invited back to normal superpower diplomacy.
Europe needs to get on the front foot and play the game. Offer to support Russia in reclaiming Alaska if they leave Ukraine alone.
Starmer is in a difficult position but this rather tedious, technocratic triangulation isn’t the message for the moment. He’d have been better issuing a statement if this was all he was going to say.
Claiming that Starmer "a close relationship with the US delivers concrete outcomes for the UK" is a crock of shit in this context, when Trump is about to impose an additional 10% tariff on us over Greenland.
He's freaking out about Trident. Tip of his tongue on the press questions. Some Admiral has laid it out to him and, to be fair, the first job is preserving the UK and no PM can put that at risk.
It's the one bit of additional defence spending that is fully justifiable - a fully independent deterrent that doesn't require a trip to Kings Bay every 5-10 years.
Surely we can buy other missiles?
Not ICBMs, no. The choices wound be:
a) Develop our own at a cost in the tens of billions* (thanking god we at least already have the warhead tech) to fit the missile tubes we have/will have and see AUKUS become “AUK” on the side;
b) See if the French will go halves as it’s ruinously expensive for them too, but in so doing see all the existing missile tubes become useless;
c) Switch to some sort of bomber force based around an adapted future cruise on GCAP; or
d) lose our nukes.
*though if we really fall out we can presumably save some cash reverse engineering the existing kit.
I am not a rocket scientist. But if you need to build a missile with x diameter and y length with connectors z surely it can be done? It's engineering not science fiction.
I get that the status quo is easier when it comes to it. But I don't think we can guarantee there is a status quo any more. Unless MAGA decide to throw Trump and his cronies to the wolves and rescue America from fascism, then why would an axis America want to service our missiles which threaten its ally?
I don't understand the point in an entirely SLBM system anyway. It is a second strike weapon - if a shooting nuking war broke out our subs would stay under water as Britain was destroyed.
We can build warheads. We can build munitions. We have capable aircraft. Retain the existing boats as long as they can be serviced, build air-dropped bombs, attach to aircraft
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
Starmer is in a difficult position but this rather tedious, technocratic triangulation isn’t the message for the moment. He’d have been better issuing a statement if this was all he was going to say.
Claiming that Starmer "a close relationship with the US delivers concrete outcomes for the UK" is a crock of shit in this context, when Trump is about to impose an additional 10% tariff on us over Greenland.
He's freaking out about Trident. Tip of his tongue on the press questions. Some Admiral has laid it out to him and, to be fair, the first job is preserving the UK and no PM can put that at risk.
It's the one bit of additional defence spending that is fully justifiable - a fully independent deterrent that doesn't require a trip to Kings Bay every 5-10 years.
Surely we can buy other missiles?
Realistically, only from the French. Whose missiles don’t fit our launch tubes - they’re too wide. I don’t think any other allay makes sub-surface submarine launched ICBMs?
Fortunately, we do still (just about) have a functioning rocket industry. Standing up our own missile program is doable. It’s just painfully expensive at a time when the pressures on government spending are very great & it will probably take years for such a program to produce a functioning system. Polaris & Trident were a great gift from the US to the UK - we piggy backed on their research & development for decades, but they also bound us very tightly into the US defence establishment. The French put independence first & we didn’t & are now having to deal with the consequences of that decision.
Do you know who we should ally with, in military technology (and much else)? Japan
We are already working on a new fighter
We need an independent deterrent, they want a deterrent (and are probably very close to owning one already)
Combine forces. Do it in other fields too. We are similar island nations with monarchies, ancient history, troubling demographics but still a lot of latent power and potential
The joy of that alliance is we would never conflict. They are Pacific we are Atlantic. We both chafe at our vassalage to America, we both have reason to fear China and Russia. Two democracies
You read it here first. The new Axis of Power. JAPUK
What the fuck do Starmer's critics expect him to say? "I have to tell the nation. We are now at war with the USA"?
I have more sympathy than most with his position, and reckon he's doing about as well as could, diplomatically. He is dealing with a deranged POTUS who has an equally, if not even more, deranged back-up team. But they are also fickle and inconsistent, so nothing is set in stone other than their lunacy. As a result, knee-jerk responses are dangerous and likely to be overtaken by events. And while I might agree with Ed Davey's rhetoric, there's a huge difference between being in opposition and being in power.
You make a reasonable point but there are domestic considerations. The anger on the various phone-ins is tangible and the template is there from Macron and Carney both who are not pussy footing around as though they are dealing with a spoiled man-child who needs to be pandered to.
There's no evidence that kowtowing to his every whim even works. The UK should be allowed to see their leader is not subservient and at the moment that's not what we believe is we are seeing
I don't think there is any difference of substance between Starmer, Carney and Macron even if there is a difference in tone. Starmer has made his red lines clear, as have the other two. Every country in NATO/EU the west is massively tied in with the USA and all of them are puzzled as to what to do and are not going to do it all in public.
An awesome reality is that Trump may well be more fixed on military action in Greenland than Starmer suggests, though Starmer is right to talk peace. IANAE, but SFAICS the only forces on earth that can and will stop Trump doing this, apart from China and Russia, is the USA armed forces themselves.
Starmer is in a difficult position but this rather tedious, technocratic triangulation isn’t the message for the moment. He’d have been better issuing a statement if this was all he was going to say.
Claiming that Starmer "a close relationship with the US delivers concrete outcomes for the UK" is a crock of shit in this context, when Trump is about to impose an additional 10% tariff on us over Greenland.
He's freaking out about Trident. Tip of his tongue on the press questions. Some Admiral has laid it out to him and, to be fair, the first job is preserving the UK and no PM can put that at risk.
It's the one bit of additional defence spending that is fully justifiable - a fully independent deterrent that doesn't require a trip to Kings Bay every 5-10 years.
Surely we can buy other missiles?
Not ICBMs, no. The choices wound be:
a) Develop our own at a cost in the tens of billions* (thanking god we at least already have the warhead tech) to fit the missile tubes we have/will have and see AUKUS become “AUK” on the side;
b) See if the French will go halves as it’s ruinously expensive for them too, but in so doing see all the existing missile tubes become useless;
c) Switch to some sort of bomber force based around an adapted future cruise on GCAP; or
d) lose our nukes.
*though if we really fall out we can presumably save some cash reverse engineering the existing kit.
I am not a rocket scientist. But if you need to build a missile with x diameter and y length with connectors z surely it can be done? It's engineering not science fiction.
I get that the status quo is easier when it comes to it. But I don't think we can guarantee there is a status quo any more. Unless MAGA decide to throw Trump and his cronies to the wolves and rescue America from fascism, then why would an axis America want to service our missiles which threaten its ally?
I don't understand the point in an entirely SLBM system anyway. It is a second strike weapon - if a shooting nuking war broke out our subs would stay under water as Britain was destroyed.
We can build warheads. We can build munitions. We have capable aircraft. Retain the existing boats as long as they can be serviced, build air-dropped bombs, attach to aircraft
Trident is accurate enough for a first strike. The second strike thing is deterrence.
The reason that SLBMs are preferred is that they are relatively invulnerable to a first strike. Hence deterrence - "You may try and kill us, but our missiles will get you"
Aircraft born nukes are expensive and need to be either continuously flown or sitting on the ground ready to launch at a few minutes notice. This makes them very expensive to use as a deterrent and ties up a lot of aircraft - see the V force.
In addition, there is the issue that aircraft delivered weapons are relatively stoppable by cheap defences.
As a last point - aircraft weapons require reaction on warning. Which is dangerous. Not to mention aircraft crash every now and again...
Hitting an SLBM or ICBM warhead requires a state of the art, top of the line ABM system. Which is very expensive and rather large.
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
“Across Westminster, people are desperately talking up Badenoch. This simply isn’t reflected in polls on voting intention, and the party is heading towards oblivion.”
I fear so. Not certain, sure, but there's definite complacency.
25 is the magic number.
That’s the minimum NESV the Tories need to get in May or Badenoch’s in trouble.
No, as long as the Tories are ahead of Labour, even 20% to 19% in NEV then Kemi will be fine even if Reform still are first.
If the Tories come third in May behind Reform and Labour in NEV then Kemi may well face a VONC and replacement by Cleverly (who now Jenrick has gone is her main leadership rival, even if more loyal to her than BobbyJ ever was)
Technical question - in view of the limited number of local authorities holding elections in May, and considering the distorting influences of London, Scotland and Wales, what are the plausible polling numbers in these circumstances? Even if the Tories were popular, I think 25% from that particular electorate would be a bit of a stretch.
On the night, given Labour will likely win London (ahead of Reform and the Tories in the capital) and beat the Tories in Scotland and Wales and the big city councils up then in terms of councillors and councils and MSPs and MSs won then Starmer will likely be able to say Labour are the main alternative to Reform now.
However if after the academics do their number crunching in terms of what it means in NEV UK wide (given most of the more Tory English shires aren't voting in May) the Tories are second ahead of Labour Kemi should be OK. As you say on the night 25% is near impossible for the Tories on the mainly urban, Scottish and Welsh seats up
Thanks. I think the CCHQ spinners are going to have to work very hard to claim any sort of statistical superiority after the May elections - there simply aren't enough Conservative-voting heartlands going to the polls to give them a decent showing in the final calculations. That's tough on Badenoch - she's been a fairly "lucky general" up until now, but in May she is fighting in territories that are distinctly hostile to her. Even getting to a poor second place is going to be a bit of a stretch.
The reality is that the Tories could finish fifth in both devolved elections, 25% is the minimum in the NESV to show the party isn’t going backwards since 2024, that’s what two Tory MPs have told me independently.
They’d still have to be totally crazy to come for Kemi after the locals.
She’s clearly getting more airtime in a difficult situation at the moment, comes across as sensible as others towards the fringes depart for Reform.
And the biggest question of all, with whom would you replace her that could hit the ground running and do a better job?
Yes. It would be the height of stupidity to remove Badenoch this year - personally I think they should keep her til the GE now.
She’s not everyone’s cup of tea, she’s made mistakes, and she’s got a long way to go if she wants to lead the Tories back to relevance. But she is right that there’s no short term fix, and a panicked change of leader will set them back even more, not less. Do the Tories really want to reinforce the idea they go through ritual leader-sacrifice every 1-3 years right now? How does that help them?
You are basically right but if the voters put the Tories in 3rd in NEV in May for a second consecutive local elections year, ie not only behind Reform but behind Labour too then it will be clear that sadly the voters have made up their mind on Kemi, she is an also ran not a potential PM or even LOTO.
Then Tory MPs would likely hold a VONC in her or she would resign, with Cleverly likely replacing her who would be able to better pitch for the centre ground between Reform and Labour and anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats and to hold 2024 Sunak voters than she has been in that eventuality.
So Kemi has to ensure the Tories are at least second, ahead of Labour on NEV in May, to survive
If the Tories axe another leader so soon, I think they are done.
They either stick with things and play the long game, or they panic and they slide even further into irrelevance.
That’s the choice for them.
Others may disagree, but I find it very doubtful the public will take kindly to, or welcome back to government, a party that shows that it has not gotten over its obsession with leadership coups.
If the Tories are third on NEV in May they are done anyway under Kemi. Voters would have made up their mind on Kemi unfortunately, she is a dud.
The public will have rejected Kemi and the Tories and decided that the next GE is between Labour and Reform with the Tories also rans.
In that case I am afraid Kemi would have to go, replaced by Cleverly who could at least shore up the 2024 Sunak vote and win more Labour and LD tactical votes in Tory seats than Kemi can.
At the end of the day it is up to Kemi, the Tories are and will give her a chance but there are limits, she has to at least ensure the Tories come second on NEV after the local and devolved elections in May ahead of Labour even if Reform still win
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
I actually thought Trump was the likely winner of the 2026 award and never had a chance in 2025 because of the timings involved nowadays with the award.
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
Fine. Do fat bottomed girls make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
I disagree. A certain kind of leftie has not truck with Englishness and England, so horrified are they by the historical links to the far right. They do not recoil in the same way with the Scottish Saltire or Welsh dragon. Of course extreme displays of England flags are a bit OTT, and most people don't go that far, but I think an awful lot of people suspect Thornberry sneers at those who thing they are English and not British, for example.
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
Fine. Do fat bottomed girls make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Rather childish. My preferred default mode of response to this increasingly absurd individual would be neither appeasement nor aggression, it would be Ignore. No calls, no letters, no visits, no invites, no meetings, no tit for tat tariffs. Of course there's a limit to this but it should imo be in the toolbox and considered a lot more than it is. Eg, starting now, I do not think there should be any 'dash to Davos' to try and 'get a few minutes' with him. Let's reclaim some agency.
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
I disagree. A certain kind of leftie has not truck with Englishness and England, so horrified are they by the historical links to the far right. They do not recoil in the same way with the Scottish Saltire or Welsh dragon. Of course extreme displays of England flags are a bit OTT, and most people don't go that far, but I think an awful lot of people suspect Thornberry sneers at those who thing they are English and not British, for example.
Let's face it, everyone has things they like about England and things they don't like. The right generally don't like London, for instance, which is the capital of England and home to millions of English people. Imagine if a leftwinger were to come out and say that they hate Doncaster, say, in the same way that Reform types seem to feel they can badmouth our beautiful capital city. We'd never hear the end of it.
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
I disagree. A certain kind of leftie has not truck with Englishness and England, so horrified are they by the historical links to the far right. They do not recoil in the same way with the Scottish Saltire or Welsh dragon. Of course extreme displays of England flags are a bit OTT, and most people don't go that far, but I think an awful lot of people suspect Thornberry sneers at those who thing they are English and not British, for example.
Let's face it, everyone has things they like about England and things they don't like. The right generally don't like London, for instance, which is the capital of England and home to millions of English people. Imagine if a leftwinger were to come out and say that they hate Doncaster, say, in the same way that Reform types seem to feel they can badmouth our beautiful capital city. We'd never hear the end of it.
Which is fine, but I am trying to explain why I think Thornberry would be a terrible pick if your aim is winning voters back from Reform, in say, the old Red Wall.
Starmer is in a difficult position but this rather tedious, technocratic triangulation isn’t the message for the moment. He’d have been better issuing a statement if this was all he was going to say.
Claiming that Starmer "a close relationship with the US delivers concrete outcomes for the UK" is a crock of shit in this context, when Trump is about to impose an additional 10% tariff on us over Greenland.
He's freaking out about Trident. Tip of his tongue on the press questions. Some Admiral has laid it out to him and, to be fair, the first job is preserving the UK and no PM can put that at risk.
It's the one bit of additional defence spending that is fully justifiable - a fully independent deterrent that doesn't require a trip to Kings Bay every 5-10 years.
Surely we can buy other missiles?
Not ICBMs, no. The choices wound be:
a) Develop our own at a cost in the tens of billions* (thanking god we at least already have the warhead tech) to fit the missile tubes we have/will have and see AUKUS become “AUK” on the side;
b) See if the French will go halves as it’s ruinously expensive for them too, but in so doing see all the existing missile tubes become useless;
c) Switch to some sort of bomber force based around an adapted future cruise on GCAP; or
d) lose our nukes.
*though if we really fall out we can presumably save some cash reverse engineering the existing kit.
I am not a rocket scientist. But if you need to build a missile with x diameter and y length with connectors z surely it can be done? It's engineering not science fiction.
I get that the status quo is easier when it comes to it. But I don't think we can guarantee there is a status quo any more. Unless MAGA decide to throw Trump and his cronies to the wolves and rescue America from fascism, then why would an axis America want to service our missiles which threaten its ally?
I don't understand the point in an entirely SLBM system anyway. It is a second strike weapon - if a shooting nuking war broke out our subs would stay under water as Britain was destroyed.
We can build warheads. We can build munitions. We have capable aircraft. Retain the existing boats as long as they can be serviced, build air-dropped bombs, attach to aircraft
All things "can be done", but it takes a lot of time, and costs a lot of money. And as we've seen with numerous programmes, doesn't always work first time (and sometime ...Ajax... not at all).
The "air dropped bombs" which we have access to, are currently planned to be deployed on a US platform (F35A) which relies on their regular software updates to function properly...
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Rather childish. My preferred default mode of response to this increasingly absurd individual would be neither appeasement nor aggression, it would be Ignore. No calls, no letters, no visits, no invites, no meetings, no tit for tat tariffs. Of course there's a limit to this but it should imo be in the toolbox and considered a lot more than it is. Eg, starting now, I do not think there should be any 'dash to Davos' to try and 'get a few minutes' with him. Let's reclaim some agency.
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
Fine. Do fat bottomed girls make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
I disagree. A certain kind of leftie has not truck with Englishness and England, so horrified are they by the historical links to the far right. They do not recoil in the same way with the Scottish Saltire or Welsh dragon. Of course extreme displays of England flags are a bit OTT, and most people don't go that far, but I think an awful lot of people suspect Thornberry sneers at those who thing they are English and not British, for example.
Let's face it, everyone has things they like about England and things they don't like. The right generally don't like London, for instance, which is the capital of England and home to millions of English people. Imagine if a leftwinger were to come out and say that they hate Doncaster, say, in the same way that Reform types seem to feel they can badmouth our beautiful capital city. We'd never hear the end of it.
Which is fine, but I am trying to explain why I think Thornberry would be a terrible pick if your aim is winning voters back from Reform, in say, the old Red Wall.
You are probably right there and I am not a huge fan in any case, but I do find a lot of the discussion absurd.
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
Fine. Do fat bottomed girls make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
Now you’re just lowering the tone
I meant a serious discussion
Ok. If PB is unprepared to address this in an adult way. Let’s ask an even bigger question: how much would you pay to avoid giving oral sex to Lord Heseltine?
"Extremely sound" in the sense of gas being expelled from a bladder.
Extremely sound - in that on personal matters he votes the way HYUFD would...
As for capital punishment, I'm all for it provided all MPs voting for it agree to be killed the instant the first miscarriage of justice that resulted in capital punishment was discovered..
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
The theme tune to "Bottom" with Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson was performed by The Bum Notes.
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
EU dialling down rhetoric. EU trade Spox Olof Gil:
"The priority here is to engage, not escalate and avoid the issue of tariffs". "EU leaders are consulting intensivley. As well as that engagement with the US is continuing at all levels" "
“Sometimes the most responsible for of leadership is restraint" - EU trade Spox Olof Gill to reporters
I specifically asked if we could TALK ABOUT BOTTOMS and yet what do get? Not a peep - especially from the Centrist Dads
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
Fine. Do fat bottomed girls make the rockin’ world go ‘round?
Now you’re just lowering the tone
I meant a serious discussion
Ok. If PB is unprepared to address this in an adult way. Let’s ask an even bigger question: how much would you pay to avoid giving oral sex to Lord Heseltine?
At his rather advanced years surely it’s moot point as he would be unlikely to get aroused ?
The Patriots were what some of the British people who didn't want to fight with the Americans in the War of Independence called themselves - Too patriotic to fight "our own people" was their schtick.
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Rather childish. My preferred default mode of response to this increasingly absurd individual would be neither appeasement nor aggression, it would be Ignore. No calls, no letters, no visits, no invites, no meetings, no tit for tat tariffs. Of course there's a limit to this but it should imo be in the toolbox and considered a lot more than it is. Eg, starting now, I do not think there should be any 'dash to Davos' to try and 'get a few minutes' with him. Let's reclaim some agency.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
I disagree. A certain kind of leftie has not truck with Englishness and England, so horrified are they by the historical links to the far right. They do not recoil in the same way with the Scottish Saltire or Welsh dragon. Of course extreme displays of England flags are a bit OTT, and most people don't go that far, but I think an awful lot of people suspect Thornberry sneers at those who thing they are English and not British, for example.
Let's face it, everyone has things they like about England and things they don't like. The right generally don't like London, for instance, which is the capital of England and home to millions of English people. Imagine if a leftwinger were to come out and say that they hate Doncaster, say, in the same way that Reform types seem to feel they can badmouth our beautiful capital city. We'd never hear the end of it.
Which is fine, but I am trying to explain why I think Thornberry would be a terrible pick if your aim is winning voters back from Reform, in say, the old Red Wall.
If Islington returned 600 MPs, with just 50 from the rest of the UK, she'd be the ideal choice.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
The difference between Big Brother and Traitors is that Big Brother didn't have mechanisms to cope with people knowing how to play the game.
Traitors is improved by people having game plans that rapidly fall part as people play 4th / 5th dimension chess. Sometimes it works other times it fails but it's entertaining...
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
You should
I absolutely despise reality TV. I’ve managed to avoid all of Love island, Strictly, etc
The only one I like is Masterchef but that’s coz it’s genuinely interesting and sometimes produces world class chefs
But Traitors is in a different league. It’s fiendishly clever. And says something deep about human nature even if the contestants are morons
The Celeb version was possibly the best of all. Some of the most intelligently compelling TV I’ve ever watched
I think it's a shame they didn't keep the red cloak (Secret traitor) longer in the storyline this season. Also an issue is the faithful can't actually get rid of all the traitors since if they do forced recruitment takes place (Not this season since noone has listened to faithful (Harriet, Jessie) with a clue) but the competition is as much other faithful as traitors.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
You've heard wrong then. This is the best one. Mainly because the two Traitors have figured out it's in their advantage to have each other's backs
Interesting point from one journalist to say that Britain will be the weakest link in Europe's response to the US over Greenland. It looks analogous to the situation previously with Germany in relation to Russia - Britain is too reliant on the US to respond effectively when the US goes rogue.
In fairness the change in the US has been more dramatic than the change in Russia, but there does need to be a realisation that the reality has changed, and Britain needs to change its assumptions as a result.
I fear that when push comes to shove Starmer isn't going to be willing to break with the US, and he isn't willing to spend the money in advance to make that break less painful. Britain might end up on the wrong side over this at worst, and at best is going to be caught with its pants down security-worse if not.
The situation is fecking awful - and the impending decision to let the Chinese build a vast spy base in central London also makes it worse.
I do not envy Starmer and did not like his fawning over Trump but he has little choice and I agree with his approach
Anyone thinking Ed Davey 's antagonism to Trump would be helpful is just wanting to kick Trump [ as we all do] but would only have one result in making Trump more extreme
I fear that Trump is not going to back down and his letter to Norway is alarming
He can take devastating action against NATO, Europe and others including hugh tariffs, end US NATO membership, and withdraw support for Ukraine and withdraw his military from Europe
Furthermore, has anyone considered that even if Trump goes others in the US will continue their demand to control Greenland
The fact is Trump has all the cards and Europe is left powerless in a frightening change in security
I wish Starmer well, but I really doubt that he, or indeed anyone, will change Trumps ambition to own Greenland
Depends, if the Democrats get in next time they would leave Greenland to Denmark and the people of Greenland.
Even most Republicans only want to buy Greenland, they oppose invading it
You dont know that
Look at the history of US and Greenland, and there is no doubt due to climate change the Artic region is at the front of US, Russia and China interests
The world is changing and US does not need military action to acquire Greenland as we are seeing now
I do know that.
Not a single Democratic Congressman or Senator has said the US needs to take Greenland and 79% of Democrat voters oppose even trying to buy Greenland.
Greenland is strategically the most important area east of the US to defend the wests interests in the Artic
Neither do you - the US already has a base and there are no restrictions on them expanding their operations there. Denmark is a NATO ally, spends more than we do on defence and lost as many troops per capita as the US in Afghanistan. There's no logic behind this BigG, not sure why you're even trying to find some given the character we're dealing with.
In all seriousness, I think it would help all concerned if only the media would use better maps! They insist on using Mercator Procections, which distort area sizes closer to the poles. If only they used a Peters Projection, or similar, which showed the actual relative sizes of the land masses, we might all be a little wiser. I know this sounds technical and silly, but it really isn't - the pictures are misleading, but we are so used to them that we can't re-visualise the problems. I reckon DJT really does think that Greenland is Very Big Indeed.
Not the Peters projection. It massively distorts shapes and is very ugly.
The Mollweide projection is, in my view, one of the more optimal ones. (But of course all projections are by their nature compromises, and you should probably use different projections for different purposes. Very few people are navigating the oceans by hand and so very few people should be using the Mercator projection, but I cannot think of a single use for which the Peters projection is optimal. It is horrendous.)
Thanks! Not my Mastermind Subject, but I am glad that someone agrees with me on the general point that some maps, in some circumstances, can give misleading perceptions. We used to have a Peters projection poster of the world in our kitchen (40 years ago, when they were fashionable) and it did help to challenge lazy thinking - Africa was much "bigger", and Greenland much "smaller", I recall.
Tony Benn used to have a map of the UK in his office which was upside-down. The place names were the right way up, but the land mass was inverted. he said that it made him think about the geography and relative locations differently, when he was the Technology Minister.
I've heard the suggestion of having the map of Britain and Ireland upside-down before. In particular the argument was made that it drew the eye to how close Scotland is to the North of Ireland, and therefore how important that relationship is, was, or could be.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
It will no doubt eventually go to shit, but not this series. Quality contestants and plenty of interest.
I do not envy Starmer and did not like his fawning over Trump but he has little choice and I agree with his approach
Anyone thinking Ed Davey 's antagonism to Trump would be helpful is just wanting to kick Trump [ as we all do] but would only have one result in making Trump more extreme
I fear that Trump is not going to back down and his letter to Norway is alarming
He can take devastating action against NATO, Europe and others including hugh tariffs, end US NATO membership, and withdraw support for Ukraine and withdraw his military from Europe
Furthermore, has anyone considered that even if Trump goes others in the US will continue their demand to control Greenland
The fact is Trump has all the cards and Europe is left powerless in a frightening change in security
I wish Starmer well, but I really doubt that he, or indeed anyone, will change Trumps ambition to own Greenland
Depends, if the Democrats get in next time they would leave Greenland to Denmark and the people of Greenland.
Even most Republicans only want to buy Greenland, they oppose invading it
You dont know that
Look at the history of US and Greenland, and there is no doubt due to climate change the Artic region is at the front of US, Russia and China interests
The world is changing and US does not need military action to acquire Greenland as we are seeing now
I do know that.
Not a single Democratic Congressman or Senator has said the US needs to take Greenland and 79% of Democrat voters oppose even trying to buy Greenland.
Greenland is strategically the most important area east of the US to defend the wests interests in the Artic
Neither do you - the US already has a base and there are no restrictions on them expanding their operations there. Denmark is a NATO ally, spends more than we do on defence and lost as many troops per capita as the US in Afghanistan. There's no logic behind this BigG, not sure why you're even trying to find some given the character we're dealing with.
If you need some evidence, Europe just bolstered troop numbers there and Trump took that as provocation. It's conquest, nothing more.
The point that is being missed is that Trump is determined to own it no matter how much pleading Europe and other countries complain
I do not want the US owning Greenland but pointing out some hard facts is important in the context of discussion
I think on current evidence "Mad King and scheming courtiers" is the correct way to model Trump. You don't know what he's going to do tomorrow because he's mad, he often agrees with the last person he spoke to, and in any case he's being manipulated by rival factions and we don't have much visibility into what they're up to. The fact that he's determined to do something today doesn't mean that he's going to do it, or even that he'll still be determined to do it tomorrow.
I would also add that his motivations are exceptionally personal: self-enrichment, self-aggrandisement, self-preservation and personal revenge.
He may use the language of America's national interest, and perhaps some of those around him genuinely think in those terms, but it's a mistake to base any analysis of his actions on that framework.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
You've heard wrong then. This is the best one. Mainly because the two Traitors have figured out it's in their advantage to have each other's backs
I also have an intense pathological hatred of joining a TV series that EVERYONE is banging on about... I was there at the start for Twin Peaks, and The X-Files. Never got into Game of Thrones and couldn't because the whole world said I should.
And I have a two year old so I have a very limited amount of TV time each week!
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Rather childish. My preferred default mode of response to this increasingly absurd individual would be neither appeasement nor aggression, it would be Ignore. No calls, no letters, no visits, no invites, no meetings, no tit for tat tariffs. Of course there's a limit to this but it should imo be in the toolbox and considered a lot more than it is. Eg, starting now, I do not think there should be any 'dash to Davos' to try and 'get a few minutes' with him. Let's reclaim some agency.
Yes - send him to Coventry
To visit the MP for Coventry South ?
Drop him off in Radford. See if he comes out alive.
Interesting point from one journalist to say that Britain will be the weakest link in Europe's response to the US over Greenland. It looks analogous to the situation previously with Germany in relation to Russia - Britain is too reliant on the US to respond effectively when the US goes rogue.
In fairness the change in the US has been more dramatic than the change in Russia, but there does need to be a realisation that the reality has changed, and Britain needs to change its assumptions as a result.
I fear that when push comes to shove Starmer isn't going to be willing to break with the US, and he isn't willing to spend the money in advance to make that break less painful. Britain might end up on the wrong side over this at worst, and at best is going to be caught with its pants down security-worse if not.
The situation is fecking awful - and the impending decision to let the Chinese build a vast spy base in central London also makes it worse.
Re your last sentence the article below is quite an interesting perspective that suggests it’s less of a problem than has been made out.
By the way, don't bother with the Lynley reboot. Almost comically badly-written at moments. More like a Channel 5 pulp murder mystery than a BBC production.
Have never watched an episode of Traitors and never will...
Why not? I’ve never seen it either but I’m not ruling it out.
I'm not a fan of that kind of programme, and I hear that its going to shit now, anyway. A bit like the first series of Big Brother being excellent because none of the people had any idea about it, so the same will be happening in Traitors.
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
You've heard wrong then. This is the best one. Mainly because the two Traitors have figured out it's in their advantage to have each other's backs
I also have an intense pathological hatred of joining a TV series that EVERYONE is banging on about... I was there at the start for Twin Peaks, and The X-Files. Never got into Game of Thrones and couldn't because the whole world said I should.
And I have a two year old so I have a very limited amount of TV time each week!
Sometimes things are popular because they are brilliant. The Traitors is in this category.
By the way, don't bother with the Lynley reboot. Almost comically badly-written at moments. More like a Channel 5 pulp murder mystery than a BBC production.
It was pretty dreadful. They had tried to get a bit of a scandi Wallander feel to it but Lynsey was played like some cliche of an upper class arrogant toff with zero qualities. I actually cannot remember any of the storylines only a week or two on either.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
It’s a US. missile relying on US maintenance, in which we have a notional stake that doesn’t matter if Trump doesn’t want it to. It’s operationally independent but relies on the US for maintenance.
However, we do understand all the technology, so (as above) could reverse engineer our way into our own maintenance with enough beer tokens, you’d think.
With enough nuka-cola bottle caps you mean? Wait no..... I don't mean that...........
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Make it competitive.
How’s about we give 10 teams of engineers £100m each, and let them build a pair of cars to a fixed set of regulations.
Every couple of weeks we’ll take all the cars to a track somewhere in the world, and we can see who built the fastest one.
We can put it on TV, and the teams can sell sponsorship on the cars. If they can. Get enough sponsorship they might be able to afford to hire the best driver for their cars.
Well this is embarrassing! We need to think about a new Labour leader and Prime Minister urgently. He's a decent man but we need an altogether different approach. We need someone who is saying the things Ed Davey is saying.
We're being blown around like a kite in a hurricane. The only Labour figure who has the bottle and the brain to deal with it is Emily Thornberry. Starmer can be reassigned the job of sorting out the detail of the UK rejoining the EU which must happen as soon as possible and without caveats
(Chris Packham. Very good on Radio 4. Definitely one of the good guys)
Emily Thornbury will not bring the racist voters of Reform back - recall she sneers at England flags...
Interesting that you should think it's impossible to win an election in the UK without appealing to racists. Blair would never have thought like that and in his day there were many more than there are now
Not really the point. And its not really the racists, as not all those who are currently indicating Reform are racists, but its more a point about her classis metropolitan, leftie, hatred of England attitudes.
Plastering your house with St George's flags (outside of an international football tournament) cannot be considered a typical England attitude otherwise it would be a lot more widespread than it is. Most English people would in their hearts of hearts consider someone who covered their homes in that kind of over the top display of patriotism a bit of a dick. It is only thanks to a new kind of political correctness enforced by the flag shagger community that saying this kind of thing out loud gets people into trouble.
England used to be a country comfortable with eccentricity. Surely a massive flag display is simply one form of eccentricity?
Though, granted, I did go to court as a witness against a guy who was in court for physical assault, and said guy had a huge "Scotland" tattoo across the top of his back, so I'm instinctively a bit wary of people who are outwardly very nationalistic.
Now confirmed: the extraordinary summit of EU leaders to address the Greenland crisis will take place in Brussels on Thursday, 22 January.
It will start, quite unusually, at 19.00 CET.
...5 days later? Weak. Should be 19:00 tonight.
Thought the same. The comment that only two countries can stop Trump (China and Russia) is wrong. It's China and the EU, but the EU is paralysed by delay and indecision. They shouldn't be waiting till Thursday to 'have a meeting to have a meeting' and then come out with Hans Blix from Team America 'We will be very very angry and we will write you a letter......'. The EU needs a meeting tonight, or even this afternoon and they need a response. They (and us) are being played for fools.
And worse, Trump is right. We, and they (the EU) are acting like fools.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Offer businesses more incentives/tax reliefs to invest in R&D and Universities are a great place for potential R&D development. Fund more of them. For starters.
Businesses need to make a profit and paying a dividend is not a bad thing as long as there is sufficient cover. Far from it. Some companies see it as a matter of pride to annually increase their dividend payments.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Offer businesses more incentives/tax reliefs to invest in R&D and Universities are a great place for potential R&D development. Fund more of them. For starters.
Businesses need to make a profit and paying a dividend is not a bad thing as long as there is sufficient cover. Far from it. Some companies see it as a matter of pride to annually increase their dividend payments.
Innovation threatens the status quo. As the current winners of that status quo our leaders have more to loose than gain.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Make it competitive.
How’s about we give 10 teams of engineers £100m each, and let them build a pair of cars to a fixed set of regulations.
Every couple of weeks we’ll take all the cars to a track somewhere in the world, and we can see who built the fastest one.
We can put it on TV, and the teams can sell sponsorship on the cars. If they can. Get enough sponsorship they might be able to afford to hire the best driver for their cars.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
On Topic. And I am not standing up for Truss here, but the true political history of what happened. Out of the two points of view in the header, Jenrick’s is far closer to fiction, and rewriting history. Once the party membership installed Truss ahead of Sunak, there were so many Tory MPs not remotely prepared to put up with that. The actual budget did very little, it was a £12B giveaway with all the stealth threshold tax in it - but this was misreported by all the media, opposition parties, and crucially at same time, so many in the Conservative Party siding with the media’s and opposition parties un true viewpoint as a giveaway splurge causing market meltdown. In reality markets go up and down, and it was not a wild splurge budget. Just one measure, borrowed from Keir Starmer and Labour, promise of £250B of government handouts to offset energy costs, spooked the markets because of the amount of borrowing involved. That is the true history of what happened. Truss was undermined and removed by her own parties MPs, who wanted the far more capable and electable Rishi Sunak as PM, not her mistakes as PM, as the budget had no real medium or long term hits in it - Hunt removed the £250B spending promise/policy on his day 1 and the markets instantly went from erupting to dormant volcano.
Truss’s disastrous tenure as prime minister destroyed the savings of tens of thousands of people in this country.
I'm curious as to how that supposedly happened ?
Thinking back to the Truss interlude I'm pretty sure my net wealth increased - the lower level of sterling causing the value of my investments and pensions to increase.
I do wonder how many politicians have any idea about personal finances work for normal people.
As opposed to politicians whose personal finances depend on generous expenses, a final salary pension scheme and mysterious donations from dubious people.
It was the increase in mortgage rates that’s the issue.
Mortgages are the opposite of savings though.
Higher mortgage rates also mean higher savings rates.
And interest rates were rising before Truss, after Truss, are set by the Bank of England and rose across the world.
I wonder if BobbyJ was overextended on his mortgage ?
This is not to defend Truss, whose economic strategy was complete bollox.
It would be somewhat an oddity for Truss's idea of borrowing more while cutting taxes to become mainstream.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
There are clearly still lots of really smart engineers in Britain who can do great things if the country gets behind them.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Make it competitive.
How’s about we give 10 teams of engineers £100m each, and let them build a pair of cars to a fixed set of regulations.
Every couple of weeks we’ll take all the cars to a track somewhere in the world, and we can see who built the fastest one.
We can put it on TV, and the teams can sell sponsorship on the cars. If they can. Get enough sponsorship they might be able to afford to hire the best driver for their cars.
Donald Trump's letter to the Norwegian prime minister.
"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT"
Comments
So a wealth transfer from wealth consumers to wealth creators.
But that's beside the point as Jenrick said that savings were destroyed not that prices increased.
They either stick with things and play the long game, or they panic and they slide even further into irrelevance.
That’s the choice for them.
Others may disagree, but I find it very doubtful the public will take kindly to, or welcome back to government, a party that shows that it has not gotten over its obsession with leadership coups.
Those wishing to invest in somewhere other than the US (and their bubble market) could finance a renaissance in UK DIB to become the alternative supplier of choice for weapons. Seems like a good punt for personal investment too.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-ultra-heavy-lift-drone-extends-range-to-2000km/
and
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britains-new-drone-helicopter-takes-first-flight/
There's no evidence that kowtowing to his every whim even works. The UK should be allowed to see their leader is not subservient and at the moment that's not what we believe is we are seeing
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/russia-undersea-war-uk-internet-shutdown-critical-infrastructure-threat-5HjdQxt_2/
"Dear Jonas:
Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.
Thank you!
President DJT"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/01/19/trump-taking-greenland-is-revenge-for-no-nobel-peace-prize/
Jenrick’s intervention on this is distinctly strange. I doubt it comes from Farage, who seems to quite like Truss, despite being clear-eyed that she isn't an electoral asset.
It feels like a lot of right on right bloodletting just now. To the priapic delight of wet centrists. Righties really shouldn't be giving them these sorts of opportunities.
Should she be booted out by the party? I would say not. She isn't in parliament and while a bit paranoid in general, and perhaps hitting the bottle a bit hard, she hasn't undermined Badenoch or the party.
Whether she is a member as a private citizen makes little difference to the economic reputation of the party.
I get that the status quo is easier when it comes to it. But I don't think we can guarantee there is a status quo any more. Unless MAGA decide to throw Trump and his cronies to the wolves and rescue America from fascism, then why would an axis America want to service our missiles which threaten its ally?
I don't understand the point in an entirely SLBM system anyway. It is a second strike weapon - if a shooting nuking war broke out our subs would stay under water as Britain was destroyed.
We can build warheads. We can build munitions. We have capable aircraft. Retain the existing boats as long as they can be serviced, build air-dropped bombs, attach to aircraft
We are already working on a new fighter
We need an independent deterrent, they want a deterrent (and are probably very close to owning one already)
Combine forces. Do it in other fields too. We are similar island nations with monarchies, ancient history, troubling demographics but still a lot of latent power and potential
The joy of that alliance is we would never conflict. They are Pacific we are Atlantic. We both chafe at our vassalage to America, we both have reason to fear China and Russia. Two democracies
You read it here first. The new Axis of Power. JAPUK
An awesome reality is that Trump may well be more fixed on military action in Greenland than Starmer suggests, though Starmer is right to talk peace. IANAE, but SFAICS the only forces on earth that can and will stop Trump doing this, apart from China and Russia, is the USA armed forces themselves.
The reason that SLBMs are preferred is that they are relatively invulnerable to a first strike. Hence deterrence - "You may try and kill us, but our missiles will get you"
Aircraft born nukes are expensive and need to be either continuously flown or sitting on the ground ready to launch at a few minutes notice. This makes them very expensive to use as a deterrent and ties up a lot of aircraft - see the V force.
In addition, there is the issue that aircraft delivered weapons are relatively stoppable by cheap defences.
As a last point - aircraft weapons require reaction on warning. Which is dangerous. Not to mention aircraft crash every now and again...
Hitting an SLBM or ICBM warhead requires a state of the art, top of the line ABM system. Which is very expensive and rather large.
For me, this speaks volumes. This forum would rather talk about anything, literally anything - NATO, Tory politics, political betting, Brexit, Greenland, Gaza
But bottoms? Nada
The public will have rejected Kemi and the Tories and decided that the next GE is between Labour and Reform with the Tories also rans.
In that case I am afraid Kemi would have to go, replaced by Cleverly who could at least shore up the 2024 Sunak vote and win more Labour and LD tactical votes in Tory seats than Kemi can.
At the end of the day it is up to Kemi, the Tories are and will give her a chance but there are limits, she has to at least ensure the Tories come second on NEV after the local and devolved elections in May ahead of Labour even if Reform still win
but that definitely isn't the case now.
Here's the evidence:
👉One of 34 "Spartan Brexiteers" who voted against all three Theresa May Brexit deals
👉Renamed constituency HQ "Margaret Thatcher house"
👉 Consistently voted pro-life and anti-euthanasia
👉Supports capital punishment
👉Never held Ministerial positions (so played no part in Tory failures), other than as a trade envoy to Tanzania
👉Resigned as trade envoy over strict lockdown plans
👉One of 41 Tory MPs to publicly opposed vaccine passports
👉Supported Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership election.
This man is an ideological coup for Reform UK.
They should be extremely pleased to weaken the right of the Conservative Party AGAIN.'
https://x.com/DanielDieppe/status/2012991535017537564?s=20
https://x.com/michaelgove/status/2013164771424485865?s=20
Plenty of bottoms involved in this aspect of the Greenland story.
And as we've seen with numerous programmes, doesn't always work first time (and sometime ...Ajax... not at all).
The "air dropped bombs" which we have access to, are currently planned to be deployed on a US platform (F35A) which relies on their regular software updates to function properly...
I meant a serious discussion
Ok. If PB is unprepared to address this in an adult way. Let’s ask an even bigger question: how much would you pay to avoid giving oral sex to Lord Heseltine?
As for capital punishment, I'm all for it provided all MPs voting for it agree to be killed the instant the first miscarriage of justice that resulted in capital punishment was discovered..
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2012927850169418071
KARL: Watch this video of a woman who says she's disabled getting dealt with by ICE. What do you think when you see this stuff?
McCAUL: Well, the optics aren't good
KARL: I mean, they smashed the window of her car and threw her to the ground
McCAUL: It appears to be a little overzealous, but what about the actions of the murderers and drug traffickers?
Ten years on: "For Britain, voting to leave will be a galvanising, liberating, empowering moment of patriotic renewal". Michael Gove.
Now confirmed: the extraordinary summit of EU leaders to address the Greenland crisis will take place in Brussels on Thursday, 22 January.
It will start, quite unusually, at 19.00 CET.
@BillKristol
Greenland is not mentioned once in the official Trump administration National Security Strategy, issued less than two months ago.
https://x.com/BillKristol/status/2012910506680393810
Ruth Deyermond
@ruthdeyermond.bsky.social
Update to Nixon's Madman Theory: now with no theory, but with an actual madman.
EU dialling down rhetoric. EU trade Spox Olof Gil:
"The priority here is to engage, not escalate and avoid the issue of tariffs". "EU leaders are consulting intensivley. As well as that engagement with the US is continuing at all levels" "
“Sometimes the most responsible for of leadership is restraint" - EU trade Spox Olof Gill to reporters
I absolutely despise reality TV. I’ve managed to avoid all of Love island, Strictly, etc
The only one I like is Masterchef but that’s coz it’s genuinely interesting and sometimes produces world class chefs
But Traitors is in a different league. It’s fiendishly clever. And says something deep about human nature even if the contestants are morons
The Celeb version was possibly the best of all. Some of the most intelligently compelling TV I’ve ever watched
I'm much happier watching entitled middle class folk make pots that go wrong in the kiln...*
* Great British Pottery Throwdown
In the real world, about as bad as you could get.
And I'm sure someone could wheel in a TV screen - but at least it will concentrate minds...
Traitors is improved by people having game plans that rapidly fall part as people play 4th / 5th dimension chess. Sometimes it works other times it fails but it's entertaining...
This is the best one. Mainly because the two Traitors have figured out it's in their advantage to have each other's backs
In fairness the change in the US has been more dramatic than the change in Russia, but there does need to be a realisation that the reality has changed, and Britain needs to change its assumptions as a result.
I fear that when push comes to shove Starmer isn't going to be willing to break with the US, and he isn't willing to spend the money in advance to make that break less painful. Britain might end up on the wrong side over this at worst, and at best is going to be caught with its pants down security-worse if not.
The situation is fecking awful - and the impending decision to let the Chinese build a vast spy base in central London also makes it worse.
He may use the language of America's national interest, and perhaps some of those around him genuinely think in those terms, but it's a mistake to base any analysis of his actions on that framework.
And I have a two year old so I have a very limited amount of TV time each week!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/chinese-mega-embassy-london-british-spies-mi5-analysis
To prove me wrong boycott the FIFA World Cup.
Britain needs British businesses to invest in engineering excellence instead of sweating assets to increase dividend payments. How do we create that change?
Wait no..... I don't mean that...........
How’s about we give 10 teams of engineers £100m each, and let them build a pair of cars to a fixed set of regulations.
Every couple of weeks we’ll take all the cars to a track somewhere in the world, and we can see who built the fastest one.
We can put it on TV, and the teams can sell sponsorship on the cars. If they can. Get enough sponsorship they might be able to afford to hire the best driver for their cars.
Do you see where I’m going yet…?
Though, granted, I did go to court as a witness against a guy who was in court for physical assault, and said guy had a huge "Scotland" tattoo across the top of his back, so I'm instinctively a bit wary of people who are outwardly very nationalistic.
They won’t but should consider it, even float it.
And worse, Trump is right. We, and they (the EU) are acting like fools.
Businesses need to make a profit and paying a dividend is not a bad thing as long as there is sufficient cover. Far from it. Some companies see it as a matter of pride to annually increase their dividend payments.
That is the true history of what happened. Truss was undermined and removed by her own parties MPs, who wanted the far more capable and electable Rishi Sunak as PM, not her mistakes as PM, as the budget had no real medium or long term hits in it - Hunt removed the £250B spending promise/policy on his day 1 and the markets instantly went from erupting to dormant volcano.
Unbelievable, they need to invoke the 25th amendment.