HMG should tell Trump to get stuffed. He got the world into this mess, didn't consult anyone is flagrantly and repeatedly breaking international law.
That comes with consequences, which he needs to learn the hard way. If Britain participates, we get drawn into Trump's war without influence.
An historic humiliation for the United States. Trump is so deranged he will not realise this.
Harsh on Ed Davey.
No, it won't. But every little bit of pressure in that direction makes an incremental difference.
Yes. We can't leave everything to experts as any system has implicit or explicit values which are not technocratic and have to be framed politically. Equally, ignoring experts' opinion in favour of ideology is an extremely dangerous path.
Trump won't care about words (well, he will because he has a very thin skin, but it's not the most important thing).
If Trump aligning with Russia really matters - and it does - then Europe needs to reflect that in policy.
Deny the US access to European bases.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Every reason that applies to health could be applied to anything else.
The problem comes from the attitude and knowledge of those voting, not the subject matter.
If they're capable of producing bad outcomes for health on ideological grounds, they're equally capable of doing so on anything else.
It's a week since Trump said his special military operation will be over "pretty quickly".
He's now making moves to deploy assets that will take half a month to arrive.
Bluster is not the same as control of events.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz...
He's waited for the markets to close before posting this.
If Trump does not pay a heavy price, one way or another, he'll do it again.
The ideal outcome would be for him to be impeached immediately. In reality, that won't happen until the GOP are more afraid of the public than they are of Trump. And that in turn won't happen without a lot of pain.
Also, the media ecosystem will take apart the Greens in a way they won't take apart Farage.
Excellent, concise post from @pkrugman.bsky.social .
Put simply: if supply dramatically falls of a good whose demand doesn't change much when its price does then its price will go through the roof.
That's where oil is if the Straight of Hormuz stays closed.
open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...
In relation to the US mid-terms, it's worth noting that the war-related costs here come on top of soaring healthcare bills - and as inflation rises, so will interest rates and mortgages.
All of which can be laid at Trump's door.
You're accusing them of weasel words?
On the other things, yes, of course Labour has done some good things (though on the two-child cap, only after being dragged there by pressure).
But overall there's little direction, dynamism, narrative or stated purpose. So even if things do get better, there's no guarantee they'll get the credit.
I agree on the Greens. They've a lot of dangerous stuff. I joined the Lib Dems because I believe Britain needs a sensible alternative.
On the NHS, I have multiple first- and close second-hand (my mum) experience that it doesn't work, frequently doesn't care and acts as if it's above criticism.
I won't criticise these groups for doing what they're set up to do.
I won't blame courts for adjudicating matters within their competence.
I will blame an excessively restrictive framework that allows endless challenges and is a huge inhibitant and set of barriers to getting stuff done. Change it.
Pain also has to be for a purpose. You have to explain what you're doing, why it's necessary, and what the benefit will be afterwards.
If the electorate believes you, and if you can deliver on that claimed benefit afterwards, then you stand a chance.
But Labour's done none of it.
Squeezing voters to make tactical decisions requires them to believe that the tactical choice is a tolerable alternative, that it's necessary given the opposite-bloc option, and that it will work.
At the moment, Labour is struggling to make two of those claims to left-of-centre voters.
In 2024, polls had voting intention continuing to drift away from Labour, to the Lib Dems and Greens, through the election period.
And while the Tories did recover some share from Reform it was only a fraction of what they'd earlier lost.
Apart from staying in NATO, which requires no effort, I'm not sure Labour is delivering on any of those.
I also don't think voters do particularly want more social housing: what they want is more affordable housing *across the board*.
Gorton & Denton has always had more left voters than right. I don't think it's at all certain that they will automatically return to Labour once it's clear that Greens, Lib Dems, SNP or Plaid are capable of winning in their respective seats. That alone is one reason the local elections matter.
Polls report, they don't predict. Yes, opinion can change but that requires facts to change. At the moment, Labour seems intent on annoying those currently willing to vote for it, while not doing enough to attract those who won't - and I see no indication of them being able to react to that.
This is unacceptable from the US, giving Russia yet another benefit from Trump's reckless and un-thought-through violence in Iran.
Ukraine and Europe will pay the price.
European governments should demand Trump reverse his policy and if he doesn't, withdraw American access to their bases.
For contrast, here's the net change in seats for the govt at each local election round since 2020:
Con
2021: +9%
2022: -26%
2023: -32%
2024: -48%
Lab
2025: -66%
And going by local by-elections, national by-elections and polling, Labour is on for even worse this year.
Unprecedented.
Governments do usually lose seats in local elections mid-term (not 'always') but the issue here is the scale of those losses. In local by-elections since May, Labour has held only 24% of the seats it's defended. That's even worse than the 34% retention in last May's election.
Polls report. Those with a reputation to protect use their accuracy to promote their retail services.
And they are accurate: the local and Westminster by-elections give enough evidence. As does canvassing.
Labour is going to take a battering in May.
These feel like optimistic predictions, given where oil prices have been this week already, how much oil flows through the Straight, and inelastic oil demand is.
Obviously, Sunak was the first non-white British PM. That in itself is notable but not, these days, all that remarkable. Which is a good thing.
Prime Ministers don't *have* to be remembered for anything.
To the extent that Bonar Law is remembered (not much) it's specifically for being, in Lloyd George's words, the unknown prime minister.
Sunak was a boring, briefly-serving technocrat. He'll be forgotten.
