Labour Weasels On Venezuela

Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, the living and still breathing definition of an amateur human being, has ordered the armed services of the United States to, effectively, invade Venezuela, which is a sovereign state. Added to this minor breach of international law, he has had the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, kidnapped, along with his wife.

This is in addition to several acts of piracy upon the high seas, where oil tankers that had loaded up in Venezuelan ports, along with their cargoes, were boarded and seized. Could the charge sheet get any longer? Don’t ask: Maduro has been put on media display, in a flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions. Worse, Trump did not get Congressional approval beforehand.

But he did consult with the oil industry, so for him, that’s all right, then. He has decreed that the USA is going to “run” Venezuela, which may interest those who remember the chaos in Iraq, when the USA decided to “run” that country. Whichever way you slice it, this is illegal and corrupt behaviour several times over. Which brings us to the international community’s response.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro - whose country is in the line of fire, remember - was unequivocal: “A clan of paedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein's list from coming out, they send warships to kill fishermen & threaten our neighbour with invasion for their oil”. China has demanded that the US release Maduro. So has Iran.

So, New New Labour, what is the UK Government response to be? How would a confident Government, sure of its interpretation of international law, respond? What would a statesmanlike Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues do? What would a seasoned human rights lawyer, like Keir Starmer, have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly, the New New Labour Government, so quick to approve the Israeli removal of water and electricity supplies to Gaza in another display of collective punishment, does not operate on such a lofty intellectual plane, and so the response, when it eventually came, was craven in the extreme.

Here’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper: “The UK has consistently rejected Nicolas Maduro’s legitimacy, and called for a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela. I have spoken to our Chargé [d’Affaires] in Caracas, and travel advice has now been updated to advise against all travel to Venezuela … As the Prime Minister has made clear, we support international law”. So you’ll be condemning the US breaches of that international law, won’t you?

As if you need to ask. Instead of any kind of condemnation, Mike Tapp, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Migration and Citizenship, has appeared before the inquisition of Sophy Ridge of Sky News, where he was asked if he would condemn any move by the Trump gang to annex Greenland. “We’re not going to give a running commentary”. Christ on a bike. And it got worse.

He couldn’t say Trump should not invade Greenland? “Diplomacy is delicate, which means we're not here to give a running commentary in the news”. It’s not an intellectually demanding call. Flagrant breaches of international law should be condemned. And what of the UK’s Prime Minister?

Here it comes, per the Guardian. “I want to get all the material facts together and we simply haven’t got the full picture at the moment - it is fast moving”. Meaning he spewed out a word salad of excuses rather than show a hint of backbone. Also, he needed to talk to Trump first. And there we all were believing that the UK was a sovereign state. Silly us, eh?

Steven Swinford of the Murdoch Times has, since then, asserted “Britain will refrain from criticising the US over the capture of Maduro amid concerns about angering Donald Trump”. Airstrip One Redux. He wants to seek closer relationships with the EU, but with his tongue firmly up Trump’s arse, the EU might not want to know. Diplomacy is delicate, dontcha know?

What will it take for New New Labour to get it? Invasion of Greenland? Invasion of Colombia? Handing Ukraine to Putin? Voters who have left Labour will not be returning if this is the level of leadership on show.

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And So This Is Christmas

The world is now a more dangerous, more unequal, more unjust, more authoritarian, and more uncaring place. Peace is in short supply, except in the fevered minds of more of those Here Today And Gone Tomorrow Politicians. And you can forget goodwill. Where it will end we know not. But end it will, with the grim certainty of night following day.

Christmas tree in Lisbon's Praça do Comércio

Centre stage is the most corrupt régime of any modern and allegedly democratic nation, that of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump. This only occasionally coherent, rambling, terminally vain, and obscenely unpleasant being is about to start a war with Venezuela. Over oil. It will not end well for the USA. Meanwhile, Trump is driving the economy off a cliff.

Those cheering him on are an increasingly compliant media, and the ranks of the obscenely overmonied, who care about themselves, and not about the 98% who are becoming poorer by the day. The political and media class in the UK also cares, mostly, about itself, and not about the 98%, but imagines itself to be in touch with those hard-working people it likes to talk about.

But it isn’t: our media elite likes not-even-one-dimensional politicians like Wes Streeting, somehow unaware that the voters dislike him intensely. The media class likes political operators like Morgan McSweeney, unable or unwilling to confront the reality of Labour’s poll numbers, and that half Labour’s membership has got fed up and left since Keir Starmer became leader.

Fewer members means fewer people to canvass, leaflet, persuade uncommitted voters, and get the vote out. There were hints of that problem in the 2024 election results. Voters know that they are being taken for mugs by New New Labour; many are backing Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. But here a problem enters.

The UK had a congenital liar, racist bigot and con man as PM before, and look where supporting the disgraced Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson got us. Farage, like Johnson, and like almost all the others in the political and media class, does not give a flying foxtrot about the proles. Some in that media class also treat their audience like so many mugs.

Santa driving his tram. Ho ho ho

Who might exemplify this approach? Step forward Gammon Broadcasting News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to freely pump misinformation, and, indeed, disinformation, to an audience that can no longer tell fact from fiction. GB News’ approach was deliciously busted recently when their “host” Carole Malone, another deeply unpleasant being, was caught defaming live on air.

Sadly for Ms Malone, she had defamed Doria Raglund, whose better-known daughter is the Duchess of Sussex. The “please don’t sue us, we didn’t mean it, honestly” on-air sort-of-apologies were a thing to behold. But a serious point had been made: this illustrated the contempt in which the media class holds ordinary people. A contempt which has been exposed elsewhere.

And that is in the reportage, and associated punditry, concerning the actions of the Israeli Government and its armed forces, mainly in Gaza, but also in the illegally occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon. This time, though, smearing those opposed to slaughtering tens of thousands of human beings as anti-Semites is not working. Because the public can see what’s going on.

This, in turn, brings us back to Starmer and the Labour Together cabal that put him in power. They treat the voters with contempt, and are clueless as to how they get those voters to return. Meanwhile, the Greens make steady progress under Zack Polanski, because he is listening to voters, and cares about them. So it is that we reach Christmas 2025.

With a media and political class, many of whom want to pursue policies that will make the 98% yet poorer. A Government like so many rabbits caught in the headlights. An electorate battered by harsh reality, and a tsunami of bad faith media actors. And little prospect of improvement any time soon.

Feliz Natal e Boas Festas, as they say here in Portugal. Eat, drink, be merry, and hope for an end to the period of elite stupidity. That is all.

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Nigel Farage - Lying Beyond Barking

Our free and fearless press, and to their continuing shame our broadcast media, cannot get enough of Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, failing to do the kind of job one might have thought journalists should be doing: holding this serially dishonest, bigoted and revoltingly slimy individual to account.

The failure to call out Farage and his increasingly thuggish coterie of aspiring insurgents is exacerbated by the utter failure of Keir Starmer’s team to provide any kind of narrative around which a coalition of voters can coalesce, in turn exacerbated by the shortage of Labour members willing to go in to bat for those who, by their own admission, worked to throw the 2019 election.

Into this vacuum has come Mr Thirsty. So has he shown leadership, any kind of responsibility? You jest: responsibility is far, far away as Farage declines to distance himself from Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s flagrantly wrong claim that women taking Tylenol (Paracetamol in the UK) during pregnancy could cause autism. This is total and unadulterated crap.

Instead, we get the customary Farage fudge, saying he doesn’t know if the claim is true, meaning that his all too easily persuaded followers will start to believe that there really is something in Trump’s baseless ranting. Stoking the paranoia among the Reform UK faithful is Farage’s own flat-out whopper, claiming that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan wants to introduce Sharia Law.

Khan’s number one priority today is a rather more humble one: to oversee the introduction of the Bakerloop express bus service, the first stage of persuading central Government, along with business leaders, to back extension of the Bakerloo Line from Elephant and Castle to Lewisham. He has no intention of introducing Sharia Law. And Farage knows it.

But there he is, allowed to pitch this ridiculous suggestion live on LBC, courtesy of Nick Ferrari, and back it up by asserting that he knows Sharia Law is coming because a taxi driver told him. It sounds plausible enough for his followers - already on a hair trigger on the subject of Scary Muslims™ after years of variously peddled bigotry - to believe.

It gets worse: taking his cue from another deranged Trump whopper, that Haitian migrants to the USA were eating cats and dogs (they weren’t), once again, away goes Farage. Those scary brown people coming to the UK were eating carp and even swans! Ever tried to catch a swan? Clue: swans are more than capable to seeing off anyone so minded.

Worse still, anyone thinking that Mr Thirsty’s latest claims are so ridiculous that they might even drive away some of his supporters have been disabused of that notion by polling showing the distinct possibility that, were an election to be held in the immediate future, Reform UK might even be able to garner sufficient support to score enough MPs to govern on their own.

That should frighten the somnambulant media establishment into waking up and starting to put Farage on the spot, as they do for any other politician. The signs are not good, however: long-term Farage ally Nathan Gill has just pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery by a foreign state (Russia). He is expected to be jailed. Wall to wall media coverage? Nah. Crickets.

Gill is not just any old Farage hanger-on: it was he who introduced the 2019 intake of (then) Brexit Party MEPs to the European Parliament, prominent among them one Claire Fox, unrepentant terrorist sympathiser who, let us not forget, was not held to account for her support for the “armed struggle”. Instead, there were softball media appearances. There, there, eh?

In any case, Farage can bat away criticism by telling his followers that the MSM lies. Look over there at the real liars! And the MSM has a proud history of lying in pursuit of its smear campaigns, and elsewhere. He can also bat off Labour criticism by telling his followers that Starmer and his acolytes lie. And he is, once again, right. Because they do. But that is no excuse for inaction.

One small bright spot: the SDP-Liberal Alliance hit 50% in the polls in early 1982. The following year, they scored just 23 MPs. All is not yet lost.

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Reform UK - Beginning Of The End

A week, as Harold Wilson memorably observed, is a long time in politics, and that this still holds true has been demonstrated by Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, riding high in the polls and with rather too many of the media class unable, or unwilling, to point out that Farage is a congenital liar, a racist bigot, and a shameless con man.

It was a trip north of the border that proved that Bridge Too Far for Mr Thirsty, as he rocked up to support Ross Alexander Lambie, the Reform UK hopeful for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. A Scottish Parliament by-election had been triggered by the death of SNP incumbent MSP Christina McKelvie. Our free and fearless press declared the fight to be between SNP and Reform.

Sadly, as Rochdale MP Paul Waugh pointed out, “My former trade got their Hamilton predictions badly wrong. If journalists had actually spoken to voters … they would have known this was a close fight, not an SNP walkover or a Reform revolution … The lazy English media reporting was bad enough but what really shocked me was the poor quality of the Scottish media”.

Do go on. “Putting SNP quotes in headlines as if they were neutral, the class prejudice against a working class guy like Davy [Russell], the confected row over interviews”. As to the BBC also falling short in its reportage, “‘Surprise’ victory … ‘Confounds expectations’ … Confirmation from the BBC that it too went with the herd instead of looking deeper at what people were saying on the ground”. Labour won. Reform came not second, but third.

Worse, Farage was accused of blatantly racist campaigning after Reform put out an advert claiming that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar “will prioritise the Pakistani community”. Farage was challenged over yet another flat-out lie, and insisted that Sarwar was engaging in sectarianism (no citation).

All of which would have been a mere blip in an otherwise inexorable rise to the top for the Farage fringe. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the bad news kept on coming, as Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf threw in the towel, stating “working to get the party elected was no longer ‘a good use of my time’”. And it got yet worse for Mr Thirsty.

Despite his claim that Yusuf “was ‘a huge factor’ in the party's success in last month's elections, when Reform won a by-election, two mayoral races and gained 677 new councillors”, Farage seems not to have tried too hard to stop him going. Many Reform UK supporters may have thought the departure a good thing, as Yusuf was one of those Scary Muslims™ they all hate.

What not too many were pointing out was that Yusuf had donated a cool £200,000 to Reform UK, and had tried to make the party a more professional outfit. And what many others were pointing out was that, having expelled Rupert Lowe from Reform UK before Yusuf resigned, Farage was not exactly excelling in keeping his team together. It was a total shambles.

But not to worry, Yusuf’s role as head of “DOGE UK” would now be undertaken by Farage’s old pal Arron Banks. Except that, two days after Yusuf walked out, no it wouldn’t. Because Yusuf was now back, as the BBC reported. “Zia Yusuf, who resigned as Reform UK chairman on Thursday, is to return to work for the party in a new role”. Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes?

“Yusuf will lead what the party calls its ‘Doge team’ which is modelled on the Department of Government Efficiency set up by US President Donald Trump”. And which has also been a spectacular waste of time and money. So what say Nige? “Reform leader Nigel Farage told the BBC he was ‘delighted’ Yusuf had returned to the party and that he will now take on a more public role for the party in a new role, appearing more frequently in the media”.

Reform UK, aka the Farage Fan Club and very little else, is still ahead in the polls. But with the party’s economic policies being derided as “Truss Plus”, and the media beginning to wake up to its shortcomings, don’t bank on that continuing. This is a clown car with its tyres slowly deflating.

Reform UK was for a time, but not for all time. Just rejoice at that news.

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So Farewell Then Elon Musk

The BBC has quoted George Ell, “who knew Musk and was director for Western Europe at Tesla” in its article on The Great Man “scaling back” his time spent at the misnamed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “I think Elon is not someone who surrounds himself with a great diversity of opinion to challenge his thinking”. No-one stands up to him.

No-one tells him that he maybe shouldn’t do this or that. No-one tells him that he got something wrong, should not intervene so much in his companies, or that his political stance might just not be as neutral as he thinks. There was no-one to tell him not to perform a Nazi salute - and yes, ADL people, it was a Nazi salute - an act which poisoned his brands, maybe beyond redemption.

In Musk’s mind, his failures are someone else’s fault. Like Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, someone else did it. With Trump it is usually Joe Biden getting the blame, despite him having been out of power for some months. With Musk it is The Left. As if The Left could have caused the more than 30% decline in Tesla’s share price this year. Musk is deluded.

Nonetheless, we heard earlier this week that “Musk wants to leave politics because he’s tired of ‘attacks’ from the left”. He’ll still be blaming The Left if the Tesla share price falls so far that he gets margin calls and has to either stump up some collateral sharpish, or liquidate part of his holding. He’s either deluded or paranoid. Or, most likely, a combination of the two.

But, some out there on the right might argue, Musk’s contribution must be worth seeking out because he’s been so successful. To which I say, as Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe said in response to demands by the Wehrmacht that he surrender the city of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, Nuts. Musk was ridiculously wealthy, even as a child.

Moreover, he did not stump up the full cost of his best-known investments, those in Tesla and Twitter, X, or whatever he’s calling it this week, and hence his vulnerability to a precipitous fall in share value, which would spark margin calls, a prospect with which those who have studied The Great Crash of 1929 will be familiar. Add to that his inability to listen to dissenting views.

So it should be no surprise to read Seth Abramson’s commentary on Musk’s stewardship of DOGE: “Elon Musk has cut somewhere between 0% and 3% of what he promised - and most of what was cut was not waste or fraud or abuse, but simply expenditures Mr. Musk did not personally favour for partisan reasons”. Remember that the next time Tufton Street speaks.

So his conclusion is equally unsurprising: “DOGE is the biggest program failure in the history of American government”. And what of Tesla? Back to the BBC report: “On Tuesday, Tesla reported a 20% drop in car sales for the first three months of the year, compared with the same period last year, while profits fell more than 70%”. Oh dear! And there is more. Much more.

“The company warned investors that the pain could continue, declining to offer a growth forecast while saying ‘changing political sentiment’ could meaningfully hurt demand … Musk blamed the boycott of Tesla cars on people who would ‘try to attack me and the Doge team’”. Someone else did it. Nothing to do with him giving a Nazi salute. But do go on.

“Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell, called expectations ‘rock-bottom’ after the company said earlier this month that the number of cars sold in the quarter had fallen 13% to the lowest level in three years … The firm faces fierce competition, Mr Coatsworth said”. He also drew this ominous conclusion: “Tesla's problems are mounting”. Not a good look.

Elon Musk’s empire is heavily dependent on US Government funding - for ventures such as SpaceX - with Tesla mired in a customer backlash to his infamous Nazi salute and tendency to smear genuine American heroes. Many have departed Twitter after he turned it into a sewer of right-wing abuse and a venue for promoting conspiracy theories. He is not a genius.

Remember Denis Thatcher: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt”. All Musk’s own fault.

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Party Like It’s 1929

They thought he really knew what he was doing, that he was not out of his depth. They thought he would back off at the last minute, that he didn’t really mean it. They thought that wise counsel would prevail, talk him out of it. They thought that Donald Trump was intelligent enough not to proceed with his tariff plan. They were wrong: another 1929 moment now stalks the markets.

It's the economy, Mr Stupid President

The key difference between The Great Crash of October 1929 and today is that the latter is a direct consequence of deliberate acts by the US President. Trump is indeed out of his depth. He is a monumentally stupid individual embarked on a personal mission of vindictive retribution against the foreigners who he believes have ripped off the USA over many years.

By imposing sufficient tariffs on the rest of the world, he believes goods will be manufactured in the USA, rather than elsewhere. Like the iPhone, perhaps? Except to manufacture that device Stateside would, by one estimate, raise its cost price to at least $10,000. Yet his supporters talk of American workers screwing screws into iPhones. What screws?

You use an iPhone? Check the casing. Maybe look at a rather larger example: where does US plane maker Boeing source all those parts that get assembled into best selling aircraft like the 737? They don’t all come from the States. Tariffs will mean vastly more expensive planes. Or a change in the supply network taking years and costing more. Or a bit of both.

Yet away he went with his tariff plan, which, whisper it quietly, is still with us. The market reaction was as predictable as it was sudden: massive falls in stock prices, beginning on a Thursday, an ominous day to start, given the 1929 precedent. There would, claimed The Donald, be no turning back; moreover, he told anyone who would listen how well it was going.

Markets continued their fall. Even after the weekend, the falls went on, until the 1929 parallel came again. Then, the bankers had sent Richard Whitney to ostentatiously buy up blocks of shares; the market turned around. Now, a fake social media account claimed the tariffs were to be paused, and sparked a rally before being rumbled. Then came the flagrant and open corruption.

The Whitney comparison is instructive: as Galbraith noted, he was “a hero, his achievement was widely celebrated, and he was made President of the Exchange. Not long thereafter, he was off to Sing Sing for embezzlement”. This time, no-one will be off to jail, despite the corruption. Despite Trump telling his followers to buy stocks, four hours before finally pausing tariffs.

Those buying included, according to reports, rabbit hole occupant Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. From the Democrats’ side of the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mused “Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now … It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress”. Trump was, meanwhile, celebrating.

There he was in the Oval Office, pointing to two of his guests and telling “He made $2.5 billion today and he made $900 million. That’s not bad”. One observer noted “Speaker Mike Johnson was ALSO caught on camera saying it was a good day to buy stocks. This is text book market manipulation”. There should be an investigation. Will there be one? Don’t bet on it.

And then came the dénouement: as ITV political editor Robert Peston put it, “We just learned that the world’s most powerful person, Donald Trump, has a boss: the bond market”. Not only were tariffs paused, he had to row back on them for smartphones and other electronic devices coming from China. But the Chinese Government is not making any tariff exemptions for the USA.

If anyone had been in any doubt as to Donald Trump’s fitness for public office, the tariff fiasco has exposed his shortcomings. The USA is having its economy trashed by a shambling old fool, an inept and failed businessman, an amateur human being. He took on the real world, and the real world won. The MAGA cult might not believe it, but they are now just an irrelevance.

The EU and China have begun talks to reduce electronic vehicle tariffs. Tesla EU sales were down 45% year on year to January. Art of the deal my arse.

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Trump Tariffs - The Art Of The Stupid

To great fanfare, and applauded by all the wrong people, Combover Crybaby Donald Trump has announced the imposition of tariffs upon imports from most countries outside the USA, although not, for some reason, Russia or North Korea. There had been much talking up of the move beforehand by those out there on the right. But the markets have not been persuaded.

The tone struck as propaganda was disseminated was noted by the BBC’s Faisal Islam: “President Trump cheered on by auto-workers and oil and gas workers in Rose Gardens as he proclaims ‘Liberation Day’, decrying ‘foreign scavengers’ with expected universal and reciprocal tariffs on every country in the world”. Today, 900 of those auto-workers were laid off.

But back to Faisal Islam. “President says tariffs will raise ‘trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and national debt’… which rather suggests a somewhat universal character to these ‘reciprocal’ tariff”. It also suggests that Trump is more stupid than had previously been thought. Meanwhile, the “tariff” against which Trump was reciprocating had been figured out.

One Tweeter put it directly. “The supposed ‘tariffs charged to the US’ are just the total trade deficit as a % of US imports by country, with a floor of 10%. Just laughably stupid”. So all those countries he has singled out are not necessarily imposing tariffs. Worse, some of those who might have been expected to side with Trump were horrified by the whole exercise.

Like Dan, Dan The Oratory Man, who denounced the move. “The policies just announced are batshit crazy. They will cause a recession. And, when they do, the people who backed them will blame foreigners or globalists or some such, and double down”. Or blame something Joe Biden did or didn’t do. Or Hillary Clinton’s emails. Or perhaps the Fake News Media will have done it.

As for the UK only being hit for 10%, while the EU gets slapped with twice that percentage, Jim Cornelius had a caution. “The reason why Trump's UK tariff is 10% and not like EU's 20% has absolutely NOTHING to do with Keir Starmer being a brilliant negotiator, or Trump loving an invite from the King. It's because we're not as good at selling stuff to the USA as the EU is”.

So how did the markets react? The BBC brought bad news: at 1520 hours, “After opening down sharply, the main US indexes have continued to edge lower. The Dow Jones is now down 3.6%, the S&P 500 is 3.8% lower while the Nasdaq has dropped 4.8%”. MAGA cultists are, unsurprisingly, trying their best to slag off the markets, as if they don’t matter. Except they do matter.

But they weren’t important enough to tempt any of Reform UK’s MPs, and certainly not self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, to turn up to the Commons for a statement on UK-US trade and tariffs. Maybe the great Farage will be able to explain Trump’s reasoning to us all.

Like “the Cook Islands, Vanuatu, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon made it onto [Trump’s] tariff hit list… but [not] Russia". Another Tweeter expanded on that finding: “Neither Russia nor North Korea got even Donald Trump's 10% minimum tariff. But he did tax [two] islands that have only penguins, and another one that contains ONLY a US military base”. Well, well.

And in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit Myanmar recently, Dara Ó Briain mused “These is something particularly crass and callous about announcing a 44% trade tariff against Myanmar, this week, of all weeks”. Meanwhile, the idea that sanctions mean no US-Russia trade was debunked: the USA imported around $3 billion of Russian goods last year.

This move is down to Trump, and Trump alone. He has not sought the approval of Congress. He will blame others when it fails, as it will with the certainty of night following day. He should not be allowed to get away with any move to deflect or deny: he had ample opportunity to take advice from those who understand these things. He chose not to. His actions are about to screw over the lives of many who were foolish enough to vote for him.

Sadly, many of the rest may also be casualties. Donald Trump is not a serious politician. As Cloughie might have put it, “he’s a clown, young man”.

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Donald Trump - A Fart Of A Deal

With the possibility increasing daily that his “diplomacy” on the Russia-Ukraine conflict will prove to be Dead On Arrival, more and more citizens, along with increasing numbers outside the USA, are realising that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump was only a successful businessman for the purposes of The Apprentice and its various spin-offs. Reality is somewhat different.

This is, after all, someone whose, to quote the Wikipedia entry, “over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009”. A casino should be a license to print money, so how Trump’s businesses had to file for Chapter 11 protection should tell you something about his abilities.

Or lack of them. Most major banks wanted nothing to do with him following those corporate bankruptcies. Yet this was the individual whose signature book is all about the Art Of The Deal. And this is what he no doubt wanted the world to think about when he waded into the conflict between Russia, the aggressor, and Ukraine, the country that repelled them for three years.

He, the great Donald J Trump, would show his detractors that he alone could secure a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Maybe his peacemaking efforts could even secure him the Nobel Peace Prize. Joe Biden never won that! Those Fake News Media channels and papers never won it either!

And so it came to pass that the Trump Gang let the world know that continuing the conflict in Ukraine was pointless, which is true, but also that the bad guys were, at least by implication, those headed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which was a pack of propagandist lies, except in pro-Russian talking points, something that only fuelled the suspicion that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his gang in the Kremlin had Kompromat on Trump.

But not to worry, The Donald then showed the world his superior diplomatic ability by inviting Zelenskyy to the White House, and with his monumentally stupid Vice President J D Vance, ambushed the Ukrainian President, following that by having the visitors’ delegation thrown out. He stopped aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine. As if Russia was pulling his strings.

Then he made sure that the word got out: Ukraine could have had a deal, although what kind of deal was not told. European leaders reaffirmed their support for Ukraine; Trump became enraged and claimed the EU was “very, very nasty”. He then rambled at length about the EU having been formed in order to screw over the USA. Not much Art Of The Deal on view here.

Nor was there much art in Trump’s next move, reported by Kyiv Post: “Trump reportedly won’t restore military aid or intelligence sharing with Ukraine - even if Kyiv and Washington strike a deal on mineral resources - NBC News … He wants Zelensky to cede territory to Russia, take steps toward holding elections, and possibly step down”. Some deal he’s offering, or maybe not.

As for his understanding, or lack of it, of actions having consequences, as he rambles, threats, and blusters, orders for F-35 fighter aircraft are being cancelled in favour of alternatives built not in the USA. More jobs lost, more momentum for the economic downturn. His Ukraine ceasefire proposal was effectively ignored by Putin. But then came the fruits of that diplomacy!

“THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION” he told. But not to worry, “I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared”. Except this was very obvious Kremin propaganda. And that Peace Prize was not getting nearer.

Maybe he could get the press to be a little nicer to him. Not after ranting “These newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop. It has to be illegal ... it just cannot be legal”. The one who brought back free speech, eh? Trump’s deal making wizardry is just a sham. The Russians are laughing at him. He’s crashing the economy.

But he is good at rambling incoherently. So that’s all right, then.

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Zelenskyy Encounters The Stupid Zone

And so it came to pass that, after Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer visited the White House and supposedly got Combover Crybaby Donald Trump in a more amenable frame of mind regarding the future of Ukraine, that country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington DC to experience for himself the masterly negotiating skills of the orange man-baby.

Except that no such skills were on display, because this, like the rest of the myth surrounding Trump, is horseshit of the basest quality. The Donald is only a serious businessman for the purposes of The Apprentice; in real life, he is a serial failure in such matters, and in all likelihood could not negotiate his way out of a paper bag. Nor could his Vice-President, J D Vance.

Zelo Street described Vance as a moron, because he is a moron. This skill was on full view as the world’s media assembled to see just how much successful softening-up had been performed on Trump earlier in the week, only to discover that the answer to that one was None At All.

Worse, it was clear that the sole reason Zelenskyy had been invited to DC was to humiliate him in front of the assembled media representatives. The problem for Trump and Vance was that he declined to be humiliated, and instead remained in combative mood when confronted with the onslaught of weapons grade stupidity from two individuals more ridiculous than Laurel and Hardy, but without any of the talent, or, indeed, any of the laughs.

Vance decided to talk about diplomacy. Zelenskyy had news for him: “Putin broke the ceasefire. What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you speaking about?” JD, for his part, fired back as if playing the lamest PR for the University of Lame in Lame City in the state of Lame. “I think it's disrespectful to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media”.

Kaitlin Collins of CNN noted “What just happened in the Oval Office was nothing short of remarkable. What began with questions about security guarantees for a ceasefire with Ukraine turned into an angry shouting match between Trump, Vance and Zelensky. Trump was fuming, ending with, ‘We have empowered you to be a tough guy…You either make a deal or we are out. You don’t have the cards.’” What deal would that have been?

Aaron Rupar had more from Trump: “Don't tell us what we're gonna feel. You're in no position to dictate that. You're in no position to dictate what we're gonna feel. We're gonna feel very good and very strong. You're right now not in a very good position. You're gambling with World War 3”.

Who was dictating to whom, though? Clearly, more sneering humiliation was needed to show the foreigner who was boss. And so it was that a deeply stupid questioner called Brian Glenn piped up “Why don’t you wear a suit?!? Do you own a suit?” Who is this Brian Glenn? As if you needed to ask.

Drew Harwell of the WaPo knew. “The reporter who asked Zelensky if he owned a suit, Brian Glenn, is from the pro-Trump network Real America’s Voice and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend. He got one of the rare Oval Office interviewer spots after the White House blocked the Associated Press”. Mehdi Hasan added "What a joke this country has become. Far right Trump flatterers cosplaying as journalists in the Oval Office”.

It got worse: the Trump gang then asked the Ukraine delegation to leave the White House, a move which was briefed to Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) as “kicked out”. At FNC, Bret Baier, formally one of their more sane pundits, suggested to Zelenskyy that he should apologise to Trump. But for what? A deliberate, crude and pointlessly stupid ambush?

Ron Filipkowski of Meidas Touch concluded “Trump and Vance needed to create an incident to provide a justification for their pre-planned abandonment of Ukraine now, then separation from NATO in the near future. That’s what that was all about, and that was always the way a second Trump term was going to go”. And the free world needs a new leader. Sharpish.

The USA is now in the hands of deeply stupid people. As in, more deeply stupid than any of their predecessors. Be afraid, people. Be very afraid.

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Ukraine Extortion - Trump Fans Silent

There is no finer example of how populist politics is a total crock of crap than the reaction of its leading British practitioners to the brazen attempt by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and his gang to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s mineral resources, while giving that country no security guarantee. To this, the Trump fans in the UK have fallen silent.

As Josh Rogin told his followers on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week, “Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine’s future mineral reserves. Zelensky politely declined to sign it”.

Do go on. “This plan, which I have now seen, was presented to Zelenskyy by U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink several days ago, in advance of Secretary Bessent’s trip to Kyiv … In today’s meeting with U.S. lawmakers, Zelensky was telling them about this paper, which many of them didn’t already know about, not the other way around. Zelenskyy said he could not sign it because it didn’t contain any security guarantees for Ukraine”. That’s extortion.

Added to the outburst by alleged Vice President and confirmed moron J D Vance, and the talks about Ukraine that have not included invitations to any European countries - or Ukrainians - and we see the intended endgame of the Trump gang - to sell both Ukraine and the rest of Europe down the river.

Quite apart from the immediate loss of US soft power, and indeed influence, this dereliction of duty to its allies had the FT’s editorial writers concluding “Europeans need to start preparing fast for the day when the US security guarantee to Europe is definitively removed … It should also mean a European mutual defence pact, outside NATO, that extends beyond the EU”.

There was more. “Trump will use any leverage he has to force America’s European allies into compliance on issues from trade and security to their domestic politics. That means that Europe must now start the painful process of ‘de-risking’ its relationship with the US, looking for areas of dangerous dependence on America and stripping them out of the system”.

Which is a way of saying it’s serious. So what of the Trump cheerleaders? Former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who was, let us not forget, kicked out by his own party in disgrace, has tried a little too hard to spin his way out of it: “Trump is not betraying Ukraine”. Fraid he is, Bozo. But that bit doesn’t get a mention. Not in selective Bozo world.

But at least he admits Europe will have to “step up”. Something that does not trouble Liz Truss, the very temporary Prime Minister who was outlasted by a lettuce. She’s too busy recycling rubbish from the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. So what of Farage, biggest Trump fan of all?

Nige is banging on about putting a windfall tax on renewable energy, in a move which would increase household bills significantly. That’s the level of populist idiocy coming out of Reform UK. Oh, and he’s still whinging about nearly losing his Coutts bank account. No word on Trump’s attempt to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s GDP in return for nothing at all.

Farage’s delusion extends to portraying Himself as the next Prime Minister. But not a peep on his pal Donald selling the whole of Europe down the river, so not a peep on what he would do when faced with a whole host of those Difficult Decisions about a European army that he’s been frightening the crap out of his target audience over. Not that he’s a Putin apologist, you understand.

Whatever your opinion of Keir Starmer, he is prepared to tackle the problems posed by the Trump gang ripping up the USA’s security guarantees that have helped keep the peace since 1945. Bozo is editing it out, Liz Truss isn’t talking about it at all, and Farage … don’t make me laugh. Mr Thirsty is more concerned about his current account status to bother with that.

Populism meets political reality. And promptly scuttles off elsewhere.

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J D Vance - You’re A Moron

Those who thought that the vice Presidency of J Danforth Quayle, the one who had problems spelling such complex words as POTATO (to which he insisted on adding a spurious E), defined the most stupid holder of that office, have now been asked by the current incumbent, J D Vance, to Hold His Beer. Because Vance is not merely stupid. He is a bona fide moron.

This should come as no surprise: he is, after all, Veep to Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, the individual (one hates to use the dignifying term “man” in this instance) least suited to be President since, well, the proclamation of the Republic back in 1783. Trump is monumentally stupid. So his deputy must, to preserve the dignities, be yet more stupid. Vance is ideally suited to that.

Just how stupid Vance really is was demonstrated yesterday in the full glare of publicity: he addressed the Munich Security Conference, to tell all those Goddamned YURPEENS just how wonderful Himself and his world view were. He lectured them about FREEZE PEACH and MOXY, as if the USA had both, and YURP had neither. This went down like a cup of cold sick.

Which may have had something to do with there being no curbs on freedom of speech anywhere in western Europe, while the Trump gang are excluding those who do not toe their particular line from press briefings, and accompanying The Donald on Air Force One. Trump and his supporters have significant past form for harassing media folk of inconvenient view.

Also, as the Guardian pointed out, “Many in the hall were swift to say that Vance had still refused to accept that Trump lost the US presidential election in 2020, a refusal that ultimately resulted in a mob of the president’s supporters attacking the US Capitol”. Trump’s acceptance of MOXY is the kind where he wins. Vance is too scared, or stupid, to accept reality.

And get this claim: “For years we have been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values, everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy, but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others we ought to ask ourselves if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard”. Whoops, flat-out lie time!

As with Reform UK’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage claiming that the EU interfered in member states’ elections, this is total crap. Vance’s stupidity extended to believing that his audience would not have a grasp of reality superior to that of Himself Personally Now.

It also extended to believing he would secure more approval by cracking this year’s Lamest Joke Ever™. The BBC’s Frank Gardner noted “He made a joke at one point saying, ‘if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk’. And then he paused for the applause, to be met with absolute dead silence”.

False equivalence. Paranoia. More stupidity. Meanwhile, in the USA, supposed land of FREEZE PEACH and MOXY, judges are under attack for upholding the law, when that law goes against one of Trump’s executive orders (an executive order is not law, and the President cannot make law without the agreement of Congress). Instead, Vance kicks YURP.

But YURP enjoys freedom of speech, and of expression, rather more than the USA right now, with media outlets self-censoring to keep on the right side of the Trump gang. Vance is too stupid to see that comparing western European Governments to totalitarian states, while his own country is ruled over by an enfeebled man-baby and an unelected Nazi, is not a good look.

Good of him, though, to remind YURP that it needs to look after itself rather more, and depend on the Trump régime rather less. Vance could do worse than letting us all know what his country’s position on Ukraine really is. Because, right now, we don’t know. Except that Trump gives the impression he is about to sell the Ukrainians down the river.

Then he can learn a bit more about YURP. And stop being a moron.

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Elon Musk IS Dr Strangelove

The titular character in Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy Dr Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, is a senior advisor to the US President, who just happens to be a former Nazi who refers to his boss as “Mein Führer”, and whose right arm has to be restrained from giving Nazi salutes. Played by Peter Sellers, it was both dark and hilarious.

Because it was fiction. Otherwise, audiences might not have found the film’s ending, unavoidable nuclear armageddon, to be palatable. Fast forward more than 60 years, and yesterday came the moment when another senior advisor to a US President gave a Nazi salute in public, only for some who should have known better to pretend it was nothing of the sort.

Elon Musk, the unfeasibly rich and staggeringly unpleasant presence who has single-handedly turned Twitter of old into X, a cesspit of far-right intolerance, ignorance, paranoia, misinformation, flat-out lying, and malicious abuse, addressed a gathering in Washington, DC, after Combover Crybaby Donald Trump had been inaugurated as the 47th President of the USA.

As the BBC told, “Elon Musk has caused outrage over a one-armed gesture he gave during a speech celebrating the inauguration of Donald Trump. Musk thanked the crowd for ‘making it happen’, before placing his right hand over his heart and then thrusting the same arm out into air straight ahead of him. He then turned and repeated the action for those sitting behind him”.

There was more. “Many on X, the social medial platform he owns, have likened the gesture to a Nazi salute. In response, Musk posted on X: ‘Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired.’” So, O Great One, why the need to edit it out of the video clip posted later?

The Mirror has noted “Elon Musk's Twitter account edited a moment from his Donald Trump inauguration speech where he appeared to give a 'nazi salute.’ … To many it appeared Musk had performed a fascist salute … [but] by the time Musk posted video of his speech to his X/Twitter account, the moment had been replaced by a crowd shot”. And there was, again, more.

“Last week, Musk hosted an online interview with Alice Weidel, the leader of AfD, Germany's far-right party. During the exchange, Weidel made the repeatedly debunked claim that Hitler wasn't far-right, but a communist or socialist - to which Musk agreed”. Which manages not to explain why socialists and communists were one of the Nazis’ first targets. Also, “Musk has often praised AfD, saying: ‘only the AfD can save Germany.’”

Those who specialise in this kind of thing were in no doubt. “Claire Aubin, a historian who specializes in Nazism within the United States, said Musk's gesture was a ‘sieg heil', or Nazi salute … Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, said: ‘Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.’” Cue the excuses.

It was “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute” was the ADL’s offering. Others claimed that “Elon” - because they’re all on first name terms with The Great Man - had autism. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph called it an “odd-looking salute”. The people were urged not to believe their eyes and ears.

Grace Blakeley was unimpressed. “Elon Musk, Henry Ford … Two men who made billions making cars … Two men who preach about free markets but rely on huge government support … Two men who went to war with their unions … Two men who idolize the Nazis … These are the leaders of 'free market' capitalism.” And one of whom has a twitchy right arm.

Even Steve Bannon has denounced Musk as “racist” and “truly evil”, vowing to “take this guy down”. Waitman Beorn, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, was in no doubt what had happened. “Holocaust historian here. Let me see if I can help. That wasn't a ‘weird salute.’ It was a Hitler salute. Because Elon is a fucking Nazi … Hope that helps”. Musk showed us who he is.

Maybe we should believe him that one time. Worrying and disturbing.

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Banksy And Wiggy Ha Ha Ha

Reform UK’s self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has at least one principle which he maintains unwaveringly, and that is the concept of strong borders. No-one should complain at nation states deciding for themselves who is let in, and who is not. But now a problem has entered, and it concerns one of his Bestest Pals from the recent past.

During the campaign leading up to the 2016 EU referendum, Nige was backed to the hilt by the self-styled “Bad Boys of Brexit”, those being businessman Arron Banks, and his slippery sidekick Andy Wigmore, the pair giving the appearance of being the very personification of J J Hunsecker and Sidney Falco. Banksy and Wiggy were, also, big Trump backers.

So it was no surprise to see Banksy wanting to celebrate the return of The Donald to the Presidency, at a rooftop venue in Washington, DC. But here, as Caroline Wheeler of the Murdoch Sunday Times has told, a problem entered, as in, Banksy didn’t. Here’s what she had to say about it.

“Arron Banks, the multimillionaire businessman who helped fund the Brexit campaign, is unable to attend his own £150,000 party celebrating Donald Trump’s return to the White House after he was denied entry to the United States … [he] was due to host 300 guests at the lavish ‘Stars and Stripes and Union Jack Party’ on the ­rooftop of the historic Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington this Friday night”. Except, now, he wasn’t. Do go on.

“Invitees include the president-elect and members of his family, Elon Musk, the US senators Rick Scott and Pete Ricketts, and the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The guest of honour is Farage … But Banks set to miss the occasion after his electronic entry permit to the US … was blocked. His business partner, Andy Wigmore has also had his entry to the US denied. The pair claim it is a ‘political decision’ and criticised the Biden administration”.

What was that about sovereign nations controlling their borders? How did Nige and his pals put it … “taking back control”? How will Isabel Oakeshott spin that one? And when will the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog mention it (no word as yet)?

But all is not lost for Banksy. According to the Mirror, “A furious Mr Banks appeared to mockingly declare that he would instead cross the border from Mexico ‘along with the hundreds of thousands of gang members’ to join the party”. Of course he would. I mean, that “Open Tex-Mex border” claim must be true, mustn’t it? Wouldn’t be just a right wing pack of lies, would it?

The Mirror also had more on Banksy’s response. “Mr Banks blasted the decision to deny him US entry, branding it ‘a political decision and revenge for the failed Russia Hoax’. In a long statement, he ranted about President Joe Biden being to blame and hit out at the ‘dying fake media’”. Rather than the more prosaic explanation, which is that he was just refused entry to the USA.

Nige was, of course, all sympathy. “He was also backed by Reform UK leader Mr Farage, who posted online: ‘Arron Banks is a good man and a friend of America. It is astonishing that US Citizenship and Immigration Services have denied him entry for the inauguration.’” And Banksy wasn’t finished.

“I was accused of Russian collusion in the Brexit campaign, investigated and cleared by the National Crime Agency … I would estimate it cost me over £100million in lost business and legal fees. My businesses were de-banked and attacked by vicious opponents during this period. All for supporting Brexit and President Trump”. All of which has stuff all to do with his entry denial.

As a spokesman for the US embassy in the UK put it, “Visa records are confidential under US law, therefore we cannot discuss the details of specific visa cases”. Of course not: they can leave the discussion aspect to Banksy, Wiggy, and Mr Thirsty to pontificate that it’s all so terribly unfair.

While many others look on, try unsuccessfully to suppress the urge to laugh out loud, and conclude “Oh dear, how sad, never mind”.

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Elon Musk - A Suitable Case For Treatment

Appallingly entitled and obscenely overmonied migrant Elon Musk is yet another example of what happens when there is no-one present during the time he was supposed to be growing up to say NO. Errol Musk, his father, was maybe too busy getting his own step-daughter pregnant.

Son Elon, who has been rambling and ranting about “Grooming Gangs”, had no problem being seen out and about with Ghislaine Maxwell, pal of the now deceased Jeffrey Epstein. Maybe there was, once again, no-one there who could have told him that this was Not A Good Idea.

Musk Junior’s attacks on the UK Government are yet another example of how this supposed genius trusts far-right disinformation, and what looks like a combination of ego, paranoia and ignorance builds on that misplaced trust to show that The Great Man not only does not know what he’s talking about, but also believes that all those bots and trolls backing him are real people.

So it was that he declared “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government”. What’s he proposing? Invasion? Who in the UK voted for him? Whisper it quietly, but the most recent poll asking voters their attitude to Musk brought forth a mostly negative response. Also, he had already showed UK voters what a complete clown he is.

Having previously had Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage cosy up to him, suggesting that an unspecified number of Musk millions would be deployed in support of Nige’s limited company, sorry, party, he yesterday about turned and told his adoring followers “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes”. Yeah, right.

Reform UK is a one-man band. And that one man is Farage. None of the other Reform UK MPs would have a snowball in hell’s chance of matching the electoral performance achieved by Mr Thirsty, either as head of UKIP in days past, or the Brexit Party in the last European Parliament elections in which the UK participated, or at the last General Election with Reform UK.

Then, overnight, it got worse. On Reform UK, he more or less endorsed Rupert Lowe: “I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense”. That’s Reform UK stuffed, then. And yet worse. “Starmer must go. He is national embarrassment” he concluded, as he quoted someone talking well, but lying badly. Then came “Starmer is complicit in the crimes”, followed by the opening of a new front, with “Gordon Brown committed an unforgivable crime against the British people”. WHAT?

Musk quotes Radio Genoa (yes, Radio Genoa) claiming that the Southport attacker was a Muslim (he wasn’t), then sneers “Prison for Starmer”. Could he get more unhinged? Don’t ask: “Am starting to wonder how anyone made it through childhood in Britain without severe trauma”. And so he comes to quoting Visegrád24. Another source of far right disinformation.

He quotes Ian Miles Cheong, who is so close to the action in the UK, as he lives in … Malaysia. And, just to be on the safe side, congenital liar and peddler of far-right disinformation Peter Imanuelsen, who claimed for some time to be in Sweden, and calls himself Peter Sweden, but in fact lives in the Not Really Swedish At All town of Northallerton. In the UK.

And now he’s back to defaming politicians. “Gordon Brown sold those little girls for votes” … “British legal system is not serving its people” [there is no “British legal system”, as Scotland has its own] … “Starmer was deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”. And then came the pièce de résistance, which confirms Musk as totally barking.

Once more quoting Visegrád24 on calls for a new inquiry, he declares “What an insane thing to say! The real reason is that it would show how Starmer repeatedly ignored the pleas of vast numbers of little girls and their parents, in order to secure political support. Starmer is utterly despicable”. But all those bots and trolls back him, so that’s all right then. Except it isn’t.

Elon Musk may be rich. But, sad to say, he can’t recognise reality. End of.

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Labour - A Study In Cowardice

Once more we are informed that Rachel Reeves is asking spending departments of Government for cuts. There have been tax rises, but little investment. Pensioners, the disabled, those on or below the poverty line, and most recently WASPI women, all have been turned away. They will have to make do with less. It does not have to be this way, and well she knows it.

Someone bereft of ideas, versus ...

The Starmer Government has itself stuck in what Simon Fletcher called a “Right wing doom loop” in a recent Byline Times article (read it HERE). Ms Reeves has pinned her hopes on growth, but growth is not forecast to occur any time soon. Her embrace of economic orthodoxy means more needless austerity, more wasted years of poor economic performance.

That it does not need to be this way has been known for more than 85 years, since the first publication of The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money. John Maynard Keynes’ ideas, and, indeed, his prediction of where over-reliance on economic orthodoxy would lead, were not lost on a new generation of economists, as J K Galbraith later observed.

He later put this directly in The Age Of Uncertainty: “In 1937, recovery from the Great Depression was slowly under way; production and prices were rising, although unemployment was still appalling. The men of sound judgment now asserted themselves. They moved to cut spending, raise taxes and bring the federal budget into balance”. There was more.

“The few Keynesians protested; our voices were drowned out in the roar of orthodox applause. As the budget moved towards balance, the recovery came to a halt. Presently there was a new and ghastly slump, a recession within the Depression. It was entirely as Keynes had predicted. The men of sound judgment had made our case”. Pages 219 and 220 in my edition.

What is Ms Reeves doing? It looks very much like “cut spending, raise taxes and bring the … budget into balance”. And the forecast result, no growth in the foreseeable future, or even a recession, is, once again, exactly as Keynes would have predicted. The mistakes made in the USA in the late 30s were only countered by increased spending, this time on war.

... someone who was never thus constrained

The Keynesian remedy - running a deficit when the economy needs supporting - is known to any economist, or economic thinker, in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. It is available to any economy with control of its own currency - like the UK. For a country whose infrastructure is in such a run down state after fourteen years of Tory neglect, it seems a no-brainer.

Yet Starmer and Ms Reeves appear unable, or unwilling, to embrace the approach that served the Labour Government of the immediate post-war years so well. Britain was virtually bankrupt by 1945, yet Attlee and his team brought the Welfare State into being, along with a series of nationalisations, and of course the NHS. Plus, yes, more or less full employment.

Instead of actually taking action, though, we are assailed by a deluge of press releases masquerading as policy. One day it is the deeply dislikable Wes Streeting telling how he is transforming the NHS; today has brought Lucy Powell claiming, and as Treeza might have said, I am not making this up, “We're turning the tables to put ordinary people at the front of the queue”.

One slice of meaningless drivel after another. What does Powell’s assertion even mean? And all the while, there is a daily slew of bad faith knocking copy emanating from our free and fearless press. In a routine show of hypocrisy, they slate anyone they deem to be “talking the country down”, while they constantly talk the country down. But only when Labour are in charge.

As Simon Fletcher has observed, Labour is “relying on an argument that growth in the future will deliver a resolution to the country’s problems”. But what they are doing is not bringing growth, and in the timescale required, is most unlikely to bring growth. Thus they are talking themselves towards defeat, and worse, enabling the far right con men of Reform UK.

Keynes had the answers. His legacy still has them. Hello Rachel Reeves.

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