I don't, by any means, always agree with Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer, but his conclusion this morning is this:
I am being generous when I say that it is disingenuous of Sir Keir and his loyalists to suggest that they were faced with an either/or choice between defence spending in the name of national security and non-defence spending in troubled and distressed places abroad. The UK is an affluent country that likes to think it can punch above its weight. Even when money is tight, this nation is wealthy enough to wield both hard power and soft power.
The face of Britain that the Starmer government is now presenting to the world is one that aspires to be more muscular while also looking meaner. Muscular is necessary in the scary new world order. Meaner is a myopic mistake that will render Britain less safe.
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Rarely have I more vehemently agreed with one of your posts. Starmer and his team are facing enormous challenges, but also exciting opportunities. Sadly, it is hard to have confidence that they will rise to them. I hope our pessimism proves unfounded.
As you’ve said before, war spending particularly protects the assets of the wealthy so you could argue a more war time spending plan should include a wealth tax as a key way to pay rather than diminishing our soft power.
Aside from that, Labour could simply state that its long term non war defense spending is planned at X but whole hostilities continue in Ukraine and Europe generally it needs to take a war time mentality and that this justifies running a higher deficit to support hostilities ending sooner.
It could also claim some Russian frozen assets to cover some or all of this increased spending.
Focusing spending on domestically made military equipment could also mean the other prized metric of debt to GDP ratio is much affected by increased spending.
This is the time for some seriously grown up politics
I agree.
Did you know that Vance is yiddish for bed-bug (a variation on the German word Wanze). Is it Ok if I refer to the US vice-president as Mr Bedbug?
A bedbug in the oval office caused trouble.
I doubt it.
The grown up thing to do these days is to throw your lot in with the rich.
Thank you and well said, PSR.
Not just the rich, but the US variant.
One explanation is that some of the Labour and even European leadership (Baerbock in Germany, Haddad in France etc.) were sponsored by US interests. They have to appear like that. This is also why, despite today’s London summit, it’s unlikely that Europe will forge an independent path. In any case, I’m sure the US MIC is able to keep / has the means to keep them under control…
I’m just catching up on some office e-mails and read two from City trade bodies about watering down the redress system as part of the industrial strategy. City firms and bodies have bent the chancellor’s ear before the spring statement.
The reference to grown-up politics in the trouble we are in has driven me to return, for one last comment; and only because I happened on a most unlikely short summary of where I believe we are, spoken by an American academic better informed than I am (seven minutes, 11.12-11.18am, on BBC Radio Scotland News, of all unlikely places). I wanted to suggest you find this somehow, because I believe it is quite different from the weight of near delusion in which the British Press is currently floundering. I can understand what Starmer is doing, but there is much less substance in all the ‘calm diplomacy’ than real substance. NATO itself is on a knife-edge, and the US is reaching a geoplitical accommodation with Russia.
The American is Phillip O’Brien, and he lays out what is happening; an analysis that I found convincing, and that seemed to me quite obvious. The disaster in the Oval Office was a positive; because Europeans, including us, can no longer hide from it; what is most terrifying, has been how hard we have been trying – for so long – to pretend it could be otherwise.
The O’Brien piece is usefully topped and tailed by a knowledgeable Ukrainian view from Oleksandr Musiienko, and two other academics, coming from a European and Brtish perspective. It makes grim listening; but it was overdue to hear it. All done between around 11.07-11.22am.
For what my additional opinion is worth I believe that JD Vance (forget Trump for a moment), represents a long established isolationist vision of the world with strong roots in America, for centuries; it just hasn’t been in power since before Roosevelt. Remember what Calvin Coolidge said, misquoted but the misquote more accurately represents the underlying geopolitical essence of the US: “the business of America is business”.
So, reality is grim.
What did they have to say about how it should be managed, John? Anyone can say it’s grim. That’s the easy bit. Now what?
The reality is that the USA was never much of a friend to Ukraine. The bilge about Ukraine having to pay back something like $500 billion is just that, total bilge.
First of all, the figure is highly inflated. Trump is an extortionist.
Secondly, the US provided old stock military vehicles to Ukraine and basically costed those vehicles – which needed a lot of work to be useful – as new vehicles which the US replaced them with, for itself. Biden wasn’t much better than Trump!
Thirdly, most of the money “provided” to Ukraine never left the USA; it was paid to the US’s military industrial complex on production of new equipment for the US to replace the old shipped to Ukraine. As Phillips P O’Brien, an American, put it in his podcast today (with Mykola Bielieskov) the US “screwed Ukraine whilst it was fighting for its life.” Friendship? With friends like that, etc., etc.
As for the minerals “deal” without a security agreement. What sort of deal is it where the US gets everything and Ukraine gets nothing? Ukraine would be an economic slave of the US and, at the same time, a vassal of Russia. It’s no wonder President Zelensky took offence at Comrades Trump and Vance. With no deal, no aid and no other involvement from the US, the US has no leverage whatever over Ukraine and that’s a plus, after all who – with the exception of Starmer (rolls eyes – see his comment in the National today) – would trust anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth.
O’Brien and Bielieskov discussed the state of affairs on the battlefield which is rather different to the propaganda – “doom and gloom” as they put it – spouted by Trump and a large part of the western media. In 2024, Russia had about 500,000 casualties and the loss thousands of vehicles which severely degraded Russia’s capacity for very small gains. O’Brien said Russia had gained less than 1% of Ukraine for all its massive losses. In the last month, they noted the tiny advances Russia had made had really slowed down.
Both were of the opinion that Europe will play a huge role in the outcome of the war but it needs to step up with money rather than talk. They were both of the opinion that Russia could be denied outright victory if Ukraine was properly supported by Europe (and others such as Canada).
The podcast was worth half an hour of people’s time.
Thanks
O’Brien is Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrew (Scotland) and has a substack that is very well organised and forthright – I can’t post links on this site as it will not take any post I make with them in it, but it is well worth a look as John suggests.
There is also an appraisal of Ukraine’s fighting strength and O’Brien’s substack openly challenges any view that Ukraine is ‘on the way out’. I’m not tuned into this enough to say otherwise but it is good to find an alternative and more hopeful view.
O’Brien treats Trumps alignment with Putin as obvious and a fact and that this is what seems to have been missed by Europe.
Again, I’n not making myself out to be clever or superior or anything, but from reading a whole load books and articles about Putin, Trump and movements of Russian money around the globe over the years I find it hard to believe that Europe has been so blind to this, never mind the United States that voted Trump in. Trump is Putin’s guy.
Something has gone seriously wrong and I wonder if it just that we are led people in the West who all mix in the same limited, gilded sphere and all Putin has done is ruthlessly exploited it, alongside a rapacious and greedy financial system that ask too few questions in the name of ‘doing business’.
Europe is led by politicians who have been told there is nothing they can do – and now we are seeing the consequences of that.
Phillips O’Brien podcast, made just before the Oval Office Ambush. https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/episode-26-trump-cannot-be-trusted
Incidentally, nobody has noticed the wink Trump gave Brian Glenn, a right-wing US Channel’s correspondent after he asked about Zelenskyy’s suit (probably a planted question). Or that TASS managed to have a correspondent in the Oval Office (at least that is the story circulated – he was kicked out).
I have listend to that podcast
Thank you and well said, John.
It’s great to read you again.
One should also consider Trump as a descendant of Andrew Jackson.
An interesting idea, with some merit.
O’Brien wasn’t trying to devise a brilliant solution; he is trying to explain what has happened and what it means – for us and Europe.
Starmer cannot be a bridge between Europe/US. The bridge has gone. Britain doesn’t have the leverage; it is in a bad position post-Brexit. Britain can’t settle this. What it can do is become part of a European effort. Its over.
Britain has to agree a plan with Europe to defend Ukraine. That is it. NATO is downgraded in US thinking. Trump is “aligned” with Putin here.
O’Brien gave two thoughts I had not heard before. There are no new armaments going to Ukraine from the US already; the armaments they are currently receiving are all Biden’s stockpiles; and there are no new appropriations being organised in the US. Second, Russia has been removed as a potential enemy in the cyber command.
O’Brien suggested the bigger worry is that the US becomes an ally of Russia.
Some of this is extraordinary, and I do not care to be the parrot for O’Brien’s thesis; or potentially misquote.
Please find it, and listen. Thanks for allowing me the space. We are living in a new age.
John
I get those points.
I am going to a long walk, with binoculars, to think in all of these issues. I note your points.
To me, the issue is many people seem to be playing draughts right now when we are actually playing chess.
It may even be the other way round. Either way, the queens are behaving very strangely.
Richard
Oh, and clearly it is not that easy to say; because Britain and Europe have completely missed what has been happening; worse, has been in denial – and is still in denial, or is that just shock?
Agreed.
See my last comment.
The world now has three mafia empires dedicated to making sure that their political, financial, tech elites, get much much more of the pie and the ordinary members of their populations get poorer in every sense.
The US Empire is only interested in the US economy and its elites dominating the rest of the world.
We are back to the “great powers” concept. Only this time Europe is not included.
Realistically there is little prospect that the EU + the UK can do anything productive to “stop” the disintegration of Ukraine.
Militarily the 1989 peace dividend means no effective armies and/or weaponry.
Take the UK armed forces they do not frighten the enemy nor impress allies. The two aircraft carriers cannot take to the seas without EU member navies providing the necessary support.
The EU + the UK will huff and puff but are unlikely to achieve much.
Regrettably Ukraine, which has fought extremely bravely, risks being thrown to the bear. With the bear and the eagle then dividing the spoils.
Where is the dragon? Looking to benefit in the rest of the world.
Expect the Baltic states to consider very carefully where their futures lie.
Oh as the Colonel says LINO will make sure that the City continues to prosper especially with its special junkie benefits to the detriment of the general public.
Starmer announced a short while ago that he was funding Ucranian defence from frozen Russian assets not the British taxpayer.
Arguably a tax on wealth?
How is this to be understood?
This is not a tax on wealth.
This is sequestered, potentially illicit wealth held under sanctions laws.
Despite Starmer’s post-Thursday honeymoon with the press leading up to today’s ‘Euro summit’ it is still hard to see Reeves and Starmer responding to Richard’s wish that they wean themselves off their ridiculous fiscal rules. Raiding the aid budget to fund the increased defence spending was a grotesque parody of Trumpian memes – and showed how much of a US poodle UK is.
They seem to be conjuring spending for Ukraine from the National Wealth Fund – whatever that is, and from ‘proceeds of frozen Russian assets’ – so keeping themselves apparently still clamped to their rules.
As several of your commentators imply – today could be the high point for Starmer. If there were to be a cease-fire – freezing the present Russian gains- it is hard to see how a security guarantee would work in practice .Starmer’s reckless offer of British boots on the ground in Ukraine – is rejected out of hand by Russia, and seems a recipe for a potential war. British and French troops directly facing Russian troops on Russia’s borders seems crazy. All sections of Russian political opinion have historically feared – encirclement by Nato – not only Putin (see ‘The Lost Peace’ by Richard Sakwa) .
A ‘security guarantee’ sounds reasonable – like UN ‘peacekeepers’ – implying neutral observers or even troops – but certainly not NATO members.
Its hard to see how this could come about – but surely there should be some UN involvement – together with US Russia and Europe – but ‘I wouldn’t start from here’.
be in practice .
In the US, at the moment, there are 175 wildfires burning in South Carolina. More than 4,000 acres burned so far. It looks hellish.
Trump is golfing in Mar a Lago and Vance is skiing in Vermont.
Grown up politics American-style.They don’t even care about their own country or people.
If Europe is to help, then the status of ECB has to be rescinded surely if they do not put their hands in their pocket?
Listening to the Today program, it’s sadly obvious that there are still far too many idiots in the UK who haven’t understood what people like John W have twigged, which is that the USA is not only no longer our ally, but quite possibly Russia’s ally and therefore our enemy.
The delusion that the UK can be a ‘bridge’, the US is our closest ally, we can’t do without their military, etc, etc.
Depressing and pathetic. At least Justin Webb on the Today program i has just asked the labour junior defence minister whether replacing UK jets with the F35 is a good idea given that if Trump wanted to he could just switch the bloody thing off.
He even asked if Trump was a Russian asset
Amazing
Has the penny dropped?
It’s probably dropping in the better informed circles amongst people who make the effort to dig into the background of people like Trump and his accomplices.
Maybe they visit this blog Richard. Whether the upper echelons of government have got it yet…
I was at one time reliably informed it was read everyday at HM Revenue & Customs.
Now, I do not know.