As ITV has reported (and I have edited, but very lightly):
Keir Starmer is set to present President Trupm with a bespoke red box, the likes of which are usually reserved for his majesty's ministers.
The box was made especially for the president and is adorned with the presidential seal and title, with Downing Street saying it “symbolises the special relationship between the UK and US”.
This is quite extraordinary. Of course, these boxes are symbolic, but symbols matter. And the message in this gift could not be clearer. Starmer is making clear that Trump, who is currently engaged in destroying free speech in his country, is a de facto member of his Cabinet. What he is saying is if Trump says jump, he will.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Just heard that the NHS is mentioned in the trade deal. That’s why he needs the red box.
Starmer is rapidly becoming a national embarrassment. How much lower can he stoop?
Can a PM be prosecuted for breaking the Official Secrets Act?
Trump loves status so one way of looking at it is that this just plays to that.
But the lack of awareness and reflection about the symbolism of all this by Starmer is appalling. And is Starmer endorsing Trump? Who is mates with Farago? Christ!
Listening to some AI guru talking about growth last night on C4 news, I reminded myself that all the benefits he was talking about – and it was mostly money – would simply accrue to the rich and their investors. It was so bloody obvious.
Agreed.
That was the boss of Nvidia.
I heard talk of a 10% boost to our GDP from AI, which, if true, is staggering (which is why it is likely untrue). And we all know how useful GDP is as a measure of how well a country is doing. Any productivity gains will go to the owners. How it could go to workers completely eludes me, seeing as they will likely lose their jobs.
My point in highlighting this absurd cost is that the return is not to people. This is the key issue.
A red box?
Couldn’t we find a crown going spare for him?
Crown representative of the 13 colonies.
Another question this visit raises is as to how the Democrats will react should they (hopefully) take back control in 2028? Many countries have humoured the Orange Gibbon for their own cynical ends, but we have rolled out the red carpet, literally. It will not be forgotten. Even worse, what will happen to the special relationship if we have Farage in No. 10 when the Dems are in power? As much as would like to see him kiss arse, I can’t see it going well. Imagine if Farage had to grovel at the feet of Alexandra Ocasio Cortes.
I can’t see the Democrats being in power in 2028 – rigging will guarantee otherwise. In fact, I wonder whether they will only be back when fascism in the States is overthrown, and then, hopefully, in some other form. They are, after all, also in the pockets of big business now. There is very little of merit in most of them. I stress, most.
You may be right, and perhaps Starmer knows something we don’t, hence the sucking up. As for the Dems, I doubt they can offer anything better to the oligarchy than the gravy train that Trump is offering, so they won’t put their money behind them. They could pivot to the left of course, but then the oligarchy would go after them and guarantee fascism to protect their wealth. The hope is that Trump messes up the economy for ordinary people so much that the Dems can pitch stability as their offer.
Ref boxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwUp-D_VV0&list=RDXUwUp-D_VV0&start_radio=1
I understand:
Starmer bans Australia’s ABC from Press Conference at Trump’s request and then lies about the reason.
(Trump: “Sir Starmer I don’t like ABC, see to it they are banned from my press conference” Sir Starmer: “yes massa”).
It is now very clear who is in charge.
I wish I could understand this British tradition of appeasing wannabe strong men, dictators, bullies and alike until it’s almost too late and then finding the right person who ultimately sends them back where they belong.
It’s probably another very British thing, like cricket… foreigners will never get it!
“if Trump says jump, he will”…and ask how high on the way up.
No steer needs to look at what the dictator is doing to Brazil and Venezuela. The threats and tariff levels to force these countries into submission.
These countries are standing up to the dictator. Unlike no steer who has cravenly bent over and been royally rogered by the dictator.
Expect the dictator to turn nasty if his golf course is not put on the rota for the British Open.
Well I am not suprised at all by this…
Starmer the harmer – (starmer nearly an anagram of master, nearly) part of the Trilateral commision… You dont get imvolved in that unless you have some insane ambition…
I assume this is known, but didnt Starmer fly over to the States ten years ago, on a private jet and said ‘tell me, how can I make it happen – how I can give you assange…’
I’ll be candid – I think this does not help debate, and is rumour mongering which I have little time for.
Please don’t do it again.
Apologies. I did regret posting.
Understood. Won’t happen again.
I understood that Starmer was a member of the Trilateral Commission for a period. https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmer-joined-secretive-cia-linked-group-while-serving-in-corbyns-shadow-cabinet/
And there is no doubt that Starmer as head of the CPS intervened In Julian Assange case on behalf of USA. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-to-drop-assange-extradition-in-2013-cps-emails-show
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/10/uk-prosecutors-admit-destroying-key-emails-from-julian-assange-case
I despair at the state we are in, it is utterly sickening that we are kowtowing to this vile persona. He is a convicted felon, a liar, a cheat etc, etc and Starmer et al welcome him, it all smacks of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.
When will the UK public wake up to what is happening in the States and acknowledge that Farage and his cronies want to apply the Project 25 playbook here.
I am extremely fearful of the future.
Profoundly depressing but not at all surprising.
Keep an eye on the flags – will we soon have a Stars & Stripes on show for Prime Ministerial appearances?
About 15 years ago I began to think about how to slow down the surveillance state’s monitoring of my life and also, to reduce my dependence on tech and financial monopolies.
Anyone who hasn’t yet given that attention, should do so.
We cant rely on our MPs to protect us. They are part of the problem. We can’t rely on our journalists either, they gave up years ago.
No one is coming to the rescue, it’s up to us. Almost everything we once relied on is under threat.
We CAN and WILL defeat this monster, but it’s going to hurt.
Hell’s teeth.
“If Trump says jump, Starmer will”
Guess who doesn’t need the instruction in the UK:-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/sep/18/jimmy-kimmel-charlie-kirk-comments-show-cancelled-suspended-monologue-trump-us-politics-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-68cc4fde8f0816a4522bd7ff#block-68cc4fde8f0816a4522bd7ff
While Starmer, captured by the US State Department, forelock tugs don’t forget that Bibi gifted Trump a menacing golden pager (nothing to see here?). Step out of line and Israel/I can do this to you.
So many short term memories as Trump covers the zone.
Isn’t the true underlying issue here that most people fail to understand that the use of money must be for both collective and individual purpose and how to achieve this.
This is akin to Marx’s M>C>M (money>commodity>money) argument where the added value or profit comes from the surplus value that the workers put into the process.
The state in its ability to create money (balanced by taxation) is putting some of that extracted surplus value back into the economy for collective benefit.
Most political parties in the UK fail to understand this including the Starmer government. Certainly this is true of the Democrat and Republican parties in the United States which regard Marx as the spawn of the devil!
Trying to balance the government’s books reduces the amount of money put back into the economy for collective benefit.
If you understand that it’s the control of capital that allows the extraction of surplus value under market capitalism then it’s morally irresponsible not to recognise the government can help to redress this imbalance to the best of its ability!
I have had a powerful and sobering interaction with AI this week. Twice.
I am not a programmer. I found an app on GitHub that someone had written but it needed tweaking to suit my purpose: it’s in Python, a computer language I do not know. After some hours of futile messing around I turned to ChatGPT.
It did an amazing job of fixing up the app, finding the original creator’s mistakes and mine. Got it working, and modified it to my direction, even making suggestions to make it function more effectively.
I had another app that I needed writing for a completely different platform. I was so impressed with the first effort that I used it again: this time it wrote a simpler app in seconds, and asked if I wanted a helper app to calibrate some functions. I did and it has now incorporated that into the original programming.
This is the end of highly-skilled and paid programmers if it is replicable across the industry, which think it is. A very negative economic consequence of AI.
Programmers are easily the most at risk…
UK is a vassal state and Starmer understands this.
We can hate him for it but this is our reality.
If we try to break away given the US embedded links in Finance, IT & Tech, Military, Intelligence Services, Media, Political parties, Think Tanks, we would get into trouble with the US very quickly.
Undoing this degree of supplication so ingrained in our establishment I would suggest is impossible without a huge consensus across all stakeholders. Even then it would take years & probably be painful.
Our grandparents would not be impressed.