I was talking to a friend about my post on Donald Trump, and his attack on European civilisation, made earlier today. The thought that kept recurring was this: why are none of our political leaders standing up and telling Donald Trump where he can get off?
If I am right in suggesting that this is one of the defining questions of our era – if not the defining question – then what we are getting from our supposed leaders in all our major political parties is a resounding absence of leadership on the issue. They are, it would seem, totally silent.
I admit that, at various points in time, Labour has defended Sadiq Khan from attack – although often far too half-heartedly for my liking – but this attack is not just on him. It is on Europe as a whole - and so on all of us. It exists almost entirely because, according to the far-right in the USA, who are deliberately creating a pincer movement in alliance with Putin to squeeze Europe out of existence, our failure to uphold a white, male, “Christian” (in name only) elite and their imagined eugenic right to govern is what is leading us into terminal decline. Nothing could be further from the truth than their worldview.
Wisdom is not reserved for white people.
There is no evidence that men have any unique ability to govern, or that they are better at it than women.
The Christianity to which these people claim allegiance bears no resemblance to any form of Christian belief that I can recognise in the gospels of the Bible.
Most especially, the promotion of a society based on hatred of minorities – whether defined by race, belief, gender, orientation, skin colour, physical location, supposed ability, or any other criterion one might imagine – is totally contrary to every wisdom tradition ever known to humankind. All of them embrace one simple idea: that we should love our neighbour as ourselves. The language may vary slightly from tradition to tradition, but the core idea remains the same, and it is utterly alien to everything said by Trump and those who mimic him.
But there is no condemnation.
Not from Starmer.
Not from Badenoch.
Not from Davey.
And of course, not from Farage.
In that complicity of silence there are three messages.
The first is that they are too frightened to stand up for minorities, whoever they might be.
The second is that they are too frightened to defend this country, making all of their talk about the need to do so utterly pointless.
The third message is clear: there is a moral bankruptcy common to the lot of them which is truly frightening.
We really are living in dangerous times. We desperately need a politics of care. We are living with a politics of cowardice.
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Matt Frei has just discussed this on his LBC show, including an interview with a former US diplomat who seemed to agree with your assessment.
Thanks
What a contrast with the way Canada stuck up for itself when Trump turned on them. I’m very shocked by the lack of response from our politicians. It does look as if they are so used to considering neoliberalism to be a necessity that the ability to be shocked or horrified, when it mutates to outright fascism, has been lost along the way. Perhaps they think that they and their families will be OK whatever happens and the rest of us will have to shift for ourselves.
People are or once were afraid of Donald Trump.
I never understood what the majority of European leaders feared Trump. Vietnam yes, but not Europe.
This Trump fearing is waning. Trump is losing support across the US electorate in every voting group accept the true die-hard MAGAts, members of The John Birch society and other inborn genetic Neo-Nazis.
Trump is a lame duck politician. Do not misunderstand me, make no mistake, he can still cause trouble but it is more rhetoric and blowhard hot air than actual action. Not extending the Biden era subsidies for the ACA is going to cost the Republican big-time in the 2026 Mid-Term Elections
Trump really has very little left but 1:00 am rants on whatever social media he is using which his die-followers seem to live for.
The worm is turning and it is making a sharper and sharper turn each day.
What you describe is what Tim Snyder has called ‘the politics of inevitability’; this leads to the politics of eternity – perpetual wars for perpetual peace, & TINA.
I think most of common politicians (those we see the most of) now think it inevitable that we are heading towards some form of fascism. Some of them will think like some of those German politicians and statesmen in the 1930s that fascism can be ‘managed’ – just like they think markets today can be managed – by (ahem) ‘self regulation’ and ‘rational self interest’. Well, it won’t, OK? Dream on.
My advice is read Tim Snyder’s ‘The Road to Unfreedom’ (2018) and discover the joys of White Russian fascism, incubated in the crucible of the birth of Red communism but separated at birth. The proponents of this Russian Nazism took people like Carl Schmitt a lot further than you would ever imagine. My advice is to acquaint yourselves with the names of these people as soon as possible because it looks to me as though they will be bringing death to our doorsteps pretty soon.
We are contemplating an outlook far worse than Neo-liberalism in its lawlessness, more nihilistic than any German version of fascism and with a Christian religious perversion far worse than any radical Islam or Judaism (it’s as if there was no New Testament). It’s fucking scary and Vladimir Putin is its champion and Trump is well and truly in his pocket.
Prepare to repel, if nothing else.
They expect him to be gone soon either due to ill health or the invocation of the 25th Amendment.
Although there are people behind him who may financially benefit as his mental health deteriorates and/or he’s asleep most of the day; it might be to their advantage to leave him in post and use him for their own ends.
There are rumours that more Republicans will throw in the towel and leave Congress soon and he will be reined in.
Or something else will come up and drastically change the trajectory of US actions.
The NATO Secretary General called Trump “Daddy”. Perhaps they’ve collectively lost their marbles.
They’re gutless.
Whilst acknowledging that there is plenty of anecdotal stuff out there about Trump’s finality as a human being, the thing is to also consider about how he got there – the complicit networks (kompromat or willing) that got him where he is in plain view anyway.
To cut to the chase, is Putin going to just accept that one of his best projects – to use the greed of the West as a back door to bringing it all down – going to just wither away after the orange one wilts away?
My view is that Putin won’t. If Trump does fall, then the whole apparatus that put him there needs to be dug out like a tick and burnt because otherwise, like the said insect, the head will remain in the flesh and the Russian initiated political septicemia in the States and wider will continue. There needs to be investigations, trials, public commissions and long prison sentences for those involved and that goes for certain people over here too.
To paraphrase a similar quote on communism ‘It’s not Trump that is the problem now; it’s what comes after Trump that is the problem.’ That is the lesson we learnt after the wall came down – or should have. Will we learn it this time.
And we have a major issue everywhere – the U.S., Europe, the UK in that the politics of envy are being used against the very same people whom it is mobilising – that is to say that many people have no idea that they are being manipulated at scale. MMT has a key role in smashing the politics of envy by allocating resources more fairly; of destroying the envy engine room of austerity.
Well said. I might add to this accurate analysis the need to acknowledge the fluid propaganda power of social media. It is equal to that of the fluid power of money but is, as yet, little understood by our politicians who remain in hock to both global finance and global social media oligarchs. If both these global electronic economic and propaganda platforms could be managed by those motivated by the creation of a collective politics of care rather than personal predatory profiteering, the potential for a fast dissolution of our present day dystopia overnight is extraordinary.
Gemany has the second largest export surplus by value after China this is why Trump is attacking the EU.
I think that the only crumb of (desperate??) optimism there is is that once a pendulum has swung to its full, extended arc, history, physics and the irrepressibility of humanity suggest that it will swing back again.
Quite how far the pendulum has swung on its current arc though is, unfortunately, difficult to say. One can only hope that no more human suffering is involved before the turn.
How is Starmer going to manage his next huge U-turn, when Trump finally sinks from view due to senilty or 25th Amendment removal, or does something even Starmer can’t support (bomb Venezuela, seize a European owned oil tanker on the high seas, back a Russian invasion of Estonia, Finland, or Lithuania or Poland, turn the Capitol building into the Washington National Bingo hall, deport Hillary Clinton)?
Or do Labour plan to remove Starmer before then? It might be easier that way.
Watching Labour politicians U-turning makes me quite dizzy. Shabana Mahmood used to be quite a campaigner for more immigration, then the ministerial limousine hove into view, and zip! around she goes, 180 degrees, channelling Enoch Powell.
Labouring mightily not to be Labour sums up this shower of Starmer MP’s!
Along with triggering article 122 to take Russian frozen assets, it’s has been reported that the EU are threatening to sell off US bonds which could create a US recession, if the analysis is correct. Any thoughts?
I think I can be sure the EU is not trying to do that.
Who’s going to buy them? Plenty of people! Why? Because despite the denials the USA is a chartalist country like the UK!
There were rumours that Mark Carney & the EU coordinated US bond sales to persuade Trump to temper his tariff madness. It worked.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/11/canada-mark-carney-treasurys-sell-off/
This is where i first read it. https://open.substack.com/pub/deanblundell/p/breaking-the-eu-just-handed-ukraine?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Trump is undoubtedly a puppet leader installed to implement policies that no sane person wants to be associated with.
The puzzle is why no leader in Europe is prepared to call out Trump and in doing so, expose the shadowy figures behind his madness. Surely, any sensible politician on this continent can put up an argument against Trump’s spurious claims. If they don’t, they are enabling fascist dictators to re-emerge here. Nobody wants that dreadful prospect. Well, maybe a small minority see it as their only hope of political survival.
Sorry, wrong thread, but the comments on “12 questions about modern money” seem to be closed.
Thank you for “Ways and Means account”. I how have a name for future discussion. To try to understand the rest I did a thought experiment:
There is a town with 1,000 adults, aged 15 to 75, that
trade by barter (it’s a thought experiment). The town
has paved roads consisting of 5,000,000 small paving
stones that last a hundred years each. The town
council decides that every adult between 15 and 75
must quarry and lay 50 stones a year. That keeps
the system running in steady state forever.
Then the people decide they don’t want to work in
old age and when young start laying 60 stones a
year until 65, then none 65 to 75. The council
keeps a tally. After a few decades the system
returns to steady state.
Then, the council learn that the King will visit
next year and the main street has too many shabby
patches nearly a 100 years old. They decide that
for every 10 stones laid, that person can lay one
fewer stone the next and subsequent years (interest).
Then they realise if the young lay 80 stones for
the next 25 years, they will never have to lay
another stone again, and the system will collapse.
They could increase taxation to compensate, but
fortunately, a seam of silver is discovered under
the town hall, and they find it easy to stamp out
little silver tokens. They change the system
to paying a silver coin for every stone laid, and
tax the citizens 50 coins a year. The young people
still lay 60 stones a year, and accumulate 10 coins
a year for retirement. (The old are still allowed to
pay their taxes from their tally)
Then some genius starts exchanging coins for goods
and a money system is born. However, as every year
the young gain an additional 10 coins each, they
soon also discover rampant inflation. However, as
people hit 65 they start spending the coins
to pay their taxes and the system returns to steady
state, and inflation tapers to zero.
… continued …
But that is in the future, the King is going to visit.
The council decides to pay 2 coins a stone for the year
before the visit. But that still means they will be short
in future, so they have to tax more over the few years
before and after the King’s visit to maintain steady state.
The old complain, and so they decide that the old always
pay 50 coins a year, but the young pay more to offset
the increase in cost per stone.
For every state visit, the youth work hard, and spend
less time in the pub. The price of beer drops and the
brewer and publican sulk.
So I think that covers MMT. The Govt. issues the currency,
spends it to fund the state, and taxes the population to reclaim
the currency. It can run up a debt, but any changing in debt,
will cause inflation (or deflation).
In year 11 the population has an average of 100 coins each,
and will make another 10 that year. If the population
increases by 10% that year, or everyone can produce 10% more
goods per hour (or some combination), then the price of
goods and services might remain stable. If it was year 120,
when the system is already stable, there would be deflation.
I think change in debt, change in productivity, and change
in population are orthogonal axes in this thought experiment.
There will be a zero inflation surface in this 3D space,
but I’m pretty sure it isn’t parallel to the change in
debt axis.
I admit it’s Saturday night, and I am not checking your maths. Sorry.
I sent this on to my Labour MP suggesting she read it and try to stiffen Keir S’s backbone.
Thanks
On a similar vein, there is interesting article by Johnathan Freedland in Jewish News about why Jewish leaders are not speaking out about alleged (said that to avoid any legality on your website) anti-semitism from Farage when he was at school. Conclusion is, that, by their silence, they are moving themselves to the back of the queue for ‘scrutiny’ when the times comes that Farage is PM. Let’s hope that day never comes.
Here is the article. If I am allowed to post a link!
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/jonathan-freedland-why-britains-jewish-leaders-are-silent-on-farages-schoolyard-antisemitism/
This poem by W H Auden reflecting on September 1939 could have been written today
https://thepoetryhour.com/poems/september-1-1939/
Thank you.
Ed Davey is the only one of the political leaders who has spoken out against Trump, on multiple occasions
Don’t let Trump interfere with UK democracy, Davey tells PM https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg17q98zp4o
I stand corrected. And I did search before posting.
I have just finished watching a series by the paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi tracing 300,000 years of human evolution. It is a powerful reminder of how extraordinary our shared story really is.
Humanity exists because we migrated, adapted, and learned from one another. Cultural exchange is not a modern inconvenience. It is the foundation of our survival. Cooperation, curiosity, and the ability to absorb ideas across groups are what allowed our species to thrive, not isolation, purity myths, or rigid hierarchies.
When politics promotes fear of difference, it is not defending civilisation. It is denying the very processes that created it. An honest understanding of human history leaves no room for claims that diversity is weakness. Our past shows the opposite.
This maybe a naive observation, and perhaps little evidence to support, but could Starmer be working behind the scenes to wean the UK away from its dependence on and indeed collusion with the USA? While heaven forbid, not offending Trump? Nope? Ok just thought I would mention possibility.
I find Edward Ongweso’s blog The Tech Bubble useful to understand what is happening. Here he is explaining the AI bubble from the point-of-view of geopolitics:
https://thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-ai-bubble-in-2026-14
Look back to the beginning of the 20th Century and the USA promoting dollarization to Latin America (banana republics). Then in the middle of the 20th Century the production of oil in the Middle East became important and we had petro-dollars. That the Saudis and other Gulf Countries priced their oil exports in dollars was essential to maintain the dollar’s hegemony. Now those same countries with their massive sovereign wealth funds are paying for the development of the data centres to support AI based on American-designed chips. It is all very convenient that they are authoritarian regimes that do not need democratic approval at regular intervals for their actions. They are betting that compute will be the new oil and that with the world dependent on AI they will have a permanent income for when they have to stop pumping oil (whether from their oil reserves running out or because of climate change). Not surprisingly, Trump has no interest in Europe because electricity is more expensive there than in the USA and even more expensive than in the Gulf States, so it does not make economic sense to site data centres in Europe (whatever Starmer thinks).