I noted this in an email last night. You can see the source:
A number of thoughts follow.
First, who is questioning the value of government now?
Second, who is asking where the money is coming from?
Third, who is discussing whether the cost should be added to the national debt?
Fourth, who is worrying about whether their grandchildren will inherit the cost?
Fifth, who is saying there is no magic money tree?
Might we all, in other words, be modern monetary theorists, believing in the power of government and its ability to create money on demand when the chips are down?
Now, will the Telegraph allow informed debate on this? I doubt it, somehow. They are hypocrites, after all.
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Sixth: many/most/all? are probably well off and it is unlikely that apart from N.I. contributions they pay much UK tax.
Thus, should they be recharged the cost of evacuation?
Or.
Should the UK gov send the bill to the Israelis? (who started the whole thing). Or, the USA?
Jaw-Jaw is always better than war-war, but not if you are tRump (with an Israeli poodle – heel bengy! heel boy!) apparently.
I think your dog analogy needs to be reversed – Israel may only be the tail, but it certainly is the tail which wags the American dog. Do you really think the US would be attacking Iran without Netanyahu’s poison dripping into Trump’s ear?
Netanyahu has played the Republican party for years. Some of the Democrats too.
Ditto with Trump.
Putin has also managed Trump in a similar way.
IMHO they have recognised Trump’s weakness -his vanity-and exploited it.
I prefer the analogy sbout the dangers of riding a tiger, or the appropriately Persian fable about the scorpion and the turtle.
The problem is working out which party is which, and when.
And Israel is not just Netanyahu, and the USA government is not just Trump. Those 2 unstable and desperate crooks have more calculating crooks behind them, who will happily dispose of them when necessary. Their fall will not change much.
But this is being spent on a worthy cause, rescuing wealthy British tax exiles, not squandered on poor people who will spend it all in our economy. Seriously though, this is all some people think of the government as, an entity to protect them when they need it, but an inconvenience when they don’t. Laws to protect them and bind others.
My late mother always said
people are always happy to back laws and pay taxes for things they want or directly benefit from. But to support others that’s another matter.
Might it be that “The Telegraph” does not facilitate, let alone encourage, informed debate because it is a committed member of our current political-mass information cartel-caste?
Might it be that the Manchester by-election has sinificantly damaged this dominating, oligarchic collection of anti-democratic conspirators?
I think it might have increased their willingness to fight back hard.
Having seen the harrowing and damning Ch4 documentary about the evacuation of Brits & (some) Afghans with permits from Kabul (Alex B de Pfeffel Johnson was PM), I am not optimistic about our ability to carry out such an evacuation, especially as missiles fall on runways. “Thousands…” – how?
Now that Starmer has put a target onto every vessel/plane carrying a Union Jack…
I await GB News articles from economic migrants, Gulf residents Tice, Oakeshott etc. to divert us from stories about dead Iranian schoolchildren. Maybe they are too busy chartering helicopters.
https://whatson.ae/2026/01/disney-ceo-bob-iger-reveals-location-of-disneyland-abu-dhabi/
They should have followed Netanyahu to Greece.
Of course if you are a die-hard MAGA supporter or a fan of Rev Mike Huckabee, then this all means that Jesus will soon appear to raise you heavenwards, safe from a final global conflagration. A lot of people in the West Wing believe this or say they do. (I don’t – it has nothing to do with Jesus, and is terrible theology).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15384877/All-stars-ditched-UK-Dubai-Luisa-Zissman-Kate-Ferdinand.html
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/gallery/celebrities-who-live-dubai-explosions-36795941
Watching how Laura K interrogated the Green leader Mr Polanski after his statement asking for calming down over Iran, the dirty fight back has begun already – he did very well to keep calm under her constant accusation that he was not answering the question. You should all watch it, I’ve not seen such a display of quadruple standards in my life since they put Corbyn through the mincer.
The same principle of how we pay applies to where the UK found the money to run RAF sorties in the attack. We can always pay for aggression and defence.
Laura K – she will be made a dame for her service to the Establishment for sure. She is not a journalist; she is a fifth columnist for sure.
PSR. If you don’t follow her already, I can recommend the brilliant Laura Kunessberg parody account on Substack ‘Normal Island News’: https://www.normalisland.co.uk/
Satire at it’s best. She’s on Spotify as well as all the major social media platforms. This is what has kept me ‘sane’ for the past few years.
Just chatting with a very long standing friend who is British and currently lives/works in Dubai. The evacuation is really for stranded tourists rather than residents; he and his family will not be leaving. We can all agree that whether you live in Tehran, Tel Aviv or Dubai this is terrifying and, for many, worse….. so forgive me if I delve into arcane/trivial tax issues.
It does raise longer term questions about the rights/responsibilities British Nationals abroad. He has not lived in the UK since 1986 ish and worked in Japan, HK, Singapore. He is a wealthy man who has not contributed much to HMRC over the decades but does recognise the benefits of UK citizenship.
He is delighted by the change in non-dom rules. Previously he would have been in the IHT net, now he is not.
He has made voluntary NI contributions so is eligible for a UK pension…. but the amount paid is far less than he might have paid if he worked in the UK.
As he ages his health insurance costs increase but, ultimately, he always has the backstop of returning to the UK where the NHS will take care of him.
So, the question is – what sort of tax regime would be “fair” for someone like him?
A US style worldwide passport based tax.
If you want the benefits, you pay the price.
Of the 76,000 UK Nationals mentioned in that disgusting rag, it would be interesting to know how many of them are not “ordinarily resident” in the UK.
In my view, only those who can demonstrate that they are truly short term visitors should be offered assistance to leave.
Those who cannot, should be left to shift for themselves.
Unfortunately, I can see that a certain individual would be able to say, “but I live in two houses in Clacton”. The fact that he is vanishly unlikely to be seen there of course is by the way.