Jesus wept.

Trump personality cult - just without the personality?

It makes my soul despair that somehow, my party membership is being spent on this crap, by these midwits....

It only first flew a *decade* ago - what are they doing: building it out of unicorn feathers and unobtanium?

The worst?

That anyone in government thought anything was more important than informing the PM that the British Ambassador in Washington had failed DV vetting because of his *relationships* with foreign, hostile govts.

Starmer sets the tone for this stuff - it's his legalistic, box ticking bag.

Pretty much..

a man in a suit and tie has his mouth open ALT: a man in a suit and tie has his mouth open

No, but it's normal for any candidate for the job to hold DV anyway - normally you'd have to be a career diplomat, and the last time it wasn't was during the 1970's.

This appointment just broke *all* the rules - every one of them. And I'm shocked to my very core that it went massively wrong...

I - also a previous holder of DV - simply do not believe that the Head of the Diplomatic Service would over rule a failed vetting without a clear Ministerial or PM instruction.

I just don't.

Add to this that the FCDO was against Mandelson being appointed anyway - so why go into bat for him?

In our former parish I asked the Land Warfare Centre crew if the British Army had the combat power to take a city the size of Bristol from an insurgent force of 2000 with ATGW.

The answer was no.

Completely unserious.

I'd be interested to see some work on whether dropping CASD & all that comes with it, and going for an air launched ASMP type weapon on Typhoon/GCAP - & all the stuff that would come with it - GBAD/airframes/dispersal/hardening would save much...

obvious thing is nuclear sharing - Poland, Nordics?

@antoniabance.bsky.social interesting social issue that I hadn't thought of before - but look at the brilliance of the storytelling, the narrative - the introduction, then B, C, D, & E - and here's what I'm doing about it, my successes, and what needs to change.

More of this from Lab MP's please!

Seems fairly irrelevant - it's the president as CinC who decides where US forces go, and whether they fight...

Trump can *de facto* withdraw from NATO by ordering US forces to not fight/turn up. The *de jure* stuff is a bit moot at that point.

Did anyone without an industrial Crack habbit believe for half a second that a Trump led US, and probably whoever succeeds him, would have come running when Putin fancies a bigger Baltic beach?

I don't, and doubt Putin did either.

NATO is dead. The best thing would be for the US leave...

Amusing that your autocorrect, like mine, replaces US with IS, when - as we know, IS is a organisation run by religious lunatics who wildly overstretched themselves, while the US is...

Oh, hang on...

Had any planning applications for the mill been recently rejected?

Do we think she's just grifting, having always been a bit of a loon, but now over-egging the loon for cash - or do we think she's had some kind of breakdown and is actually *unwell*?

Nice guy. We should absolutely tie our national, political, and economic security to him....

I know a bloke in my CLP - 70-odd, lifetime member, alleged font of knowledge - who *genuinely* had no understanding of Labours role in the UK nuclear weapons program, or of Labours role in the creation of NATO.

Its like talking to a whale omelette...

GenQ? Hugo, why do so many I hear on Times Radio call her 'Kemi', and not Badenoch, or Kemi Badenoch - it's not something you'd hear about Starmer, or Corbyn, or Blair, or Brown...

Are you all mates or something?

Doesn't exactly reek of impartiality or a lack of bias - is it client journalism?

Tangential Q? @shashj.bsky.social - but were we (UK) considered to be trustworthy and fully onside by Denmark/France/Germany, or was there a bit of side eye as to where our loyalties really were?

It just struck me as odd that despite being a lead nation in JEF, our contribution was very small..

Anyone who thinks that Trump - or any likely successor - will send US forces to bleed and die to force the Russians out of Estonia, or Poland, is on glue.

The US is NATO is simply a disruptive diversion - best of they went so Europe can wake up and crack on with it's own defence.

Did anyone *actually* think that the Trump administration would give/sell Tomahawks?

Is there a portal through to another world where they aren't hostile to Ukraine, and friendly to Russia - or are these 'analysts' on glue?

Like, *all* the things.

Have you been there - it's 400m people on glue, Monster energy drinks, who think they're living in Grand Theft Auto...

It's almost a guilty pleasure of train-crash-watching to see an industry/sport work so hard, in so many different ways - biocide, raptor persecution, access issues, carcass dumping - to get itself banned...

This is crap.

The hereditaries aren't in the top 50 problems within our democracy.

What's Lab doing about:

Political donations?

Media ownership & governance?

Political lobbying?

The Lords stuffed with failures, donors and no-marks?

This doesn't even count as fiddling while Rome burns...

More on that 'US is a solid ally that absolutely will *never* drop you like a hot turd when some stupid shit takes their attention' story - coming in live....

Or *why* we would want any of our assets to be within a thousand miles of this shit show?

good will visit to Port Stanley?

I'll wager that Starmer is regretting his - understandable - decision to allow the US to use Fairford etc.. it's now a binfire with the wheels coming off - why get involved?

The immediate point is going to be when do we withdraw permission for the US to use Fairford and DG for Iran Ops - that can't be far away..

We just can't be involved in this shit - water supplies for fucks sake..?

And what will the 'punishment' for doing so?

At a very basic level, do we trust that the US will only carry out the interdiction strikes that we've consented to?

The risk was always that Iran would stop firing at UK allies/interests, and then, err... what?

This is the fundamental problem with dealing with this dishonest regime of arseholes..

Or, indeed, 1991...

So what makes this sinking a war crime within the Geneva and Hague conventions, regardless of whether it would be prosecuted within the US or internationally?