What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

And so we come to the present and the question we must ask is,

Is it better that we take the path of Donald Trump, and seemingly bring about peace, an end to the killing, by capitulation with Putin - by granting him essentially victory in this war, and by allowing him to keep the territory he has won, dictate the terms of Ukrainian sovereignty in respect of his demands of neutrality, and thereby bring about the stabilisation of Russo-Western relations, indeed with the possibility of a rapproacment that could (emphasise could) bring about a new era of cooperation between East and West that could bring mutual advantage to both.

Or do we take the view of the EU/European leadership that any such capitulation would ultimately provide encouragement to Putin and would therefore simply be storing up trouble for a future point (sooner or later), in that he would ultimately return to his own expansionist agenda and we would then have to oppose him again, at quite possibly much greater cost to the whole of Europe?

It seems unarguable that a continuation of the hostilities would come at huge cost to Ukraine, and quite possibly risk seeing the conflict escalate to a point where the possibility of its going nuclear becomes an inescapable reality. There is little doubt that Putin sees this conflict as existential to Russian survival and as such his threats to take it to the nuclear level if necessary are not idle ones. I'm sure our European leaderships are aware of this, but it isn't visible in much of the commentary coming out of their mouths at the present moment. All of them say that they want peace and I believe them - who wouldn't want peace as opposed to war? But they clearly believe that continuation of the Ukrainian conflict until Putin is reduced to a point where he cannot either be seen to have gained advantage by his act of aggression (if we agree it as such) or dictate the terms of any negotiated peace settlement, is a price worth paying. Which is fine (unless you happen to be a soldier on the Ukrainian front line) as long as Putin is so reduced. And if, being so, he decides not to use his nuclear option. Because if he rather simply continues to advance, then where do we find ourselves?

If America cannot be induced to continue to support Ukraine with arms and information, then Europe is currently in no place to make up the shortfall, and Ukraine is doomed. Dead to the last man or reliant upon European troops to step in and take up the baton. In the latter case Europe becomes a 'legitimate' target for Putin and with no guarantee of US support in such circumstances, we find ourselves in a truly horrendous place. (The place is horrendous even if America do throw their weight behind us.)

Surely under such circumstances the clever money has to be to allow Trump to bring about his peace. To 'trust' Putin (fingers crossed behind our backs) not to immediately break the terms of the agreement. At least we could buy some time to get our ducks in a row defensively and Ukraine could cut its losses and begin to rebuild. I doubt Zelensky could survive this passage into peace, but this isn't about individuals. It's about not going down a slippery slope that builds into a momentum towards destruction that we cannot stop. And who knows - maybe it would actually work out.

It's at this point I'd love some feedback on this position. I don't live in expectation of it happening, but I'm flying blind here and am by no means confident that my interpretation of the situation is correct. It's just what seems to be the most likely to me. And still, as I was at the very beginning, I'm wanting to see the killing end. It's people that are important here, not leaders and their petty squabbling. Sure, leaders represent their people (supposedly), but that's small consolation if you are lying on the ground with a bullet between your eyes.

Damn, those Asmat from the Micronesian islands knew their stuff. They'd have had Donald Trump and Kier Stamer fixing on the gloves as a warm-up bout and then Zelensky vs Putin over 12 rounds as the finisher. Two victims, two winners and then everybody would have gone home to get pissed and talk about the fight. Take it from me; the Asmat knew best.

[peter]

Phew! It wants some keeping with.

President Zelensky has clearly been 'motivated' to soften his views in respect of signing the much desired (by Trump) minerals deal with the USA by the suspension of weapons supplies by the orange man.

Suddenly he's ready to sign the deal at Washington's convenience (presumably without his earlier demands that it be backed by guarantees of US participation in Ukraine's ongoing security).

One can only agree with former defence secretary Ben Wallace that there is a sniff of extortion in Trump's behaviour re the deal; both parties are aware that Ukraine is screwed without those weapons supplies and Zelensky would be a dead man walking if he retired to Ukraine without making serious attempts to get the situation back under control. Trump has all the cards in this (he wasn't lying in the famous Oval Office bust up about that) and he effectively, despite the best impression of Europe that it will step in to fill the breach, calls the shots. He who pays the piper, and all that.

Ursula von der Leyen - president of the European Commission - says that "Ukraine must be turned into a steel porcupine." It sounds good, but has absolutely zero meaning. Europe has no means by which this transformation can be brought about. Once American aid was stopped, Putin would have the freedom of the skies over the front line, his battle helicopters would wreak death and destruction on the Ukrainian forces sitting like ducks in the open countryside, and once beyond the thin built up areas behind lines, it's open countryside all the way to the Dnipro. Without resupply of armaments (America supplies all of the logistics for weapons supplies as well as half the weaponry itself) the Ukrainian soldiers would be left defenceless. If Trump also decides that his embargo also includes supplying the European countries with parts essential for weapons production - the weapons that they supply Ukraine - then it's game over. Starved of both weapons and intelligence on which to plan their campaign, the Ukrainian forces could not fight on.

So given this scenario, one understands Zelensky's rapid climb down and attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of the Americans.

But it isn't going to be easy. Vice President JD Vance has already responded by saying that it's actions that will be required, not words, and even if Zelensky signed the document tomorrow it's clear that his cachet with Washington is all about done. For the Trump peace plan to advance, one suspects a new Ukrainian leader will be required, and beyond question there will be many in Kiev ready to take up the role. But the post peace Ukrainian prospects don't really look good either way. As the guys from the Greyzone observed, you organise coups in a country, destabilise it with war and pour arms and money into it without restraint, the effects are not good. Ukraine, like Syria, is awash with different militias, all ready to take a slice of the future action. Famous for being the already most corrupt nation in Europe, the post war country is likely to be a hundred times worse.

This morning's press are blowing hard about Vance's comments about US involvement in Ukrainian mining being a "better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 40 years" (he's assumed to be referring to the UK), but this is simply distraction. The guy is a troll and should not be given the oxygen of publicity. He's a poor occupant of what is traditionally a ceremonial role given to individuals too weak to offer a threat to the president that chooses them. He's the Camilla Harris of the Trump Court. (I call it a court, as in the group of sycophants that traditionally surround the vain and thin-skinned monarchies of Europe; let's face it - it's hardly an administration in the traditional sense.)

But Zelensky has, like it or not and as do we, to deal with these clowns, and ridiculous as it seems, they do indeed make the running. How much the wisdom of allowing European defence to piggyback on the unreliable partnership of the USA has failed us is now evident. They are doing to Ukraine what they have done in all of their wars - cutting and running, and leaving someone else to pick up the pieces. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria - the list goes on. The trail of devastation any country's involvement with them always results in is without exception, and Ukraine will be no different.

But Trump has bragged in some speech he has given that he's just getting started. Like a child with a stick, he's stirring the delicate structure of world relations, and gleefully bragging about the results. In his simplistic view of the world, creating a storm means that he must be a great man. The world will remember Donald Trump. Look at him go! His next trick will be to pull out of Nato, and this will be in a few days or weeks time. It's absolutely on the cards and he won't want to loose the momentum of forward motion that he has created. If any headline in the next four years does not have the name Donald Trump in it, it will have been wasted. So when he says that he's just getting started I believe him. That he is able to go about spreading chaos around him is an absolute illustration of the weakness of the American system. Checks and balances? In the face of 'emergency orders' these simply dissapear and a one man state remains. The president can name anything he chooses as an emergency situation and then completely bypass the legislative process by issuing these emergency orders. This is what is happening with his tarrif increases. Tarrifs are in the remit of the legislature not the executive, but Trump has simply wiped away the congressional role by issuing executive orders to the effect that these tarrifs will be imposed.

These are dark days for the USA and it will not be long before even those who voted for him will begin to suffer buyers remorse. Freedom and Democracy will be words that the American people will be having cause to think about before very long - and in a country with every second household being a veritable armoury (what is it - 300 million guns in open circulation) this kind of division sowing and usurpation of the role of representatives will not be well recieved.

Has anyone seen the film Civil War recently? Don't watch it, I advise. It will not make you happy.

[peter]

Donald Trump's public lashing of Vlodomyr Zelensky over a barrel continued yesterday despite the latter's grovelling approaches by letter and in public interview in order to mitigate the fallout from the pairs explosive confrontation in the Whitehouse Oval Office.

He's now paused intelligence provision to the already beleaguered Ukrainian forces, the effects of which are being immediately felt on the front line, where such information is crucial for identifying the positions of Russian forces and the targeting of missiles and drones against sites within Russia. The suspension of weapons supplies will take a little longer to take effect, but not much. Both are critical to the Ukrainian ability to continue to prosecte this war and the stemming of such vital aid is an immediate and visible demonstration of why it is both damaging and dangerous to in any way confront or oppose the thin-skinned orange narcissist that now squats toad-like in the Whitehouse.

A weak bully at heart, Trump is in continual need of basting in emollient unction (the give him butter - and spread it thick procedure) and by accounts Kier Stamer and other European leaders have told him this in no uncertain terms.

And in fairness, fe has responded. Saying that he entirely trusts Ukraine's future going forward under the safe and strong leadership of Trump's peace plan, he has indicated that he is ready - gagging in fact - to give away half of the hugely valuable mineral rights in his country (why not make it three quarters?) in return for diddly squat. In fact so keen is he to do this that a new Whitehouse meeting is being planned as we speak, in which the diminutive little action-man like figure might again be seen to enter the lions den. This time he will apparently be flanked by President Macron on one side and Kier Stamer on the other - sort of "This time I've brought my bruvvas," style of thing, though the idea that that mincing pair could provide any kind of protection against the slavering beasts in the opposite corner is laughable. I can visualise all three of them quaking and shivering, clutching each other's arms, as Trump and Vance smile across at them, while unsheathing their Shere Khan like claws.

But this must be making Zelensky sick to his stomach. In fairness he's from a country where the likes of Trump and Vance wouldn't last a minute. They'd be whisked away into a forest and be doing a Deliverance scenario activity, underpants around their fat ankles, in two shakes of a lamb's tail. "Squeal like a pig, you fat orange sack of shit." Ukraine is a place where violence and brutality is hardwired into the history; sleek and oiled characters like those two might rule in the opulent surroundings of American high society - but put them into the raw world of the brutalist Ukrainian gopnik right wing militias, and we're talking something else. Russians versus Ukrainians is not a world where our soft leaderships (or indeed our mollycoddled soldiery) lasts long at all, and if you believe differently then you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

But Zelensky will bite his tongue, resist the temptation to tell these pampered menials to go fuck themselves (or indeed deliverthe slapping he would in a different world), and will pucker up and kiss arese like the best of them. He'll do it for the country he fights for (but hey, the money is nice as well), but Trump had better not ever find himself in a dark alley in backstreet Kiev. That would be unwise. Unwise indeed.

[peter]

"Punish the poor to pay for the war."

That's my wife's suggested slogan for the Labour Party in the wake of Chancellor Rachel Reeves' stated intention to make the savings she needs (not least in response to the sudden extra demands for increased defence spending in the wake of Donald Trump's recent activity) if she is to remain within her self-imposed fiscal rules.

The Chancellor has announced that savings will be made across the board of government spending - departmental budgets being cut, projects suspended etc - but will largely be achieved by cuts to the welfare budget, which it goes without saying, will impact the poorest members of our society in by far the greatest degree.

So let's be clear. The cuts will be made in ways that will impact the poorest people who have least income to support themselves, as opposed to raising money from those at the higher end of the income scale, who could absorb some increased payment without it effecting the quality of life they enjoy in the slightest.

Reeves is determined that no increase in taxation of the wealthy be resorted to, even in the face of poverty levels rising by the day amongst those who her targeted cuts will effect the most.

She says that this is unavoidable and that she has no alternative but to follow this hard path. She will make the "difficult decisions" that have to be made in order to get the country back on track.

Well let's just look at this: consider some possible alternatives that a different Labour Chancellor (say the eminently more humanitarian thinking individuals such as John McDonnell) might have taken.

To put this in context, Reeves is facing a 3 billion pounds 'black-hole' in the public finances prior to her spring statement, alongside the additional costs of Kier Stamer's recent increase in the defence budget to 2,5 percent of GDP (annual increase of about 6 billion). So let's estimate that 15 billion of increased revenue (or savings) would absolutely be sufficient for her to meet her needs.

So what could she do to raise this, were she so inclined?

The following figures come from Richard Murphy, and can be found on YouTube in his excellent posting 'How To Pay for Defence'.

We could (he says) bring the tax relief on increasing levels of pension contributions into line with the basic relief given on lower contributions. We are currently in the absurd situation of giving more relief to the highest earning individuals in the country on their contributions, than the poorest get on theirs. It's both unfair and costly. Such a change would net the Exchequer around 14. 5 billion pounds - more than enough to meet Reeves' needs.

Don't like that? How about aligning the rate of capital gains tax with that of income tax? Capital gains, by which the wealthy get huge injections of income yearly into their pockets are for some reason taxed at a much lower rate than work. Why? What difference does it make where that pound in your pocket comes from to the Exchequer. It's a simple example of how our tax system is geared in favour of the wealthy, and no more than that. The realignment of capital gains with earnings would net Reeves 12 billion pounds. Not bad for a move towards a more fair and equitable society.

Or what about a reform of corporation tax? Uncounted numbers of businesses pay zero corporation tax for no discernable reason, yet others are used as tax exemption ploys by allowing them to fail (once large sums of cash have been stored in them) thus attracting no corporation tax, and larger companies do not pay anything like the levels that are the norms in other countries. These measures would net a further 19 billion pounds.

We could (says Murphy) recreate the Investment Income Surcharge, in which essentially NI payments are taken from incomes other than work rents, investments etc) which would raise another 18 billion.

Or perhaps lift the VAT exemption on banking services. This totally senseless exemption on a clear and obvious service (the criteria for attracting VAT) is nonsensical. Most people don't pay for banking services and so would be unaffected, but the wealthy who do pay for the more sophisticated services at the higher end of banking currently pay no VAT. Another example of taxation favouring the wealthy and lifting it would raise around 8 billion.

Another tax not mentioned by Murphy which I heard the aforementioned John McDonnell propose would be a financial transaction tax which would raise yet further billions.

So given all of this, I think the Chancellor's claims that she has no alternatives fall slightly flat. The truth is that this government has no inclination to raise taxes from those who can most afford it. They are perfectly comfortable with the increasing inequality of our nation and will do nothing to halt or reverse it. The poorest in our society will always be the ones to bear the brunt of any calamity, be it economic, defensive or other in nature.

But don't you dare call yourselves a Labour Party. Don't disguise yourselves in the sheeps clothing of a humanitarian party with the interests of the bulk of people in your heart when in truth you're as greedy and rapacious as any a Conservative government that we ever had the misfortune to suffer under. Don't you dare!

[Avatar]

Reeves is determined that no increase in taxation of the wealthy be resorted to, even in the face of poverty levels rising by the day amongst those who her targeted cuts will effect the most.

This is insane to me. Not to mention a searing indictment of what late stage capitalism has brought us to...It feels like we're rapidly returning to feudalism in all but name...

--A

[peter]

Insane indeed Av. I am sick to my stomach with this lot of wolves in sheep's clothing. And they wonder why people are flocking in droves towards far-right fanboy Farage.

-----0-----

Gaza Hostages threat: Hamas has warned that the remaining hostages held in Gaza could be killed should Israel escalate military action,as efforts
to prolong the ceasefire failed.
(Cont'd page 26)

I post this as the sum total, complete in every word, of the entire coverage on the front of every UK national daily paper, of the situation unfolding in Gaza, in which clearly nothing of interest is happening in the eyes of the news establishment, at all.

A broader search online of current developments in the occupied territory resulted in coverage from the legacy media, only of Donald Trump's recent warning to Hamas, that all hostages and their remains must be returned to Israel forthwith, or "it is over for you." No coverage of the ongoing situation on the ground so to speak, can be found on any of our mainstream outlets.

Thus it is that I turn to the only places that seemed to supply any coverage of what is happening, of where we are in the negotiated three phase peace agreement, which it seems to me should now be well on its way to sorting out how the second phase - that in which all the hostages are exchanged and Israel withdraws all of its troops - namely the Qatari based Al Jazera news service and the Morning Star (much maligned daily founded by the Communist Party of the UK in the 1930's).

And lo it would seem that events of great moment have been occurring while our attention has been otherwise averted, not least for the people of Gaza, that Israel has suspended all aid into the Strip, including any provisions of food, medicines and water. This is of course a crime under international law, but we wouldn't want to be getting sidetracked by anything as prosaic as that now would we?

Now it seems - and I can barely believe this - that Israel and America have virtually abandoned the three stage agreement, so loudly and proudly proclaimed by Egypt, the US and Qatar in January, preferring instead a new US proposed arrangement for the second phase, in which half of the hostages are handed over immediately, with the rest following subsequent to a permanent ceasefire agreement being reached.

It appears (though I can't be sure on this) that this new proposal doesn't include the prisoner exchange arrangements, or indeed the troop withdrawal element of the original deal, and thus Hamas has rejected the proposal saying it rather prefers to stick with the original plan. In response to this we have had the bellicose threats from Donald Trump and the cessation of food, water and medical supplies into Gaza. Negotiations on phase two, which should have started in early February, have it seems, barely begun (but so sidetracked have we all been by Trump's antics that we seem not to have noticed this).

It had long been said by many commentators that Israel would never progress to phase two of the arrangement, let alone see it through to completion via the arrangements of phase 3. The cynicism of these commentators (of which, I think a quick look back at earlier posts will confirm I was one) has it seems been proven correct. There has been trickles of news that things were not going according to plan over the last few weeks (since the initial agreement was announced in fairness) - shootings of Palestinians, aid trucks being held up and the like - and also much discussion on non-legacy media sites as to whether Netenyahu would (or indeed could) ever allow phase two to get underway, but again, nothing much has been said of these in the main news outlets.

So basically as I post, it's all going to hell in a handcart. All that is required now for Netenyahu is for the IDF to resume it's killing spree (now that the eyes of the world are averted) and 'job's a good 'un'. He can get on with the genocide/ethnic cleansing (pick your phrase) and no-one even blinks or barely notices. After all, why would we be interested in the Palestinians and their destruction when we have Trump and Zelensky almost coming to blows in the Oval Office?

There's also been some full meeting of the League of Arab Nations or something inconsequential of that sort, but again we're not interested in that sort of nonsense. The fact that the entire Arab and Muslim world is in absolute harmonious agreement that a peace accord based on the 1967 borders of the two-state solution is the only way forward, and that 97 percent of the nations on Earth agree with them is neither here nor there. That the USA is the single country using its veto on the UN Security Council preventing the Palestinian State based on those borders from being recognised in the General Assembly is as nothing. We're simply not interested in anything that Arab or Muslim countries have to say on the subject and thus there's no point in reporting on the meeting - even mentioning that it is occurring.

Now I don't suppose that the failure of our media to report on this - the starvation and killing of the Gazans, the breaking of the three phase ceasefire agreement, the meeting of the Arab Nations - has anything to do with the fact that Netenyahu doesn't want the ceasefire to progress to phase two, that he wants the ethnic cleansing to resume, that the last thing he needs is for the people of the West to start understanding that there is a two-state solution we could all support in this? That we support Israel in anything it does - anything - including the killing, the starvation, the reneging on deals. That whatever they do, we're behind them (but it wouldn't do to shout too loudly about that just now, would it). No. I don't suppose this at all.

(Edit: I just went down for a cigarette and a coffee and as I sat there the cruel weight of what I am saying, the realisation of its implications, hit me. We are now living in a State where the output of news to the public is directed, twisted and manipulated, entirely towards that which coincides with the interests, the narratives, of that State, and from which, anything which does not accord with those interests is excised. This is absolutely no different from that situation which we used to decry with such contempt, when it was practiced by the Soviet Union of old. Think of this. Really think of it, and it is chilling in the extreme.)

[Avatar]

I dunno Peter...you may be being a touch dramatic in that final paragraph. I lived under a regime which maintained an official government censor in the offices of every publication, publisher, broadcaster, etc. And we had no internet with which to seek out alternate viewpoints etc. We couldn't read newspapers and watch broadcasts from other countries to see points of view which contradicted official ones.

The fact that we were able to subsequently blunt and (mostly kinda) prevent an(other) outright oligarchal seizure of our own mechanisms of state years later was attributable in no small part to the transparency and press freedom entrenched in our optimistic post-apartheid constitution. Which was used against the government officials conducting such corruption.

Of course, the existence, nay, prevalence, of such alternate viewpoints imposes a far greater responsibility on us the consumer...that of verification etc. Of being as questioning of the motives and agenda's of those viewpoints as we should be of the mainstream ones.

These are times of significant cognitive burden for the responsible thinker. Naturally in a time where scientists fear our collective critical thinking skills may be facing a decline.

C'est la vie.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[W]e had no internet with which to seek out alternate viewpoints etc. We couldn't read newspapers and watch broadcasts from other countries to see points of view which contradicted official ones.

The fact that we were able to subsequently blunt and (mostly kinda) prevent an(other) outright oligarchal seizure of our own mechanisms of state years later was attributable in no small part to the transparency and press freedom entrenched in our optimistic post-apartheid constitution. Which was used against the government officials conducting such corruption.

[…]

Interesting. And apt.

But with regard to our own Legacy Media, too many Americans have apparently convinced themselves that the Fourth Estate's function as a firewall against Fascism is a bug, not a feature.

[peter]

Point taken Av. I'm definitely prone to over-thinking things and then plunging into the worst possible interpretation of my cogitations - but I think there is something of a difference in our situation compared to that which you describe.

It's one thing for the state to impose a censorious atmosphere on the 'fourth estate' - quiet another when the media ownership (often by virtue of monopoly control) works willingly hand in glove with the former in order to control the agenda of public discourse. The risks of the latter, particularly in our case where the establishment and the state are virtually one and the same, may appear 'diluted' in comparison to overt state interference on a press/media that only grudgingly accepts it (as appeared to be the case in S.A. as you describe it), but is in fact far more the insidious, by virtue of this 'unholy' (sorry Wos) alliance. The latter scenario (ie that which might pertain in the UK and USA) is possibly far more open to representing a real danger to the public in terms of manipulation, than if the control is only imposed from above (as it were) and the output less.....deliberately manipulatively constructed by a willing coconspirator. (Badly put, but I hope you get my meaning.)

But in the spirit of 'going where others decline to tread', I'll report on the Arab League summit that took place this week (Tuesday if I have it correct) and out of which issued some significant movement in respect of the Gazan crisis.

Worth noting that Jordan's King Abdullah II was present, and warmly received by the Cairo Summit host, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, despite having been roundly criticised by all and sundry for his seemingly pitiful subservience to Donald Trump, in an earlier meeting last month, in which the orange man made observations on the future of Gaza re the USA taking control of the situation from Jordan and Egypt.

Fair to say that in the light of the recent meeting between Ukraine's President Zelensky and the American President, suddenly Abdullah's quiet handling of Trump seems much more advised than Zelensky's more critical approach. He knew, far more it seems than his Ukrainian counterpart, the ill-advised nature of bearding that particular thin-skinned lion in his den.

Middle East Eye describes the meeting as follows;

On Tuesday, Arab kings and presidents gathered in Cairo, summoned by the weight of history, drawn into a theatre where destinies could be decided, not just for Palestine, but forthe very legitimacy of their own rule.

This was not diplomacy as usual. It was not a routine summit lined with hollow statements and tired pledges. It was a reckoning. A moment where the Arab world stood before a mirror and asked itself: do we still possess the power to refuse, or have we been domesticated beyond salvation?

Pause. Think about that. This shows the import of what was going on here, and poses the real question that needs answering. Are these 'client administrations' so neutered as to be meaningless - worthy in fact of the Western media's crude ignoring of them as impotent and without agency. Or can they, when the chips are really down and an entire people of their own stock face annihilation, come together and with a single strong voice and say "No! This has gone too far!"

It's a sad and terrible thing that we are even required to ask such a question, and I'm minded to turn it back on ourselves and ask rather, "What have we done," that so proud and rich a culture from our collective past can have been reduced to this. This is the culture of Saladin (well, okay - I know), of Mohammed, of the proud tribes of the dessert lands that neither asked nor gave, quater to anyone. But it is what it is,so perhaps best just to look at what actually happened.

Well firstly a definite plan for a three-stage rebuilding of Gaza without the recourse to removing the population was put forward. I'm just going to return to the article I quoted from above and continue from where I left off.

At the heart of the summit lay a scheme so monstrous that it defies belief: the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, a final act of erasure seeking to transform the territory into a sanitised, tamed "Riviera", with the footprints of its true owners scrubbed from the sands.

I think this articulately sums up what the collective Arab world is dealing with here, and leaves no doubt in the mind of just how momentous an occasion this summit was: because as the article goes on to present, this "monstrous scheme" requires one further condition beyond the American and Israeli intention before it can be accomplished, before the "fantasy can be made reality" - Arab consent. And it was against this that the proposal was put forward.

Stage one would see a six month clearing of the rubble and debris of the conflict. The second stage would concentrate on reconstruction of Rafah and the southern strip, and getting the infrastructure up and running once again. The third and final stage would concentrate on rebuilding of the central and northern regions. The whole plan would take in the order of 5 years to complete at an estimated cost of 53 billion dollars.

The plan, which has already been rejected by American and Israeli officials, does involve the removal of Hamas from the governance of the territory, but not the demilitarisation of the zone, which would clearly not be pleasing to Israel in respect of its consideration.

But aside from this, the development of the plan and its subsequent adoption or consignment to the dustbin of history is already fraught with problems. Internal disagreement within the League's membership is complex and multifaceted, but suffice to say that in many respects it is more fear of what the Trump-Israeli plan could mean for their own leaderships (think Jordan, Egypt and Saudi) than any real concern for the Palestinians, that is driving it forward. The UAE (if I have it correctly) is already pretty much disdainful of the idea, leaning towards (would you believe it) the Trump plan, and this cannot bode well for its future. Certain other interested nations are not represented at all, Algeria being an example in point.

So alas, it looks like the League is built on sand, and with the best will in the world, will fail in its endeavour. Again I'm forced to look at my own country's major contribution to this historical nightmare and regret that which my forefathers have wrought. Small consolation to the Palestinian people, but know please that there is at least one Englishman who would like to offer his deep and abiding regret for what we have done to you and to simply say sorry.

Finally, I'm aware of the poor quality of this piece in terms of being representative of the whole complex affair of the summit. Please forgive me and if you really want to be brought up to speed in a comprehensive way, then I can do no better than to direct you to the Middle East Eye account from which I have largely drawn this precis.

In defence of myself, I can only say that even if I have failed in my objective, then at least (in contrast with the real media upon whom you should be able to rely) I've made the attempt.

[peter]

With only five MPs (four if you don't count the one currently suspended from the party) Reform is not exactly one of the parliamentary big boys, but nevertheless largely due to its charismatic leader Nigel Farage and the presence of unpredictable but entertaining '50p' Lee Anderson, it still manages to make a pretty loud noise.

It is currently polling at or near Labour Party levels - pretty significant given the recent election of a new governing party for the first time in fourteen years, a time in which the fresh new leadership should be out in front on a wave of popularity as was say Tony Blair's at this stage of its history.

True, much of this high polling is based on dissatisfaction with Kier Stamer and his government, who following election immediately blotted their own copy book with a series of disastrous decisions and bloopers that have left them exposed and seemingly in disarray. For a while it seemed that Farage and Reform could do no wrong, and to listen to the media you would have thought that it was an almost done deal that Farage was going to be the next Prime Minister. But it's a long road from 5 MPs to winning an election and much can go wrong in four plus years.

The first signs of trouble came shortly following that notorious Mar a Lago photo in which Farage is seen standing next to Elon Musk and UK property billionaire Nick Candy. It was being speculated that Musk was about to pour a huge amount of money into Reform in order to push their election chances forward in 2029, but suddenly Musk came out and shocked everyone by saying that he was doubtful about Farage's ability to lead Reform and that perhaps a new choice of leadership might be better.

It was music to the establishment media's ears, and they eagerly jumped upon a chance to rub Farage's nose in this suddenly turnaround in his fortunes.

You see, Farage, for all his public popularity, is an outsider. Not one of the establishment club - a club that includes both Conservative and Labour politicians (as long as they are not too Labour) - that it is deemed acceptable as a leader. As such he has always been presented rather as a dirty smear on the underpants of politics. He appears on the media - but they barely bother to hide their disdain for him from the viewers. Be it Laura Kuensberg or Fiona Bruce, if Farage or any other Reform member appears, they are fair game for supercilious contempt and a grade-1 work-over.

Fair enough I'd say - they are a pretty contemptible bunch and I don't much like them: but they are the elected representatives of their constituents and have a right to be heard. But voted in to power? The establishment is never going to swallow that. Having seen firsthand the way that the disparate elements of the establishment came together to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, forewarned is forearmed shall we say, and we know what to look for.

But back to the story, it seemed that Farage had made the mistake of mildly distancing himself from Musk, following the latters ill-advised support for right wing spokesman Tommy Robinson, currently jailed for disobeying court rulings. Musk it seems, was/is not aware of just how toxic Robinson is in the UK, to the point where even the slightest association with him in the public's eyes, never mind the media's, is political suicide. He rounded furiously on Farage as punishment for his (in Musk's eyes) betrayal, and said he wouldn't be supporting Reform with donations whilst Farage remained its leader.

Now at this point, behind the scenes at Reform, it seems that all was not hunky dory. One MP in particular seemed to be unhappy with Farage's style of leadership, seeing it as messianic and dictatorial. This fellow was MP for Great Yarmouth, Rupert Lowe. Musk it seems, had somehow heard of these divisions within Reform and has been rumored to favour Lowe as a replacement leader to Farage. He clearly doesn't understand the relationship of the public to Farage, large numbers of whom regard him as the saviour of the country due to his singlehandedly (virtually) having brought about our exit from the EU. Reform is a one man party, almost a cult, whether Musk knows it or not, and without Farage as leader its poll ratings would be zilch.

But bringing us up to the present, this effective civil war between Farage and Lowe (who I assume, by virtue of Musk's support of him, is even further right in his politics than Farage) has taken a new twist. Lowe has been suspended from the party and referred to the police, in response to two alleged accusations of bullying of female Reform workers and (more significantly) allegedly threatening the party chairman Zia Yusuf with physical violence.

Farage is reported today in the Sunday Telegraph as acknowledging the damage that this fracture had caused the party, but insistent that not to have acted with the suspension and referral, would have been to damage the party's reputation further. He now implores the matter be put behind them, saying that nothing will turn away voters at the next election faster than the spectacle of a disunited party going into it.

This has needless to say, been absolute mana from heaven for the establishment controlled legacy media. Every twist and turn has been given coverage way beyond its importance at this point in the election cycle, and one cannot but believe that this is evidence of them sharpening their claws, preparing for deployment of the iron-clad firewall that is employed to ensure that no-one that threatens the established order, can ever get near the seat of power in the UK.

It is a guarantee that should Farage get to overcome these problems, and recover his mojo - and with Farage, his ability to do this cannot be doubted - then all and any manner of weapon will be brought out against him, to wear him down before the next election. Dirt will be dug. Every misjudged comment he's ever made pulled out. He won't be able to be accused of being a Muslim favoring terrorist sympathiser as was Jeremy Corbyn - with Farage's record, that won't wash against him - and antisemitism won't work again (not least because it's lost much of its cachet as a result of ill-use against Corbyn and what Benjamin Netenyahu has been up to), so something else will need to be slubbered up. Think sex-pest (not bad, but a bit tame given his support base). Misogynist; that isn't bad, but again his 'barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen' type following are not going to be too bothered much by that.

No, I don't know what it is, but like King Lear, I know it's going to be bad. Watch my mouth. I'll put a pound to a penny it's coming.

(Incidentally, on Labour, Kier Stamer is for the first time since his leadership, enjoying a wave of support for his perceived leadership of the fight against Trump's anti-Ukranian campaign. His big idea is that if Trump pulls out, France (who failed with Napoleon), Britain (who failed with the Light Brigade and Crimea) and Germany (who failed with Hitler) can unite and do in combination what their earlier individual attempts did not - beat Russia on its own land. Remember that age old political adage, if all else fails, find a war to get people behind you with. Well it seems to be working for Stamer okay.)

[peter]

So Israel has announced that it intends to cut off all electricity supplies into Gaza, bad enough of itself but particularly devastating in that without power it becomes impossible to run the desalination plants upon which the water supply of the population is dependent. Israel has also threatened to cut of physical supplies of water itself as a further means of pressuring Hamas to accede to its demands to release all living hostages and the remains of any dead ones immediately.

This is preceeding a meeting between Israel and Hamas (with American mediation) that is to occur in the coming days in Doha, in which the conditions under which the conflict might be ended will be discussed. America has disclosed that it has been talking directly to Hamas for the first time, presumably in order to get this meeting arranged.

The illegality of Israel's collective punishment of the whole population of Gaza under international law doesn't seem to bother them, or indeed its allies on the international stage, to any great degree. We seem to have reached a point (in the Israel supporting West at least) where the rule of law is an optional extra, only applicable to other people and to be called into action only in response to the activities of nations other than ourselves or those we are aligned with. It's a dangerous precedent I'd say, and doesn't bode well for the world going forward. Our medias no longer seem shocked by such violations, or indeed particularly offended by them - another angle to this issue that should be cause for concern. The future world is it seems, going to be a more cruel and brutal place than even the one we look back on in post-war history. The international forums of the post WW2 world were good while they lasted apparently, but their toothlessness is now exposed when the very nations who collectively put them together simply flout and ignore their institutions and laws.

Anyway, let's go across and have a look at the papers.

The Sun us concerned that BBC bosses think it's flagship football programme Match of the Day has too much football and not enough talking. The 'i' runs with a front page on the government's intention to freeze out time wasting 'nimby' groups from the planning process for developments. The Mirror is exercised to remind us that we must never forget the victims of Covid, by which I hope they include the hugely greater number of victims unnecessarily conjured into existence by the wholly inappropriate and disproportionate response to this not especially dangerous virus (on the scale of comparison) followed by our governments.

The Express has the King hailing out the Commonwealth for its collective sacrifice during WW2 (why now, I'm not sure - probably due to the recent 80th anniversary of VE day I guess), and also has a lovely picture of the whippet that won dog show Crufts being embraced by her owner. On the Commonwealth, I'm not sure it has any existential point any more - the only people who ever seem bothered by it are the British monarchy, and I don't just wonder if it just makes them feel a bit better for no longer being holders of an empire. Isn't it just a throwback to that?

The Mail continues its campaign against 'wokeness' complaining that diversity targets have left the RAF short on 'top-gun pilots', and they (the RAF) are having to mount an emergency search for

pilots after a secret policy to discriminate against white male applicants backfired.

Why only white male applicants should be able to disproportionately fill the roles of top-gun pilots is unclear to me, but the front page doesn't say. Perhaps they explain this inside. The page does however say that the service is now considering older applicants for the role of pilots, in view of the shortly forthcoming need for flyers to be sent to police the front lines in Ukraine, where Russia has said unequivocally in advance that they will be shot down. I wonder if that little nugget will appear in the recruitment drive?

The Star has honed in on Donald Trump's feeling a bit peeved that President Zelensky has beaten him into second place in meeting with the King after he (Trump) was so made up about receiving his own invitation first (as it were). As it happens, I believe it was Zelensky who requested his own audience with the monarch while Trump was invited, but the orange fuckwit cannot be expected to grasp this difference. He is said by the Star to not be "feeling quite so special" anymore. Ahhhh, there there, Mr P. Don't you worry. To King Charles you are both considered as about as desirable as a dog-turd affixed to the bottom of his shoe. That, I promise, is exactly your degree of specialness.

(Sigh)

Guardian: Prisons to get hundreds more cells in preparation for summer riots. (Do we have "summer riots'' - it's a new one on me?) In fairness they report the Gaza electricity cut off as well. Telegraph reports that Trump has warned that Ukraine may not survive. I'd guess its survival chances are significantly reduced if you are allowed to keep sticking your great fat mouth into the negotiations, but I hope I'm not just letting my bias get the better of me. BBC pays diversity hired employees more than other members of staff, foreign prisoners get home jailed with tags while UK nationals get banged up proper, Labour can't stop the sewage swamping the streets of London - no, actually - not just another Telegraph immigrant story - and finally Labour MPs are revolting. No hang on - revolting over benefits cuts. Sorry - missed that last bit.

And lastly, the Times has tv (that's television not transvestite) gardner Alan Titchmarsh's advice on how not to injure yourself removing the pits from avocados. Don't eat them.

[peter]

If US Secretary of State Marko Rubio thinks that the Ukrainian plan for a limited ceasefire with Russia "has promise" (as the BBC website tells us this morning), then he's living in a fools paradise from which he's about to get a rude realpolitik awakening.

Last night Moscow was subjected to a three hundred plus drone attack of which while most were shot down, a limited number got through and caused significant damage. Civilian housing was hit and at least one person killed.

Imagine that happening in New York, or London - and then imagine you are at told by the people who have done this, "We want a short cessation in the hostilities so we can get our act together and draw breath," (and effectively just get ready for the next round, because that is what it amounts to).

And imagine simultaneously that you are actually winning, have your opponent in the corner and are driving blow after blow into him, just looking for the killing shot. And imagine some onlooker from the Ukrainian corner, who's been throwing your opponent 'carry-on' pills (despite which you are still crushing him in the corner) shouts across, "If you don't stop, we'll.....errrr.....send over more carry-on pills!" Like you are going to take any notice of this?

Because what happened overnight is not going to change one jot of the reality of the battlefield. That the combined force of Ukrainian manpower and every Western help that can be conceivably given, with the exception of 'boots on the ground' or starting a nuclear war, has been unable to stop the Russians from winning. Because when fucking great big countries take on small piddling little countries in existential battles (for both sides) then the big countries win.

And on the nuclear war thing, thinking about just how crazy it was, just how big a risk they took, when they started firing long range missiles into Russia, that a less pragmatic Russian leadership could have taken as an opening to all out war, instead of just returning with a warning shot from a newly developed weapon that the West had no defence against; a warning shot that said, "Next time it will be one of your Nato bases in Poland or Cyprus or somewhere." And thinking - really thinking - about how big a risk the Biden administration took, that they could rely on that level of Russian pragmatism to understand that it was the last shot of a departing administration, and thereby not respond to this direct attack on Russia by (effectively) America by launching World War 3.

And now the Ukrainians are sending mass drones to attack civilian targets in the Russian capital and they (the Americans) expect the Russians to sign up for a partial ceasefire - a ceasefire that the Russians have already said they won't countenance? What world are they living in? I can only see this overnight attack on Moscow as a deliberate attempt to scupper any hopes of Trump ending the war (which Zelensky clearly doesn't want to end, despite his words to the contrary, squeezed out of him by Donald Trump's withdrawal of aid and intelligence cover). Maybe the attack wasn't down to Zelensky? Perhaps the guys that senf these drones are away somewhere else and not really under Zelensky's charge? Or maybe Zelensky himself ordered the strike, in order to scupper the Saudi Arabia meeting with Marko Rubio?

But fuck we are in dangerous territory here! The Russians are going to be seriously pissed about this, and it's very likely that the repercussions will be severe. What form they'll take God alone knows, but let's just hope that they don't think that the Trump administration had a hand in it or it's goodnight Cyprus and probably goodnight world as well. But what we can be absolutely one hundred percent sure fire certain of is that they won't be agreeing to any kind of ceasefire, partial or otherwise. They'll agree to a Ukrainian surrender, with them holding all of the territory they currently hold and a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality and a demilitarisation of Ukraine. Not a UK-French peace keeping force or some other bunch of soldiery just waiting to start unloading their guns on Russia - that's just Kier Stamer's wet dream - but neutrality and demilitarisation. Nothing else.

And as for Stamer - the guy's an idiot. Either plain batshit crazy or so puffed up with pride at being the 'big man' that he can't see the fucking obvious right before his face. Watch my mouth Kier. If we couldn't beat Russia with Ukraine, the USA, and the whole of Europe supporting the effort, how can you take thirty percent (minimum) of that aid away when Trump finally looses patience and seriously pulls the plug on the American component, and then expect to win? It'd take years for us and the rest of Europe to step into military production to the point of making up the shortfall. And provision of the what 150,000 troops needed to actually mount the peace keeping operation that the Russians will not tolerate anyway? If all of Europe contributed we'd still fall short (and they wouldn't, by the way).

Honestly, we keep reading this stuff on news websites and in the papers. On tv and on the radio. And it's just nonsense. Rubbish. For the birds. I'm fed up with hearing it and fed up of talking about it. Go on idiots. Do your fucking worst, but don't include me in it.

-----0-----

Oh, by the way, I suppose I should mention that an oil tanker carrying aviation fuel was hit by a supercargo container vessel transporting (amongst God knows what else) 15 containers of sodium cyanide yesterday on the coast off Grimsby, and the resultant tangle of metal and chemicals did what physics would expect of it, and blew itself skyward in an explosion of religious level ferocity. The RSPB said it would "damage the habitat and be lethal to seabirds."

You don't say.

-----0-----

Ther used to be a celebrity doctor on the television called Doctor Robert Winston who was considered the 'official spokesman' on everything medical - the voice of reason pertaining to anything health or science related.

He appeared on the BBC's Question Time programme one night where he made the mistake of saying that it was impossible to change your sex: that it was hardwired into every cell of your body and nothing could alter that.

He was never seen on television again - he just dissapeared into the ether.

More interesting to me than the obvious truth of what he said is that of society's attempts to make us believe otherwise. That black can be presented as white and if we are told often and forcefully enough that this is the case, then it will become true.

(Edit; I suppose that it's all down to definitions. If you change definitions then I suppose that the truth changes with them. If you define - officially define - that maleness or femaleness is no longer based on the possession of one X and one Y chromosome, or of two Y's, then what he said was untrue. But has such a change of definition actually been agreed to officially - by firstly the scientific community and then subsequently the state? I don't know. Such changes can however be officially recognised. If I have it correctly, the official definition of antisemitism now includes being critical of Israel (or certainly denying Israel's right to exist), where previously it was more about hatred of Jews per se. To be honest, I'm not quite sure how this stuff actually works in terms of 'official recognition'.)

[peter]

Zelensky, in agreeing to a 30 day ceasefire with America (not with the actual country it's fighting with) has done the only thing he could.

It's being presented as a major step towards the much desired peace, but is nothing of the kind.

Zelensky wants peace: sure he does. But only when he's won the war, driven Russia out of Ukraine and the Crimea, joined Nato and (preferably seen Putin out of office in Russia). All of which is about as likely as my winning the high jump in the next Olympics by executing a perfect Fosbury flop. But he has no choice but to accept Trump's version of how peace looks - the one in which Ukraine cedes all of its territory to Russia, lays down its weapons and demilitarises, and adopts total neutrality with no question of its ever joining Nato. Oh, and it agrees to give away half of its mineral wealth to the mediators in return for doing so.

But in swallowing this loss, he's not actually swallowing it at all, because it's meaningless. He knows it, I know it, maybe even the Americans know it.

Because he's done the one thing he could in his over a barrel tied position (because if he didn't agree to pucker up and kiss Donald Trump's orange arse then no weapons and intelligence would ever get to Ukraine again and it would be screwed)....and that is to insist that it is America's job to get Putin to agree to it. And Putin has already said he'll never accept a ceasefire, and why would he change now?. And Ukraine has just droned the crap out of mainland Russia. And Russia is winning on the battlefield (where it actually matters) and has no reason to allow Ukraine any breathing space in order to reorganise. And if Trump believes he can push Putin around like he can Zelensky, then he's as misguided as he is orange (which incidentally my wife thinks is because of his love of watersports, though I've never seen him on water skis, but I guess she knows).

But I suppose that if Trump convinces Putin that he could present this (his) version of the peace as a surrender on the Ukrainian part, then Putin might believe he could sell this to the Russian people? I don't know - maybe then the 30 days as a prelude to the war's ending with Putin the clear victor?

But nah. Ukraine is essentially a militia run country and if Zelensky agreed to the Trump plan then the hard-nuts of the Azov and other ultra-right armed groupings would just kill Zelensky (if he couldn't get out of Ukraine fast enough) and continue fighting anyway. So Russia will still have to go on through Ukraine mopping them up until they are wiped out (which without American aid and intel they undoubtedly would be. Then Ukraine really would simply be absorbed into Russia.

And Europe? Europe can gnash away on the sidelines as much as it likes, but it isn't going into Ukraine to fight on the ground and it isn't going to risk all out war with Russia without America to back it up. And America isn't going to do this while nuclear weapons are still sitting in the background, so all of this is a non-starter.

So the clever money for Ukraine has to be to accept the Trump plan and the losses it has incurred. And this includes the right wingers as well. If they don't, Ukraine is no more. It's barely 'any more' even if they do accept the deal, but that's what happens when you loose a war.

As for Kier Stamer and his claims to have been behind the Ukrainian-American agreement on a ceasefire. He's congratulating Trump and Zelensky on their "remarkable breakthrough" when he knows full well that Zelensky has been tied down and ass-whipped into accepting it. Shut the fuck up you twat.

(Edit; But Trump may have made a mistake, thinking on it. He's now saying that the ball is in Russia's court. It's "up to them" to accept the ceasefire deal and end the war. What if they won't. He's got to either back down and pull all aid to Ukraine; wash his hands of the whole affair, which makes him look weak because he's punishing Ukraine for what Russia won't do and failing to meet his promise to end the war to boot. Or he's got to return to Biden's 'business as usual approach' and start supporting the Ukrainian efforts once again. But not to the point where Ukraine can actually win, because he then risks a WW3 scenario. But if he supports Ukraine in the 'forever war', then he fails in front of his domestic support base, which expects him to stop 'wasting money' on Ukraine. No: I think he's backed himself into a corner from which he can't win unless he cedes all kinds of prizes to Putin in getting him to swallow a ceasefire. Bad deal Donald. Bad deal. You just handed a victory to Putin on whatever terms he wants it.)

-----0-----

You notice that we're not hearing much about what is happening in Syria: that a massacre of the Assad backing fraction of the people, the Alawite ethnoreligious minority the the Assad family hails from, has occurred in which as many as 1000 people have been butchered.

The trouble apparently started in coastal regions when government backed security forces came under attack by remaining Alawite militia pockets, but the security forces then apparently ran amok committing reprisals against the Alawite civilian population, filming and posting images of the killings as they were committing them.

The supposedly 'cleaned up' regime that is nominally in power in the country - the HTS faction led by bearded ex Isis and Al-Qaeda member Ahmed al-Sharra - has vowed to exact punishment on the rogue forces that have committed the atrocities, but is in reality unlikely to do so. Any punishment will be cosmetic at best, in order to present an image of civility to the rest of the world, because in truth, this barbarity is simply the background from which this leadership emerges. It is the world from which they came out, the world in which beheading and burning is standard procedure and the world they operate in. The system by which they will (try to) maintain control.

And suddenly the Western media is quiet. Silent now are the criticisms that would normally accompany such dreadful occurrences. Having performed a media 'make over' on the jihadist leader al-Sharra (they even got him into a suit, had pictures of him sitting with children) it is an embarrassment that the forces that we helped to put into place (having armed them and whipped them up against the West hated Al-Assad) now prove themselves to be every bit as brutal and cruel as the occupier they have deposed.....and so we adopt our blinkered 'see no evil, call out no evil' approach and report nothing, lest the people actually begin to understand that we are behind this chaos, this degeneration into a failed state that Syria is now undergoing. Sure - things were bad under Assad - but the country was functional. And women and children were not being murdered in their homes.

Another pyrrhic victory to be chalked up to our machinations, but hey, it served a purpose. Israel now holds great swathes of Syria, the hated Assad regime who stood up against them is gone and the country is in chaos (and chaotic countries are only ever a threat to themselves). So what matter if 1000 or so civilians pay the price. We can brush over that and pretend it isn't happening.

[peter]

So let's get this right.

The Prime Minister will today give a speech about how the state has become bloated and inefficient, how he will act to pare it back and streamline it into a state more fit for purpose.

His Chancellor prepares the ground for her spring statement, by telling us that she intends to cut departmental budgets, and make significant cuts to the cost of welfare - most significantly in the region of benefits payments right up to and including those people judged to have significant disabilities.

Elsewhere plans are hatched as to how to increase defence spending to higher and higher levels, and the economy is put effectively onto a pre-war footing with its being almost an accepted given that a state of hostility will be maintained ad infinitum with Russia, irrespective of whether peace is achieved or otherwise in the near future (a peace which is curiously deemed a bad thing, rather than the good one might imagine it to be).

Said Chancellor has called meetings with Blackrock, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard etc, to decide how the UK economy can be carved up to the best interest of all (with a nice little side-hustle of preparing the groundwork for her own future employment at the same time).

Excuse me, but have we actually got a Labour government in power here? Did I dream it? Did the Tories get back in under their new right wing leadership, or perhaps Nigel Farage slipped grinning into the front bench behind the dispatch box?

Because last time I looked, Labour was supposed to be the party of the working class, the party of the people. It was supposed to be sympathetic to the needs of the ordinary man and woman in the street, to understand that it was the role of governments to work for their people and not the other way around.

But I don't know; in this topsy-turvey upside down world even this seems to have been turned on its head. Which leaves the people at the bottom of the pile in a pretty pickle. Because one thing that you can absolutely guarantee that will not be turned on its head is that they will stay there. There won't be any turning of that fact on its head - not as long as I've got a hole in my arse.

[peter]

President Putin did exactly what would be predicted of him in response to Trump's saying that "the ball (in respect of accepting a Ukrainian ceasefire on the terms agreed by the Trump-Zelensky teams in Saudi Arabia) is entirely in Russia's court."

He said both yes and no (to the ceasefire) simultaneously.

The Trump-Zelensky agreement is essentially a two stage affair in which the fighting along the 1,200 mile front is halted, and during the 30 days of agreed cessation talks are carried out on how to bring the conflict to a final end.

Putin on the other hand, wants the essential framework for the ending of the conflict already understood prior to the ceasefire being implemented. How otherwise, is his question, can we (Russia) not know that this time will not simply be used for Ukraine to rearm and regroup, and mobilise more troops from the civilian population up to the front line? Who, he asks, will police this ceasefire to see that the break will not simply be used in this manner? By whom and how, will the ceasefire be initiated?

So where Trump-Zelensky require a two stage end to the war, Putin requires a single stage agreement.

Needless to say his caution has not been well recieved by Zelensky, who accuses him of being afraid to say no to Trump, but preparing to reject the ceasefire agreement nevertheless. Putin also said that it might be necessary for him to speak directly with the American President in order to clarify these "nuances" that he had raised. He has also made clear that any ceasefire would not include the Kursk region of Russia in which a few beleaguered Ukrainian (and Western?) troops are holding out against a seemingly unstoppable Russian advance. These remaining troops from the unwise diversion that was the Kursk invasion, are increasingly encircled in the region, and Putin's warning to them was stark. "Surrender or die," he warned them, and absent their being able to quickly retreat back over the border to behind the Ukrainian lines, it seems that they have little choice. Putin accused Ukraine of committing atrocities against civilians in large numbers, but he would, wouldn't he, and certainly the counter accusation has been made against his troops as well. Civilians, as always, are the ones who suffer worst in such conflicts.

So now we find ourselves in a stalemate and Donald Trump is having to swallow the truth that not everyone he meets is going to roll over in slavish compliance with his command. He pretended an insouciance to Putin's comments yesterday - "very promising" but "incomplete" - but the truth is that Putin has firmly put the ball back into Trump's court and it's unclear quite what Trump can do about it. The Americans have tightened up on the existing sanctions they have in place on Russia, but no-one really believes that this is now going to make any real difference to the Russian responses. Russia has already compensated for lost trade with the West by simply pivoting towards the East, so this move is essentially for the domestic optics of making it look like we (the West) still have leverage to exert.

Putin it would now seem, has Trump over a barrel and any terms agreed on will be at the Russian leader's dictating. Meanwhile on the front lines the opinion is skeptical. The troops spoken to by BBC reporters as they returned from the action was cynical. "Ceasefire?", they scoffed, "Not going to happen."

John Mearsheimer always said that this conflict would end on the battlefield and it's looking increasingly likely that he was correct. The Russian forces want to keep fighting, the Ukrainian forces want to keep fighting, their two leaderships want to keep fighting, maybe the Ukrainian people want the war to end but who's listening to them? At what point is anyone going to listen to Trump? The different objectives of the two sides are just simply too far apart for anything other than an enforced peace to be put upon them, and that isn't happening. There is no agreement that can bridge their differences at this point. Not unless Zelensky relents and agrees to accept territorial losses: and demilitarisation and abandonment of his Nato ambitions: and accepts total Ukrainian neutrality; and (plus or minus) the instalation of a Russian puppet regime. This is called 'loosing a war' and Zelensky isn't prepared to do this as yet. So his only hope is to turn to Europe and pray that they can come up to the plate and provide at least some support in replacement of the American support which will be lost (Trump will have no choice but to retreat into his pretend indifference, and at least keep his electoral promise to end the financial drain of supporting Ukraine).

So now it's down to Kier Stamer and his ridiculous intention of using the interest on frozen Russian assets to support aid supplies into Ukraine. Never mind his promises of "boots on the ground" and F-1 fighter planes (or whatever they are called). All very well talking the talk Kier. Lawyers are very good at that aren't they. But now (or very shortly) it's going to be time to walk the walk, and that my friend, is going to be a very different animal indeed.

[peter]

Kier Stamer;

My message to the Kremlin could not be clearer: Stop the barbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all and agree to a ceasefire now. Until then we will keep working to deliver peace.

Emmannuel Macron;

Russia must now accept the US-Ukranian proposal for a 30 day ceasefire.

Quite apart from the complete nonsense of these two preening cockerels pretending they can tell Vladimir Putin what he must and must not do, why exactly should he just roll over and agree to gift away his current battlefield advantage, on the basis of an American-Ukrainian proposal that he should.

His questions are entirely valid: how indeed is he to know that Ukrainian forces will not simply use the agreed time to regroup, rearm and resupply (both men and equipment) to the front lines?

One paper (the Times I think) said that exactly the same questions could be asked of him approps the Russians - but that of course ignores the fact that the Russians have the advantage. They, unlike the Ukrainians, don't need the time to regroup etc. This isn't a boxing match where a referee gets to send one fighter to a corner while he allows the other to find his feet.

The Times also said that Putin had agreed to a ceasefire, but "only on his own terms." Not true. Putin raised valid questions that we would most certainly be asking were the situation reversed, and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Our leaderships refusal to meet these questions head-on and answer them is a demonstration of the lack of seriousness on our part rather than the Russian. If we are just demanding a 30 day ceasefire with no reference to what is supposedly to be done with that 30 days, then it is meaningless. Is it a prelude to negotiations to getting the war ended or not? If so, what are the terms upon which such negotiations are to be based? If the parameters which each side are setting upon which negotiations would be based are so far apart as to make any such talks a hopeless exercise, then it becomes meaningless (and damaging to Russia) to proceed with them. This is the reality of the situation and if Stamer and Macron cannot be serious and acknowledge this then they should shut up and be quiet.

-----0-----

The government is considering whether to restrict illegal migrants from exploiting the European Convention on Human Rights to block their deportations.

So says this morning's Telegraph, seemingly unaware of the contradicting implicit in what they say. If these people are appealing to that which is considered by the Convention to be part of their human rights, then it cannot be exploiting the Convention to do so. Rather it is an entirely appropriate usage of the Convention to make such an appeal.

How is it that I, a mere plebian of no great intelligence or acuity, can see this logical paradox, while the collective writing and editorial brainpower of the Telegraph team seem unable to do so.

Ahh - sorry, I forgot. This is the 'new world' where logical paradoxes form part of the accepted fabric of our lives; where no logical consistency is required even of our leaderships and administrators, far less our media and opinion makers.

-----0-----

Chancellor Reeves "Vows to get a grip on welfare bill," tells the Saturday Times.

A million plus to have their benefits cut, with only the most severely disabled to qualify for automatic payments without the need for continous reassessment as to their fitness to work. Even the mentally ill and partially disabled must be "helped and incentivised" to get back into work.

So that's how to do it, is it? Threatening to leave the mentally ill without means of support will help them to recover will it? Not just add more pressure to their already near intolerable burdens? Or is it that we simply are not to care about their wellness? That they are economically productive is more important than their mental health considerations? Sorry, but I thought we had a welfare state? Perhaps I was mistaken.

And Reeves herself. Am I not correct that it has turned out that she isn't exactly 'whiter than white' herself, when put under the magnifying glass.

Yes, okay - she plagiarised huge sections of her book. And she wrote her CV in perhaps more imaginative a fashion than some might consider appropriate. And alright - she did have that business of her House of Commons credit card being frozen for improper usage.....and there was that business of her expenses being investigated by her former employers..... but these things happen to the best of us.

So nothing here is relevant to her decision to stand under the umbrella of one of the proudest political achievements our country can boast: the formation of a party that was based on honesty and caring. That humanitarian thinking sitting alongside a rectitude of behaviour was the very underpinning of the movement she now roundly trashes in her vanity and self-serving machinations. Because whatever wreckage she leaves behind her in the broken lives that result in consequence of her heartless actions, she will be just fine. Blackrock or Vanguard, Morgan Stanley or Legal and General have seats already warmed for her duplicitous arse to settle into - and they won't even ask to see that work of fiction she laughingly presented as a CV.

[peter]

Coalition of the unwilling.

Kier Stamer and Emmannuel Macron looked exactly like the pictures of them at their 'virtual' meetings yesterday, in which the actual nuts and bolts of putting soldiers into Ukraine were discussed - lonely and isolated.

Because, although the wording that has come out of their machinations is deliberately phrased to make it sound as though important advances are being made, the truth is that only UK and France have actually nailed their colours to the mast and said they are up for it. Other nations are non-committal and yet others - the ones at most direct risk like Poland - are explicit in their declarations that they will not be engaging in any ground operations involving soldiers in Ukraine.

All of which is starting to make Stamer and Macron look a bit silly. They are putting a brave face on it by pretending that the work is going on to its 'operational' footing, and to this effect have called some kind of 'Generals meeting' in London on Thursday, in which the brass of 27 participating countries will gather to attempt to scrape up 10,000 unlucky soldiers to be sent (in the event of the ceasefire which isn't going to happen) as a "tripwire" to prevent the Russians from breaking the terms.

But as Putin noted the other day, the front with Ukraine is 2000 km long. Who, he asked, is going to police it? Who will say when the terms have been broken? And by whom?

Good questions. Ukraine has about 1 million soldiers mobilised and one assumes Russia must have at least as many. Stretched out along 2000 km, facing off against each other over fairly flat territory, the possibility for individual breaches of the ceasefire would be almost limitless, and given the known reluctance of the Ukrainian military to stop fighting (not to mention its fragmented and militia like structure), how on earth are these 10,000 souls supposed to make a difference? Russia has said that any military personnel on the Ukrainian side of the front lines will be considered as enemy participants and subject attack, and their is no reason to disbelieve them. These 10,000 would be an insignificant drop in the ocean - cannon fodder for the Russian meat-grinder crawling toward them.

And a trip-wire to what? The very terminology says what it is; a trap, a subterfuge put there with the intention of unleashing an explosion. But what exactly, kind of explosion are we talking. A one which sees the whole of Europe descend into flames while the Americans look on? Stamer has said that getting the Americans on board for providing a "backstop" has to be part of the deal, and you bet it does. Without this element the whole thing becomes a farce heaped upon a comedy heaped upon an absurdity. Is he, are they, really this stupid? What is this foolishness? Watch Trump's mouth. Yes, it contradicts itself every time it opens, but in the spirit of the words of great American writter and poetry Maya Angelou, under such circumstances, "believe me the first time". In other words Trump isn't coming to help. Get it? Listen again. Trump...isn't...coming...to...help. Europe, if it pokes the Russian bear into action against itself, is on its own.

As soon as the reality of this ridiculous farce that Stamer and Macron are slubbering up is revealed, the coalition of the willing will melt away like ice cream on a hot summer day. Putin won't accept a ceasefire that includes the presence of co-beligerant forces coming onto ground in Ukraine (he won't accept the US-Ukranian terms at all). There won't be a ceasefire on these terms and even if there was,Trump would not agree to the backstop conditions that Stamer has set himself. It's a ridiculous charade and is making the UK look ridiculous as well as its clearly unhinged leader. Time to stop with the dick-waving contest Kier and look to the wreckage of your own tattered country.

What, I ask, is this lunacy? At what point did this 'fantasy island' politics take over from the real thing? Waltz and Witkoff going to Putin with Ukrainian ceasefire proposals that they must know he will (effectively, though diplomatically) reject, so far do they fail to meet Russian conditions. Stamer and Macron confecting castles of candyfloss about their plans to 'peacekeep' between the mammoth armies of Ukraine and Russia (which effectively means peace enforcement, because neither wants to stop fighting). Putin being the only one who is actually existing in the real world of what is happening on the ground. How have we come to this? Where did it all go Alice in Wonderland on us?

[peter]

Here's a problem that any searcher after the truth faces in today's fucked up media world, where fact and fiction, truth and lies are spun and distorted into a conflicting mishmash of data, of which no sense can be made.

I'll take the example of the 'stolen children' that has featured in news reports about the Ukrainian war, intermittently for a long period.

It recently resurfaced when President Zelensky made reference to it as a situation that would need to be addressed in any ceasefire negotiations, stating that the "return of our children" would need to be one of the conditions upon which the ceasefire would be based.

The stolen children accusation is important; it sits behind the ICC arrest warrant issued for Vladimir Putin, since it was he who reputedly ordered the removal of the children (again quotes, but I can't keep doing it) himself.

In this weekend's 'i' newspaper a pretty extensive article referring to the children was published - indeed the full front page was devoted to the story. Let's just take a quick glance at it.

Ukraine children stolen by Russia: now Musk cuts the team that rescues them.

......□ 19,500 reports of children being abducted since the conflict began - with some being discovered on adoption agency websites in Russia or living with Russian families

□Moscow's campaign of abducting children has been called a war crime by UN

□About 1,2400 children have so far been found and repatriated

□Kier Stamer calls abductionsa "moral outrage" and UKis urged to step in and help.

So far so easy; this is the stuff of nightmare. A Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang style operation to snatch up children to...what....turn them from Ukrainians into 'model Russian children'? Anyway - a beastly crime by any book, and no reason to question it.

Except, except, except.....

Turns out these children might not have been actually "snatched' in the above sense - that is if you listen to the account given by Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, who present a somewhat different picture.

According to them these children, whose age range is from toddlers up to 17 year olds, are ethnic Russians from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine where the combat has been viscous and unrelenting. They have indeed been relocated in numbers - but according to Blumenthal and Mate, with their parents consent and for their own safety. The locations where they have been accommodated have been inspected and found to be of high standard, and the children themselves happy. Suddenly the abductions are starting to look more like an evacuation, such as was carried out (pretty poorly) by the UK government during the blitz of WW2.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the visits are akin to the Red Cross checks at the Nazi concentration camps, where staged conditions unlike anything that the inmates normally experienced were presented to the inspectors. Who can say? But in truth I trust these guys - Blumenthal and Mate - far more than I trust our propoganda ridden media, where the stirring and maintenance of Russophobia, seems to trump any desire for accurate reportage.

Besides which, if these kids are so 'stolen away', how is it that they have been repatriated in some cases. How was this done by guys at Yale University (from whence much of this story seems to spring) working thousands of miles away on computers? The one account of a repatriation given in a 'box' in the i, seems to involve a woman who was able without difficulty, to go and retrieve her child without problem. In other parts of the paper, accounts were given of children being taken on school trips and then snatched off to these centers in Russia, but again Blumenthal and Mate had long ago rubbished these stories, saying that these reputedly abducted children were in fact on field trips, and were returned home following a short visit inside Russia which they took with their parents agreement and knowledge. This account, say Blumenthal and Mate, actually originates from a US state report, which acknowledges that the children were returned home without incident.

Again Blumenthal and Mate ask, why would the Russians do this (as presented by the West)? Why steal Ukrainian children: it makes no sense other than as a propoganda tool with which to vilify the Russians. And the thing is I have reason to believe them. They have been unscrupulous in their reportage from Gaza, on the crimes of Israel (indeed over many years, and both are Jewish reporters who have intimate knowledge of the subject and have written books on it) and (more personally for me) were unreserved in pointing out how Jeremy Corbyn was traduced by unjustified claims of antisemitism against him.

Yes it's possible they have been duped - even the most honest of reporters can be hoodwinked - but it doesn't seem so to me. They (in their YouTube post) quote source material in depth, unpick the story with a forensic precision that has a ring of truth about it. And maybe it's me that's hoodwinked. But with the legacy media reportage, I can smell the propoganda in it - it doesn't pass the 'sniff test'. I've been watching how news is twisted and distorted over all sorts of stories for so long, that I just see underneath the headlines almost without trying. And if the Greyzone guys were faking it, I genuinely believe I would know.

Something about the 'i' story just isn't right (and I've felt this from the earliest accusations on BBC news etc ages ago). Something about the Greyzone account is.

But confirmation bias? Is it that I just don't want it to be true, that I'm so inherently suspicious of anything my governments now tell me, that the client media reports, that I cannot tell the wood for the trees.

And this is what makes it so difficult. Like the boy who cried wolf, our government and media have fooled me so many times (or clearly tried to at least) that even over something as horrendous as this (and God forbid that it is true, because it would be a crime of terrible proportion, literally unforgivable) I find myself in serious doubts that they can be trusted. But what if I'm wrong.....what if I'm wrong?

[peter]

With 300 plus Gazans killed in air-strikes overnight, I guess one can say that entirely as predicted, the ceasefire in Gaza (like a significant proportion of the population) is truly dead and buried.

Like Benjamin Netenyahu was ever going to allow food and aid to reach the dying population in sufficient quantities to meet its needs. Like he was ever going to withdraw his forces from the occupied Strip. This restart of the brutal slaughtering of the Palestinians within Gaza was always part of the plan, was never in doubt to anyone who was listening to those who were telling it like it is and not trying to maintain the facade that Israel is a reasonable player in all of this.

For those who are interested, the long term strategy now is to essentially drive out the population from Gaza by attrition. Starvation, disease and lack of accommodation and amenities will slowly see them forced out. And the same will happen in the West Bank.

But it may not go entirely Israeli's way. Netenyahu and his right wing cabinet were no doubt incenced by the revelation that the Americans were in direct communications with Hamas (apparently behind their backs) as this is an absolute no-no for them. There is evidence that Trump and Netenyahu hold no love for each other and maybe this is now spilling out. The Israeli's are using the failure to reach any progress in the talks on extending the ceasefire (ie moving to phase two) as the excuse for their restarting the bombardment, but everybody knows that they have been breaking the agreement on phase one in regards to aid supplies and committing acts of violence on a regular basis. In addition, Israel has all but torn up the agreement already by changing the terms mid race, in respect of their demands.

There is no evidence that they ever entered into this ceasefire with anything other than the most cynical objectives of giving their soldiers a breathing space and concentrating on issues elsewhere. Who knows, maybe Trump will shake off the fell influence of the Israeli lobby at home and actually say enough is enough. I won't hold my breath on it, but remember - the USA could stop this carnage at a stroke. One instruction to halt arms supplies to Israel, one decision to reverse the American veto on the acceptance of the sovereignty of the Palestinian State by the United Nations General Assembly, and it's all over. The two state solution could be mandated - maybe even enforced - and this terrible situation could be put behind them.

But Trump is subject to the pressure of the Israel lobby: he has accepted huge donations from the Jewish community in his fight to re-enter the Whitehouse, and he is obligated to support their interests in return. But how can he decry the killing in Ukraine on the one hand but turn his back on a much more hideous situation - a true mass killing of a civilian population - in Gaza?

And what of Egypt and Jordan? Clearly they don't want 2 million Palestinians relocating to their countries. Reports that troops are massed in the Sinai abound, and this could be the flash point for regional war (much predicted by those in the know). It has reached a point where perhaps even the supine client states of the Arab world have reached the limit of their patience. If Netenyahu is seen to be deliberately starting the killing again, then it might simply be too much for the Arab countries (who so recently put forward their ideas for the reconstruction of Gaza with the Palestinians in situ) to bear. Egypt and Jordan have skin in the game and if their populations see their leaderships standing back while Israel slaughters an entire Arab people, then their own position as governors of their countries could well be put in jeopardy.

And if this kicks off the entry of Egypt (and Jordan) into the fray, then who next? Turkey? Iran? America throwing its weight in behind Israel against Iran and then China and/or Russia going in behind Iran?

Fuck, do we really need to have another WW3 flash point developing right at this critical moment on the Ukrainian-Russian front?

Does anyone else suddenly experience the sinking feeling that we ain't going to make it through this? That the odds are suddenly looking way too stacked against us - too many fault lines converging ready to bring about a collapse. All you can do is do your best rabbit in the headlights impression; stand still in the face of approaching doom and wash your face. Pretend to yourself it isn't happening. Nothing to see here.

The world is in a pretty pass when Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are the only two rational actors on the stage.

[peter]

Within days of being elected Labour had cut the winter fuel payments for pensioners. Within weeks they had confirmed that they had no plans to lift the two child benefits cap which is widely acknowledged to keep upwards of 2 million children living in poverty. Now they are targeting the disabled in their attempts to cut 5 billion from the benefits bill.

Pensioners, children and the disabled. All within 12 months of winning power. A Labour government.

No more need be said.

-----0-----

On Monday BBC News ran a story on a historic paedophile identified in Thailand using facial recognition technology and returned to the UK to face justice. Then yesterday in the Telegraph (iirc) we were informed that facial recognition technology being introduced in airports would allow us to bypass long queues at passport desks and march straight through unimpeded. In fact a succession of small reports have given positive information about places where the tech has come in handy here and there; I've registered them, if not commented.

I'm not so advanced in years that I don't remember how the "widespread use of facial recognition technology" was cited as one of the observations supposedly demonstrating how China was an "illiberal state that spied on its people" and used technology to monitor and record their behaviour and activities.

No more need be said.

-----0-----

More than 400 hundred people, many of whom were women and children, are now known to have been killed is Israel's ferocious air strikes on Gaza the night before last. These were of course targeted attacks against Hamas operatives, so there was nothing indiscriminate about them ar anything like that.

Benjamin Netenyahu has assured us that these are just "the first of many" and that from now on any talks will be carried out against a background of ongoing operations. The agreed ceasefire is now effectively dead and while Israel blames Hamas for not agreeing to release all the hostages in one fell swoop, everyone knows that it is Israel's and the US's deliberate moving of the goalposts of the agreement that has brought about its failure.

No more need be said.

-----0-----

Donald Trump fails to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine in a telephone call that results only in a lip-service agreement not to hit power generating infrastructure for 30 days. Neither Ukraine nor Russia wants to stop fighting. Their respective objectives are 1000 miles apart and neither will compromise - neither can compromise - on them. Italy effectively tears up Stamer and Macron's cloud cuckoo land ideas about coalitions of the willing by pointing out that, well, none of what they are suggesting is remotely possible to achieve. Piss and wind break into foaming chaos on the hard shores of brutal reality.

No more need be said.