What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

What in heaven's name is all this foolishness about Britain being made "War Ready" in the newspapers today?

Like it's a foregone conclusion that we'll be going to war in a short order, like it or not. It's a nonsense. If we go to war, it'll be part of a wider European conflict and it'll go nuclear and we'll all die. All of us. Certainly Europe would be a wasteland and most probably much of the rest of the world as well.

Only an absolute c**t would even be considering such a pathway, let alone talking it up, yet our administration seems hell bent on just such a course of action as if we can prepare for it like a Sunday walk in the park.

Here's a flavour of the kind of nonsense we are being served

Britain to be made 'War Ready' with 1.5 billion for bomb factories.

Britain will move to a state of constant readiness for war by building 6 new bomb factories the Defence Secretary will announce tomorrow.

I mean, have the lunatics taken over the asylum or what?

Let me put this as clearly unequivocally as it can be put. This has nothing to do with defending ourselves. It has to do with making a small number of people very rich. People with money invested in the arms industry, people who stand to gain by promoting this cause, by setting it in motion, people who are paid to say it, who get lucrative jobs by pushing it, people who skim off huge amounts by securing the defence contracts that are dished out and get the dividends from the rocketing values of the companies contracted to do the supplying. Listen to this (from the Telegraph).

Mr Healey (the Defence Secretary) said " the hard-fought lessons from Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine show a military is only as strong as the industry that stands behind it.

Does this clown think we've never heard of the 'military-industrial complex', the famous speech by outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower warning against the perils of allowing such a union of shared interest talking and taking up the role as directors of government policy? Yet herewith are, being asked to swallow it today on the back of some cooked up threat that "Putin intends to march west."

It's nonsense. We're being primed and softened up for accepting the wasting of huge amounts of public money in the name of this cause. We all know it. But our media, our establishment, our political class are balls deep in it and are going to run with it until the cows come home.

It's up to us as a people to say no. To let those in the positions that we put them in that we won't stand for it. Nothing else will stop these greedy, stupid, lying fools in their running headlong into madness - a madness that really could see us return to the horror of war. Total war. All out war. War that sees our children pulled broken and charred from the wreckage of our homes, our streets, our cities - and that's the good scenario. Because behind one set of fools there is yet another set - the set who actually believe this shit. The kind of fools that believe wars can be won. Or the kind that believe that the world must continue as a Western run neoliberal hegemony or cease to exist. Such is the level of their fanaticism, their 'my way or the highway' mentality.

C'mon people. Tell these idiots to stop it and stop it now! This has gone far enough.

-----0-----

In another of the 'Great Rip-Off's' 9 billion pounds of public money was written off following government issued PPE contracts that turned out to be worthless.

Anybody and his mother could get a slice of the action as long as they had an 'in' via a personal contact with a serving minister or MP. No suggestion of course that any of the politicians involved actually profited themselves from any of these useless contracts - contracts handed out to family members, pub acquaintances, people they'd met on the golf course, and none with the slightest experience or knowledge of PPE. Some just simply ordered the stuff from Alibaba and then shipped it on to the government at a huge markup.

Nice work if you can get it - except that we all sprung for it.

And now the official interest in reclaiming some of that filched money is zilch. Just write it off - pretend it never happened. A bit like the whole covid debacle itself really. Pretend it never happened unless of course you need to wheel it out as an excuse. Then turn it to whatever purpose you need to, to explain whatever deficit of funding or service you need an excuse for not providing. It's damn useful then, but otherwise, best not to mention it really.

(The 'inquiry' has gone awfully quiet hasn't it? Let it grumble along until it no longer matters eh? Least said, soonest mended style of thing.)

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Sunday Express calling for prison staff to be armed in order to protect themselves from attacks by Islamist prisoners (not like any of the other violent, murderous felons incarcerated in our jails would ever attack a prison warder or anything). What could go wrong?

-----0-----

And to finish, the Star has an article about the selfish bastards who the moment the sun rises, are out in their gardens with their strimmers making a godawful racket without a care for the rest of us.

As a person who has many a memory of that Sunday morning surface, head splitting and nerves shredded as a result of the previous night's 'revelry', I know exactly where they are coming from.

In fact I think that anyone who even owns a strimmer should have it shoved so far up his arse that the plug comes out of his mouth. What kind of subhuman excuse for a man would even contemplate fucking up a good Sunday - for himself, let alone for everyone else in a half mile radius of his house - by getting out a strimmer? (Note I say 'his'. Deliberately I assure you. No woman would be that stupid, Sunday morning or any other time.)

They say you are closer to God in a garden than anywhere else. Given the colour of my face every time I've done any gardening in the past 10 years I believe it. Gardening is for those with too much time on their hands. Not that I mind being in a nice garden, or having one even. I just don't like doing the work. As a whole I prefer to "leave it lie fallow" this year. As to working in it - I'll watch you working in it ad infinitum. That I can tolerate without problem and even enjoy. Aside from that, the best thing I can see in a garden is a shady tree and a hammock.

Good Sunday people. Good Sunday.

[peter]

Here we go again.

"Britain sends warning to Putin with 12 new attack submarines," tells this morning's 'i'.

Yesterday it was 6 new bomb producing factories and news that fighter planes were to be fitted with the means to fire tactical nuclear weapons.

I mean - what is it that these fucking idiots are proposing in their theatrics about 'perpetual war readiness' and 'moving to a war footing'? Are they really suggesting that we get ready to start exchanging missiles with Russia, to start sending bombing sorties out to level each other's frikkin cities and towns? Turning London and Moscow into Gaza: heaps of smoking ruin with bodies by the thousands buried under broken masonry and rubble?

Is this their idea of being 'rational actors' in the modern world?

Because this is what we presume isn't it: that our political administrations, and those of others, are rational actors. But in what sense, in which world, could leading us back down the path of the 20th century, back into total war - even if there weren't the added problem of the 10,000 or so nuclear warheads in the world ready to turn the surface into the equivalent of the inside of a microwave oven - be considered rational?

There's all this bullcrap about Russia intending to push west into Europe - that Putin wants to rebuild the old Soviet Union (fuck, the world was a lot safer when it had the Soviet Union to balance the America as a regional hegemony) but it's nonsense. Since 1945, since the fall of communism, Russia has not expanded its interest westward by one inch. The West on the other hand, has been lurching eastwards in successive tranches of expansion that has set Russian alarm bells ringing louder and ever louder, and had them virtually pleading with us to stop. (Read the fucking history if you don't believe me.)

And now, stupid little cunts that we are (the British that is - not the Americans, who with Trump at the helm at last seem to be getting some idea that peaceful coexistence and trade etc might actually be a better way forward), we're making noises and threats and running up to them like a rabbit running up to a bear, shaking our puny fists in their faces.

Does it make these ministers feel big, making all these bellicose noises? Is it some kind of power thing - that they feel that if they don't get up and start throwing their weight around, start behaving like little Mussolini's and stamping their feet, that no-one will think they are important?

Or is it that this is all a huge great dead cat bounce? Are we being misdirected, shepherded away from looking at something else?

Remember - whenever the news is creating a furore around one thing in concert it's a ninety nine percent chance that we are being either manipulated or misdirected away from something else: from somewhere where we should be looking.

What is it today then? Is it a desperate attempt to get us to not focus on 'rent boy gate'? Is Stamer really that threatened by revelations that could come out and topple him? Or is it more about money: as I said yesterday - softening us up for billions of our taxes to be syphoned off into the bank accounts of the behind the scenes beneficiaries of the military-industrial complex?

I'm fucked if I know. But I can only hope, really hope, that none of the actors in this sorry-ass pantomime of bullshit is so irrational as to believe that talking us into an actual fucking war with Russia is like, a good fucking idea. And if they are working on the adage that in order to preserve the peace you have to prepare for war, okay I get it. But preparing for war means preparing for war, not strutting around shouting aggressive threats at the ones you see as your potential enemy. Like quietly. Softly softly. And while you make your defences ready you also make it the case that you won't have to use them. By talking and parleying at the same time, because chances are that they don't want to actually fight either.

But we're Britain, and way too stupid, way too aggressive in nature to get this. Historically we'd have fought our own shadow if we could reach round and punch it, and nothing has changed. America has learned virtually everything it knows about international diplomacy from our disastrous teaching and look where it's gotten the world today. They in turn never use peaceful means if the barrel of a gun can be used instead. Professor Jeffrey Sachs says that virtually all the geopolitical problems of the world today can be traced back to the British and he's absolutely right. And nothing has changed. And today's headlines just go to reinforce that we haven't changed a jot. We're still spoiling for a fight with Russia, with Germany, with France, China: if it isn't over the territory of Ukraine, control of Middle Eastern oil, it's over fishing waters in the seas, it's over trading rights or the installation of tech. Everyone is our enemy and we'll fight them all.

What a stupid little bullish people we are. We have leaders who would rather waste words and money on useless armaments and armies than on providing for the people of the nation.

I give up.

[peter]

We have a really serious situation in the UK (and probably right across the West) in that our main stream media (msm) has been degraded to the point where it simply cannot be trusted to deliver accurate newd on what is happening in the world.

Take the operation by Ukraine reported yesterday called 'Spider Web' by a euphoric media, which absolutely was a resounding success judged on its own standards, but is actually very difficult to unpack in and of itself.

I'm going to use a BBC website article (which I haven't actually read yet) as a vehicle to study the operation and the way it has been reported, making observations as I go on alternative narratives about the same event that I heard on 'alternative media' sites throughout yesterday. (At least that's the plan.)

First thing to say is that for the staggering blow it is reported to have been to Russian offensive capabilities, very little has actually been reported. Our politicians seem unusually silent on the matter and with possibly good reason.

Ex British diplomat of no little experience Alistair Crook noted that the planes that were struck were nuclear weapons delivery planes that were held in open visibility under terms of the SALT agreements (some commentators had been crowing about Russian stupidity in having them lined up in visible locations). Under the terms of these agreements such planes have to be kept in locations where they are visible for verification purposes on both the Russian and American sides; as such they are considered to be immune from any surreptitious attack on the basis of being under the protection of the agreement. The Ukrainian attack therefore is an violation of this immunity and as such constitutes an attack on the very treaty itself. Take it as read that the Russians will be extremely pissed at this and the world becomes more dangerous as a result.

The second point is the manner in which the attack was carried out. It was by all intents and purposes a terrorist attack rather than a military operation.

The vehicles used were smuggled across the borders and driven to sites within Russia close to the actual airfields that were attacked. That it was cleverly and successfully done is undeniable. But the use of personnel in non military 'disguise' behind enemy lines places those individuals outside the normal rules of warfare and into the realms of spies and terrorists. The attack has more akin to the Israeli use of pagers to attack Hezbollah, in terms of its clandestine character. Okay, it works, but it changes the nature of warfare. It opens the door on types of attack that while we might happily applaud when visited upon the Russians, we'd be quick to condemn if they were applied to ourselves. But doors opened can of course be used in both directions.

I mentioned above that the attacks seem in the main to have been carried out from within Russia itself, very much akin if you like to the activities of the SOE operations of sabotage and espionage of WW2. But there is a suggestion that some of the drones used in the attack might have been launched from Finland in which case we have entered a totally different ball park altogether. Finland is a member of Nato and if they have allowed any of these drones to be used directly from their territory then it constitutes a direct attack on Russia from a Nato country. We've been skirting around this, desperately trying to ensure we use only Ukraine to actually fight this war for the past 3 years, specifically in order to avoid this eventuality, which under Article 51 of the UN charter, gives a country the right of response. The reports that have been given of Spider Web have stressed that this was absolutely a Ukrainian operation of which no other country - particularly the USA - had any prior knowledge. It had, we are told, taken a year and a half to plan, and the Ukrainians had done it all without any help or giving any hint that it was ongoing.

This is frankly for the birds and everyone knows it - but knowing and proving are two different things. But if any of the drones can be shown to have originated anywhere other than Ukraine or from inside Russia itself then we are into huge escalation territory indeed. Pray God that no evidence emerges to contradict this claim or be prepared to kiss goodbye to everything you know.

But listening to the 'non' official (ie not msm) some significant extra information seems to exist - information that the 'official narrative' seems not to be mentioning.

Because it seems that it wasn't only plane sitting empty on runways that were targeted (and that no plane had a nuclear bomb on board - what would the effect of that have been?), but bridges as well. Whether by drone attack or by other means a train in Bryansk and another in Kursk were derailed as bridges collapsed under them. In the Bryansk collapse, seven people were killed and dozens injured. If this was a Ukrainian attack it would constitute an illegal act of terrorism under international law. The collapse was deliberately timed it seems, to coincide with the passage of the train, and the civilian deaths and injuries resulting include both women and children. In the other train - a freight train - there were less casualties, but a team of repair workers may have been caught, and the driver was certainly injured.

For some reason our media has not seen fit to include reporting of these events alongside that of the drone strikes, but a reporter at the scene of the Bryansk site - an Irish guy who is stationed in Russia - spoke of the horror of the scene he witnessed, including the cries of a child from within the wreckage.

Now here I am, paragraphs into this thing and I haven't even got to the BBC website report yet. (Well, I did say it was just a plan didn't I ) Sorry about that - I'll go and give it a shufty and report back if there's anything significant to add. Can't say fairer than that.

[peter]

Proof positive, if it were needed, that utilities like water supply do not lend themselves to private involvement comes with the sudden breakdown in a deal for American private equity house KKR to purchase the beleaguered Thames Water, currently some 20 billion pounds in debt.

The company has apparently been "spooked" by noises surrounding increasing regulation being made by the Stamer government, saying that it intended to hold the company for a minimum of 10 years as a turnaround could take that long.

What of course it wasn't saying was that if it couldn't continue dumping shit in the rivers and paying its shareholders squillions of pounds in dividends while simultaneously neglecting any kind of upgrading and enjoying minimal regulation requirements then it wasn't interested. That service provision and meeting the needs of current and future customers, held by monopoly to use its services, was of zero interest to it. That its interest was wringing the last few drops of fecal contaminated water out of the sponge of a business as left by 40 years of 'efficient running' by the private sector.

Take it back into public ownership now. Do it at a token purchase price to shareholders who have rinsed the company of its equity over decades. And make it the first of a renationalisation project to take back for the people an asset that was built by them, belongs to them, and was never the government's to sell in the first place.

-----0-----

Huge absence in the media or by our political class, of any consideration of the consequences of striking at Russian planes out in the open in line with meeting the terms of strategic nuclear limitations treaties.

Instead we get a kind of childish exaultatin, a fist-punch in the air as if it were a job well done.

The FT today confirms that the figure of planes destroyed was around 12 rather than the 40 claimed by Ukraine - but acknowledges that the action will demand a rethink of tactics within the Kremlin.

You could say. It goes without saying that the idea that Kiev planned and executed this without the involvement or at least agreement of its western allies, never mind the provision of the intelligence on which it was based, is for the birds. Moscow knows this and will change its tactics accordingly. The price for this reckless tearing up of agreed protocols, both in terms of existing treaties and surreptitious involvement in direct strikes within Russia of a terrorist nature will not be long in coming. At best it will be levied on Ukraine itself in the form of renewed efforts to win the war and replace the Zelensky regime with a more amenable alternative. At worst - and there will be voices inside the Kremlin at the highest level arguing for this - it will be directed further afield as a warning to the West to 'mind its manners'.

Either way, expect our politicians and media to have lots to say in condemnation of Russia when it finally lands.

-----0-----

"UK to stockpile military medical supplies for nuclear attacks," tells this morning's 'i'.

It goes on, "preparations for conflict include radiation suits, gas masks, decontamination agents, iodine and trauma kits"

I don't think you are getting it guys. Nuclear attacks doesn't need to be put in the plural.

And for anyone taking any comfort from this nonsense that any preparations made will be for the public benefit, I suggest you go take a look at the docudrama Threads, available on the BBC i-player as we speak. This will soon disabuse you of such nieve notions as you see the guns of the state turned on the very people that the stockpiles of food and medicines were supposed to protect. These supplies are used for only the very select few - ie those actually employed by the state themselves. Not for the hoi-poloi like you and me. But watch on and you'll soon see that the privilege of survival is not a gift but a curse. Because what is left makes Hobbs world of "beastly, nasty and short" sound like a week in a health resort.

Just pray God that if the bombs that these clowns are talking about preparing for ever do drop, that one lands on your head. Because if it does you'll be the lucky one. Really.

[peter]

In a seventy five minute call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the US President Donald Trump, Mr Putin emphasised the necessity for Russia to respond to the recent attacks it has suffered on its territory.

In uncharacteristic understatement, Trump said that, "It was not a conversation that would lead to immediate peace."

Quite the opposite in fact. Putin said it was effectively pointless to agree to a ceasefire with a country that would simply use the time to prepare for more terrorist attacks of the type recently mounted in his country.

He refers not so much to the attacks on the line-up of planes (which seems to be settling around a figure of 12, contrary to the 40 originally claimed by Ukraine) which, though incredibly unwise by virtue of their jeopardising the hard-won SALT 2 treaty limiting nuclear weaponry, were not really terrorist. Rather he is talking about the attacks on trains/bridges in one of which at least, a number of civilian deaths resulted.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for these attacks and they haven't been widely reported in the Western media, not conforming as it were, to the narrative of Ukraine being 'the good guys' in all of this.

In terms of Russia responding, one can only imagine the response that would be elicited if such an attack or attacks were carried out on say America or the UK. We saw the response to the 9-11 attacks in which an entire world order was upended in result, and while this clearly isn't in the same league as that tragic event, it's still a deep, deep affront to the Russian people. There will be hawks in the Duma who will be screaming out for an immediate and definitive response of significant magnitude and it will only (once again) be Vladimir Putin's mediating voice that will prevent this escalatory situation from exploding out of control.

Make no mistake; the call between Trump and Putin might not have secured much in the way of progress towards peace (the Istanbul talks seem pretty much defunct now) but it was hugely important in settling things down in terms of the scope of the inevitable Russian response. It's absolutely imperative that Trump and Putin understand each other at a deep and intuitive level and this long call will at least have helped in this respect.

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In an interview with the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has described the situation in Gaza as "Worse than Hell on earth."

I could be picky over the language (how could something be worse than Hell - we don't know what hell is like apart from anything else, and by its very definition it's supposed to be that which nothing can be worse than) but we all know what she means. And as president of the Red Cross, she should know.

This is an organisation intimately familiar over its long history with human depravity in all its forms, and if it makes a claim such as this then it behoves us to listen. But still we refer to what is happening in Gaza as a 'war'. It isn't. It's a genocide. A systematic destruction of a people in which the principal perpetrators are moving, now slowly, now more swiftly, as world attention waxes and wanes to effect their desired goal. When necessary, lip service is paid to just sufficient degree to the commentary from Israel's allies, to allow their media's to make conciliatory noises about aid provision etc, but the general trend continues. Netenyahu has himself described this "just sufficient" aid provision. 'Aidwashing' is a nice term I heard for this recently.

Even the aid provided in itself is used as an opportunity to heap more suffering on the people. They must trek, this way and that, through poisonous, deseased territory, strewn with debris and unexploded ordnance, risking life and limb, to get to named sites where all too scarce aid is distributed in conditions resembling the worst of the concentration camps and gulags of the twentieth century. Frequent attacks from the sidelines by Israeli soldiers leave scores dead in the process of attempting to access the slop considered to be food, and over and again terrified crowds are seen ducking and running, still being forced to head into the danger by virtue of the certain starvation and death that awaits them if they do not.

And our media, now reporting, now ignoring (if for example Donald Trump says something funny or outrageous as a useful diversion), now wringing its hands in cod-distress at the imagery, achieves nothing. It's been tried and found wanting - the leanings of its coverage now being shown to have been woefully inadequate (at best) or wilfully skewed (at worst) in terms of what was going on.

And still it talks in terms of an equivalence: as though the rag-tag Hamas with its dusty guerilla style tactics can even begin to take on the sophistication of the well supplied and modern technology of the IDF - if even there is any kind of active resistance left in Gaza (tell me of one actual battle you have seen, one exchange of fire that left Israeli soldiers injured or dead. To me it's just been bombing of people, followed by more bombing and yet more.) There is no equivalence here. This is muder and starvation and at last, by virtue of the bravery of the Palestinian journalists who die in their hundreds to get this story told, the Western media is forced to acknowledge it, if for no other reason than to whitewash its own failure and guilt to date. It can't be seen to be covering up the obvious any more - the veil of its perfidy would be completely pulled away and it cannot allow that - and so it moves with the inevitable and starts at least telling as best of a sanitised version of the actual events as it can.

And still this is too much for our printed media. The Telegraph reports almost daily the bias against Israel by the BBC coverage. Even Donald Trump runs with this nonsense. The BBC itself, stuck between the rock of the powerful Israel lobby and its deep controls within our establishment, and the hard place of the undeniable reportage coming out of channels like Al-Jazera and the Middle East Eye, squirms to walk a knife edge of presenting a toned down version of the truth while still reporting enough to retain credibility (were that still possible, which it isn't).

And so we have it. Our politicians will shake their fingers at Israel, warn them of 'consequences' if they carry on being naughty children, but they'll keep giving them the toys to play with. The toys that leave thousands of dead Palestinians under the rubble of their homes, and the torn up remnants of our humanity scattered all around for the eyes of the rest of the world to see.

[peter]

Oh dear. It's a day for falling out on both sides of the Atlantic as Donald Trump and Elon Musk finally pull the gloves off and start gut-punches into each other, and here, the Chairman of Reform Zia Yusuf suddenly and without warning resigns leaving a big hole in the party's modernisation plans.

The Trump-Musk fisticuffs have been brewing for a while, ever since the latter started voicing criticism over the Trump inspired ''Big Beautiful Bill' and his rowing back legislation around the enforced switch from petrol to electric cars (never going to please Musk, the owner of Tesla). But suddenly, almost over night the altercation has gotten beastly in the extreme with Trump threatening to pull funding from Musk owned interests including those upon which the Space-X part of his business is dependent. Musk for his part has returned fire saying that without his donations Trump could never have won the presidency ("Such ingratitude!", he tweeted) and hinting that Trump was included in the list of names of individuals who.....enjoyed....the services (shall we call them) provided by Jeffrey Epstein and his procurement mistress Gislaine Maxwell.

Fun to watch however as these fireworks are, they could have a really deleterious effect on the efficiency with which the state functions across the whole country. Musk has overseen massive changes across multiple departments via his activities within DOGE, the department of efficiency, and has by accounts introduced systems which he alone understands in areas effecting service provision across the board. Without his cooperative presence it'll be difficult to predict what problems might arise as time progresses. Stuff like payment of government contract liabilities and labour costs could be significantly and increasingly effected as the areas in which Musk has used his own technical infrastructure come slowly to light. Trump, never a details man, could actually watch his presidency crumble under the accumulated impact of the very details he ignores.

Switching sides and emerging from the Atlantic into the sewage streaked waters of our side of the pond, we enter into the equally 'muddy' waters of Reform internal politics and the stench of ordure surrounding the departure of the Chairman.

He has apparently thrown in the towel as a result of a question put to the Prime Minister in the House by one of the five Reform MPs, as to what plans he (the PM) had, to follow suit with some of the other European countries he apparently loves so much, and begin legislation to ban the much hated burqa in the UK.

Zia Yusuf, who is himself a Muslim himself, had apparently reacted badly to this question, about which the asking of, he had not been prewarned, and has rapidly and without warning thrown in the towel.

Playing it down, party leader Nigel Farage said he had spoken to Yusuf the day before and had been pretty convinced that he wanted to leave at that point, but said that, "Hey - this is politics....people fall out," (or words to this effect).

Yusuf, an ex banker, has not been universally popular within the ranks of Reform, being accused of bringing a 'Goldman-Sachs' atmosphere to the place and also of being somewhat over authoritarian in his approach. But Farage was at pains to stress how important and successful his term as Chairman has been to Reform, and to say how much he regretted Yusuf going. "Reform will miss him," were his soothing words, pouring emollient on what could be seen as a damaging split in the Reform ranks. Needless to say, with only five MPs, Reform doesn't need public splits arising to damage its currently high and rising political star (it's been leading in polls across the board and looks set to effectively replace the Tories as the second force in UK politics in the next election), but needless to say both the Conservative and Labour parties have jumped on the Yusuf departure like wolves on red meat. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch remarked that Reform was not a political party so much as a "fan club" (some truth in this), while a Labour spokesman said scathingly that if Nigel Farage couldn't manage to handle five MPs how on earth did he expect to run a country?

In truth, the departure of Yusuf won't damage Reform particularly badly: the reality is that most of the people who'll vote Reform are not Islamophiles already and will not mourne the departure of a Muslim Party Chairman. Many will have been suprised to have seen him in position there in the first place, and good as it might have been for the optics, won't be saddened to see the role returned to a while English man. Unpalatable as this is, there's not much point denying it. There is much racism and Islamophobia remaining in this country, and much of it is drawn to Reform as its natural homestead. There's sufficient time between now and the next election for this to pass under the bridge and dissapear, but it does behove them to be a bit more careful in future. Appearance is everything in politics and the appearance of disunity at the top of a political party is a big turn-off. God knows this country has had enough disunity to last a lifetime and it is ironic that a party whose very existence is built around disunity could be brought down by the very force that has sustained it thus far.

[peter]

Papers and all over the Trump vs Musk feud, with the FT reporting that buddies both political and financial are begging for them to "hug and make up" before the fallout cost to America becomes even greater than it already is.

But given the level of childish spitefulness that the pair have displayed, it's difficult to see how such a rapproacment could be achieved.

To date Trump has hinted Musk is an illegal immigrant while Musk has hinted that Trump is a paedophile. Trump has indicated he's going to get rid of his Tesla car and Musk his Space-X dragon landing pod (big part of the US space program). Musk has called for Trump to be impeached and Trump has said that Musk has lost his marbles.Trump says he isn't interested in speaking to Musk and Musk gone into retreat and is refusing to speak to anyone including people with billions invested in his companies).

Doesn't sound like there's much liklihood of a resumption of relations anytime soon to me, but in fairness children often do behave in the most beastly fashion to each other and then make up at the drop of a hat.

I wonder what Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping make of all of this. Somehow I don't see either of those two indulging in squabbles of this juvenile nature. I always said that America was a nation of children and their choice of leader seems to reflect this. That one of this pair has his finger on the nuclear button must give us all the shudders.

-----0-----

Last night, serving in the store, I had a woman come in with a food voucher that gave her 30 dollars worth of groceries free of charge.

She was wearing a high end make of fleece and when she had completed her 'purchase' I casually asked where the voucher had come from. "From the '-----' food-bank, she said, naming a local village. "They give them out on request."

What qualification did one need to obtain one, I asked, and she breezily replied that it was simply done on request. Having completed her shopping she loaded her bag into an expensive car I could see parked outside the front of the shop. She might have been, I suppose, shopping for a person less well off than she appeared to be - it's possible.....but she didn't give this impression. She just seemed to think it was a 'win' to be able to get a 25 quid voucher for free shopping simply for the asking of. It never seemed to cross her mind that I might be thinking, "Hang on - aren't these vouchers meant for people struggling with the cost of living, those we hear about trying to make the choice between 'heating or eating'?"
No such idea seemed to occur to her ; rather she seemed just to exemplify the adage that I have as a tag below, that it isn't that there isn't enough money to meet the needs of the poor in this world, but rather not enough to meet the greed of the rich.

-----0-----

Nobody really seems to doubt that the UK or US security services at the least were 'in the know' about the attacks on the Russian bridges and strategic nuclear installations of the last week. It is inconceivable that Ukraine could have carried out such an operation without at least some participation with its western allies: if it didn't then this of itself would represent a frightening level of disconnect between partners that should know intimately about what each other are up to. For this not to be the case would place Ukraine as a loose cannon of the most dangerous sort.

The operation used intelligence about the location of Russian bases simply not available without high end information from Western satellites. That such information could be used by Ukraine for any purposes it chose without so much as a nod from their Western backers is just not conceivable and the Russians know this.

But it does however have 'plausible deniability'. It can't be proved. And that's fine as far as it goes, but it won't cut much slack with the Russians. Already they've said they think that the British were the lead party behind these attacks and the general consensus amongst commentators outside the msm media (where there is conspicuously little comment being made following the initial gloating - perhaps the implications of what was done is actually beginning to sink in) is that this is probably correct.

It makes sense for the Russians to name us as the likely guilty parties for other reasons than its probably being true as well. We are if you like, the low hanging fruit in this. If the Russians wanted to respond with a target in the West beyond Ukraine - to send a message without starting WW3 as it were - then we're the ideal target. Unloved in Europe, not in the EU and not respected or supported much by the American administration either, we can be dug at without taking much risk.

How then? A missile in our back yard is too much; it couldn't be allowed without response and has itself no plausible deniability - a necessary response to the game the Russians see as being played by the British. So what are we talking? Well, for my money only a cyber response would seem to fit the bill.

Now you may remember that a few weeks ago Spain was effectively grounded for 48 hours by a power outage that no-one could explain. Well no-one commented on this at the time, but mere days before the country had announced that it would be suspending arms sales to Israel (I think it was arms - it might have been something else, but it was definitely tied to the Gazan situation in some way). Israel is of course the past master of internet virus development: it is Israel that is rumoured to be behind the famous Stuxnet virus, alongside America. No-one in the media had made this connection, but I heard a YouTube presenter asking Aaron Mate whether he thought Israel could have been behind the power outage - sending a message if you like, to other European nations not to follow the example of Spain. Mate said that he'd seen no evidence to support this conjecture, but that in his thinking, he was now so unsurprised by anything Israel did that if he heard a suggestion like this he simply assumed it to be true.

So okay: countries can now make cyber attacks on each other's infrastructure and the like, and it's known that Russia are pretty swift in this area of development themselves. So this, assuming Russia did want themselves, to send out a message, this is how I predict they'd do it.

It's conjecture for sure; sounds a bit paranoid, a bit 'conspiracy' like, even to me. But something is niggling me saying that I need to get prepared in the 'survival mode' pretty damn quick. Just a few essentials - candles and matches, some tinned food and a means of heating it and what have you. Sure, it's tin-hat stuff, but given what I'm hearing, that Russia has already said that they are going to respond to what has happened, I'm prepared to look a bit silly if it puts me ahead of the curve.

So pass me the tinfoil and if you don't hear anything from the UK for a week or two, then you might know the reason why!

[peter]

Nasty stuff going down in L.A.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have carried out sweeping raids into people's homes, arbitrarily picking up undocumented hispanics for deportation in order to fill quotas. Crowds of protesters gathered and tear gas and batons were used to disperse them. Up to 118 arrests were made in the sweep operations and disturbances followed in their wake. Things got particularly bad in the Paramount district, where scenes resembling a battle zone resulted.

Now as the disturbances enter their second day, President Trump has ordered 2000 National Guard officers into the fray and has warned that marines from the nearby Camp Pendleton are ready and on high alert.

Criticism of the ICE operation has been levelled by Californian govenor Gavin Newsome who has condemned the raids as "cruel." The Whitehouse describes the officers of ICE and Ferderal Law Enforcement agents as carrying out "basic deportation operations." Newsome has released the following statement.

Donald Trump's chaos is eroding trust, tearing families apart, and undermining the workers and industry that power America's economy.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass accused ICE of "sowing terror" across America's second largest city.

Got to admit, it doesn't sound good. The raids have a sort of 'dystopian' feel about them - like something you read about in books like 1984 or see I films like Children of Men or V for Vendetta. More frighteningly, the whole thing has the sound of some kind of prelude to the film Civil War, the terrifying picture of American descent into hell in which an authoritarian and right wing president has pushed the nation too far and sowed divisions that have resulted in a North-South split that has erupted into violence.

Pray God we're not going down that route, but Trump is getting more irrational as the days go by, and seeing the National Guard and Marines preparing to be utilised against the people does not bode well for the future.

-----0-----

I just read Jeremy Bowen's 'deep dive' into Israeli actions in Gaza since the October 7th attack, and while I thoroughly appreciate the position the article takes - that Israel has been and is guilty of carrying out war crimes in the occupied territory - I find it very carefully worded to not be overly critical of the perpetrators of this genocide.

I don't think for a minute that Bowen is actually being his own man in writing this article. It has all of the hallmarks of the BBC 'covering its back' in the face of undeniable facts that it has hitherto been at pains to either ignore completely, or to dress up in 'impartial language' that spreads and shares blame, creates a false equivalence between the two sides, and ignores the egregious nature of Israel's actions. Now that this policy of the first 16 months or so is beginning to palpably come apart at the seams, as Israel's actions become more and more obviously beyond the pale, Bowen and pals are being brought in to begin to edge the coverage into a more sustainable position - one that they hope will, when the fat hits the fire, protect them from the worst of the criticisms to come.

And it will come.

In the Amnesty International Awards for the best journalism of the past 12 months, the ceremony for which was held in London last week, it wasn't a BBC or Sky journalist who received the award, but Owen Jones, who's coverage of Gaza has been unflinching and continuous since day one.

Unlike Bowen and his colleagues - many of whom were at the said ceremony - Jones has never tried to protect Israel from public disclosure of what they have done; on the contrary he's documented in unflinching detail the barbaric nature of the Israeli response to October 7th. How that awful event was immediately seized upon and used as a tool to serve a far different set of ends than those claimed by the perpetrators. How terror and starvation and brutal killing were used as tools to whip a population of over 2 million from pillar to post until nothing but death or flight remained to them.

And standing on the rostrum receiving his award, he turned his talents to an excoriating attack on his fellow journalists, who's culpability he said, for enabling the genocide to take place would not be forgotten by history. And there would come a reckoning. Unpalatable words in the ears of many of the people sitting in front of him, he held them nevertheless to account and told them that their time was coming.

If the media has retained even a scrap of dignity throughout this awful time, then it is only thanks to the isolated and brave voices of those like Jones - the tiny few who have put the truth before their careers, their responsibility to their profession before their fear to stand against the powerful, their humanity as fellow beings with the people of Gaza before their subservience to the paymasters who whistle the tune and expect them to dance the dance.

More power to your elbow Owen. You deserve your award and also the thanks of all of us who value the truth over lies.

[peter]

News coming in that Israeli forces have intercepted the aid ship bound for Gaza carrying activists alongside food and medicines, one of which happens to be climate campaigner and all round fly-in-the-ointment Greta Thunberg.

This is actually the second such vessel to be directed towards the under siege occupied territory; the first one which was stopped by a drone attack which injured several activists was apparently not worth reporting in the Western media.

But this one, carrying its delicate celebrity cargo, is more noteworthy, and for this reason the means by which it is being stopped are less aggressive. The ship is by accounts being redirected to land in Israel, but I'm not sure of how well the crew - includingThunberg - will be recieved there. Gaza might have been dangerous, but detention centers in Israel have a reputation all of their own.

I'm not sure about this type of celebrity publicity hogging, but cannot entirely condemn it. There was something irritating about seeing the little Swedish twerp looking smug in front of the cameras the other day, but I wondered at the same time if she really understood the danger she was placing herself in. I have not the slightest doubt that the Israeli's would swat her aside like a fat fly without a second thought, were it not for the attention it would draw in the celebrity obsessed media. Thunberg's life would matter not a nickle to Benjamin Netenyahu, but he will be conscious of the bad publicity that injuring or killing her would bring. So she'll be hauled into Israeli custody and frightened pretty badly before being sent on her way. I have little doubt that the Israeli's have the expertise to do this in a way that she won't have much to materially fix on, but such that her psychological fear in her isolation (via menace rather than force) will be extreme. I wouldn't want to be in her shoes for the next day or so.

But irritating as I find her stunts, I cannot wholly condemn them. If she brings the attention of the media and public to this in any way it has to be for the good. And I've been clamouring for the likes of Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney to join together and issue a joint statement of condemnation of what is happening (think of the impact this could have, and these guys are beyond 'cancelling' by Israeli pressure if they did it) so I shouldn't complain. And neither would I want to see any harm come to Thunberg, irrespective of how annoying I find her. (I don't think she was well used as a child, with all that campaigning and attention pressure on her - it wasn't fair on her in my opinion, and her parents should be ashamed of themselves.)

But anyways, there she is and I hope she gets away without being to scarred or scared by the experience. The media needs to keep its eye fixed firmly on her over the period she is in Israel, for her own protection. Her celebrity status will mean nothing to the guards in Sde Teiman, of that we can be sure.

-----0-----

We enter a third day of unrest in L.A. as overnight protests are queiting down and the ICE prepare themselves for continuing their sweep for the undocumented.

These protests seem confined to L.A. as yet, but have the potential to grow into something larger. The ICE crackdown is taking place in a number of states - particularly those which were not Republican voting ones in the election which saw Trump returning for his second term in office. ICE has been set a target of 3000 migrant arrests a day, and as a result have been less than careful about how and where they have been searching for their targets. One chap on the news in L.A. yesterday told of how his girlfriend was pulled from his arms, and her phone torn from her hand and thrown onto the floor before she was taken away. "I have no idea where she is," he cried, "She was born here for God's sake!"

This it appears, is going to be Trump's America. Arbitrary arrests and deportations in order to fill quotas set for political reasons.

America, the land of the free. I don't think.

-----0-----

Good to hear on last night's BBC news that the Prime Minister is in favour of a ban on bottom trawling.

It's not often that the professional demeanor of the BBC News presenters slips to the point where you can visibly see them struggling not to laugh and it was refreshing to see the human behind the mask on this occasion. Me, I was grinning like a wolf as she said the words.

(Incidentally, on the same broadcast a new commentator I'd not seen before - an Arabic fellow or something similar - completely went to pieces in front of the cameras. I was really sorry for the guy as he struggled through an excruciating segment on the Spanish elections. I hope he gets a second chance to make a better fist of it. In UK we still love a looser.)

-----0-----

Massive shout out to Conservative MP Kit Malthouse who gave the Labour Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer a blasting double sider by asking if the government were prepared for the possible eventuality of being arraigned before the international courts charged with complicity in the Gazan genocide.

He followed up a couple of days later with a statement saying that MPs were fed up with Ministers coming to the dispatch box day after day and wringing their hands over Gaza, but then doing nothing about it. He said that Israel was making a pretence of delivering aid to the Palestinians, but in reality was setting up a "shooting gallery abattoir" in which starving people were lured into traps by their hunger, and then fired upon with abandon by their persecutors.

10 out of 10 Mr Malthouse. 10 out of bloody 10.

-----0-----

Don't get me wrong: I care about the ocean beds as much as the next guy. And sea-bed trawling (see above, hem-hem) does seem like an egregiously destructive way of fishing for scallops etc, I'll grant you this.

But why do I feel a frisson of irritation every time some pampered celebrity like David Attenborough or Prince William (for that is what I consider them to be, despite their 'establishment designations' as Prince of the Realm and national treasure [not respectively]) lectures me with lugubrious countenance.

I don't make the rules - why tell me? Go lecture the government ministers or MPs in the House of Commons: there's no need to go off on some jolly to a swish resort in another country (in your Lear jets and gas guzzling car entourages). You keep telling us about what we should and should not be doing, while you lot get to travel around and see the world to your hearts content. It's bullshit. Speak to the people who make the running in all this stuff. You have clout - use it. They'll accept your calls, not mine. Do the hard yards on the phone and in Westminster not in a private suite in a luxury hotel in Antigua or somewhere else exotic. Ten minutes on a frikkin lecturn and then two weeks in a pool enjoying daily massages and fine dining.

Fuck off the pair of you.

(Oh - and by the way, don't think that I haven't noticed that this sudden interest in the media in the sea bed coincides nicely with your new series on the BBC on (suprise, suprise) the sea, Attenborough. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good isn't it eh? Spent your life travelling the world on the licence payers expense and now (millions of pounds the richer) spend the rest of it doing the same thing in order to tell the rest of us that we shouldn't.)

[peter]

The 'i' has a little side headline (directing to an inside article) on its front page

Women doing comedy upsets insecure men.

Not exactly true. The trouble is that, like football, in the main, women just aren't very good at it.

There has been a few that have made a passable shot at it, but they have been few and far between and in truth, compared to their male counterparts, pretty uninspiring.

This will probably get me a roasting, but it just seems to be true to me. Okay, perhaps it's because I'm a man and I just don't get the female take on comedy like a woman does, but if this was the case, wouldn't there be an equal number of comedienne performers out there, catering for the female audience (which is, in approximation, about equal to the male)?

Another explanation could be that perhaps women just 'don't get the chance'. Perhaps the entertainment industry is so male dominated that they aren't given the opportunities that male comedians are given. It's possible, but in general the entertainment industry will go where the money is. There's no evidence of this kind of brick wall in the film or music industry; women in these fields are just as well represented as men and make very often, the same big bucks as the male exemplars.

So no, I don't buy it. Something in the male makeup lends them to more aptitude for comedic presentation. I mean physically in front of you. I'm sure women can write great comedy, that they have just as good a sense of humour as men (they seem to predominate in some audiences, like that of comedian Peter Kay's for example). But when it comes to actually standing up there and doing it - nah, they just don't cut it in the same way. Maybe it really is the physical thing; perhaps women don't by nature express (in normal exchange) the subtle range of expressions, of mannerisms, that is necessary for a great (stand-up) comedic presentation?

Don't know. But I do know what I see before my eyes and I genuinely believe that if women were as good at stand-up as men, the numbers out there doing it would reflect this.

(Edit; Perhaps the essentially 'nasty' element of comedy is a factor here as well. Stand-up is essentially spiteful comedy - there's always a 'butt' in the pictures they paint. Gosh knows, women can be as spiteful as men (and then some) but perhaps just not in the way that lends itself to great stage performance (though Joan Rivers would belie that statement). Don't know is the answer: it's a quandary.)

-----0-----

Rachel Reeves had done an effective U-turning on the winter fuel allowance cuts and has reinstated it for the larger numbers of pensioners.

Typically, after having roasted her for doing this, the media is today pillorying her for reinstating it,but naturally they are missing the main issue here.

I don't think that the winter fuel allowance for pensioners should be reinstated. I think pensions should be raised to the point where the winter fuel allowance is no longer necessary!

If pensions were commensurate with our wealth as a nation, 6th or 7th in the world, or with other countries in Europe, around one and a half times the calculated livable income, or even with the minimum adult wage in the UK for a 40 hour week,....then we wouldn't need the payment in the first place. But as it is, any pensioner who following a lifetime of payment if their tax and NI contribution, chooses to take retirement, is kept on a payment one step ahead of abject penury; these people need that fuel payment. Any pensioner who elects through need or desire to top up his income by continuing with a few hours of paid work is punished with tax at the full rate that doesn't even grant him the threshold allowances given to non pension age workers (this threshold being already having been passed within his pension income). So for these people the winter fuel payment can at least be seen as a sort of refund on this unnecessary bit of parsimonious taxation.

When won't they get it. Giving out a good pension is a really good way of redistribution of wealth, of putting money into an economy at the grass roots level with people who will spend it. This in turn boosts growth as the extra demand is catered for. Rocket science it ain't. Yes it requires higher taxation - good progressive taxation - to fund it. But when money is spiralling upwards in an economy to be held in the accounts of fewer and fewer individuals - people who are not spending that money, recirculating it back into the economy - then this is an absolute requirement. Otherwise the wealth gap just gets bigger and bigger, and the society is destabilised thereby. Again, not rocket science.

And even the wealth gap isn't so much of a problem as long as the mass of the people see themselves, feel themselves, to be doing okay. But when people are economically on the ropes (as they are), struggling to meet the demands of just subsistence existence (as they are), then to visibly see the fruits that a small proportion of the population are enjoying while they, the masses are bearing all the costs......well then you are sowing the seeds of disaster for your society. And that's not what good governance is all about.

-----0-----

News coming in that Trump has ordered a further 2000 national guard troops and 700 marines into Los Angeles following a fourth day of rioting.

The war of words with Govenor Gavin Newsome is heating up with Trump calling for his arrest and Newsome saying that Trump is acting like a tyrant.

Certainly from an outside observers point of view Trump's behaviour looks increasingly like that of a Nero style dictator beginning to run amok. Not what we're used to really - seeing the American national guard turn its guns towards the people themselves (though Trump justifies this by claiming the protesters all to be paid leftist agitators) but I think there will be more of it coming.

I've no reason to doubt that Trump's actions will be cheered on by large sections on the American public - people for whom he can do no wrong, who'd stand with him even to the point of seeing people dead on the streets - a sign of just how terribly divided the American people have become.

Something terrible has happened, is happening, in that country. It's always said that when America sneezes, we in the UK catch a cold. Pray not in this case, because the resultant cold from this sneeze could be terrible to behold indeed.

[peter]

The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway have jointly issued sanctions against two of Israel's most notorious right wing government ministers.

Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have both had asset freezes and travel bans placed on them for continuous incitement to violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Speaking in London yesterday, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the pair were both guilty of the said incitements which they had been issuing "for months".

Leaving aside the questions as to why it has taken so long then, to issue the sanctions, why in the face of Netenyahu's ongoing prosecution of a genocide in Gaza the sanctions have not been placed on him as well, and why we continue to supply Israel with both material and intelligence based support for their campaign of terror, we turn to the response to this action.

Predictably it has caused howls of anger from Israel itself which has described the sanctions as "outrageous".

America has gone even further. After itself lifting sanctions on settlers in the occupied territories, Secretary of State Marko Rubio said Western countries would be better to concentrate their attentions on Hamas and that the actions do not help the USA led attempts to establish a ceasefire and bring the hostages home. The Telegraph reports Bloomberg yesterday, American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that supporting a two state solution is no longer official American policy, saying that there is "no room" for the policy unless the "culture changes".

I mean, what the fuck is this all about?

Lammy and crew are making pathetic noises, paying lip-service to the demands of their people that Western support for the genocide is ended (Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are the lowest of low hanging fruit that they could have chosen to mount their attack against), and Huckabee's comments - what do they even mean? Does America support the two state solution or not? Spit it out man! Let's have it. What culture should change exactly? Maybe the one which is carrying out an openly transparent policy of genocide in front of the world's view - and getting away with it!

Meanwhile Greta Thunberg has been apparently sent on her way thank goodness. It'll have been a close run thing as to whether she was detained for longer and given the full 'treatment', but clearly Israel decided that even it could not get away with that.

Thunberg is being pillloried in the media for her 'stunt', but as someone pointed out (may have been James O'brien) it's an odd world that pours scorn on someone protesting against a genocide. I'd add to that while also facilitating it by virtue of its silence in the case of the Western media.

And meanwhile the killing goes on. And on. And on. Lammy and his Foreign Secretary colleagues from the four nations involved are not going to achieve anything. They know it and so do we. My message to them is this. If you think that this is going to put you on the right side of history when the chips fall, then you are mistaken. It's going to take a great deal more for you to whitewash your very active role in facilitating this genocide. We know what you have done and we don't forget.

-----0-----

The Telegraph had an interesting little story yesterday which today's Star is also running on, that a retired colonel from the American military has admitted planting fake evidence in the Area 51 UFO incident, in order to cover up secret weapons tests.

This will of course be a serious blow to 'ufologists' the world over. But of course we needn't worry too much in respect of their wellbeing because the safety valve of conspiracy theorists of all stamps will immediately flip open and the over the counter cure will immediately work its magic.

Ahhh - but they would say that, wouldn't they!

It's another example of just how impenetrable the argument is - that evidence that goes against your particular bent in the swivel-eyed brigade, the tin-hat club, actually provides more proof that you are correct.

And who knows; maybe they are right. It's now a given that you can't trust anything - anything - that you've been told by our governments, state bodies, militaries, media, school teachers and just about everyone since your mother told you about the tooth fairy bringing you a sixpence, and so this might just be another frikkin scam of the same kind.

Is it though, just a distraction? Yes, it's a distraction. We are distracted. End of my commentary on the matter.

(Ps: I could have spent a couple of hours of my time (and about five minutes of yours) typing out a piece on Chancellor Reeves' spending review this morning, but it goes without saying - just think of whatever spending area you might need to have your life improved a bit in terms of allocation of government finances, and then be guaranteed that it won't be included in her list of things that will recieve extra cash. Disappointed? Welcome to the real world sucker!)

[peter]

There is some really serious shit going down in the US and the BBC are simply not reporting it.

I can't explain it, but I'll do my best to fill in the void.

From what I was hearing on alternative news outlets yesterday (LBC, Democracy Now - the Amy Goodman Report) it appears that Trump is attempting to stir up trouble not just in L.A., but in a number of States across America, such that he can invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act. This empowers him to deploy the military and federalize the National Guard units across the country, and effectively introduces the conditions of authoritarian control commonly referred to as a police state.

The situation in Los Angeles has been nasty, following the Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps, and there has been small but isolated protest that has spilled over into violence. While the protesters have been predominantly American nationals, there has undoubtedly been an immigrant presence and some protesters have been waving Mexican flags.

This has allowed Trump to claim that this is a foreign inspired insurrection, and thus move his argument towards the place where the Insurrection Act could - could, but not definitely will - be invoked.

But Trump has exaggerated the threat, bigged up the degree of violence occurring, in order to take steps beyond which the State officials consider necessary, and call in the national guard and the marines. Govenor Gavin Newsome and L.A. mayor Karen Bass are both of the opinion that Trump is doing this as a deliberate attack on the American system of democratic independence of the States, sending in forces under his control into a situation that they are convinced their own State services are quite adequate to deal with.

So this is L.A. But what of elsewhere? Well, ICE sweeps are apparently going on in multiple other States and protest has been occurring in a number of them. As well as California, New York has seen protest, as has Texas. Cities in which protests are occurring include Chicago, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Seattle. Not all of the protests have turned violent, but they have been tense and in Austin police used pepper sprays and dozens were arrested.

There are 'No Kings' rallies planned for dozens of towns and cities across the USA on Saturday, timed to coincide with the Washington celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the formation of the army, which by coincidence happens to fall on Donald Trump's birthday. Trump has said quite openly that no protest will be tolerated on this day in the capital, which would seem to fly in the face of the right of the people to engage in peaceful protest, whenever and wherever they choose. All rights are equal it seems, but some rights are more equal than others.

Now Trump may or may not be planning to invoke the Insurrection Act, he may be deliberately stoking protest and chaos so that he can do so...who can tell. He might want to unsettle the country to the point where he can introduce martial law, or say that things are simply too unsettled to allow the mid-term elections to proceed. Who, with a president this mercurial, can know. But these are definite possibilities; there is nothing to say that they will materialise, but they very definitely could.

With this in mind, it's worth considering - just as an exercise - the New York Holocaust Museum's poster, in which the 14 early warning signs of fascism were listed. Check them off in your own mind and see which boxes you think America is currently ticking. They are

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism. 2. Disdain for human rights. 3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause. 4. Supremacy of the military. 5. Rampant sexism. 6. Controlled mass media. 7. Obsession with national security. 8. Religion and government intertwined. 9. Corporate power protected. 10. Labour power suppressed. 11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. 12. Obsession with crime and punishment. 13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. 14. Election fraud and manipulation.

[peter]

Another day another crisis.

This time it's Israel taking a pop at Iran.

Having watched nervously as America continues its ongoing negotiations with Iran over the limitation of the latter's nuclear enrichment program, Israel has now decided to act - reportedly unilaterally, but believe that or not as you will - believing that now is the best chance it has of getting in a good strike at the said nuclear facilities.

Of course, as with everything Netenyahu has to do with, there is an underhand motive also at play - the maintenance and widening of hostilities in order to keep Netenyahu out of jail.....but that goes without saying. The overthrow of the Iranian government has long been part of the American-Israeli plan for domination of the Middle East; the much talked about plan to overthrow the governments of (what was it?) 7 different countries in the wake of 9-11 included Iran; indeed Iran remains the only one where this has not been achieved. The turning of Iran from a regional power into either a client state or, failing that, a failed state where chaos rules, has been part of the plan for Israeli domination of the region for so long that they have clearly decided that like it or not, now is the time to take some serious steps towards that end.

American comment on the attacks, which targeted nuclear sites and military commanders in a strike involving around 100 drones, have been muted. It hasn't condemned the action, but has made clear that it was not involved in any way by stressing the term "unilateral" in its statement.

But the talks that America has been pursuing with Iran have not been without issue.

Iran had secured an agreement with the Trump administration that would have included a limited enrichment program capacity, in order that it could produce sufficient for use in its power plants. This was not dissimilar to the JCPOA negotiated agreement which America pulled out of in 2018, but was clearly too much for the Israeli's to stomach and so this agreement was suddenly scrapped by the US and a new condition that Iran must source all of its enriched fuel from America introduced.

Obviously Iran has balked at this and the Israeli's, either fearing that the Iranians would secure the deal that allowed them to continue with nuclear enrichment from the US or because they saw the opportunity for them to strike at Iran and further their quest for regional hegemony slipping away, have decided to act now. Whether the Americans were truly not consulted or involved (they might themselves have become pissed with Iran for not agreeing that they should cease enrichment altogether) is a moot point. If Iran strike back at Israel then America will step in to protect them. This goes without saying.

But this might not be plain sailing. Iran demonstrated last year that it had the capacity to strike deep into Israel (though its targets were deliberately limited) and it has a formidable missile capability ready to do the same again. It's not going too far to say that if Iran decided to do so, it could essentially obliterate Israel in one massive strike. No 'iron dome' exists that can prevent all missiles from landing and Iran has many thousands of them. There is nothing to say that this time, when the inevitable response comes, it will not be the real deal. Iran may well decide that now is the time, with world opinion firmly against Israel for what it is doing in Gaza, to deal it a decisive blow. American and UK support in protecting Israel from such a strike might help - but it would not prevent the destruction from being devastating. Israel could see a run on the airports as inhabitants flee to their countries of origin to escape the danger. It could simply cease to exist via shrivelling away.

And this is not even considering the wider consequences.

If America join in to attack Iran (not necessarily the case because Trump, for all his bloviating, is not a war hawk) then all hell could break loose. It's absolutely in the balance whether Putin would stand back and allow Iran to be destroyed - even if America could pull off such a feat which given its conventional forces limitations, boots on the ground and all that, is highly debatable. And what about China? Or Turkey? Would they stay out or would they, Turkey in particular, decide it was time to step in and curb Israel's disruptive activities.

And remember Egypt. They sit on the southern border with Israel, their divisions massed in the Sinai, ready for action if they deem it necessary. Will this be the spark that lights the fuse?

Last time that Israel pulled a stunt like this the Iranian response was the measured one. There is absolutely nothing to say that this time their patience won't be worn through and that they will decide that it's time to end this.

American director of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard visited Hiroshima a day or two ago and was clearly very shaken by the experience. She came away from the display where human beings were reduced to shadows on walls of buildings and sidewalks looking visibly moved. "Anyone," she said, "who acts to set nuclear powers against each other in this world, is an enemy of humanity."

I couldn't agree more.

[peter]

Now the genie is out of the bottle and it's unlikely that anyone will be able to get it back in anytime soon.

Iran has struck back at Israel overnight and while many drones have been shot down some have definitely hit their targets in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Israel has also continued its attack on Iran and swears more is yet to come.

While US Secretary of State Marko Rubio claims no American involvement in the attack on Iran, Donald Trump seems to directly contradict this in his immediate posting on Truth Social. This might be a deliberate ploy to keep the pundits guessing, but there's not much doubt that Iran will take US involvement as read. Certainly what Trump said about the US supplying the missiles to make the attack possible is true, and most commentators seem to think it's likely that the security services at least were directly involved.

An interesting rumours (though it is no more than that) is that drones were smuggled into Iran in advance of the initial Israeli attack, and if this is indeed the case then there begin to appear suspicious similarities between the Israeli attack and that carried out on Russia by Ukraine a week or two ago. Does the Mossad have its fingerprints on both attacks, in conjunction with MI6 and/or other security agencies? Are these the guys actually running American (and UK) foreign policy, from behind the scenes?

There's not much doubt that Iran has been hit pretty hard by the attacks; to what extent its deeply buried nuclear sites have been put out of action is not known, but certainly its top level scientific and Iranian Guard hierarchy have been seriously damaged. But its a huge country with a very spread out defensive network and is unlikely to be put completely out of action by a single or a few strikes. The objective of Israel (plus or minus the Americans) is likely to be more directed towards regime change than actual destruction of the military/nuclear apparatus, but without question the attacks signal yet a further blow to Middle East 'stability - in fact it's not putting it too strongly to say that in conjunction with the Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank, and now Iran, we can pretty much say that the whole region is in turmoil.

If America did have prior knowledge of the attack by Israel, then it was an ill done thing. Iran was due to continue with the nuclear limitations talks as soon as tomorrow and the attack, coming as it did right before this already prepared meeting, means that America can simply not be seen as a trustworthy negotiating partner in any diplomatic efforts to solve regional problems. This is the inevitable take out that any country looking on must make, and it bodes ill for the chance of diplomatic solutions in Ukraine and Gaza, or in say future questions over Taiwan or anywhere else. As international geopolitical expert Jeffrey Sachs put it yesterday, we no longer live in a world where diplomacy works, but rather one where war becomes the inevitable outcome of any regional dispute. He said he was profoundly depressed by these latest developments and could only conclude that we are now on an almost inevitable pathway to World War 3. How quickly or slowly this outcome unfolds, time will tell, but he saw it as an almost done deal either way. And (although he didn't say this) my pennyworth is that once we go down that path, nuclear confrontation is almost equally inevitable. This is where our foreign policy has taken us and anyone who thinks that we can walk away from this unscathed in any part of the globe is living in cloud cuckoo land. As one previous Russian leader put it (with typical Soviet bluntness) in such a confrontation, to die immediately is to be one of the lucky ones.

As for Donald Trump's claims to be the 'president of peace', well his gloating and childish Truth Social post gives the lie to that (he's also referred to the Israeli attacks as "excellent"). We live in a world now where war administrations sit in situ right across the West: they dominate the foreign policy thinking of virtually all Western leaderships and the liklihood of us returning to a world of peaceful interaction between nations is extremely limited. It's not a world that one can easily pass through and emerge from on the other side. Bleak stuff, but you've got to face it and get on with life anyway.

(One interesting point; I said yesterday that Israel risked an exodus (particularly ironic word for the circumstances) of its population as people attempt to flee the chaos of war, and whether this is related or not I leave you to judge. One of the first reactions within Israel to its attacks on Iran was to close its airports. The country could indeed be the instrument of its own demise if its population decides that the region - under the 'careful' handling of Benjamin Netenyahu - is simply too hot a place to hang around in. It'd be a crafted irony if the criminal leader of Israel suddenly found that the majority population in the region he controls was no longer Israeli Jews, but rather Palestinians.)