Kevin's Watch

I'm going to start with a few quotes from our Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, who has published a joint article with his French counterpart, Staphane Sejourne, calling for the US to release the aid package for Ukraine currently blocked in Congress by Republican opposition, and issued prior to his trip to Washington, in which he will echo the same message in person.

We are both absolutely clear. Ukraine must win this war. If Ukraine looses, we all loose. The costs of failing to support Ukraine now will be far greater than the costs of repelling Putin. But as discussed in the Paris conference in February, we must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The worldis watching - and will judge us if we fail. [..........] It is not for France and Britain to solve these challenges on their own [..........] We can rally others to join us.

Elsewhere he says that the necessary money to support the UK and EU money that has already been put up is stalled in the American Congress and Ukraine needs that money. He says that Speaker Johnson can make it happen. He goes on, "It's American security, it's European security, it's Britain's security that is on the line in Ukraine and they need our help."

I'm currently reading, by coincidence, a book called Metro 2034 bye Dmitry Glukhovsky. It deals with Russian survivors of a devastating nuclear war living in the Moscow metro, eeking out a miserable existence against a backdrop of nuclear winter a hundred times worse than the fabled Russian winters of today. So with all the pictures we have of this in mind, and noting also that Glukhovsky's novel is (presciently?) set just 10 years from now, let's just think about this, about Cameron's words.

He calls it Ukraine's war, but then goes on to say that "We must defeat Russia." In other words, it is really already our war, it's just that we're getting Ukraine to fight it for us. And he doesn't explain why we must defeat Russia, he just loosly implies that if we don't, Russia will make some kind of move westwards, towards us,and then, when sufficiently emboldened, against America itself?

Where is the evidence for this? Cameron does not present anything remotely approaching convincing evidence, that what he is saying is anything more than alarmist rhetoric.

And let's look at what happens if this aid keeps on flowing as Cameron would have it do. Well, certainly those who have investments in the arms industries will have a field day. War in Ukraine has thus far been for them, like all of their Christmases rolled into one. Not so much for the people of Ukraine.

But let's say Cameron gets his wish. So okay, Ukraine has a bit more weaponry with which to stall the creeping advance of the Russians towards the Dnipre. So the war strings out for a bit longer. But even the Secretary General of Nato said a few days ago that at some point, negotiations would have to be initiated. He said that it should be when Russia is all but defeated, so that Ukraine was able to bargain from the maximum possible advantage position, but added that it was ultimately Ukraine's decision as to when such negotiations should begin. (Thus he unthinkingly admitted that Russia would probably be ready to negotiate right now, and that it was Ukraine (ie the West) who were not yet ready to do so.

My suggestion is that you ask the Ukrainian people. The ones who have sacrificed 30,000, 100,000, 500,000 of their people (take your pick) in this carnage of other people's making. My bet is that you'd find that autonomy for the Donbas and Luhansk is something that right now, they might find to be a price worth considering, in order to get this thing back under wraps. But of course Zelensky and his puppet-masters in the West will not consider what the people might want; they are after all, just the cannon-fodder that carries the cost.

So the arms go in, and the situation drags on. Without the boots on the ground, it can't be brought to a successful conclusion, so on it goes, the 'forever war' that like Afghanistan before it, and Iraq, and Syria, just drags on, leeching tax money from the already impoverished people of the UK, Europe and America, getting them more and more pissed at the situation as each day passes. And Russia, with seriously greater armaments capability, keeps inching forward. The only people happy at this point are the beneficiaries of the military-industrial complex, who needless to say, are like pigs in clover.

Sooner or later, the realisation that without additional boots on the ground this is a chicken that won't fight will kick in. At this point, serious decisions will have to be made. Either negotiate and surrender territory, or go down the route that ultimately leads in all probability to Glukhovsky's Metro 2034, with a few million more of the brutal deaths of traditional warfare in between. Once Nato boots, or American boots, or French boots appear on the ground, or jets take off from Polish airfields and bomb targets either in Ukraine or Russia, ot the essentially terrorist attacks on Russia that have been being carried out with increasing frequency of late (until the last one in Moscow) eventually push the Russians into precipitate action in response - then it's game-on followed by game-over in pretty quick succession.

And perhaps with a degree of prescience, Glukhovsky in his book, wrote a short passage on why, in his novel, things had gone that far. Perhaps, he said, two or three generations from the horrors of World War 2, the politicians of the day had no reference to just how bad war actually was. To the actual lived trauma of all out warfare, of nuclear attack. They spoke in casual terms of it - became complacent in their use of language and concept of what it meant, by virtue of their distance from it in time. None of them had been born when it had happened, so they simply didn't understand what it was they were inexorably sliding into.

Glukhovsky's book was written many years ago, but then, they say that art often precedes life in its representations don't they.

I can't believe that a paper as usually sensible as the Financial Times can seriously believe what is written in its small lower left 'white' article, on this morning's front page.

That many see David Cameron's return to front line politics (he is currently in Washington lecturing the US Congress that they must pass a new financial aid package for Ukraine) as bringing "weight and heft" to the Foreign Office and "giving Britain a distinctive policy voice on questions such as Gaza".

This is the man who's misjudged attempt to save his own political skin brought about Brexit. Who caused the collapse of Libya into a failed state (and the development of the small boats crisis that has sprung therefrom) by his arrogant desire to have 'a war of his own' and his precipitous incursion into that country as a means of getting it.. And lastly the dumbing down of UK front line politics by introducing the raising of the Westminster Professionals (ie spads, researchers, and the like) into government, at the expense of experienced individuals from outside of politics,. Who gave us the likes of Lizz Truss, of Robert Jenrick, of Grant Schapps - in other words the absolute chaff of our front line politicians today, as opposed to the titans that preceeded them. This degrading of the quality of our political front liners has had inestimable negative consequences over the period since Cameron took office, and if you don't believe me, just look at where we are.

And let's just look at that passage of his that I quoted above.

I've already observed how he jumped from its being Ukraine's war to our having to defeat Russia in just about one sentence, but what exactly is the meaning of this. We were not (last time I looked) actually at war with Russia. Why then should we want to defeat them? Ukraine might want to, I get that, but us?

And what does it actually mean? Defeat them in all out war? March through Russia like Napoleon or Hitler, determined to take Moscow as the prize? Reduce the country to rubble and see the slaughtered bodies of millions of Russian civilians littering the streets? These are the words of our Foreign Secretary for Christ's sake - the man who is giving "heft and weight" to our foreign policy. We should understand what he is saying! Christ - no wonder Putin doesn't trust us if he goes around saying stuff like that and even we don't know what he means!

Or perhaps he means regime change. Perhaps this is what 'defeating Russia' means to him? But hasn't anyone told him? That Putin is probably the softest option available to us to deal with in the Politburo? That most of the others make him look like fucking Andy Pandy? Would in all liklihood be ten times worse? So what are we back to - going through Russia with a great big fuck-off Western army, levelling the country behind us as we go?

And what exactly are our aims in this 'defeating of Russia'? Just to fuck up the country - do a Libya on it? Or to turn it into a good little Western-like state? Sorry David, it won't wash: they're already a lot more like us than you want us to believe, and we know it.. Capitalism won in Russia too. It's just that they don't want to roll over like puppy-dogs to have their bellies rubbed by the Americans like we do. And if we wanted to have them onside with us ,working together - well we had that chance when the Berlin Wall fell and we blew it. We cut them off without a dime, and watched while the Putin's clawed their gangster way to the top and now we don't like it. This is capitalism baby, red in tooth and claw and because they are beating you at your own game is no reason to blow the whole world to smithereens. Not in my book anyways.

But seriously, the words of our Foreign Secretary need to be unambiguous and clear to understand. And Cameron's are anything but. What do you think that the result of having Cameron at the helm would have been, had he been the one negotiating his way through the Cuban missile crisis? I'll guarantee you, that I wouldn't be here typing this and you wouldn't be here (hopefully) reading it. Certainly Cameron may bring some heft and weight to our policies in the forthcoming days of uncertainty and danger. But on past performance I'm afraid it might all be in the wrong direction.

Western governments seem to love their ineffective, destructive political leaders

Amen to that Orlion.

Or as Orwell put it, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.

I become increasingly convinced by the day that our globalist leaders are prepared to see all the world at war, for no purpose other than to protect the Western/American hegemony within a unipolar world.

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Suella Braverman, ex Home Secretary and far right hopeful in terms of the next leadership of the Conservative Party, gave an interview on LBC radio yesterday in which she reiterated her (I was going to say belief - but that simply wouldn't be true) 'position' that Israel has done everything in its power to minimise civilian casualties in its assault on Gaza.

She is quick enough to realise that with Rishi Sunak expressing his concerns to the contrary, Israel will be quite prepared to throw its weight (and more significantly, money) behind another candidate who they see as being more 'onside' with their interests. And in Braverman's case, they could string every Palestinian in Gaza up from a lamppost and she'd still say they'd done everything they could to protect them. She has no more interest in Palestinians than she does in the immigrants she would send to Rwanda; she knows support for Israel chimes well with the Tory right, and has the added attraction of bringing them (the Israelis) onside with her. This is standard a Israeli tactic, to keep the threat of support of the opposition as a means of maintaining the favorable stance of the current leadership of a country. By shifting support from Sunak to Braverman, Netenyahu could send a powerful message to Joe Biden.

And just as if to prove my point on the moral vacuum at the center of Braverman's psyche, the Times of yesterday ran a story on the houses that Rwanda had purportedly set aside for the immigrants that we were going to deport to this 'safe' country (so safe, incidentally, that a dozen Rwandans have been granted asylum here in the last 12 months).

You may remember the photo-op that Braverman as Home Secretary took part in in Kigali, in which she inspected said new houses in a lovely cul-de-sac, commenting that she'd like the name of the interior designer so that she could use her herself - well, those houses have now nearly all been sold, with only a few remaining. It appears that either the Rwandans have got fed up with waiting for the deportees to arrive, or more likely that the whole exercise was a sham and the houses were never meant for the immigrants in the first place.

She also, you might remember, told us that homelessness was a lifestyle choice. In a poverty stricken country of increased personal debt and inability to meet rising costs from our exiguouse incomes, our ex Home Secretary has no pity for those who fall through the cracks, who as a result of personal circumstances or illness etc, fall out of the system, but rather just prefers to shift the blame back on to them, and even go so far as to punish them for their failure to keep ahead of the wolves of poverty snapping at their heels.

Such is the country that Braverman would create. And in fairness, she at least has the courage to say it. Because in truth, who of the mass public would ever vote Conservative again, if the brutal foundations of which their ideology rests were truly made clear. That what they actually mean by small state is the complete excision of anything pertaining to welfare from state responsibility. The fundamental basis of the Conservative logic is (and always has been) that it is the responsibility of people to look to their own interests. They do not see health, social services, pensions and the like as falling within the remit of government. The one and only function of government in their eyes is to create the circumstances within which business may thrive. People's personal circumstances are, in the Tory mind, their own business and they must look to provision of the 'safety nets' of support, in case things should go wrong or in old age or whatever, themselves. If they fail to do so, then the fault rests with them. It is not the state's place to concern itself with such failures.

This means a society with no social care for those who fail to look for their own support in life. No care for those who are unfortunately born without the faculties upon which the ability to compete, to thrive are dependent. These are just the inevitable loosers of a system that must see them as an unfortunate byproduct, an inevitable presence that must be tolerated if the main body of society is to claw its way upwards. To provide such care in the Conservative ideology, is to hold back the progress of the society as a whole, and thus the eye must be steeled to the presence of the unfortunates and not be tempted into any unwise feelings of sympathy or damaging attempts at support. So no provision of state health care, state pensions, state support of the disadvantaged; these are things that people must provide for themselves and if they fail to do so, must bear the consequences.

And if the economic conditions swell and shrink the numbers of unfortunates who fall by the wayside, then this too is to be expected. No cause for concern because the pendulum will swing back again in its own time. The pairing out of the least fit by the natural selection of economic circumstances is the means by which the society keeps itself lean and hard, competitive and strong in a dog eat dog world.

This is the Conservative dogma of every Tory MP, in his heart of hearts. They would never, will never express it in such brutal terms - only the Braverman's will ever come close to telling that truth - but this is how it really is. And if it were ever spoken, the huge bulk of people would never put a cross in the Tory box on the ballot paper ever again.

Joe Biden says that he is committed to defending Israel should Iran retaliate for the killing of one of their senior revolutionary guard members in the Damascus strike. Russia in turn, would be almost forced to step in, in support of Iran, and then you have all the conditions met for a full scale conflagration.

That's only two steps away, and if Netenyahu has his choice then at least the first will happen. The domino's it seems, will keep falling whether we like it or not. And that's a lot less dominoes than it took to start the First World War.

But why? If Iran and Israel are determined to battle it out then why should the West or indeed Russia intervene? They have been taking proxy pot-shots at each other via Hezbollah for months (if not longer) and Israel seems confident that it can "can handle" an attack from Iran, so why then the determination of Biden to get involved? Must America always be up to its neck in whatever conflict is going on? Why not America and Russia just agree to keep out of this regional affair and let them settle their differences. The oil will still be there at the end.

And if Biden thinks that he has the support of the American people in this, then he should spell out the real consequences of American involvement to them. See if that support would still be there when they understood that it could be their sons and daughters coming home in bodybags, their cities disappearing under mushroom clouds if he keeps on the path that he seems so determined to follow. China has the right idea. Keep schtum and keep well out of it. And don't you think that they'd be perfectly happy to see the US and Russia tear themselves apart in a titanic struggle which neither needed to be involved in. Only China could benefit from this - no-one else.

And on the latter score, haven't I heard whispers somewhere recently of a surreptitious little American military presence over in Taiwan? What's going on there then (in terms of tweaking the dragon on its tail)? Doesn't sound clever to me.

I've been the first to speak up against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians since October 7th. The response to the attack on Israel has been disproportionate and indiscriminate - not the type of response expected from a civilised Western (style) country, even in the face of such a horrific atrocity as was inflicted upon their shoulders. The indiscriminate killing of civilians, irrespective of their support for Hamas or otherwise, is just not acceptable. And I would have, and still would, support an international intervention to bring it to a close if Israel proved/proves unwilling to cease their activities. But beyond this, I see no reason why the risk of world war or conflagration should be taken on the back of involvement in a regional conflict between two distant states.

Don't forget that a lot, maybe most, of US support for Israel is a result of the religious fundamentalist right, who believe something along the lines of Israel having to be there in order for the 2nd coming to happen or something.

--A

Avatar wrote: ↑ Don't forget that a lot, maybe most, of US support for Israel is a result of the religious fundamentalist right, who believe something along the lines of Israel having to be there in order for the 2nd coming to happen or something.

--A

It's a significant component. It's also just a convenient place to base regional operations from, plus you can have Isreal go after Iran with its targeted (perhaps internationally illegal?) assassinations and not get their hands dirty.
I also suspect a case of antusemitism. Basically, if there is a jewish state, you don't need Jews here mentality.

Lucky for us, Iran also tends to do things through proxies, so an actual war between Isreal and Iran is unlikely.

Mmmm......

That's a tricky one Orlion.

Remember that the moment this war is over it's not just Netanyahu's political career that's over - he's also likely to be headed to prison on corruption charges. He's dependent not only on a continuation of hostilities but also on an escalation. The attack on the consulate building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in which 12 Iranian officials died was a clear violation of the international rules based order, but Israel has recieved no criticism for it. (As an aside, this action just goes further toward cementing Israel's and America's descent into a perception of being virtually 'rogue states' in the eyes of the onlooking world.)

On the contrary, Biden has in effect rewarded Netenyahu by coming out with his "cast iron guarantee" to come to Israel's defence in the event of a retaliatory strike by Iran. This will simply embolden him in his policy of attempting to stoke up a regional conflict which many hawks in both Jerusalem and Washington would be perfectly happy to see.

In London, the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron runs true to form, warning Iran not to "draw the Middle East into a wider conflict," choosing to ignore the deeply escalatory action of Israel attacking another nation's (effective) sovereign territory, in the form of bombing their consulate. Urging restraint on Iran, he seems oblivious to the restraint that they have already shown, given that this is by no means the first such provocatory action by Israel, none of which has the country responded to in direct form, for the very reason of not wanting to enter into a direct conflict with Israel.

But an international relations expert I listened to yesterday said that the scenario I envisaged yesterday, of the US decoupling from Israel, was, although never openly spoken of, by no means an impossibility. Indeed, perhaps far more plausible than the media coverage and words coming out of Washington would suggest. American patience with Israel is not unlimited, and would likely be stretched to breaking point before it reached the point of the US being drawn into a regional war which the people would not support.

We live in dark and dangerous times my friends; in many ways, according to Professor John Mearsheimer (Wendall Harrison Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Chicago) far more so than during the cold-war when the multipolalarity nature of the world had to a degree a steadying effect. Let's hope that our leaderships have the necessary diplomatic skills to negotiate their way through it without bringing us all to Armageddon.

On the fundamentalist Christian right's position on the 'end days' - I suspect it's something like St. Augustine's on good behaviour. "Lord, give me chastity and continence......but not just yet!"

Political actors like a threat of a crisis far more than the actual crisis. That's why there has been grumblings and threats of direct war with Iran for decades but no actual war. That would be catastrophic for all involved and everyone knows it.

Iran is only now just getting some control on its populace. It does not have the stability to start an offensive that would make the Iran-Iraq War look tame by comparison.

Netanhayu doesn't need to engage Iran, he just needs to engage a proxy or two. That's enough to prolong the conflict and shift it to a better geopolitical target in order to still get weapons from the US and Germany.

Biden would prefer to postpone any conflict with Iran to after the election. Starting a fight now would beyond limited engagements with proxies would all but insure a Trump victory. Which gets to another component: the US election makes US support mercurial. For Isreal to have any kind of chance in a conflict against Iran, it will need active support from the US, including boots in the ground from the US military. And though they are likely to get it no matter what, it also is not a sure thing. I can see a scenario where if Biden goes in guns ablazing, he loses catastrophically in November. At that point, Trump just needs to pull back the military into a defense positron and get a diplomatic end and we will see that the hypothetical Iran conflict will cost the Deomcrats power and solidify Trump's own in a 1-2 knockout.

I mean, good post.

--A

I saw an international relations commentator the other day, remarking on the Israeli response to the Ayatollah's threatened response to the Damascus strike.

He said that it ran essentially as follows - that any direct attack from Iran on Israeli territory would demand an appropriate response.

The wording he said, was carefully chosen to make clear Israel's intention to defend itself against such an attack to Iran, but also had to be seen in terms of what was not said. There was sufficient grey area within the wording to almost give Iran a 'get-out clause' that would allow a response without incurring full-scale reprisals.

The Iranian leadership is labouring under its own internal pressures, with hardliners who expect the fullest of responses to the Damascus attack, sitting on the sidelines. How then to satisfy these demands without precipitating the very direct conflict with Israel (and by extension, America) that it wants to avoid?

Well, according to this commentator (who said that despite public appearances to the contrary, there was still 'back-channel communication between the Israeli and Iranian diplomatic services) the Israeli response might just provide the very get-out that the Khamenei administration needs.

By stipulating effectively that any attack must come directly from Iranian soil and land on Israeli soil, the doorway is left open for attacks from proxy forces - think Hezbollah and the like - or non-Iranian soil that would not demand a full-scale Israeli response against Iran direct. Similarly, the grey area of consulates and embassies are not necessarily included in Israel's terms of demanding full response. So the whole statement is loose enough to cut the Iranians some slack, but present the appearance of a powerful message (to both the domestic, and outside audience) at the same time.

How long will the Iranians wait before making their response: how long is a piece of string? It cannot be that long, if the opposing forces within the Iranian political landscape are to be appeased - but neither can it be prematurely made. So we're probably looking at a couple of weeks, an attack coming from Hezbollah, maybe a consulate or embassy strike. Something of this order.

But absolutely, politicians like better the talk of war, rather than the actuality itself. There's always votes in stoking fear - far fewer in bodybags.

Near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has seized a Portuguese-flagged container ship that somehow has ties to Israel.

As a response to the Damascus strike, this seems to be pretty thin gruel. Staying tuned...

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/13/12446414 ... -east-gaza

Basically, nothing has been bombed by Iran quite yet, but Iran has decided to step up to Isreal's level, it seems.

The drone attacks, while making a good display for the Iranian domestic audience, seems to have been more designed as theatre than a serious strike.

Iran has some serious ballistic missile capabilities that do not appear to have been used. These highly accurate and extremely powerful weapons would easily have penetrated Israeli air defences and would have been a far more serious demonstration of intent.

Nevertheless, this incremental upping of the anti, the tit-for-tat game that is emerging, is a highly dangerous example of cliff-edge brinkmanship on both parties part.

Biden and his administration of Israel lobby dominated sidekicks, have reacted with public fury against Iran, blaming them for a huge escalatory action, never the once having criticised Israel for the consulate strike that initiated this action. A little bit of balance on the American part would help to de-escalate here far more than this hyperbolic rhetoric against Iran, but Biden by virtue of the donor related constraints he is under, is unable to do this. So the world inches ever closer to war on the back of Biden's domestic political needs.

But....

The Iranian regime is under huge pressure to display severe repercussions for the embassy attack, and in some sense it might be seen that Biden's response is all part of the act. I suppose that if the Iranian reception of what was an essentially pretty harmless aerial display of fireworks, is to be dependent upon the reaction it gets from the American and Israeli administrations, then Biden's show-acting of outrage had it's part in the theatre as well. If it takes pressure off the Khamenei administration from the hawks in Tehran, without doing any significant damage in Israel, satisfies the Jewish lobby and Christian right in America and draws a line under this little set-piece in the broader Israeli-Gaza saga, then it's been a cleverly delivered response on Iran's part, with maybe Biden doing his part too.

But (and here's the rub) the Netenyahu administration can never let it go at that. They are policy bound, in terms of survival, to see this war extended - not least because such vignettes draw attention away from what is happening in Gaza. God alone knows what has been going on there while this spat has grabbed the world's attention, but I'm betting it's nothing good for the Palestinians. So expect another inflammatory act in the very near future from Israel - not necessarily directed against the Iranian state (that player has been pushed as far as it can, for the moment) - but certainly bold enough to threaten regional escalation once again, and bring about another period of distraction and gathering in the Americans to their side.

Now on the domestic front.......

The ownership of Thames Water have run up massive debt for the privatised utility company, borrowing money to the tune of billions of pounds, which instead of investing in the future needs of the company, in terms of infrastructure maintenance and development, they simply gave away as dividends to their shareholders. This was criminally negligent in terms of the contractual obligations they were under in terms of service provision, and yet no-one is being charged, let alone even investigated for this in effect theft of public money (insofar as it is the public who are now being expected to pick up the bill for the improvements to the system, which were neglected and without which it cannot continue to function).

Businessman and former Egyptian politician, Mohamed Mansour makes a five million pounds donation to the Conservative Party, and months later his name appears on Rishi Sunak's honours list where he is put forward for a peerage that entitles him to sit in the House of Lords, and influence legislation effecting the British public therefrom. This is corruption pure and simple, not even bothered to be hidden from the people, and both men should be in prison for it.

These are not my words; both cases were cited in the program Have I Got News For You, by team leader and Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, and I absolutely agree with him.

When are the British public going to get that we no longer live in a country where the qualities of rectitude and moral uprightness are valued by our ruling elite. The country has become openly corrupt to a degree that puts us on a par with the worst offenders whose administrations we previously would have held in contempt.

Shame on the lot of you.

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Deep poverty or destitution is defined by the Jacob Rowntree Foundation as people being unable to meet the basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.

In the UK at present there are around 4 million people who qualify as being destitute under this definition, something around five percent of the population.

The numbers are rising sharply as I post, with no sign of there being a reversal in the trend.

We remain one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.

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peter wrote: ↑ The drone attacks, while making a good display for the Iranian domestic audience, seems to have been more designed as theatre than a serious strike.

I was thinking the same thing. It's possible that this could be face-saving. They have now responded to the bombing of their embassy, honour served as it were, without really doing much damage. It could stop there. Unless Israel retaliates of course.

--A

It also seems like the US is telling Netanyahoo that they will not support an offensive retaliation. Basically, they told Isreal "this wasn't a distaster because other countries (UK, US, Jordan) came together to help you defend against this barrage. Don't be a dumbass"
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/14/biden- ... nt-support

Israel has killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard official and eleven other high ranking officials. It has made a direct strike onto (effectively) Iranian territory, and in return has recieved a telegraphed attack with yes, 300 drones, but none of them supersonic and all easily picked out of the sky at a distance. No casualties to speak of, a good test of the combined air defences they enjoy and a demonstration to their foes of their ability to defend themselves to a high degree.

A clear win for them, which everybody recognises, but seems might not be enough to satisfy Netenyahu (for reasons of self preservation on his part).

Meanwhile, what is happening in Gaza while the world's attention is focused elsewhere?

Our media, unable to focus on more than one thing at a time (perhaps deliberately so in this case) has completely taken its eye off the ball (just as Israel intended it should with this 'set-piece' affair with Iran), and I have little doubt that during this intermission, all kinds of scene changes to Palestinian disadvantage have been ongoing in the Strip. The operation to administrate the Palestinian territories by Israel has been a running sore in the world for decades - one in which the United Nations has proven itself woefully inadequate to adress, and in which the culpability and complicity of the West should shame us all. This could not have been done without our preparedness to turn away and look in another direction. If we now find Armageddon developing out of these very shores then we only have ourselves to blame.

There are those who feel that humankind is improving with time - that 'progress' is being achieved. The situation in Gaza however, convinces me otherwise.

How can we look at this and compare it with the myriad times that over history that peoples of the three monotheistic faiths have lived side by side in friendship and cooperation, and still believe so?

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If the miserable business with Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and her dodgy tax and housing issues teaches us anything, it's that life just works better if you play it straight.

For the sake of a few miserable quid, Rayner stands accused of having avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of her former council house, and of having claimed to have been living there when in fact she was living with her husband (suprise,suprise) at the house in which he was registered as living.

Maybe she's innocent as she claims, but she still declines to release her tax records to prove it, and the police clearly think there might be a case to answer, since they have reopened their enquiries following the submission of new evidence.

All the more embarrassing for Rayner is that she has herself been the loudest voice calling for resignations of Conservative MPs and Ministers who have fallen foul of the law - the list of names she has done so in regard to is truly impressive in its length. But now it seems that she is being hoist on her own patard, with calls abounding from all sides for her resignation.

The defences that have been put forward by her colleagues against this course of action are pretty bog standard (she's being victimised because she's a woman/working class/from the North/a single mother (at some point) - etc,etc, etc (strike out as you feel relevant)), but in fairness she has said that if she is found to have broken the law then she will go.

I'm not a Rayner fan myself. I liked her initially, when her working class Northern bluffness was a refreshing alternative to the smooth talking glibness of the majority of MPs, but her jumping from the Corbyn ship that had carried her to the top of the Labour Party, and then changing from loyal supporter to backstabbing critic when it suited her ambitions to do so, got to me.

She's sat on the front bench of Stamer's Labour Party, but with barely concealed contempt for her leader and equally obvious intentions to displace him and lead the party herself at the earliest opportunity, clearly visible. Thus it is no surprise that Stamer's leaping to her defence has not been as vigorous as it might have been. His assurance that he believes his deputy has broken no laws is unconvincing, and came notably later than that of other Labour colleagues. He's insistent that the police be allowed to do their job, after which he's sure that his Deputy will be vindicated (hem hem).

Again I return to my original point. Live life straight if you are looking for it to be uncomplicated. And don't go lobbing bombs at others that might soon be returned at you. People in glass houses and all that.....

Rayner might get away with this, but it's looking sketchy. It's going to dog her political career even if she does.

Why is Ben Wallace in today's Telegraph, saying that "Iran must be hit back twice as hard", as a response to its 'attack' on Israel?

Last time I looked Ben Wallace was no longer defence secretary. He quit the job in order to be 'closer to his family' (or whichever bollocks excuse he decided to trot out to conceal the fact that most likely he'd received a much richer offer from elsewhere). Why the fuck does he keep popping up to say that we have to pump up our arms production, or increase the size of our army, or bring back national conscription, or prepare for war? Wouldn't it be better if he'd said this stuff while he was still doing the fucking job!

Of course, he'd probably not be in a position to enjoy the gratitude of the military-industrial complex (that knows the meaning of the word) if he was still in situ, so that might be something to do with it.

And as for those shouting for us to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - seemingly they have forgotten how we relied on Iranian forces to deal with Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Fairweather friends at best, it seems that we are. Now Iran are being painted as the single most devilish nation this side of Jupiter.

Can I make a small suggestion to our governing class? Don't you think it's time you stopped messing about in other countries affairs, concerning yourselves with what other countries are doing, when you have fucked things up so badly in this country? I think it behoves you to concentrate on sorting our own mess out, without sticking your Pinocchio noses into other people's affairs.

And how is it that we were able to assist in a near perfect air defence of Israel the other night, when five days before our media was telling us that military chiefs were saying that we couldn't even defend ourselves against attack? Get your stories straight guys! Either we're the best thing since sliced bread, or we couldn't punch our way out of a paper bag. Which is it? Small suggestion. Maybe some of those planes buzzing around Israel on Saturday night should be brought back to defend this country, if things are so bad here? Because Putin's still about to march across Europe and occupy London isn't he? Or have you forgotten that?



(As an aside, it seems that Ukraine's Vlodomir Zelensky is less than pleased with the US/UK role in the defensive shield thrown over Israel. He's said that if the same protection had been afforded to Ukraine as has to Israel, half the country would not lie in smoking ruins as we speak. Fair play to the man. He isn't wrong. )

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Tory MPs are marshalling themselves in preparation to rebel against the Sunak driven bill to phase out smoking in the UK over the next couple of decades. The minimum age for purchasing cigarettes will increase yearly from four years time, effectively meaning that today's fourteen year olds will never be able to legally purchase cigarettes or tobacco.

Aside from the nonsense of trying, as a shopkeeper, to enforce such a muddled program (imagine the day when a thirty-five year old cannot buy the products, but a thirty-six year old can - and this changes every year) it just won't achieve the effects that proponents say it will. There may be a brief respite for the health service as smoking related conditions fall away for a few years, but ultimately the same people will turn up in hospital with the same conditions, just a decade or two later. People won't stop dying just because they stop smoking, no matter how much Chief Medical Officer Chris Whittey (he of the turtle-eyed stare from back in the Covid days) would like us to believe they will.

It's an unusual thing for me to find myself in agreement with Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and fifty Tory MPs, but miracles never cease. No wonder Sunak and his lot want to get rid of the State Pension; they can hardly afford it now, never mind with everyone reaching the age of 90 before they croak.

Does it ever occur to you that we might not be the good guys?

I once worked very briefly, alongside a man who'd served in the army during second Gulf War, during which time he proudly told me, he'd spent his days "killing towel-heads."

This guy was a grunt, but it would be a mistake to believe that this kind of attitude was restricted to the lower ranks. Far from it. The dehumanisation of 'the enemy' is standard practice in the armed forces because if it wasn't, you'd never get men to kill each other. In fact, the viewing of the other side as mere flotsam probably comes from the higher ranks, fostered as a means of making the men under their command more ferocious in battle.

The attitude will be shared very much by the likes of Ben Wallace, an ex service man himself, and he will not be alone in being utterly convinced that the Iranians are this malevolent evil that he describes them as. And hawks such as him exist in all areas of our governments, on both sides of the Atlantic. To such people everyone is either a friend or an enemy, and the extension of power, its reach is really important.

I'm beginning to wonder if Israel does not view the idea of its being the dominant regional power, in a Middle East much reduced by extensive regional war, as a prospect greatly to be wished for. And perhaps our hawks in the West can see the possibilities as well.

After all, having the effective control of all of that oil, determining where it goes and where it doesn't, with Israel present in the middle of it ensuring a complicit presence there, on the spot at all times......

Doesn't sound bad, does it?

And especially given the situation with Russia and China and all of those pesky Southern countries lining up together; holding the reins of the Middle East oil doesn't seem such a bad idea does it?

And take Russia. Every time they mention it on the news or in the House, they might as well hiss like they used to for pantomime villains in the music hall days, such is the way they present it. But what do I know about Russia, about how it treats its people and stuff. I know that Vladimir Putin is a leader who's won an election - which is more than can be said for Rishi, or indeed the leaders of any of our devolved governments. As for the rest of it - the stuff they pump out on the television etc - how do I know what's true and what isn't? I've been listening to what I know is lies coming out of the same media for years - how should I now place trust in what I'm told about Russia, China, or anywhere else come to that?

But I know that there are thirty thousand plus dead people piled up in Gaza on the back of our support of Israel, and that a damn good number of them are children. This much does seem to be true. And I know a further 2 plus million are on the brink of famine for no other reason than as a collective punishment for a people because they had the temerity not to be happy about being held as effective prisoners for seventy years. And I k know that much of Gaza lies in ruins, unfit for human habitation for likely many years to come. All with our clear knowledge and support as it was perpetrated.

So I ask again, has it ever occurred to you that we might not be the good guys?