blabyboy

I think this really useful in smoking out Trump and Vance on the support question. Ultimately, if the 'willing' troops go on the ground, would the US back them up if there was aggression from Russia? Although, I can well imagine Trump just smiles and says something akin to "Maybe we will, maybe we won't".

It's an interesting viewpoint for sure, good read.

It just didn't feel right, so I checked. Last year the UK spent £53.9 billions on defence. (Parliament UK) The Iran and Afghanistan war cost to the UK was between £8.4 billions (Wikipedia) and £9.6 billions ( The Gruniad) over several years. If we split it by 3 to keep highish, then the cost for a year fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to approximately 6% of the current budget. The UK allocated £13.3 billions last year for foreign aid - enough to accommodate a war spread over several years if we took all of it across, which we haven't .But we have allocated a portion and that is what Starmer has effectively done recently and why Dodds resigned. In order to prevent war in the future the UK and others are going to need to increase their spending significantly just to keep some sort of deterrence in any aggressors thoughts. And bear in mind that we may not actually use much of those extra munitions, weapons and vehicles as intended for years, if ever so the opportunity cost of this increase is massive - less for health, less for education, less for pensioners and most likely more taxes in some form. It will not be cheap, it will not be orders of magnitude cheap, it will be bloody expensive to not go to war and we could be paying over the odds for years without realising that investment (hopefully).

The problem here is that your second paragraph costs almost the same as going to war, as Annalise Dodd's resignation the other succinctly pointed out. There are hard decisions coming for the UK whichever course it chooses and sacrifices will need to be made by us all.

It's more the men in grey suits in the background... Now they will earn their coin.

I think he's in Texas for the upcoming Starship launch. For when these feckers need to escape off planet for the next war they'll start

Yeah but this time dude....this coin is different y'know. Guaranteed returns bro

Macron already saying they will continue to stand with Ukraine too. Summit in London this weekend for European leaders and Zelensky. Need to start pooling their money...and the armaments

The Zelensky interview with FOX News this evening should be interesting...

We did ok🤤

That may or may not be the case, but until the situation has formed up, you need to keep all options available and in-play. If you take it off the table too early then it narrows the options, perhaps in a direction you do not want to go.

They won't and he isn't. It's a negotiating tactic. Trump has said that US would protect UK troops if needed. That's a backstop in all but name.

https://elevenlabs.io/blog/what-happens-when-two-ai-voice-assistants-have-a-conversation Interesting development. Makes me nostalgic for the modem handshakes in the 90's

Really? Would you mind sharing your working out please?

That seems to be the prevailing attitude of World leaders at present.

Yes, I was going to link that too, but well done for being quicker. 😀 Those graphs do have some rather steep gradients don't they.... And the costs to residents is not really addressed.

Yep. "I do wonder whether this sort of decision will look right in 10 years," added Sir Ian Cheshire, who has held many executive roles at companies such as B&Q owner Kingfisher and Barclays bank." From the article I linked.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgd9v3r69qo The price of a salute eh..

I think CongressWoman Luna said it'd be at least a couple of weeks as they had located a large number of pages that were not filed into the last report completed in 1992. We will await and see I guess.

Yep. Measure it just as the price jumped due to local fluctuations...which then dropped back a week after 🤔 However, you will get price drops in Summer after the April measurement for sure. And.... BP is the first of the UK lot to take up Trump's message. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3374ekd11po

What makes you think people are accepting it as a done deal, or that they have a lack of empathy or concern? What metrics are causing you to think this way?

Ok, I'll bite. How will you hold them accountable? ...and how would you punish them?

indubitably

If Merz gets in, then it's all starting to feel 1930s..

Agreed. But I don't think you can load all of those pieces at the door of the US or even Trump. That is lazy and populist thinking in its own right. As you well know, and have said multiple times, the problem rests with all the World's governments and I think your time might be better spent identifying governments that are persuadable to your argument. The US is quite clearly not in listening mode at present.