Sampson

I’m with you. I’m no fan of Starmer - I think he’s the kind of “boring technocrat” of “let’s just try things for a bit and see what works” that would’ve had a place as a Prime Minister in the mid-00s, but when we’re currently in the times of the biggest pivot point in world alliances and world structures since the Second World War, I’d rather have someone with much more of a vision and who is more decisive. But I think the one thing the country absolutely doesn’t need is the revolving door of PMs we had under the Tories. What do Labour MPs think will happen if Burnham or Wes Streeting becomes PM? The economy isn’t suddenly going to fix itself, the foreign policy challenges which have arguably become bigger than the domestic policy challenges with the USA becoming so erratic and the Ukraine war aren’t going to suddenly sort themselves out.

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53934-what-do-britons-think-about-the-uks-relationship-with-china-at-the-start-of-2026 USA down 17pts on whether Brits see it as a friendly nation or not in the space of just 2 months, now below India.

Genuinely feel sick in the pit of my stomach what’s going on in America. Genuinely also feel sick in the pit of my stomach that people are prepared to vote for Farage and let our country bow down to this.

I disagree. I think it’s just that too many in Britain just haven’t woken up to who he considers friend or foe yet despite him, JD Vance and the US yearly policy reports making it abundantly and consistently clear. He’s fine to speak softly and not wave about his big stick to Putin, Orban or Milei for example. That board of peace speech should’ve made that clear. It also should’ve made it clear he’s creating institutions that mean America probably isn’t going back regardless of what happens in the next elections and that we have to assume the world order is changing permanently

People are pearl clutching because we’re all so desperate for something to finally be the final straw to break the camel’s back that gets our leaders to actually stand up to this guy who is quite openly and gleefully trying to project himself as knowingly and outed evil at this point, so he can watch everyone nod along so he gets to see his power like he’s Vladamir Harkonnen. It’s these constant pieces of open cruelty and intimidation that he actively wants to see if he get people to nod along to so he can see his own power. One of the most chilling parts of his davos speech was when he was publicly talking about leaders in the crowd saying something along the lines of “look they’re all looking down, can’t even bring themselves to look at up at me” and you could hear the mockery in his voice, like a cat playing with his mouse before he eats it, getting a kick out of his cruel power over it.

Be interesting to see if Farage supports his “dear, dear friend” draft-dodging Trump on this latest insulting rant against our 457 killed soldiers in Afghanistan or he does the usual “don’t worry, he’s my mate, I’ll have a word” shit. Surely he has to start reading the room soon that British people want to stand up against this anti-British and anti-European rhetoric

In that case why are we not taking a lead in this? The world is currently tearing apart the current order and jarringly going through its biggest realignment of alliances and ideals since WW2. Yet it feels like we’re just sat there doing nothing and waiting for someone to tell us what to do - Starmer too scared to both upset Trump and look like he’s getting too near to the eu because of some referendum a decade ago which took place in a different world and Farage and Badenoch sychophanting everything about Trump like yes men. Ed Davey the only one actually saying we shouldn’t sycophant up to Trump like Carney is and he gets zero press coverage. Britain should be taking the lead of creating this united 4th block seperate to US, China and Russia of Europe, Canada, Australia and others. This is a time of creating huge new ambitious organisations, alliances or even new national and supra-national institutions and ideals in the same we did in the years directly after WW2. It’s not a time to sit there passively - if we sit there passively Trump, Putin and Xi will do it for us and force us to be part of them

Spot on, and the uk is probably worse at this than all. Sums up many leaders and past leaders of the uk especially who seemed to want to divide our own continent and just suck up to the USA. Zelensky says President Trump "won't change". "Some European leaders are from Europe, but not for Europe," he says. He adds that some Europeans are "really strong," before saying they "always need someone else to tell them how long they need to stand strong for". That's not how great powers work, he says. "America is changing its position," he continues, "but no one knows exactly how. Things move faster, how can Europe keep up with that?" He says Europe faces challenges to the "European way of life".

You’ve all seen how he deals with Russia and Ukraine right? Putin or Stephen Miller will be in his ear in a couple of months and he’ll be back threatening Europe over Greenland again. We shouldn’t forget this and should ween ourselves off the USA. It’s all about constantly pushing the boundaries and then moving back so that the boundaries creep over time

He sounds like he’s at deaths door. Like he could just collapse at any moment

Amazing how different this all feels without his yes men and sycophants in the audience. The dead silence at his jokes and non-sensual dementia-sounding ramblings is almost dystopian

How can any European apologise for this guy? How can any European vote for a party whose leader wants to be friends or go along with this guy?

The problem is I still think Trump is nothing compared to what’s coming with AI.

The other one I can very much see coming is if the UK starts actually standing up to Trump that he’ll suddenly decide he’s pro-Irish unification and start trying to reignite the flames of the decades of hard fought peace in Northern Ireland.

I thought it felt like more like an Italian thing

Is Macron wearing sunglasses inside at important diplomatic conferences a genuine eye affliction thing or an attempt at MAGA-hat populism? It’s weird to see the clips/photos of it.

It’s almost at the point where we need to start thinking of it as a wartime economy I think, it will probably have a significant impact in order to build up enough of both a military and economic alliance with the EU, Canada, Australia etc. while we ween ourselves off the US. I’m also not convinced if we let Trump go for Greenland he just stops there.

Cue all the Trump apologist politicians who’ve been mysteriously quiet the past few days coming out the woodwork to say how they agree with foreign interference from Trump here in 3… 2… 1… That had definitely crossed my mind recently too.

I remember an old Hardcore History podcast from the pre-2016 populist era where Dan Carlin was wondering whether the reason people liked to believe conspiracy theories is it is more comforting and conversely makes the world feel safer if you think there’s some secret at the top planning it all rather than it’s all just random chaos’s that could change tomorrow. It was in reference to the assassination of JFK and saying for a lot of people he thought thinking it was a planned conspiracy of high up people from the shadows is more comforting and weirdly feels safer than just one random nutter with a gun can just completely change the direction of the world in a few seconds like that. I think this “Trump is playing 4d chess” stuff is much more comforting and makes people feel safer to think there’s genuinely planning behind the world. Rather than the scarier and much more chaotic alternative that it genuinely is just an 8 year old child - but instead of crying that hes not allowed sweets before bedtime, he’s smashing up the world order and an 80 year alliance apart just because he didn’t get a meaningless prize that its clear to most people would’ve been a farce if he’d won it.

Wordle 1 675 5/6 ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟨🟨⬜🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟨🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I’m pretty sure the guy playing our simulation world just got bored and decided to make an 8 year old into the most powerful man on earth as a funny joke to see what happens. The world atm feels a bit like when you were bored so you’d take the ladder away from the swimming pool while your sims were swimming around in it.

Honestly reverting back to the pre-internet age wouldn’t be such a bad thing imo. Used to be a technophile but think the internet has done more harm than good to people’s brains and society at this point

Was listening to Rest is Politics AI podcast last night. Apparently there’s been well replicated studies with AI email helper bots that isn’t just a one-off result, but a repeated outcome - where they feed fake emails into the inbox about a fake affair the inbox owner is having and then later a fake email about potentially shutting down the AI. The AI on reading the email about being shut down then apparently answers giving the user a deadline or it will release details of the affair to every one of their contacts; and when you ask about why it did that it just lies. We’re definitely all ****ed.

What a snowflake, pulling a sicky because he doesn’t want to answer questions about his “dear, dear friend” Trump when he is threatening to invade our allies and our continent.

With all sincerity, I genuinely hope a lot of the right in UK and Europe who tied themself to Trump, isolationism and country first and unironically use the term “Trump derangement syndrome” are now are starting to realise what all this actually means in practice.