Author: Richard

LA has the troops on the street against the wishes of the governor. San Francisco has also seen outbreaks of violence against the masked intrusion of ICE operatives in some areas. Could this spread to other blue states (red ones seem to have had less ICE activity!). The red neck morons love the violence and maybe itching to join in. So almost 50% of Americans will continue to support Trump, despite the economic downturn. If the violence spreads to the cities of the east and mid west like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, and even Washington we may see widespread deployment of troops. Trump is already planning a gratuotous display of military hardware and troops akin to Red Square. The knuckle draggers will love that. Whether we will reach a situation when Starmer feels it necessary to comment is unlikely. But whether Trump can continue to undermine the US Constitution with impunity is yet to be seen. Irony would have to be written in capital letters if California applied to join Canada! Just a dream of mine!

However Trump is unstable enough to consider invading Mexico if he can concoct a story for himself that Mexico is the source of the unrest and then invade? Is this a result of my fantastic imagination? I can only hope so. More likely is invasions of Greenland and Panama to assuage the bloodlust he is incubating.

I am not sure how his rich backers will react – spending on arms is always popular with the military-industrial complex, especially if combined with tax cuts and hyper nationalism. A civil war would be different as it could endanger their assets. Also would China and Russia take advantage of a weakened USA to expand their territory and influence. It is unlikely to come to this – as Trump is also known as TACO! However the nation is becoming more divisive. I found it interesting that when I visited schools in the USA they had the flag on the teachers desk and even the home I stayed in had the American constitution on the bedside table. It must have been for show, but what would I put there for an American visitor? (answer – a glass of water? – certainly nothing like that!).

Hopefully all will settle down and abnormal reality continue.

Can the UK take a greater share of soft power? The BBC has a reputation (despite its many recent blunders under RW leadership) for impartial reporting. The Voice of America is being curtailed by the orange monster so there is an opportunity for the UK. Many people worldwide speak English and the world service broadcasts in 42 languages.

Are we witnessing the death knells of the Conservative Party? The polls would suggest so, the ineptitude of the last government and its current leadership would suggest so. If not the end of the Party it heralds a need for a very real rethink. I think the rot began with their blind adoration of the lying buffoon Johnson. Whilst he used his undoubted charisma to gain power, is lying incompetence was plain for all to see. Then we had Truss – voted in by geriatric members of the party – her extreme ideology was rejected; not by the public but by the financial institutions of the City of London! Sunak was seen temporarily as a safe pair of hands with virtually no charisma and only a massive bank balance to keep rich Tories happy. Then – if anyone was seen to be out of their depth in a puddle it is Kemi! Her ideology is to be anti-labour and she is freaked out by Reform and Farage. Actaully I have had a rethink – Thatcher was the perpetrator in the crime of undermining the basic values of our country.

So the party has neither rushed, nor crept into its present stasis, rather it has ambled along quite happily until it found itself in an alleyway with Farage and Tice and the ditherer. I am left wing with a very green patina (moss is growing on my car with a tinge of algae across the paintwork!), but …. I am trying not to choke here – Labour needs a moderate opposition that has its basis in fiscal policy and social conservatism.

The tories made much about raising the minimum wage and were not all racist misogynist basards and their obedient wives! Just as Labour are aware of the need to promote business and investment, the Conservative Party were aware of the need to maintain wages and social welfare. This status quo ended with Brexit which basically fucked the UK in so many ways. The right wing realised that there was a future in promoting ideologically and financially unsound policies if they were popular – the gutter press went along with this (as did the BBC). No longer did there have to be a balance between labour and capital – just scream about some populist crap and the voters would fall for it. Farage is to my mind an abominal human being, like Jeremy Clarkson he is very wealthy but appeals to the angry nature of the white geriatric population of the uk, and the angry youth (who have the right to be angry – even if they do not know the reason!).

I think I can handle extremism from political parties if we have Proportional Representation, but if Farage can mobilise financial heft like Trump, then if the Shit Media come into support and the BBC maintains its crap policy of a maintenance of balance, the country is doomed to unrest.

Are people too fixated on the potential takeover by AI controlled robots? I have no idea, but of more concern is their energy consumption – 2.3% of USA energy is used by AI. Here in the UK a new data centre is being proposed for Lincolnshire, cost £10 billion, consuming 3.7bn kWh of power producing 857.000 tonnes of CO2. That is a very present and current danger! Green energy is impractical in Lincolnshire, although they estimate that 10 tonnes of tomatoes could be produced with the heat each day. As ever there is no easy answer. I remember reading at least 10 years ago the potential for using the tides between Orkney and Shetland islands to produce energy and it is also cooler! Common sense is long gone from economic debate – but hey-ho!

The odds were against a Labour win – 11-1 which is greater than the odds on Aberdeen beating Celtic in the cup final! But win they did with the SNP 2nd and Reform 3rd. I wonder whether reform has hit a limit at about 26% – some places will be more racist and disillusioned than Renfrew. But all the media shit about Farage being the next PM seems to be a long way off. Especially as his chair has just resigned; basically due to racism. So whilst the Reform vote is high, but not high enough, Labour can take some solace from the result. The Conservatives must wonder what to do next. Badenoch has been useless, especially when being questioned forensically. 6% is an unmitigated disaster but the torie members who vote on their leader should be wary of Jenrick; good at being combative and controversial but honesty is not his thing, and I believe we want honesty from our politicians after Johnson and Truss.

What is going on? Why do we need to be battle ready? I know Putin has a wish that he could rebuild the USSR – but Ukraine has not toppled and the latest attack by drones on Russian jets has proved that this is not achievable in his life time? (I hope). Then we have China, which has converted some of its wealth into advanced weaponry – however apart from Taiwan and the deserted islands of the East and South China Seas it has not shown any threat to the west militarily. Then we have the USA which is a threat economically and by default. Reducing their commitment to NATO IS a threat to our security. But do we need to be battle ready?

How to assess this latest event is difficult. Russia has been firing drones and missiles into cities for months. Ukraine has it seems hit back big time. I think however am pissed off! This is not just an escalation between Russia and Ukraine- it threatens every one. UK government says it will up Defence spending to 3% , why should we need to is the question. Diplomacy has obviously failed and the primeval gruntings of populist dictators means that money has to be diverted to producing weapons of death rather than nuturing our children. What a fucked up world we live in.