For those struggling to recall the lessons of a pre-1945 world heavy in ideology, the consequences of ultra-right alternatives are again coming clearly into vision: global disorder; stratospheric inequality; and rampant corruption. Beware of fool's gold from Reform canvassers knocking on the door.

Apparently Trump is making US security guarantees for Ukraine dependent on relinquishing territory that Putin has failed to conquer. That means these security guarantees are worthless anyway.

Trump over-reached on the global stage with his Greenland debàcle and derogatory comments about NATO troops. He has now over-reached in the domestic arena with the madness of ICE in Minneapolis, combined with continued suppression of the Epstein Files.

On news that matters: Minneapolis.

The public are rather tired of politicians standing for elected office promising to serve their alloted term, only to renege on that commitment the moment personal ambition gets the better of them.

Any British politician who advocated Trump's re-election in 2024 shouldn't be let anywhere near public office. No ifs and no buts.

Trump just makes stuff up. What he says has no known reality reference point. That he needs psychological help is the very least of it.

The week began with much of the media reporting that Trump had humiliated Starmer. As it draws to a close, that humiliation is all Trump's, with Starmer's reputation enhanced. We rediscover that a week in politics is a long time!

Oh, my! BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cj... Trump rules out taking Greenland by force, drops threat of tariffs on Nato - BBC News

Fruits of Trump's foreign policy: a brutal règime still holds reins of power in Venezuela; an even more brutal règime survives in Iran; Putin acts with greater impunity in Ukraine; and Trump's 'Board of Peace' has surreal membership and with mission-creep beyond Middle East will wither on the vine.

I fear Donald Trump is cracking up under the pressure of it all.

Trump himself has now made it abundantly clear, through his obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize, that Greenland has nothing to do with national security, but everything to do with the disturbed state of his mind.

A self-inflicted domestic political disaster. This is going to be cathartic for American voters - and similarly inclined voters elsewhere.

Trump is the political equivalent of a financial bubble. So much froth. So much illusory value. Once the bubble bursts his political capital will just crumble.

Enough is enough. Time for co-ordinated European measures to hit the American economy where it hurts if Trump persists. BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1... Trump tariffs: US president announces plan to hit UK, Denmark and other European countries with tariffs over Greenland - BBC News

Tens of thousands of protesting Iranians murdered or imprisoned by an authoritarian règime, encouraged to stay on the streets by Trump, promising help was at hand. Then - nothing. Would be wise for Iranians never to put their trust in him again.

The on-going defection of MPs/former MPs from Badenoch's Tories is an open wound. But Farage's Reform now looks like a failed Government in exile. Whereas a split on the UK Left in 1980s was a moderating influence, this split on the Right in 2020s is driving the boundaries of the political extremes.

The recent controversy involving Grok and X was very revealing: just how little Musk and his far-right acolytes really care about the safety of women and even children. It's all politically motivated cant.

When Trump embarks on his latest crazed escapade an immediate reaction is, wow - shock and awe. Until realisation dawns that the world is a much more complicated place than Trump's brain is able to grasp. The downward trajectory in his approval ratings then resumes.

It is one thing to seize sovereign assets, quite another to legally trade and dispose of such ill-gotten gains. The international rules-based order may be more difficult for Trump to circumvent than he thinks. observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Trump is turning the USA into a petrostate dinosaur, on a par with Putin's Russia and the Gulf States. Problem is there is a glut of oil globally. The costs of extraction are becoming prohibitive as renewal sources of energy become more competitive. Trump can't plausibly turn the clock back.

When a President and Vice-President are so cavalier about the murder of one of their own citizens, by the equivalent of a paramilitary force, any semblance of decency in public office has been erased. A prime example of Trump losing control of the chaos he unleashes.

Too few voters take heed of well-founded warnings until too late. True of Brexit; Johnson in Number Ten; and Trump in the White House. It would apply to Farage should that come to pass. They are in politics for personal enrichment, with no compunction about acting unconstitutionally or unlawfully.

This is the man who campaigned on grooming gangs in the UK, when his own digital platform allows sexualised images of children. Hypocrisy is not the half of it. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Trump is so overstretched with his policy upheavals, both domestically and internationally, that behind the rhetorical bluster there will be an endless trail of chaotic unfinished business. Don't be fooled by egotistical rambling. It's why so many of his businesses finished up in bankruptcy courts!

Some observers are clearly having great difficulty comprehending why Starmer would keep a cool head in international crises and co-ordinate his responses with other like-minded European and Commonwealth leaders.

However odious the Venezuelan règime, Trump has acted not only in clear violation of international law but also in breach of his own country's constitution. Impeachment is only a matter of time.

On a day when Trump's erratic Presidency becomes even more chaotic. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Maybe, up to a point. But it would be a mistake for the Government's strategy to be completely dictated by countering Reform. The fixation of Democrats with Trump and MAGA didn't exactly pay dividends for them! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Putin cannot abide the idea of democratic contagion on his doorstep, catastrophic threat to his autocratic règime that it would be. As Trump doesn't have a democratic value in his bones, not difficult to work out why these two aging men are on the same wavelength.

Happy New Year. The Year in which TRUMP THE STRONGMAN (!) becomes TRUMP THE LAME DUCK.

Those on manoeuvres for a Labour leadership challenge in 2026 may come to regret it, given the high-risk stakes attached to the consequences. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Possessed of the knowledge that he is easily manipulable, Putin is feeding Trump with increasingly outrageous levels of disinformation.

Because of the time difference with the UK, it's common to fall to sleep wondering what that damn fool (Trump) will have said or done by morning.

A simple post for this last Monday of 2025. The Trump Administration is such a disgusting stain on the American Republic, it will take a generation for the damage to be fully erased.

Peace and joy this Christmas, irrespective of who you are (the real Christian message). But special thoughts to those going through difficult times.

We are beginning to get the true measure of the scale of the attempted cover up of the Epstein Files by the Trump White House.

Once upon a time there was a towering kingdom, beacon of democratic freedom and land of opportunity for talent from wide and far. But it lost its way, so much so that this kingdom bequeathed power to a paedophile and a prostitute, courting the same folly as earlier fallen civilisations.

"The UK has rare alignment: world-class scientific inputs, deepening innovation outputs, domestic capital, international trust and a regulatory system that can enable safe experimentation. It's time to invest...and put the doom and gloom behind us." observer.co.uk/news/science...

As objective analysts of the British business, economic, scientific and technological communities are increasingly observing, it's time to put the doom and gloom behind us as we transition to 2026.

Turns out that since 2015 Trump has not been talking to the American people, let alone the international community, but instead playing out a psycho-drama in his own head.

More than time for these US social media companies to be held legally accountable for the enormous harm caused by their reckless lack of effective safeguarding policies. BBC News - Parents of sextortion victim sue Instagram owner Meta www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A constructive piece of advice for Keir Starmer in 2026: be bolder and less risk-averse. That's how to kill stone dead leadership speculation. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The intelligence and defence communities are becoming more outspoken in their inferences about those who contol the White House; how their recklessness, gullibility, transactionalism and conflicts of interest are putting Western security at grave risk.

Musk's Department of GOvernment Efficiency (DOGE) has been closed less than a year into Trump's Presidency, having caused more chaos than eliminated waste. Blindly copied by ReformUK, there are few better examples of how Farage's outfit is liitle other than a feeble offshoot of Trump's fading MAGA.

Lest anyone forget: Cameron landed us with a damaging Brexit referendum; May was a rabbit caught in the headlights over the implementation of Brexit; Johnson gave us the hardest possible Brexit whilst corrupting his Office; Truss unleashed a financial meltdown and has since gone completely bonkers;

Farage has long hitched himself to Donald Trump's bandwagon. With Trump putting his signature to latest US National Security Strategy it means Farage is now closely associated with policy positions that undermine UK's vital national interest against Putin's nefarious designs. There is a word for it!

Miami!!!

Translation: Europe is an obstacle to Trump's corrupt business transactionalism and international lawlessness. BBC News - Trump criticises 'decaying' European countries and 'weak' leaders www.bbc.com/news/article...

A small section of the population so deranged they think it's approoriate to abuse and assault charity workers. There's only one place for these sad excuses for human beings - washed down the sewer. Time to stop pulling punches over such criminal behaviour. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...