European reaction to the new American national strategy document

Extraordinary reaction to this statement, and particular people promoting the idea that Barnier presented a suite of options with his "staircase". He did not. He was fed up with UK officials demanding single market rights with no SM obligatations. 1

This rather misses that Single Market access without full EU membership is at the moment where most current EU member states would prefer to park the UK

The bottom 90% lost a collective $79 trillion in wages over the past 50 years. Why? Because the top 1% ate up an increasingly larger share of the national income — so that $79 trillion flowed to them instead of the working class. The greatest trick of all is trickle-down economics.

🔴 Nigel Farage’s Reform is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history 75% of *all* Reform donations *ever* have come from just three rich men Is this what democracy looks like? New on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

Nigel Farage, leader of the party who claim to care deeply about women’s equality, yesterday described bbc broadcaster Emma Barnett as a ‘lower grade’ presenter for asking questions about his alleged historic H*tler fanboying.

it is insanely dishonest to characterize the reaction to the most corrupt pardons in american history as pro-police and pro-prison. fuck off

Okay, so, what I’m reading here is that racism is completely fine - as long as it’s done in a non-malicious way. Notwithstanding the fact that racism is in and of itself filled with malice. That’s the nature of racism. For fuck’s sake.

I wonder whether he’ll also boycott LBC if/when I ask exactly the same question about him…

Fair play www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It's a mark of our moral disintegration that there's even a discussion about Ukraine giving up land. To even countenance it is to reward colonialism.

Thank God for Bluesky: A little love letter to the people who would not compromise with Nazis iandunt.substack.com/p/thank-god-...

The true pleasure of Bluesky. "When I look around, I see people who often took a big professional risk because they would not comply. In many cases, they had profiles they had built up for years. They let it go. They did this because they refused to extinguish their moral character."

Quite breathtaking story - military grade drones at Dublin airport which flew on the path Zelensky's plane took. The drones reached the flight path of his plane exactly the time it should have been there, but just missed it because Zelensky arrived ahead of schedule:

You will be shocked to discover after reading these stories that while Rachel Reeves claimed to have been the "British girls under-14 [chess] champion" she was in reality merely the "Under 14s British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls" Champion. This is getting utterly ridiculous now

My fav film ever. Can't wait.

I say, has anyone seen a Labour party? I asked around, but nobody seems to know quite where they've gone.

The more anti-immigrant and racist Labour becomes, the more it: 1) Normalises anti-immigration and racist sentiments, boosting Reform's appeal since it's their specialty 2) Drives moderate voters away from Labour because they're appalled at the direction Labour is taking Losing in all directions!

Maybe it's time for a 2-tier NHS and care sector? Tier 1: The current service level Tier 2: A reduced service level for those who are demanding that immigrants leave the UK. Longer waits for tests and treatments, fewer choices, wider catchment areas etc. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Labour still terrified of Farage instead of facing him head-on.

People unwilling to face the truth about Labour's reluctance to tackle Brexit often hide behind "the RW press will crucify them". News flash: that's already happening! Right now, there are 51 negative stories about Labour on the front pages of the Daily Mail, Express, Times and Telegraph websites.

Given it took several years for constant repetition that the TCA review wouldn't amount to much to sink in, I'm thinking the talk of a UK EU Customs Union unfortunately has some more years before that is similarly seen as not being a miracle cure by UK remainers...

Does anyone think of the Trump administration and use any of these words? Another modern political oddity, never has it been easier to find out what other countries think, but discourse has become ever more stubbornly national. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

"The overriding mission must be to do whatever it takes to get the economy motoring" and "The challenge for this government — and for politics generally — is to convince voters the system works for them" are decidedly not the same thing. It really matters. www.ft.com/content/1052...

Not just governments, voters too. But how does any government sell realism in a media environment entirely hostile to it?

This is a good piece and I agree with all of it. But I'd add that a lot of Americans on encountering Actually Existing England come down with a version of "Paris Syndrome" - a widely recognised phenomenon described as....

Ten years on the UK is still mostly talking to itself about EU relations (from NS Morning Call). Let me know when any politicians start talking about far greater mobility / freedom of movement, because that will show them thinking about the other side.

Agree 💯 With Ben Stiller......

Feeling proud of the intelligent multi-lingual children in our city! This tweet and the Farage video in it about "the cultural smashing of Glasgow" is getting rightly roasted by the good people of Glasgow on the other place...

Last year Sky News was rending its garments over Starmer's free eyeglasses: WHAT INFLUENCE DID LORD ALLI BUY? Now, RefUK get £9m from a crypto bro, they have not one word about the donor's interests; just BRAVO NIGEL, barely concealed glee, and "what a huge boost... money goes where momentum is". 🤡

Reform UK’s Trumpian strategy in regard to Farage’s anti-Semitic schooldays — attack, deny, attack — rather than the traditional PR advice — quickly apologise and move on — might work in the current media environment. But it will be a desperate sign of the times

@davidheniguk.bsky.social's latest piece for Encompass is accompanied by stylised executive balls, themselves an illustration of Newton's third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction Worth remembering that when discussing Brexit and how the UK left. A 🧵 H/t. @er2023.bsky.social

Acute analysis, including this neat observation: "Starmer and his shadow chancellor bound themselves with pledges best suited to help Neil Kinnock beat John Major in a hypothetical rerun of an election 32 years previously"

GB News now broadcasting calls to remove the ethnic minority MPs from parliament

Agree with @jomichell.bsky.social here. My earlier piece: "The claim that that MMT means that a future government can dodge hard choices about how to pay for decent public services is just plain nonsense." www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/econom...

🔴 NEW - Farage rescued (for now) by mega donor Reform is in a worse financial position than it appears...

The economic impacts of Brexit: new research from my @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social colleague Paul Mizen et al brings together macro (top-down) and micro (bottom-up) evidence. They find a large and persistent negative impact on GDP, output and productivity. ukandeu.ac.uk/brexits-impa...

Putin is a far more successful manipulator of Western psychology than he is a conqueror of Ukrainian defensive positions share.google/t4tDq7zXBj7o...

Reform of the House of Lords going swimmingly... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

This got almost no attention at all on here. The identical story got 177 retweets and 313 likes on Twitter. Another reminder that BlueSky is tumbleweed for the big stories.

No wonder Reform had a slew of full page ads in most major newspapers recently. (There are no spending limits outside of election periods.) x.com/steven_swinf...

Poppy Coburn from the Telegraph was on Newsnight last night, calling for Labour to flat-out pivot to rejoin the EU. It wasn't just a passing comment. She pushed the idea strongly for several minutes.

What a way to shout "Don't vote Labour!" to farmers.

Incidentally my (slightly snarky? 😀) take on Brussels views of the UK seems to have amused diplomats and negotiators on both sides. Who also grudgingly suggested it to be reasonably accurate... encompass-europe.com/comment/ever...

Doesn't say anything for the political instincts of Number 10 that they were surprised by a positive response to a positive EU agenda. Doesn't say much for their diplomatic instincts that this came 12 months too late to make a difference to negotiations. www.politico.eu/article/brex...

Please, can we stop the - by this point - comedic lines that France and Spain are so desperate for the £ that they are begging pensioners to come and live here. 🇪🇺 www.politico.eu/article/fran...

People get extremely annoyed when I point it out (I think they think I’m endorsing the other guy, cause we don’t do nuance) but if this was Biden, it would be the cover image of literally every American newspaper tomorrow.

Every time you think Labour can't possibly keep riding the wrong horse much longer, they decide to make it gallop faster. Champagne corks are popping in Reform HQ again.

The UK has gone quite, quite mad. It's ridiculous that we (just about) survived 14 years of the Tories, only for Labour to allow the madness to take hold and spread. Some of the stuff in those bullets is just breath-takingly evil. And it's not winning Labour ANY votes. Just helping Reform.