Color Scheme
Pouria Zeraati
04, May #WarSpillover

Pouria Zeraati: Calm Before the Storm…

Calm Before the Storm/ Trump in response to the regime's savagery today: 'The IRI, during the ship relocation under Operation "Freedom," has fired upon several countries that have absolutely nothing to do with this matter, including a South Korean cargo ship. Maybe it's time for South Korea to join this mission too! We've taken out seven small boats so far—or "fast boats," as they call them. That's all you've got left. Aside from that South Korean ship, no damage has been inflicted so far on any other vessels passing through the strait. The Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Cain, have a press conference tomorrow morning.'
#WarSpillover
Carl Benjamin
04, May #BrokenSystem

Carl Benjamin: It should really go without saying…

It should really go without saying that punitive partisan policies that target sections of the electorate for voting in the "wrong" way is distinctly un-British and, frankly, shameful. Threatening sections of the electorate with punishment, in the form of placing dangerous migrant camps in their midst, might seem like a clever strategy on the surface, but it attacks something foundational concealed beneath our politics and is deeply unwise. We are a nation and, as Edmund Burke argued, have shared national interests that go beyond our provincial concerns. These interests go beyond the mere material. The unspoken assumption of Britain is that, despite any political divides, we are British and therefore will treat one another in a manner that recognises the fundamental legitimacy of the other person and their claim to a decent life. Regardless of disputes, they ought to be able to go about their day comfortably and safe in the knowledge that this is their country and they belong to it. This is the psychic fabric that itself has been damaged by mass immigration: bringing in millions of people from countries who do not have this special attitude is what brings about the intangible feeling of unease that causes "white flight". It's why the country feels less safe, whether or not it actually is, and why people wish to live among people like themselves. The world becomes predictable and you can feel at your ease that tomorrow will be like today, and today will be like yesterday. Carving up areas of the country into ideological chunks that can be dealt a cruel hand because of their voting record is the hard edge of politics that we really must avoid. Ideology turns countrymen into enemies, brother against brother, over ephermeral abstractions that have devastating and permanent consequences. The ideological politics of the Blair era is what brought these problems to our doors in the first place. It was understood by them that "rubbing the right's nose in diversity" was a punishment, to be weaponised against their enemies. The logical conclusion of this was Zack Polanski's building a society without the right entirely. The Green-voting areas targeted by Reform are well-to-do white areas of the country, who have not yet had to live with the consequences of their politics. This is the axel around which the emotional impact of the policy hinges, and reveals the horror of what Reform plan to do. Yes, they're stupid, but they are going to be like babes in the woods in the face of it. Reform have taken up the destructive politics of ideology from the other direction, and if we look at what it has brought into existence without the mystifying lens of political ideology, it seems monstrous. In concrete terms, what we are seeing is a Muslim man who is threatening British men, women, and children with the rapes and murders caused by unvetted illegals co-religionists in order to gain political power. Why should we think he would stop there? Such behaviour ought not to be rewarded. This kind of ideological politics is completely alien to British life, and very foreign way of approaching the political dispensation of the country. It is a direct attack on the psychic fabric of the nation and renders us into two opposed and irreconcilable camps, where the human feeling that bound us together is severed. It also solidifies the control that ideology has over both sides: once one is attacked by the other, the victim will feel obliged to respond in kind. We must rise above this kind of politics before it destroys the precious metaphysical inheritence of the nation and forever drags us down into a place from which we cannot escape.
#BrokenSystem
Lee Hurst
03, May #CostOfLiving

Lee Hurst: Abolish all benefits…

Abolish all benefits. Simplify it. Pay everyone the same amount. 40 hrs a week times min wage. Get them onto skills training to earn it or community work. If they are genuinely disabled give it to them. If a family member is designated a full time carer for them pay them too. Pay it to full time University Students for 3 years and ditch the loans. As a society we get something back for our money. People upskill, stuff needed doing gets done. What is wrong with this as an idea? If you have ever had to deal with the benefits system it is ridiculously complicated and expensive to run and get nothing back for our tax money.
#CostOfLiving
Franz-Stefan Gady
03, May #WarSpillover

Franz-Stefan Gady: Quick note on the supposed capability…

Quick note on the supposed capability gap from the Trump administration halting the planned MDTF long-range fires battalion deployment to Germany: the US Navy and Air Force can partially substitute: carrier strike groups with Tomahawk-armed destroyers and subs, B-52s and B-2s carrying JASSM-ER/LRASM, and forward-deployed F-35s. PrSM on HIMARS/M270 is already fielded across regular Army field artillery brigades and can fill part of the ground-based fires role. The harder gap, next to mid-range capability, is the MDTF sensor-to-shooter fusion. The MDTF is also a key element in how the US Army envisions implementing multi-domain ops. I wrote about this and the potential escalatory risks in my book „Die Rückkehr des Krieges”.
#WarSpillover
Liz Webster
03, May #WarSpillover

Liz Webster: As I told @HenryRiley1 on @LBC last Sunday…

🆘🚨 As I told @HenryRiley1 on @LBC last Sunday, the fertiliser shock from Hormuz isn’t just an energy story. It’s a food story. This week, Sunday Times Business section confirms it: food is the war’s bigger crisis. And the UK is especially exposed. Brexit took us out of CAP and while we’ve replicated EU trade deals, we’ve not replaced the core principle that food production is a public good. That has consequences: ➡️ Rising prices ➡️ Tightening supply ➡️ Real risk to food security After WWII, Attlee’s government passed the 1947 Agriculture Act, recognising that feeding the nation is a strategic priority. That thinking later shaped Article 39 in the EU. 🔥 Today, Brexit Britain has no equivalent duty. No food production plan, no clear strategy. We’re reacting to a crisis instead of preventing one. ☝️ This has to be fixed.
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