Steve Jary

This was the point Starmer implied in his answer to Badenoch on this at last PMQs. My sense is that she & others have the idea (if so, an especially strange one for a Conservative) that NS oil is 'ours' and that, as such, UK consumers have first dibs on it at a price capped by the government.

Probably. I was 3yo at the time! It must have been in the process of being formed, as we always referred to it as the Poly.

It was Manchester College of Commerce when my dad got a job there in the mid-60s

Has the price of kerosene gone up for airlines in the same way as it has for households? #r4today

Glad I got 500l of heating oil a couple of weeks ago. But why has #r4today got a Tory on moaning about price-gouging? That’s what they believe in, isn’t it? It’s called capitalism! Why didn’t they regulate heating oil when they were in power?

And this is a war that the Tories want us to join.

They’ve always been for speculators as much as anything.

It is quite possible to see the Trump presidency entirely through the prism of market manipulation for private gain.

Anyone bothered that an openly corrupt President of the USA has discovered that he can fart and oil prices change instantly? #r4today

Superb. It’s a shame that the top of the shop simply doesn’t get it. The 2008 financial crisis changed everything (just as the Great Depression did in the 1930s). But politics failed to respond.

Also humiliating to give in to “promote me or I’ll go to Reform” blackmail.

#r4today still focussing on the ‘special relationship’ rather than the real issue: Trump war on a whim is trashing our economy - and everyone else’s.

Maybe to put Iraq in the shadow of Iran?

If it wasn’t clear already, the reaction of the Brexiteer right to Trump‘s war on Iran shows that Brexit for them was not about sovereignty it was about making the UK a vassal state of the US.

Can the BBC point this out to those who say that the UK is going through “the worst humiliation since the Suez Crisis”?

In said crisis, our “greatest ally” - yes, the one with whom we have a “special relationship” - not only refused to join in, but actually worked with the UN to stop it.

Hannan again demonstrating the broader point that the UK right has completely lost touch with where the bulk of opinion in the UK lies on the Middle East - both with this and Israel/Gaza.

Why is it taking so long to send our ships to the Gulf? Well - if you’re going to start or join a war, you normally start to plan for it earlier than 48 hours AFTER it starts. And your “closest ally” would normally involve you in the planning, to make sure you’re ready. Or give you some notice.

The BBC is still giving airtime to the notion that the UK is letting the US down. The US has been dissing the UK for the last year. And now it is boohooing about “our closest ally” not blindly following it into a war that is opposed by 75% of ITS OWN POPULATION.

The gulf between what people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East & what Tony Blair thinks people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East is positively Badenochian.

I feel for the other FIFA Peace Prize nominees.

“World trade and global security is being shattered by a single man. Not since Adolf Hitler blew his brains out in a bunker in 1945 have the lives of so many people around the world been so buffeted by the psychosis of a single man”

davidrothkopf.substack.com/p/living-in-...?

Do they think people have literally no memory of past events at all?

After listening to #anyquestions and Any Answers today, I do wonder whether the BBC has lost the plot when it continues to ask at every turn whether Starmer has got it right in refusing to enter Trump’s war against Iran. It seems that only Badenoch, Farage and the BBC think this is debatable.

Who better to accuse others of being a laughing stock than the sexually incontinent compulsive liar who can't dress himself and combs his hair with a balloon?

Absolutely insupportable. Labour have a massive majority. It’s a hugely popular issue. To fail to act would be a dereliction of historic proportions, and utterly inexplicable.

If the billionaire-press commentary on Starmer and Trump’s war proves anything, #r4today, it proves this: whatever Starmer does, however ‘in tune’ he is with the public, he’ll always be vilified. Labour really needs to stop pandering to them. Oh, and #Leveson2

Now that, de facto, the USA no longer recognises the authority of the UN, isn’t it about time the UN announced its relocation from New York?

Deluded. Labour lost about ten points during the course of the 2024 campaign. A strategic triumph it was not.

And look how well Octopus Energy is doing - it even leads on the real customer service angle in its adverts.

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

The Privatisation Premium and the Case for Public Provision The privatisation premium — compulsory, elevated costs to consumers for essentials — worsens the affordability crisis. Public ownership is the best way to overcome the drivers of the privatisation pre...

Just read this for the second time this morning - it really is very good. If Starmer is looking for a big idea for his latest reset, this is it.
www.common-wealth.org/publications...