May 8th Going To Be Interesting For PM

It seems it is only a matter of time before Keir Starmer is removed either by his own Party or by taking himself out of Downing Street and it was blatantly obvious what the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, was thinking.  
Popular amongst his Labour peers, the problem was that he was not a Member of Parliament so he would have to solve that little problem first and so when Greater Manchester MP Andrew Gwynne said he was stepping down due to 'significant ill health', this paved the way for Andy Burnham to potentially run in a by-election in his constituency.
Starmer's allies emphatically tried to shut that down while supporters of Burnham egged him on the second problem to overcome was that all potential Labour MP's have to be vetted by the nine man panel of the Labour Parties National Executive Committee who voted 8-1 to block the Manchester mayor's bid, citing the concerns of cost the having to hold not only a Bye Election but one for the Manchester Mayor when they have upcoming local English, Welsh and Scottish elections to pay for.
Not sure how much sway Starmer had in the NEC decision but having someone so obviously just waiting to step into his shoes would have been a problem for him especially if the Local elections is the royal tonking that the Labour Party are fearing where it would be difficult for Starmer to continue and that was always the Catch 22 for him.
Allow Burnham to run and amplify the drumbeat of a leadership challenge that is already growing or block him and face the fury of his supporters and the accusation that he is running scared of a leadership challenge and harden opposition against him.
All this is very useful for Wes Streeting who is the other name commonly cited to replace Starmer and he has made no secret he would someday like to lead the Party although at the moment he is saying all the right things but he must be smiling that the kickback for Burnham will land on Starmer, therefore losing him even more support.
The morning of the 8th May may be very interesting.

Historians Say Trump Isn't Hitler

Time around the World is strange. In Britain at the moment it is 23:15 and in France it is 22:15 meanwhile it in America it is the mid 1930's Germany as the Trump Administration turn up the full fascist, or so i thought because scholars and historians i spoke to have it closer to the mid 1920's, mid 1920' Italy to be precise.
Benito Mussolini is considered the creator and founder of Fascism, developing the ultra right wing ideology and where most people would associate the present Trump Administration with early Hitler, historians argue that the comparison is stronger with Il Duce than any with Adolf Hitler who took what Mussolini had, and made it his own.
The similarity, according to people who study these things, are like Mussolini, Trump uses simplified, repetitive, and emotionally charged language to bypass traditional media and connect directly with a mass movement rather than just a political party and both tried to cultivate an image of hyper masculinity and alpha-male dominance.
Mussolini’s promised to restore the glory of the Roman Empire parallels the 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) slogan and both centered their platforms on the idea that the nation had been weakened by corrupt elites and 'internal enemies' and only they could restore its past greatness.
Both tried to dismantle democratic norms such as the judiciary and the press as well as trying to manipulate media outlets and both relied heavily on nepotism in their inner circle, Mussolini’s appointment family members to his ministry and so has Trump with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in official advisory roles.
Both have Paramilitaries doing their dirty work. Il Duce had the Blackshirts causing systematic street violence while Trump has ICE currently doing the same while both utilised the technology of their time to bypass traditional gatekeepers such as Mussolini who created LUCE, a government agency that produced propganda newsreels shown in every cinema while Trump created Truth Social which enabled him to speak direct to his followers without censure and cause a constant barrage of misinformation designed to make the public question reality.
Experts have linked Trump’s use of alternative facts to Mussolini’s methods, where the leader's declarations are promoted as the only truth, dismissing established facts as lies.
Like Mussolini, he cast established journalists as 'enemies' and attempted to replace them with a direct, unmediated 'truth' so Mussolini and Trump both positioned themselves as truth-tellers in a landscape they characterised as dominated by a corrupt and dishonest press and positioned themselves as the only ones to believe despite what the evidence showed.
Both tried to centralise power, attacked and attempted to prosecute opposition and targetted minority groups and while Trump often wears hats that says 'Trump was Right about everything', this is almost the same as Mussolini’s slogan 'Mussolini is always right'.
Mussolini’s face was plastered on posters, buildings, and textbooks across Italy to create a sense of omnipresence while the U.S. context is different but Trump is keen to have his name associated with everything and have his name on everything.
While Mussolini scapegoated Bolsheviks, plutocrats and ethnic minorities, Trumps administration targets the Deep State, radical leftists and illegal immigrants.
The slogan, One of Ours, All of yours' which the Trump administration used when defending the ICE agents after they killed a US citizen, is not directly attributed to Mussolini himself but was used within the context of Nazism in  general,particularly in relation to the tactics used by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist regime to eliminate opposition and demand total obedience to the state.
Finally Fascism was inherently expansionist and Trump has wanted to add Greenland as well as mentioning adding Panama and even Canada to the United States so make of that what you will but as we all know Mussolini was overthrown by his own side and hung upside from a lamppost and as the American people stir to protest what is happening there, we can only wait to see if the comparison runs right through to the end. 

Ryanair V Musk

We all know that Elon Musk is a tool of the highest order and he uses his X Platform to throw out sarcastic barbs to anyone who gets under his amusingly thin skin which is exactly what the Ryan Air boss, Michael O'Leary, has done.
O'Leary is also a complete tool and when Musk asked O'Leary if he would consider installing Starlink satellite internet service aerials on his planes, O'Leary replied that it would cost his company about €200-250m per-year by impacting the aerodynamics and adding to their fuel bill and said he would pay not attention to the idiot.
An irked Musk replied that O'Leary was an utter idiot, a chimp,and called for him to be sacked and even queried about buying Ryan Air for himself for which the reply came that due to EU Rules: 'Non-European citizens can’t own a majority stake in a European airlines' but said that he could always invest in Ryanir as it would be a: 'Significantly better investment than X' and launched a 'Big Idiots Seat Sale' which was 'only available for Elon Musk and any other idiots on X'.
He also said in a dig at the Grok scandal, that he would always be available to: 'Address (undress??) Elon Musk's latest Twitshit'.
What Musk obviously didn't know when he started the spat was that O'Leary is infamous for trolling morons and is damned good at it so if Musk is thinking of replying to the Irishman's provocations, we can expect even further and more hilarious replies aimed at the man who even Donald Trump called 'A bullshit artist' which must have stung coming from someone who lies as easily as he gains pounds.
The worst thing about it is that Michael O'Leary is the one that everyone over here is rooting for which is like last season when Title chasing Arsenal fans were cheering on Tottenham because they were playing Manchester City.
Obviously Tottenham lost but it did take quite a few showers to wipe away the stench and that's what this is like, damn you O'Leary (but go ahead and embarrass the South African idiot even more). 

Board Of Piss

Any Board that has Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on it is not a great Board and to call it a peace board is a grim joke when one is actively committing genocide and is wanted by the ICJ, one has just invaded and kidnapped the leader of Venezuela to claim its oil and threatening to invade another while another lied his way to a war which resulted in a million dead and the fourth is in the third year of invading its neighbour so hard to think any of them would know what Peace was even if was rolled up into a newspaper and swiped around their warmongering heads.      
Invites went out to most World Leaders and sensibly all the important countries have ran a mile from it so on the board are  Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Uzbekistan and Mongolia with Russia and Israel set to join soon and China yet to reply which isn't a great line up.
It was originally established to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but now has a far broader mandate, including promoting global stability and conflict resolution around the world, conflicts which most of the Peace Board are either involved in or are the cause of so good luck with that.
I assume it is seeking to use their 11-page charter to bypass, or even replace, the United Nations  and the chairman is the orange buffoon himself, Donald Trump who serves as the final authority on the interpretation of the charter and holds veto power over key decisions, including membership removal and executive board actions, membership which last three years unless the members contribute more than £1bn.
The United Nations does need to be looked at, its model of some countries able to veto anything is a nonsense but rather that than a board with most of the worst World Leaders on it in charge of peace but i dont think the UN need to worry, everything Trump gets involved with ends up a failure so they just got to wait it out and get the popcorn ready.

Under 16 Social Media Ban Coming To UK Soon

After the House of Lords backed a ban on under-16s using social media, it is now almost inevitable that Britain's teenagers will be joining their Australians counterparts in seeing a 'blocked' message when they try to access their accounts.
An amendment to the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently making its way through parliament and a consultation has been launched on how it worked, and is working in Australia, which they are calling 'highly effective' to make sure no under-16s can become users.
The Prime Minister was initially opposed to such an outright ban but has faced pressure from not only his own backbenchers but parents, celebrities, charities and teachers which has softened his view.  
It has been one month since Australia enforced the social media rules for children by banning such platforms for those under the age of 16, and during that time, social media companies have removed almost five million Australian accounts held by minors with Meta/Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok losing the most accounts and the resulting revenue streams and with Britain and other nations now seriously looking at the same policy, the Social Media companies are not happy.
But it seems almost certain a ban will be coming in some shape or form and a Government spokesman said: 'We will take action to give children a healthier relationship with mobile phones and social media'.
I completely agree that it should be banned for under 16's, i have seen the harm it does to young,. impressionable minds and I have heard the argument that it should be the parents responsibility and not the Governments but if it is backed by Law, then that makes it much easier for the parents to enforce so get on with it Keir, the sooner the better.

Keir Playing The Trump Game

The first rule of the Trump Game, played by politicians around the world, is you do not talk about the rules of the Trump Game. The object of the game is to pretend that the President of the United States is a normal, rational person and on no account are you ever to admit that he’s nasty, vain, venal, unstable and obviously unaware that his own doctors are testing him for signs of dementia.
The 2026 round of the game got off with the US military attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its president while making it clear that it was all about the oil and every British politician  bent over backwards to not say anything bad about it, even gobshite Nigel Farage just pushed his head a little further up Trumps bum  and Keir Starmer mumbled something about not rushing to a decision therefore giving himself time to reflect on whether invading other countries, kidnapping their leaders on made up charges and literally stealing their oil was a bad thing but then we are finding out that is what Starmer does.
Not content with threatening tariffs against the UK and seven EU countries for not just handing him Greenland, the deranged Donald has now sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister to complain about not winning the Nobel peace prize and to say he was so ticked off he was thinking of starting a war instead.
Up stood Keir, cleared his throat and claimed that Greenland’s sovereignty could only be determined by Greenland and Denmark and our values are resolute and Trump taking Greenland was a line in the sand and we all thought, here we go, Keir has had enough and is going to tell the sex pest where to go, only he never.
Instead Starmer said it was time to take the heat out of the situation and this was not the time for overreaction. What was needed was a cool head. Calm diplomacy. No need to make a drama out of a crisis. Just sit down with the man who thought digesting bleach would sort out Covid and talk things through. Man to man as once Trump had had things explained to him, he would have a rethink. Realise he had acted a bit hastily. A gentle reminder that starting a trade war with the largest single market in the World was a wee bit over the top.
All of which was fine if the other person has an IQ higher than his shoe size and could respond sensibly to reason, a proper grownup and not a man-baby who tries to bully those around him and is surrounded by sycophants and lickspittles and a party who will not dare challenge him.
We can all agree that changing the fat orange lumps mind with persuasion and diplomacy would be a good thing and maybe Keir will prove us all wrong but we all know that isn’t very likely and their isn't anyone in the White House who will whisper in his strangely coloured ear, 'With respect Sir, you are being a real dick over this'.
We keeping hearing Dementia Donny may not have long left, hence his obsession with naming as much as he can after himself but if we are waiting for the Love Actually moment: 'A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger.', this isn't coming from Keir Starmer who is a World Champion master at the Trump game.

Feeling Ill In Space

Space . . . is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the shops but that's just peanuts compared to space, our nearest neighbour is about 240,000 miles away and takes 3 days to get there so it was lucky the recent medical emergency happened aboard the International Space Station which is is 250 miles above our heads and only 24 hours away.
To protect the crew member’s privacy, Nasa hasn’t disclosed details about what happened but medical evacuations in Space are rare, this is the first time in 25 years, but the evacuation raises the question if we are looking for manned missions further out from the Earth?
A trip to Mars typically takes 6 to 9 months and coming back home if you are suffering a medical issue wouldn't be easy but Astronauts do undergo rigorous medical screening before selection for conditions that might worsen in microgravity of Space which could explain why the emergencies are so rare but what health issues occur in Space?  
The scientists at the European Space Agency have always been very helpful when I have Space type questions so I emailed them and asked the question to them and they were very quick to reply with an answer.
According to them skin irritation is the most frequently reported medical issue during spaceflight ranging from dry skin, rashes, hypersensitivity reactions and impaired wound healing  as the  cold, dry, low-humidity spacecraft environment exacerbates these problems.
Congestion and headaches affect most astronauts, particularly early in a mission as without gravity pulling fluids downward, blood shifts toward the head, causing a puffy face and 'space sniffles' as well as many Astronauts suffering from changes pressure in the eye, leading to optic nerve flattening and vision changes.
Sleep disruption is a thing as circadian rhythms are disrupted and musculoskeletal injuries are common, generally from the exercise designed to protect astronauts’ bones and muscles.
Watching returning Astronauts being carried away on stretchers after being on the ISS only reinforces my belief that if we do make it to Mars,  after 6-9 months of travelling, the astronauts would be in no fit state to do anything once they got there and nobody wil be waiting for them with a stretcher and a hospital to check them over.
Obviously if the boffins could come up with a Spaceship that duplicates the Earth's gravity then that would solve many of the problems but until then the sick astronaut has my sympathies because when you are not feeling at your best at work, there really is no place like home, shame it was whizzing 250 miles below them at 17,500 mph, 16 times a day. 

EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument Option

I had never heard of the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument until today but suddenly it is all we are hearing as EU countries meet to decide how to respond to Donald Trump imposing Tariffs on essentially all the EU nations over Greenland.
From what I am hearing, their are 3 options up for discussion with the first being holding fire and waiting to see if the man who is famously called TACO, does indeed chicken out over the next few days as Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs against countries only to then delay, reduce or quietly scrap them and with US markets Nasdaq pre-market trading showing a fall of 1.5%, that is a possibility.
The second option is to do nothing as this weekend the EU signed a major free trade agreement with five South American countries known as the Mercosur bloc which they think will soften the blow of what they lose in the US market, leaving the American consumers the only losers.
Thirdly is the Anti-Coercion Instrument which is being pushed hard by the French President Emmanuel Macron and involves imposing retaliatory tariffs on the US, limiting US investment and trade with Europe and restrict access to the Worlds largest single market.
There is unanimous agreement in European capitals that a forced seizure of Greenland cannot be allowed but there as yet, is no agreement in yet on how to respond and the discussion  is being assessed by each leader with the fear that the ACI would almost certainly prompt a backlash from Trump and deepen the looming trade war.
Almost everyone has already agreed to delay the ratification of the EU-US trade deal that was agreed last summer but as the new tariffs won't kick in until 1 February, the EU feel the time  gives the EU a window to decide and act.

State Pension Conundrum

The UK has something called the Triple lock when it comes to State Pensions which means that each year it is raised by whichever is the highest, average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5% and at the last Budget in November the highest was inflation so the State Pension increased by 4.8% which means the full State Pension is now £240.25 a week or £12,493 per year.   
The Triple Lock is one of those rare moments where all parties have a cross party agreement to keep so regardless of which party is in charge, they go with it but as there is a gap of approximately £5bn between what is received by the Treasury in National Insurance Contributions and what the treasury pay out, the wisdom of the Triple Lock is being questioned especially as it is dangerously close to the tax free Personal Allowance figure of £12,570 at which point, even if the State Pension is your only income, you will be receiving a letter from HM Revenue & Customs with a tax demand.  
Out of the 44 European countries, the UK has the 11th most generous pension with Luxembourg the best and Armenia the worst and YouGov have a very confusing survey conducted across the nations of Europe with regards to their own State Pension.
The survey found that most Europeans believe their country’s state pension system is not generous enough and although most are concerned that state pensions will become unaffordable, do not support the given options for overhauling it.

Reduce the amount all pensioners receive in state pension payments? No.
Tax state pensions? No
Increase immigration levels to generate tax revenue? No
Raise the minimum age for state pension? No
Increase tax levels on working-age people? No

Probably not surprisingly, when pensioners were asked if their pension amount was too low they agreed it was but when asked what measures they would support to make state pension schemes more affordable, the reply was a firm 'No' to everything so not sure what the answer is but whatever they do, don't ask the opinion of Pensioners first!

Woohoo...Free Onions

It is amazing what you can find walking along the beach such as shells, pebbles and bags of onions.
A few weeks ago 16 containers fell off a ship round by the Isle of Wight and after bobbing around in the English Channel for a few weeks, they are starting to wash up alongside the Southern coast, and for Brighton we got the container full of onions.
Last week in West Sussex hundreds of thousands of bananas washed up and thousands of bags of chips had washed up near Eastbourne and with our thousands of bags of Onions, that's a decent meal although after what our Water Companies have been dumping into the Sea, it might be prudent to leave them for the Seagulls and the Local Council have been urging people not to take the Onions home as they 'may not be fit for human consumption'.   
Apparently, items washed up from ships must, by law, be reported to the Receiver of the Wreck within 28 days, or it may be considered theft.
Here's the legalese bit: 'Any item washed ashore from a ship, whether wrecked or not, constitutes ‘wreck’ under the law. Such goods belong to whoever had title to them before they fell into the sea. Where the goods are washed up as the result of a shipwreck, they must be declared to the receiver of the wreck, by the person finding them, within 28 days. The receiver may subsequently pass them back to the finder (if the owner cannot be found). Otherwise, a payment for the salvage of the goods may be payable by the receiver to the finder.
Failure to report items of wreck found is a criminal offence and the retention of goods ‘unofficially salvaged’ could lead to a prosecution for theft.'
So reading that, just finding thousands of bags of Onions on the beach must be reported else it is considered theft and face a possible fine so to everyone i spoke to today on the beach, Onions? What Onions? We didn't see any Onions?