Thread 17: Starmer: Treading softly.

[DuncinToffee]

Lettuce pray

Keep it civil

Cat, dog, flowers tax much appreciated

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5257111-thread-16-starmer-mad-world?page=40

Trump is that person who makes a big noise about needing to help you to your feet when you've tripped over, pulling you up before you've mentally checked yourself out for broken bits while in the meantime his mates have picked your pocket and stolen your car.

Jenny Harries. But she's a pretty awful woman.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/europe-will-not-take-part-in-us-russia-talks-ukraine-kellogg

Starmer to join Macron-led European crisis summit on Trump’s Ukraine plan
French president calls for urgent talks in Paris amid fears US leader is sidelining allies

John Major continues to be the sane Tory voice

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/16/john-major-trump-us-isolationism-threatens-global-democracy

Democracy around the globe is under threat from the retreat of Donald Trump’s US into isolationism and its likely replacement by China on the world stage, John Major has said.

It's official: the European emergency summit at head of state & government will be held in Paris Monday PM with the main EU members and the UK.

As yet unclear whether NATO SecGen and Zelensky will join.

Heard a interview with John Major on R4 at lunchtime. He sounded so measured and sensible. DH asked when did we stop breeding Tories who think.

I was listening to that too - didn't realise who it was to start with, but thought he was making very well considered points.

He was our MP. Bloody brilliant constituency MP even when he held top jobs. He’s greatly missed round here. He’d get my vote now.

“It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time as they’re cuddling Mr Putin. In Mr Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear or die or flee the country, or, at a statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow.”
Well said John Major.

The idea of John Major emerging as a proto Churchill appeals to my sense of the absurd.

I've got that paragraph copied, too. I'll not paste it again!

It does all feel very unsettling.

This article by Lewis Goodall is worth reading in full. Overlaps with some of Major's words.

goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/we-need-to-listen-to-what-trump-and?utm_medium=ios

So China could be our ally in a Eastern European war is the reality now.

And ...

Careful @Notonthestairs if we say Lewis Goodall's name three times in front of a mirror then we may be accused of being left wing.

😉

I’d say that was the least of anyone’s worries right now.

On the subject of being left wing…
I saw these socialist 10 Commandments from Socialist Sunday school on an ad for The Radical Tea Towel Company. Seem like fair rules for our current world ‘leaders’ and I’d love to know which bits anyone finds objectionable.

Images still being reviewed I see. That’s good. In case it’s ages, here are the Socialist 10 Commandments

1. Love your schoolfellows, they will become your fellow workers and companions in life.
2. Love learning, which is the food of the mind; be as grateful to your teacher as to your parents.
3. Make every day holy by good and useful deeds and kindly actions.
4. Honour good people, be courteous and respect all, bow down to none.
5. Do not hate or offend anyone. Do not seek revenge, but stand up for your rights and resist tyranny.
6. Be not cowardly, protect the feeble and love justice.
7. Remember that all good things of the earth are the result of labour. Whoever enjoys them without working for them is stealing the bread of the worker.
8. Observe and think in order to discover the truth. Do not believe what is contrary to reason and never deceive yourself or others.
9. Do not think that he who loves his own country must hate and despise other nations, or wish for war, which is a remnant of barbarism.
10. Help to bring about the day when all nations shall live fraternally together in peace and prosperity.

Edit: and by the time I’d done this it has been approved. Hey ho.

I want this teatowel!

So do I

Oh no 🫣 🤗

Maybe I should link to a Telegraph Op Ed to level things out.

For balance but behind paywall (the irony)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/02/15/kemi-badenoch-urges-britons-fight-for-free-speech/

Badenoch urges Britons to ‘fight for’ free speech

Tory leader says freedom of expression ‘under threat’ because state has ‘over-reached’ in its policing of people’s opinions

Oh ffs Badenoch. At least try to have an original, truthful thought.

She's turning into the Aldi dupe for Farage.

Interesting European line up in Paris tomorrow

🇫🇷 Macron
🇩🇪 Scholz
🇬🇧 Starmer
🇮🇹 Meloni
🇵🇱 Tusk
🇪🇸 Sánchez
🇳🇱 Schoof
🇩🇰 Frederiksen
🇪🇺 VdL
🇪🇺 Costa
NATO's Mark Rutte

https://bsky.app/profile/mijrahman.bsky.social/post/3lictcfn5fk2v