Thread 18 Starmer: All sides of the House agree apart from the Trump bootlickers

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5264338-thread-17-starmer-treading-softly?page=40&reply=142243865

that's a result in itself.

It's not my name - it's the name of the person who was quite happy to post it in the "Hope not Hate" FB group.

But many thanks anyway.

(E2A: I've not heard back from M&S. Despite 2 FB messenger comments and an email.)

@SerendipityJane
Just to let you know we removed your screenshot as it had identifying details in it.
MNHQ

Redacted screenshot 😀

This may be unconscious bias but I don't really believe there is much of an intersection between standard M and S customers and the consumption of news via GB News.

Which is why M&S may not have been aware of it.

But now they are ...

But I’m an M&S fan and also find GB News hilarious. So much frothing and seething. I’m the Queen of the news bulletins. I watch BBC ITN Channel 4 Sky and GB News daily. Drives DH nuts. 🤣

Excellent work. Can I recommend Al Jazeera too? They have very good coverage of International issues, especially the Middle East.

We need extra defence spend, no doubt but cutting foreign aid? i think thats a mistake.
Its almost certain other countries will follow that lead.

I briefly look at Al Jazeera. I follow them on X

Foreign aid is soft spending on the UKs power projection

Defence spending is hard spending on the UKs power projection.

I would respectfully suggest that the facts have changed, so the strategy should change.

Personally I would rather still have a UK for us to argue over foreign aid spending in 2026.

Unless something unforeseen happens in the next few months, I can see the US publicly announcing a "we won't interfere" policy in Europe. I leave it to the imagination as to how Putin would react within hours of that signal. That would not be a good day to be German.

We need both, Russia and China will be only too happy to step in, as they are doing already.

It does though show how remiss the Tories have been on defence in the last decade or so, esp since 2021.

We didn’t need a reduction in foreign aid to show us that. They’ve been remiss on all public spending since 2010.

If you are still about @derxa - and this is a genuinely genuine question - can you see any of this helping? www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-raft-of-new-policies-and-major-investment-to-boost-profits-for-farmers

I’m sure that’s England. I know I have to get a soil analysis done in advance of my Scottish farm payment bid. I already have a health plan done in conjunction with my vet. It was quite brave of Steve Read to go to the NFU conference and speak. But this inheritance tax is not going to bring in lots of money to the treasury. It’s just going to hurt medium sized farms. With the prospect of war we should be thinking of food security not penalising growers.

With the prospect of war we should be thinking of food security

It's so scary we are actually typing sentences of "thinking of food security" pre dates with "prospect of war".

A) food security should be a given anyway and B) the war prospect feels ever more realistic day by day. I've never really worried about war before but living inbetween 2 major ports it's starting to feel quiet scary

I don't believe there'll be a war, at least not in the foreseeable future, Russia in 2025 isn't Germany in 1939.

They can't even defeat little, under armed, with not much of an air force, Ukraine & the Russian people don't want to fight one.
Russia cannot even take Ukraine's energy infrastructure, despite having built it in Soviet times.

Yes we do need to up our game and should have done so years ago, certainly after 2014 but a European war? who with? the losses Russia has suffered in the last 3 years is phenomenal, both in equipment and lives.

I hope i'm not wrong.....

I think there is a war of sorts raging already, though. But it is online rather than on a battlefield. I don't think the UK will be involved in a "traditional" war with Russia any time soon.

PMQs

Kemi Badenoch on the increase in defence spending: “I’m glad he took my advice”

Starmer: “She didn’t feature in my thinking at all. She’s appointed herself as saviour of western civilisation. Its a desperate search for relevance”

I am starting to wonder if Badenoch is a MN regular. She reminds me very much of one or two of the more irritating Tory fans.

Starmer

“President Zelensky is a democratically elected leader and suspending elections was precisely what we did in this country when we were fighting in the Second World War.”

“It is right that Ukraine must be at the table in negotiations. There can be no negotiations without Ukraine. That has been my consistent position in all of the discussions I’ve had and that will continue to be my position”

Very, very amused by that comment from Badenoch.

Yes, I have wondered that as two names in particular strike me as channelling Badenoch!

Add 1 letter (gives you a "C")
Add 10 letters
Remove 3 letters
Add 5 letters
Remove 2 letters
Add 6 letters
Remove 4 letters
Add 3 letters

?????

Reposted from the Trump thread

Dmitry Grozoubinski:

Full text of the Ukraine-US Minerals Deal.

1. Seems fine (an investment and reconstruction fund);
2. Has no resemblance to what the Trump administration has been saying about it;
3. Can't tell if Ukraine is good at diplomacy, or Trump bad at it.

https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/02/26/7205922/