Im no fan of Starmer but …

[BettyWhittaker]

I am very anti - Labour government, have never voted Labour in my life and never would and I hope an early GE is called …

BUT - AIBU to think he really couldn’t have handled Trump any better than he had? Christ the man is completely unhinged, his behaviour is getting worse and worse - AIBU to think Starmer really couldn’t have done more to handle this?

I thought his statement yesterday was pretty good. Let’s just hope the mad man gets taken out of office before he kicks off another bloody war

So did I.

It didn’t even occur to me national leaders actually text each other.

No, most European countries have no respect for bullies either, esp by a mad man.

No, I was quite taken aback by that.

Trump was talking about the Chaos Island deal, which is indeed deeply stupid.

They need a scapegoat.

Agree. It’s fascinating, especially as he’s an international law type but plays it as realpolitik.

I’d love to know if there is hard-line threatening behind the scenes (switch off intelligence cooperation, etc.) or not.

Trump’s anglophilia helps too.

But Trump said it was brilliant less than a year ago? He's a strange bullshitting little man

Yep

I think Trump is probably the hardest president any pm has had to contend with . As said the man is becoming more and more unhinged . They have tried being sycophantic and it’s not worked and Trump values strength so I’m thinking the walking of the tight rope tactic isn’t working so now just go in and tell it how it is , assertive .

Yes so did I! I laughed when I read it thinking it was a joke and then saw on Sky News that the letter had actually been received by a rather bemused Norwegian PM. I couldn’t believe it! Is nobody proof reading the letters etc that he sends out?

Trump is completely unmanageable I think. I’d much rather Starmer try than Johnson. Imagine that if you dare!

Every word of this is correct, but to answer your final query, yes it’s possible - but we have to accept we can’t be a country of individualism any more. Our lack of collective direction has somewhat lead to this fiasco, and we need to accept we cannot spend millions of pounds on just 1 person any more (life and death illness aside). We’ve become a very expensive support system for people with ‘needs’ which is slowly bankrupting us while the world around us is turning into shark infested waters.

I hope you’re right, but that all relies in a large group of people in the US military/industrial/political/financial complex working together to properly stand up to the administration. And they’ve shown no signs of doing that so far. Each component only raises a squeak when its own interests are directly threatened (like Jay Powell last week); none of them yet seems to have realised that a systemic threat like Trump is a clear and present threat to everything they hold dear, and that the essential crisis arrived some time ago.

I very much hope Congress finds its balls over military funding, if it comes to that, but I wouldn’t bet my house on it. These people (Republicans in Congress) have been so utterly, dismally amoral, cowardly and supine so far. Those who aren’t outright lunatics of course.

Yes I think he’s shown real skill and competence in handling a very strange set of circumstances. I feel reassured that he’s steady and consistent despite those around him. If the Tories were in we would’ve been in big trouble.

I think you're exaggerating slightly..

The US can long term screw over the UK independent deterrent since they provide the missile bodies (not the warheads) on a loan basis. Codes and Permissive Action Links (PALs) are more relevant to US weapons held in Europe, not what the UK has.

They don"t control a lot of our hardware and software. The US provided a lot of support for the F-35 but there's a lot of UK/European built hardware in use.

Oh, and I think the UK Army would struggle to deploy 200,000.

I would agree we're in a bit of a vice.

But Trump said it was brilliant less than a year ago? Trump is an unreliable bell end. His opinions change chaotically.

I don't suppose it matters. He'd just use his social media platforms. Even twitter banned him once upon a time - back in the day when twitter had standards.

Bring back Obama. He is a smart smart man.

It’s deliberate. Not on Trump’s part, he’s clearly cognitively impaired and was never very clever to start with. But within the administration, sending ungrammatical, factually incorrect, tonally mad diplomatic comms is a flex, a power play. They are basically showing that they could send a smear of shit on a piece of paper and leaders from other countries would have to respond with pained diplomacy and forced smiles.

Would Europe not work together though if the worst happened? Not just the British army.

Imagine how Maggie Thatcher would have dealt with him!!!!

The irony - not wanting to participate in an EU army was one of the arguments for Brexit.

Thank you for this. Not at all a military expert, as you can tell! But do you think there’s a serious prospect that Western Europe could mount an effective defence to the US military, if it chose aggression?

Can you imagine Nigel having to respond?

It’s scary because the only way to manage Trump is kiss his ego and do everything and anything he asks. If you call him out in any way, he lumps a tariff on you. This is how fascism is formed, it’s how Hitler got into power and was able to ransack Europe. Everyone thought he was a joke at first and most were afraid to call him out too.

Same way she ‘managed’ Reagan I expect. Licked his arse.