No. Not just that. The news cycle for the last 24 hrs in the UK is frankly absolutely appalling in conveying what's actually happening and the implications of this.
Today is slowly catching up but it's way behind where it should be, and I'm looking for Burnham and wondering when we are going to get past tumbleweeds for these multiple incoming crisis.
Let me spell this out. Burnham's quote about social security before national security from last week I think it was is abject nonsense at this point. And I LIKE Burnham. There is no capacity for social security if you are not economically independent enough to avoid global shocks. You get forced into a position where you have to be active rather than completely passive.
I'm reading all the threads about benefits and pensions and houseprices etc on MN ATM and going "fuuuuuuccckkkk this country has no clue what's going on".
Let me explain: Diesel is driving everything now. There is a global diesel shortage. It makes everyone in the world vulnerable. Everyone. More so than oil. More so than a lack of fertiliser.
I'll start with fertiliser though. The Iran conflict meant a huge amount of fertiliser wasn't exported from the gulf earlier this year. Prices skyrocketed. For the most part Western countries bought enough for their own production but many less well off countries didn't. So when crops which over the next six months to twelve months will be harvested, yields will be down massively. Western country are not self sufficient. But they can outbid other countries. There WILL be famine in parts of the world next year which are poor. This means significant civil unrest and that's going to affect production and imports/exports. And of course this means economic downturn across the world. As well as lots of migration. This is already baked in to what's going to happen. It's done. The moment has passed. Crops are already in the ground (or didn't get put in the ground). Food availability and price in the UK WILL be directly affected. It will be significant.
Let's talk about diesel next. Diesel is essential for trucks, trains and tractors. These Three Ts are our logistics backbone. Without them everything else falls apart. Also, what do you think cargo ships run on? There is a worldwide shortage. Oil itself is only part of the equation. It's about how much diesel you can also refine. Refinery capacity is a massive issue at this point - why?
The blockade led to contingency plans and other countries putting up production to adjust. Iraq was one of those who had done this most. They are trucking out oil through Syria under escort. That's Syria who have riots following the government there putting up fuel prices. (More instability). This is a very vulnerable and unstable route.
This week Saudi Arabia has had a massive problem with being bombed by the Yemenis. It's not just about Iran. The work around for Hormuz was the West-East pipeline to the Red Sea and the port of Yanbu (don't laugh it's a real place). At Yanbu was a refinery and storage tanks. The pipeline has been hit at three pumping stations. And the refinery and storage tanks have been hit. This wiped out the supply they had sold to Europe. Apparently a limited flow is going to be restored in a couple of days but in reality the area isn't secure so will continue to be a target. The Saudis cancelled expected deliveries to Europe for the end of September and this is thought is going to last until November at the earliest. This has left European oil companies panic buying to keep refineries going. From what I understand they've managed this at some expense (for now). The Saudis have instead refocused and their new contingency plan is to truck to Oman. This route is risky and expensive. And the oil is going to Asia not Europe. Yesterday the Saudis started to try and buy diesel from Europe. (Think about this HARD about what this implies). To get oil out to refine to diesel, Saudi Arabia is now having to import diesel which it was self sufficient in. This is effectively something of a death spiral in terms of costs and availability for Saudi oil production and exports. Unless it can fix it's security issue. And fast. The UK has refused military support but said it was considering sending advisors. Pakistan has now said it will offer support in line with it's defensive pact with Saudi.
Meanwhile, the US is largely self sufficient in diesel. It is the world's biggest exporter. I say largely self sufficient but this doesn't really fully explain the problem. The US is running all its refineries almost at full capacity. One went down this week. No production for two days now. The autumn is when the US normally schedules refinery maintenance. There isn't capacity for this (see above point about refinery going down). They import most of the rest of their diesel from a country named Canada...
That same Canada that just told the US to fuck off.
The US has said that it's considering banning diesel exports to protect prices. Except this only will bring short term relief to the US before making the situation worse because of the implications to the rest of the world and prices. It will be a disaster if they go down this route.
The UK. The UK had capacity to refine 50% of our own diesel. The rest we mainly get from the Netherlands but some from the Middle East. This makes us somewhat vulnerable. Especially with being outside the EU. Cos what might the EU decide to do? We have a grand total of four refineries - which I expect will soon have increased security if they don't already.
Libya. This week three of Libya's refineries had to go out of production due to unrest. Italy imports 25% of its diesel from Libya. Guess what Italian PM Meloni did yesterday? She had a trip to Norway. Can anyone think why?
Enter Russia v Ukraine into this equation.
Yesterday there was an air raid warning in two cities. Polish cities. There were sirens as Airspace was closed for military operations. President Tusk then did a lengthy speech detailing why. I won't go into details but it's basically about 'accidental' incidents on the border and multiple ongoing sabotage issues across Europe that haven't had a proper political response. He spoke of Russia having no where to go and putting pressure on western nations by taking advantage of issues with energy.
Russia has spent months poking Europe with sabotage attempts. Last week the Germans publicly accused them of an attack on Leipzig airport but it's not the only one - just the only one publicly attributed to Russia by a government. They have also targeted power stations. Yesterday the Dutch Railway system had a major issue due to sabotage in twenty places. These have all been infrastructure and logistics.
Within Ukraine they have been bombing petrol stations. And have started targeting border areas.
France has emergency meeting security briefing between all the party leaders. It has fishermen protesting outside oil refineries about the cost of diesel. Macron gave the reason for the meeting as necessary due to the 'significant shift in international politics'. This is highly unusual.
The energy price cap is due to be reviewed in Jan. Martin Lewis is reporting this will be a 24-25% increase due to the cost of gas. It's now almost inevitable.
So it doesn't matter what the fuck Burnham wants to do with social security. Social security isn't available if you've got no sodding diesel, you aren't self sufficient for food and you can't afford heating because it's gone up why beyond any inflationary increase. If you can't export shit to get money, due to a lack of diesel and a lack of customers cos they are busy dying or fighting a war you are in complete fucking denial about and are trying to stay out of despite the fact Russia has made it perfectly clear they see your country as a target. I mean Starmer was personally targeted with arson by two Romanians recruited on telegram by a Russian speaker. Look at this article for the shit show of trying to pretend it's not Russia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgmdjpmmng7o
Yesterday marked a shift in language by Tusk (and other European leaders) as addressing this all as state sponsored terrorism - something which can and has triggered article 5 (9/11). Certainly it reaches the threshold for article 4 of NATO. (Basically this is what has now happened - we are into article 4 at least unofficially with Tusks speech)
Russia on its part has essentially considered itself at war with NATO since 2014.
Zelenskyy said yesterday words to the effect that he now thought China was supporting Russia due to components in North Korean missiles that had hit Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said earlier this week they are preparing for a scenario of war in Europe and Taiwan.
Secretary General Mark Rutte says NATO's force planning has to account for a “simultaneous multi-theatre conflict”, including the possibility that a Chinese move against Taiwan could coincide with Russian military action in Europe. Rutte's concern is that Beijing could turn to Moscow to keep the United States and its European allies occupied while China moves against Taiwan.
“You would have a serious problem in both theatres
.”
China has also been stockpiling gold for sometime. You do this if you are worried about economic stability. Trump has given lots of reasons for this. The Dutch, French and German government have over the last 18 months moved their gold to London.
The US military bases in the Middle East have got hammered to the point that it's questionable if some are still operational.
Noting Amazon also said their Cloud facility in UAE is beyond repair and are abandoning it and the data stored in it.
Pretty much all this has been building up for the past ten days.
Yesterday I was going slightly potty going why the fuck is this not being adequately spelt out in the UK. Today - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmn0jke547r5o
There are also other articles in the newspapers from heavy weight journalists starting to ask questions including wtf is Burnham playing at on these subjects.
Events, dear boy, events.
We are in uncharted waters and no fucker seems to have realised properly in the UK yet.
It has already happened and we've slept walked into this.
Wakey wakey.
Talk of social security is so June 2026. We should be talking quite seriously what plans there are in place in terms of rolling blackouts, fuel and food rationing. Because honestly, this is where we are and how perilously close to this being a necessity not even a possibility. This is the shift in risk profile that the government needs to be looking going into winter 2026.
The whole damn country and all the ideological crap from successive governments is becoming increasingly somewhat irrelevant at this because there will not be alternative options available. Anyone still blowing hot air about triple locks and who gets what benefits could be in for a rude bloody awakening. Brexit was enough of a farce because of the total lack of understanding of supply chains and logistics within parliament on all sides of the house and amongst the public. And COVID was it's own special shit show.
This is real. This is happening. Much of it is already set in motion and not resolvable even if the war in the Middle East was resolved tomorrow. It's about infrastructure damage already done and how this means serious political recalculations around the globe are now being done. This is affecting what hostile nations are looking at and willing to capitalise on due to Western strategic weaknesses. Even if we say "oh we don't want to get involved in a Russian conflict", Russia thinks we've been hitting it for over a decade so will seek to punish. We don't get that wet excuse to fall behind because this is all 'a bit scary'.
All this is verifiable, strong and reputable sources. I have spent the last week making sure of this. Don't believe me or think I'm scaremongering, get the fuck off MN and go check for yourselves.
I am NOT expecting nukes. There does not need to be nukes. Missiles are expensive. Drones arent. And they can be hidden and launched in close proximity to a target. Ukraine is hitting the far into Russia this way. It's a war on logistics and infrastructure and economic realities. It's already happening. And at least unofficially Article 4 just got triggered in terms of saying shit has got real and you need to take this threat seriously and stop pissing about.
Burnham needs to step the fuck up.