This is very, very strong. It’s the first piece I’ve seen in this whole Greenland–tariff–Nobel fiasco that actually diagnoses the dynamic rather than vibing at it. It’s sober, grown-up, strategically literate, and bleak in exactly the way the situation warrants.
What makes this moment so unnerving is that every instinct we developed in the post-Cold War period tells us that order is maintained through incentives, diplomacy and mutual benefit. That model collapses when one of the poles of the system operates on humiliation, extraction and punishment. The UK’s strategy wasn’t cowardice — it was built for a world that no longer exists. Appeasement is only a strategy when the other side can be appeased. When the demand is the domination itself, there’s no “headroom” to buy peace, because peace was never on the menu.
So where does that leave us? Not in a debate about tone, or diplomatic craft, or where Starmer sits on the calcium-to-spine spectrum, but in a much harder transition: how to behave as a medium power in a world where the hegemon has become a coercer, not a guarantor. Europe has some tools. The UK fewer. None of them are pleasant, quick or cheap. Collectivisation of leverage is one, but requires political will we’ve spent years burning for domestic pantomime. Decoupling is another, but decoupling from Washington is a geopolitical quadruple bypass — no one survives that unaided.
Which brings us to the part nobody wants to say out loud: there is no clever workaround. No angle. No magic technocratic marinade you can rub into the situation to make it tender and cooperative. Trump’s America is not a partner you negotiate with, it is a storm you endure, and you build enough internal scaffolding that the building is still standing when it passes. That’s the “strategy,” such as it is. Not winning — surviving.
And that’s why the doormat metaphor ultimately fails. Doormats choose to lie flat. Britain isn’t choosing. It’s being stood on.
I understand Starmer’s rational but recent events crowned by that letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister show once and for all there is no point in negotiating with Trump. The UK must quickly align with Europe in general and the EU in particular to protect ourselves from the insane actions of the Tangerine Turd in the White House.
Utterly terrifying. We have a PM that is out of his comfort zone, isn’t really sure what he believes, and responds to pressure from people with power and money.
I know, he is between a rock and a hard place, but he needs to stand firm with our natural friends Europe and not criticise ( even obliquely ) Macron, Zack or Ed Davey - who are clearly speaking the truth.
To be honest I think he's between a rock and a hard place. He has to think of the country and cannot afford to tell tangerine turd to go forth and multiply, which I think he probably wants to do. I don't think we should give in to blackmail, which effectively is what tangerine is doing. I think together with Europe, we all need to stand firm and see how things pan out.
Given the state of Trump's health the best bet for America and the rest of the world to survive him is for the old bugger to pop his clogs in the next few months. (My money is on Easter)
That is a reasonable expectation but of course we will then have Thiel's poodle Vance to deal with.
Next hope is for the mid terms to put the Dems in charge of both houses which would hopefully pull Stephen Miller's fangs.
Awful lot of weight 'hope' is having to carry there but what else do we have?
This situation has escalated from “mildly disturbing” to “everyone panic” very quickly. We know appeasement doesn’t work - see Chamberlain - but, as you say, Bear, Starmer is caught between a rock and a hard place and he probably can’t do right for doing wrong. You can’t negotiate with a man like Trump. He honestly believes the rules don’t apply to him and he’ll bully his way into getting what he wants. I don’t like referring to him as a toddler because that gives toddlers a bad name, however, like a toddler he will throw tantrums, and use the broken record technique until someone says “Oh, for heaven’s sake, all right then!” I just pray there are steadier heads in the Republican Party and they can work out a way to get Trump and Miller out of power before it goes nuclear.
Because if he is thinking like a child, or a man who believes his girlfriend doesn’t want him, he could be thinking “well, if they aren’t going to give me what I want, then no one can have it”. Bleak.
They are. My 2yo grandson is an absolute delight. He is so sweet and loving. Yes, he’s two so he’ll get upset if he doesn’t get his way occasionally - it took me and his Mum to get him in the pushchair last week, because he didn’t want to, but within a few minutes he was right as rain again. I think the difference is my grandson knows he is loved and accepted for who he is, and this is unconditional. People who grow up in transactional families - ie “I’ll give you my approval if you do x, y, z…” tend to be extremely insecure and given what I’ve read about the Trump family, this seems to be the case for Donald.
What his behaviour most reminds me of is dealing with a toddler. You make supreme efforts to reason with them and reach an agreement, only to find it completely upended on a whim. Unpredictable, irrational, petulant. The only thing they understand is firm boundaries and limited choices. Same with him. Those who have been firm, eg Mark Carney, have fared best.
I find it hard to understand how seasoned politicians have comprehensively failed to understand Trump's malignant simplicity, something that has for years been apparent to so many of us mere observers. His business practices have endlessly demonstrated that he is nothing more than a greedy, bullying mobster, and you can NEVER successfully appease a bully. We should have confronted his excesses right at the start of his 2nd term to dispel any illusions. He's like a toddler who looks at the world and screams "I want it, all of it!". He should be treated as such.
Starmer should have taken a lead from Mark Carney. The old order of alliances is dead in the water and the USA can't be trusted any more. We need to back away and start forming strong(er) relationships with other countries instead. Brexit was a monstrous mistake, we could start by addressing that elephant in the room.
I recently joined the Green party over this and other issues.
Those of us Remainer voters who didn't go for the project Fear approach basically predicted something like this could happen, with the UK left more vulnerable to US influence.
With Trump doing his second term as he has, it didn't take long from could to turn to would and it is beyond my comprehension that this is a surprise to so many people.
What of this wasn't obvious? And yet so many adult in the room types keep acting like some kind of deal or appeasement will be found.
Trump is singlehandedly turning the once great America into the pariah of the world... surely, there must be Americans acutely aware of, and disgusted by what his actions are doing to the reputation of that country. It's fast approaching the point where the solution will have to be in the hands of such an American and I just hope they're not shaking.
I've been sighing such a lot recently. Over my health, the state of the NHS and the issues in world politics. Now it looks like the lot have collided in an unholy and untidy heap. Oh dear. Oh very dear. What to do?
This is very, very strong. It’s the first piece I’ve seen in this whole Greenland–tariff–Nobel fiasco that actually diagnoses the dynamic rather than vibing at it. It’s sober, grown-up, strategically literate, and bleak in exactly the way the situation warrants.
What makes this moment so unnerving is that every instinct we developed in the post-Cold War period tells us that order is maintained through incentives, diplomacy and mutual benefit. That model collapses when one of the poles of the system operates on humiliation, extraction and punishment. The UK’s strategy wasn’t cowardice — it was built for a world that no longer exists. Appeasement is only a strategy when the other side can be appeased. When the demand is the domination itself, there’s no “headroom” to buy peace, because peace was never on the menu.
So where does that leave us? Not in a debate about tone, or diplomatic craft, or where Starmer sits on the calcium-to-spine spectrum, but in a much harder transition: how to behave as a medium power in a world where the hegemon has become a coercer, not a guarantor. Europe has some tools. The UK fewer. None of them are pleasant, quick or cheap. Collectivisation of leverage is one, but requires political will we’ve spent years burning for domestic pantomime. Decoupling is another, but decoupling from Washington is a geopolitical quadruple bypass — no one survives that unaided.
Which brings us to the part nobody wants to say out loud: there is no clever workaround. No angle. No magic technocratic marinade you can rub into the situation to make it tender and cooperative. Trump’s America is not a partner you negotiate with, it is a storm you endure, and you build enough internal scaffolding that the building is still standing when it passes. That’s the “strategy,” such as it is. Not winning — surviving.
And that’s why the doormat metaphor ultimately fails. Doormats choose to lie flat. Britain isn’t choosing. It’s being stood on.
I understand Starmer’s rational but recent events crowned by that letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister show once and for all there is no point in negotiating with Trump. The UK must quickly align with Europe in general and the EU in particular to protect ourselves from the insane actions of the Tangerine Turd in the White House.
I'm told that the EU & pals have a huge holding in dollar bonds.
And selling those in an organised way would completely trash the US economy & end the dollar's status in international exchanges.
Canada used that early on & Trump did more than blink - he backed down.
Watch this space, I'd say it's about all we have left.
(and as a bonus it would trash the US's tech sector, too...)
Antonio Guterres , the secretary general of the UN , summed it up pretty well this morning in an interview at BBC radio 4 :
The power of law has been replaced by the law of power”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hS0wFiWpU4U
We need the Bears of the North to fight back for all of us.
Have you seen the Northern Atlantic Defence Alliance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWMnNoHshRA
Utterly terrifying. We have a PM that is out of his comfort zone, isn’t really sure what he believes, and responds to pressure from people with power and money.
Is that what prime ministers do? I don’t think so
I know, he is between a rock and a hard place, but he needs to stand firm with our natural friends Europe and not criticise ( even obliquely ) Macron, Zack or Ed Davey - who are clearly speaking the truth.
To be honest I think he's between a rock and a hard place. He has to think of the country and cannot afford to tell tangerine turd to go forth and multiply, which I think he probably wants to do. I don't think we should give in to blackmail, which effectively is what tangerine is doing. I think together with Europe, we all need to stand firm and see how things pan out.
Given the state of Trump's health the best bet for America and the rest of the world to survive him is for the old bugger to pop his clogs in the next few months. (My money is on Easter)
That is a reasonable expectation but of course we will then have Thiel's poodle Vance to deal with.
Next hope is for the mid terms to put the Dems in charge of both houses which would hopefully pull Stephen Miller's fangs.
Awful lot of weight 'hope' is having to carry there but what else do we have?
This situation has escalated from “mildly disturbing” to “everyone panic” very quickly. We know appeasement doesn’t work - see Chamberlain - but, as you say, Bear, Starmer is caught between a rock and a hard place and he probably can’t do right for doing wrong. You can’t negotiate with a man like Trump. He honestly believes the rules don’t apply to him and he’ll bully his way into getting what he wants. I don’t like referring to him as a toddler because that gives toddlers a bad name, however, like a toddler he will throw tantrums, and use the broken record technique until someone says “Oh, for heaven’s sake, all right then!” I just pray there are steadier heads in the Republican Party and they can work out a way to get Trump and Miller out of power before it goes nuclear.
Because if he is thinking like a child, or a man who believes his girlfriend doesn’t want him, he could be thinking “well, if they aren’t going to give me what I want, then no one can have it”. Bleak.
Love this: ‘I don’t like referring to him as a toddler because that gives toddlers a bad name’
Toddlers are also sweet & loving and kind, when brought up properly.
They are. My 2yo grandson is an absolute delight. He is so sweet and loving. Yes, he’s two so he’ll get upset if he doesn’t get his way occasionally - it took me and his Mum to get him in the pushchair last week, because he didn’t want to, but within a few minutes he was right as rain again. I think the difference is my grandson knows he is loved and accepted for who he is, and this is unconditional. People who grow up in transactional families - ie “I’ll give you my approval if you do x, y, z…” tend to be extremely insecure and given what I’ve read about the Trump family, this seems to be the case for Donald.
Well said.
What his behaviour most reminds me of is dealing with a toddler. You make supreme efforts to reason with them and reach an agreement, only to find it completely upended on a whim. Unpredictable, irrational, petulant. The only thing they understand is firm boundaries and limited choices. Same with him. Those who have been firm, eg Mark Carney, have fared best.
I find it hard to understand how seasoned politicians have comprehensively failed to understand Trump's malignant simplicity, something that has for years been apparent to so many of us mere observers. His business practices have endlessly demonstrated that he is nothing more than a greedy, bullying mobster, and you can NEVER successfully appease a bully. We should have confronted his excesses right at the start of his 2nd term to dispel any illusions. He's like a toddler who looks at the world and screams "I want it, all of it!". He should be treated as such.
Starmer should have taken a lead from Mark Carney. The old order of alliances is dead in the water and the USA can't be trusted any more. We need to back away and start forming strong(er) relationships with other countries instead. Brexit was a monstrous mistake, we could start by addressing that elephant in the room.
I recently joined the Green party over this and other issues.
Those of us Remainer voters who didn't go for the project Fear approach basically predicted something like this could happen, with the UK left more vulnerable to US influence.
With Trump doing his second term as he has, it didn't take long from could to turn to would and it is beyond my comprehension that this is a surprise to so many people.
What of this wasn't obvious? And yet so many adult in the room types keep acting like some kind of deal or appeasement will be found.
It frustrates me so much.
Kipling had it to a T when he wrote 'Dane-geld'.
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:–
"Though we know we should defeat you,
we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
Oh how ironic that it's the Danes who are now on the receiving end, but that's not the point.
The point is what Kipling said about trying to appease them. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
Trump is singlehandedly turning the once great America into the pariah of the world... surely, there must be Americans acutely aware of, and disgusted by what his actions are doing to the reputation of that country. It's fast approaching the point where the solution will have to be in the hands of such an American and I just hope they're not shaking.
Not a rational contribution to the debate, just a bit of fun.
The Northern Atlantic Defence Alliance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWMnNoHshRA
:-)
I've been sighing such a lot recently. Over my health, the state of the NHS and the issues in world politics. Now it looks like the lot have collided in an unholy and untidy heap. Oh dear. Oh very dear. What to do?