Promise this is my last post on the subject for a while - I move onto something completely different next week. On that subject, I'll be on holiday from tomorrow but there are posts scheduled for the coming days, but I may not be so actively looking at comments because I haven't had a day off since the New Year and I'm exhausted.
What happens if you are sheltering from the rain in a the ruin of an abbey in the North Country, and you see someone lurking next to you. You exchange weary wet pleasantries and he asks what you do- your offer writer and he says I am studying Grooming Gangs linked to US Bases in Thule Greenland
"If I were Keir Starmer, I would be issuing statements of solidarity with our Danish friends over Greenland and showing that Britain is 100 per cent behind them."
This, and the previous piece, have been making me think! In a lot of ways I really don't know what I make of it all yet. There's a real confirmation bias danger here - if one thinks, as I do, that progressive policies on migration, race, gender, etc are existential issues for Western countries, then of course anyone opposing them will be someone one instinctively wants to win. But if that person is incompetent, or proposes things of a similar level of harm, then we're no better off.
It's difficult. I feel slightly less critical than you on the tariff issue, while accepting that it looks to have been cobbled together very quickly and the calculations done on dubious grounds. The stuff on Greenland and Canada is mad. The Doge work and progress on immigration seem mixed. I'd like to be optimistic, and I'm still not sorry that Harris lost, but agree there's plenty to worry about.
In the UK context, I have similar worries about Reform. Too much of their offer doesn't seem serious - too ready to go off on tangents or gimmicks and not focused on the hard work of reform of immigration, the judiciary, house-prices, energy, etc. Jenrick seems like the real deal, but will his party ever let him do anything?
Jenrick is clever and says the right things now, but he used to be like George Osborne; he consciously changed when the wind changed direction - he even lost weight and got a short back and sides haircut.
Yeah, his position has certainly changed. That might be because he's blowing in the wind, as you suggest, or it might be because he's genuinely had a change of heart. The fact he resigned over immigration policy is at least one reason to think the latter is plausible. I understand the cynicism - it's more than warranted - but my gut feeling is that he's had a pretty genuine change of view. Will be interesting to see if that hunch is ever put to the test.
I think there is a danger of underestimating what it will take to arrest immigration into Europe over the next decade or two, if that’s the goal. The sense of purpose would have to be so singular that it’s difficult to see how this could even emerge from the current political /cultural settlement. The only thing that might change that will be our increasingly poverty.
It's interesting that the speech perhaps most guaranteed to create a degree of distance between the US and Europe was delivered by the centre-right politician Claude Malhuret:
'Europe is at a critical turning point. The American shield is vanishing, and it seems that Ukraine may be abandoned and Russia strengthened.
Washington now looks like the court of Nero, with a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fuelled buffoon in charge of purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States.'
Why does everyone keep saying Musk is on ket? I'm genuinely curious. Is it something he's admitted or is everyone basing this off his occasionally odd facial expressions?
Regarding Musk and his K-use, I'm old enough to remember when tales that this or that politician had smoked pot in his youth were regarded as faintly scandalous, not as a badge that he was a normie. And any credible claim that someone used (let alone still was using) harder drugs was career-ending. O tempora, O mores I guess.
……but, after 30yrs of dishonest, destructive, anti-democratic globalist shithousery, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Western world needs disrupting.
I am surprised you can’t see it:
> climate change
> mass immigration
> wokery
> C-19
> Ukraine
> universal corruption of government
All deliberately instituted scams (and that is the mildest description).
Now they are making it illegal to point any of it out.
Damn right that the Trump administration has to rock the boat to challenge it.
Climate change is real and it's bad. I don't think it's catastrophic - although I outsource my opinions to people who know more - but it is a real danger. I value you as a reader, and a paid subscriber, but I'm not going to agree with all my readers on everything.
Claiming that climate change is a 'deliberately instituted scam' seems to nicely back up Ed's point: that the worst of populism is mad and out of touch with reality.
'Hey, woke globalisation is bad, so let's be just as bad in the opposite direction!' It's a winning formula, for sure.
We've had nearly 30 years of by far the highest immigration in our history, with almost all of the immigrants coming from countries with lower, often very much lower, per capita emissions. That policy makes absolutely no sense if our polkiticians really believe that there is a man-made climate crisis. It's not as if there are any convincing economic , technological or social reasons for mass Third World immigration.
One of the main ways we've reduced our emissions is by exporting industrty, but that just makes us poorer without reducing global emissions.
The rich, powerful and influential aren't prepared to make the slightest changes to their lifestyles while supporting policies that transfer income and wealth upwards.
Mass immigration makes no sense however you measure it. I've come to the conclusion that there are only two explanations for it: a vast and complex global conspiracy, or nations run by idiotic pygmies with no vision or clue.
I chose the second option myself.
Your penultimate paragraph is quite right. That doesn't mean that climate change is a 'scam' however. It means that humans like to avoid reality for as long as possible, until they really can't anymore.
The science on climate change has a credibility issue because it is sold as propaganda to children and dissent is not permitted. This is anti- science and people sense it. I do and it has always concerned me. Along with the technocratic power grab in the name of the issue. I get how people reach the conclusion it’s a scam. There is so much temptation for many within the system to exaggerate the issue. But one cannot conclude from this that the prognosis and predictions are not nevertheless true or partly true.
Yes, but I think you're confusing the science with the politics. It reminds me of what happened around covid. After a while it was impossible to trust anything the authorities said, as their propagandistic manipulation of the truth was so blatant. It didn't follow, though, that there was no virus.
Few people hear from, or would even know how to find, the scientists who are actually working on the issue. But I think the IPCC reports are quite clear on what their conclusions are.
Still, at this point the whole thing has been sorted into culture war camps and is thus immutable to logic on both sides. Meanwhile, the world heats up and the insects die away quietly, while we all shout in these unreal forums.
I looked in the mirror. I just saw a middle aged bloke.
Climate change as a result of fossil-fuel burning is a reality I'm afraid, however hard it might be to face up to. I tend to believe fifty-years'-worth of science across the board over angry blokes on the Internet, as a rule.
I would also like to pay less for electricity. But I'm not going to make up fairy stories to try and justify it. Limits are real: it's an old conservative principle.
That doesn't mean that 'net zero' or any other proposed solution is a good idea, or will work. But imitating an ostrich does not make for good policy.
Did your ‘fifty year’s worth of science’ teach you that over centuries and millennia, the planet has been quite a bit warmer than it is today. The reason they say ‘it’s warming rapidly’ is because they are measuring from 350yrs ago during a ‘cold snap’.
Our world may indeed be 0.25-degrees warmer today than it was in the eighteenth century, but it has nothing to do with burning coal or oil, it’s the sun and the planet’s relationship with it.
Just as with the ‘pandemic’, knaves invoking the name of science have done incredible damage to our society and prosperity.
Did you look at your electricity bills…..……it’s a stone-cold scam.
Yes indeed, the planet has been through numerous climatic shifts in its 4.5 billion year history. Well done for noticing. I imagine that people who study this closely have also noticed.
I tend to see human-induced climate change through the lens of three simple facts:
1. Carbon dioxide and methane are gases which trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. If this were not the case, the Earth would have no atmosphere in the first place, and would be inhospitable to life.
2. The proportion of these gases in the atmosphere has grown considerably since the Industrial Revolution, when we began burning fossil fuels whose waste product is made up of them. The percentage of these gases added to the atmosphere in the last 200 years has no parallel in history - other, perhaps, than the period of the Late Ordovician mass extinction, which saw a rapid climatic shift as a result.
3. Ergo, the climate is likely to change, and appears already to be changing, as a result of human action
If you do not believe that these three facts are true, you need to demonstrate otherwise with evidence.
If you accept the first two but not the third, you need to provide a reason why an enhanced greenhouse effect will not result from recent human activity.
I'd be happy to hear a convincing answer. 'Look at your electricity bill' won't count, though.
It's very simple - especially since you have accepted that there have been 'numerous climatic shifts in 4.5bn years'.
So if the planet was warmer in previous eras.......what could account increased temperatures in those times given that man was NOT burning oil and coal in any quantity before 1780?
Re: Carbon dioxide and methane are gases which trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. If this were not the case, the Earth would have no atmosphere in the first place, and would be inhospitable to life.
Huh? Well, no. The Greenhouse Effect results from deep quantum physical causes in these gases and how they react to various wavelengths of EM radiation so it's hard to imagine no greenhouse effect. But if that were the case, the Earth would still an atmosphere, but the planet would be much colder, more like Mars.
What are those bills supposed to prove? I looked at mine over a twenty year period (see post above) and there's nothing remarkable about it: the bill has been higher some years, lower others, but there's no trend.
How do we measure the planet's temperature? I've never seen a convincing account of how it's possible. Also, 'climate science' is largely shaped by the agendas of grant-giving bodies.
You could try studying the subject. There is a generations' worth of resources out there. And no, people who dig ice cores out of the Arctic are not pretending that they reveal what their funders want to hear. That's a silly conspiracy theory invented by ostriches.
I have no doubt we can get good picture of past temperature levels from geological, ice and plant data. But most current temperature data seems to be gleaned from surface observations on land and sea (thousands of weather stations across the world), averaging processes in modelling etc. Fantastic scope for human errror I would have thought. I am no doubt too sceptical, and am far from expert, but I am old - old enough to have seen a huge number of climate change prognostications fall by the wayside (c.f. gloomy Stern Report of 2002 - 23 Years ago!).
I have very good expense data over the years- I'm anal like that. My electric bills in the year 2003 averaged $110 monthly. In 2022 they averaged $108. This year the average so far is $83, but AC season is not here yet, so that will go up. Yes, I've lived in different places so there's an apples-to-oranges issue with the comparison, but I don't see any clear indication that electricity has gotten grossly more expensive. Now water is another matter...
In the US energy hasn't really gone up that much on a long term basis (we've had spikes of course, notably on gasoline; and there's definitely a local component to prices that can vary a lot). For us the biggest eroders of the middle class have been housing, healthcare and education for those using private schools and of course for college. Insurance costs are becoming a significant burden too. The US is the world's number one energy producer (first in oil and natural gas, fourth in coal) so that probably helps keep our energy prices down.
"If I were Keir Starmer, I would be issuing statements of solidarity with our Danish friends over Greenland and showing that Britain is 100 per cent behind them."
Yes, but the problem is that Keir Starmer's verbal statements of solidarity aren't worth the paper they're written on. What is he able to actually do? Statements of solidarity are rarely anything more than statements. https://x.com/WerIstDeinPa/status/1895777172830240904
"The American president is reaching levels of global unpopularity previously thought impossible, and with good reason."
"Democracy and empire are incompatible" Really? I don't know how far back you want to date British democracy to, but we certainly were a constitutional democracy during the glory years of the British Empire, and Athens had an empire while calling itself a democracy. Napoleon invaded Egypt (a pretty Empire like thing to do) during the French Revolutionary Wars. There's more to empires than zapping planets with Death Stars, you know. (And Trump hasn't done that yet, anyway.)
"British voters dislike his bullying tone and ambivalence about the Ukraine war." But I like Trump's ambivalence about Ukraine. Ambivalence seems the only possible feeling one can have about Ukraine. It's the certainty for one side or the other that I can't stand.
I haven't seen recent favourability ratings of Trump and the US. In 2020 they were certainly better than Bush, I'd be surprised if they aren't a lot worse now
Democracy and empire are incompatible - yes, in the imperially ruled countries. They can do this while being democratic in the metropolis, especially with sea powers. That is indeed what Britain was.
Thanks. I believe he is very unpopular, but so have other Presidents been. I think popularity surveys only make sense when people are well-informed, but most people have only a vague idea about domestic politicians, let alone foreign ones. Polling about US Presidents is contaminated by what people think about the USA, and perhaps crucially how they feel at the time, since most people seem to have both positive and negative perceptions of the USA. Anyway, I'm not sure it matters: international relations aren't a popularity contest.
OK, I get your point about democracy and empire now. If democracy is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" then democracy in an imperially ruled country is going to have the by and for changed to a greater or lesser degree to "the people and the Imperial Power"—and I think that's not too far off how the UK has been since the end of WW2.
Yes, I know most British people are very anti-Putin, this doesn't alter my conviction that ambivalence is the correct approach.
Any statements about Greenland should point out that we expect the EU to respect our sovereignty over our waters.
Industrial jobs are not coming back to the west because there are a lot less manufacturing jobs in the world today than in the past. I bet cars manufactured today anywhere in the world have less people working on them than in the past.
"The European Right are not interested in national greatness; they don’t want territorial gains; they don’t want the world to bend to them; they want good relations with their neighbours. They just don’t want their countries to be overrun by foreigners"
Exactly. This was what the Brexit vote was for, not Singapore-on-Thames or freedom from Brussels. To make it explicit, we want it be OK to be "racist" again: meaning ethnically exclusive, not meaning doing nasty things to other peoples. It's obviously very late in the day and we aren't going back to the 1950s, but I would very happily vote for our version of your pantsuited Swedish woman. The Italian leader seems pretty perfect for the little I know about her.
I don’t trust Melloni or the Argentine chap. Jenrick is trying to do something similar here: pose as a no-nonsense man of the right, but do little different when in government. For all the criticism of Trump, my expectation is that he too will be little different from all the rest in practice, as he was more or less in his first term. Personally, I enjoy the chat on this substack, but I think enclaves are the way forward, with “speak-easys”, mutual assistance groups and the like, while avoiding or ignoring the other groups as much as possible and nodding along at work. It won’t last forever, because the armed forces and police HAVE to have naturally loyal members, and in a multi-cultural state, there is nothing beyond one’s clan to be loyal too. Who in their right mind would even go for a rainy hike on Dartmoor for Kier Starmer or Clearly Badenough? Let alone risk having your legs blown off in some desert dump thousands of miles from home. As to the idea that people are going to drift back to Somalia if we give them a one way ticket, some demob sandals and £50 - Ed cannot be serious!
Footnote. I do actually think world cities and major ports are different, where you inevitably find a mix of folks, and if they get along they can be very exciting places.
I agree that Trump's actions have perhaps disrupted the rightward drift of the electorates of Europe and Canada but you'd have to say that a movement that can be so easily disrupted maybe wasn't very commited in the first place. If all it takes is a couple of unwise policy decisions of a foreign leader to make an electorate swing the other way, then their conservatism was never really that strong.
That said, all it took for me to go from being a Nigel Farage fanboy to not trusting him to boil an egg were the accusations he sanctioned against Rupert Lowe. Of course, they may all turn out to be true. He really may have threatened to kill Zia Yusef, and bullied his staff (actually not even him) and have dementia. But somehow I doubt it. And I would never vote for anyone shown to have indulged in such dirty, low-down tactics. I'd rather vote for the totally unreliable and useless Tories.
You have a point Keith, but while I agree with you I’m also aware that he’s the best hope of political change we’ve had in a very long time. All idols have feet of clay - we always settle for the least worse choice in the end.
Yes, very true. Even so, if it turned out those accusations were made up and Farage was behind them then I'd never trust him again. But as you say, who else is there to vote for? The Tory Party led by Robert Jenrick? I would certainly consider it, though I'm going to vote Reform in the local elections this May. It's still a long time till the General Election and a lot can happened before then.
Most political movements are pretty tentative when they are coming to power. This applies very much to MAGA in the US too. Trump was only elected to the presidency in 2016 due to the electoral college; he did not win reelection in 2020, and his margin of victory last year was not very big. Compare that with Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
The lesson is that one should not create such disruptions that endanger a desired political development. Reagan in the 80s was a master at this and despite some vehement protests he managed to bring Western Europe along with him on his Cold War policy. Donald Trump is no Reagan.
'The lesson is that one should not create such disruptions that endanger a desired political development'.
Yes, of course. But what if the 'desired political development' requires that the system first be disrupted? But first you'd have to inform me what Trump's desired political development is. Unless you know that, you can't know if the present disruption is part of the plan or an unnecessary subplot.
And no, Trump is clearly no Reagan but then again the 2020's aren't the 1980's.
I'm old enough to remember the (late) 70s (in the US context). "Malaise", inflation, the energy crisis, the USSR getting feisty, radical Islam in Iran. And I know the history of the period just before that: riots, assassinations, political bombings, racial conflict, mass protests, the first great surge of the sexual revolution, corruption (i.e., Watergate). No, there was no equivalent for the Covid Pandemic, nor the Great Recession (apart from the Depression still in living memory). But those were dangerous and conflicted times too. And yes, in many ways worse than anything we lived through in the last ten years. Reagan made his mistakes, but he inspired us too. A smile on his face seems natural in memory even if it was an actor's smile and sometimes fake.
The wisdom of the ancients: First do no harm. And: Nothing in Excess.
I wasn't suggesting that today was worse than back in the day, only that things have changed and Reagan might not be the great hit today that he was 40 years ago. For all I know there could be another Reagan in the Republican Party just waiting to be elected yet no one wants him because he's too sensible and soo 1980's. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Reagan. I guess something I said about Trump or Farage must have made some connection in your mind.
That makes two hyperbolic anti-Trump pieces in a week.
One more and I’m out.
I signed up here for two reasons, the prime one being your broad-minded erudition.
Now I find that you do not have the smarts to appreciate the global situation - or you are playing to your £250k worth of subscribers - and you’re turning into a Tesla vandal of the keyboard.
TBH I think you should hang on in there Polymath. Ed never minds being challenged and I’ve found some profound insights in his analysis of various subjects. He’s a good writer and though I don’t agree with his stance on some things, he’s always polite and considered. His articles on immigration have been revealing and honest.
Why can't you handle Ed laying out his reasons for disliking and distrusting Trump? He does it in a way that makes me pause and consider a range of possibilities. I'd rather read Ed's criticisms of Trump -- even if some I disagree with or feel on the fence about -- than read the usual shrill TDS takes on Leftist Twitter.
Also, Ed is prolific. Choosing to write about the same subject twice doesn't make his overall output any less varied.
Finally, have you heard the term "audience capture"? Normally, people value writers who avoid this. But it seems in your view, Ed should actively cater to the biases of his audience and we should all threaten to cancel our subscriptions anytime he spends too much time putting forward arguments we find unconvincing. How in the world would this make his Substack better?
Not at all BK. I knew EW’s politics - he is a wet - were different to mine when I signed-up. As you outline, he writes well and on a broad front, so that was one reason; the second was that he was generous enough to share his experience of publishing a Substack.
However, I find it hard to square his urbane erudition with irrational Trump-bashing [‘The European right must learn to hate Trump’] and views about Brexit [which he described a ‘delusional’].
Mr. Trump is simply a more colorful version of Mr. Gorbachev, and he's pulling off an American Perestroika. (BTW, Malcom Kyeyune recently had an article about this in UnHerd. Worth a read.) The hegemon is going kaput, and the rest of the world (some of it nostalgic, some of it jubilant) will have to reorient itself in the new order. That's how it is. I suppose the UK may end up cosplaying Belarus.
The US could gain Greenland quite easily actually. There are already more US troops there than Danish, but it won’t come to that. Greenland isn’t Denmark, it isn’t near Denmark, it isn’t populated by Danes, and it already enjoys a high degree of autonomy from Denmark. Financial inducements to Greenland would be one tactic, coupled with a friendly reminder to Denmark that it is a small country with a big near neighbour that it doesn’t like very much, and wouldn’t it be a shame if Putin got a nod and a wink that the US wasn’t too bothered about funny things going on in Copenhagen harbour, for example? As for a strong message from Kier Starmer? Oooh, Trump’s shaking in his boots.
Exactly. Greenland could gain independence via referendum. I mean, this would be perfectly legal from the Danish point of view, if I understand the matter correctly. If so, there is precisely zero need for an American military intervention. Greenland has a minuscule population. With the right incentives, how hard would it be to get 51% of it to vote for independence?
That said... As I keep saying: Mr. Trump is pulling off a Perestroika. So, all of his Greenland plans (like most of his other plans) are reasonably likely to go poof.
The US gained naval bases from the UK in the Western Atlantic in Newfoundland, Bermuda and the Bahamas, and an air base - Diego Garcia - in the Indian Ocean. It nabbed Hawaii and it took the Philippines from the Spanish. Iceland used to belong to Denmark, and now it doesn’t. I too can see it happening.
Tell me more about how Trump is going to do a Gorbachev? 🙂
If the US doesn't self-destruct, Soviet-style, and if it decides it wants Greenland, then it can absolutely have Greenland. There is very little that Denmark can do about it, and military intervention is unlikely to be necessary.
As for Trump/Gorbachev: I suggest reading Malcom Kyeyune (https://unherd.com/2025/04/trumps-gorbachev-moment/). He says it much better than I could. In any case, things are moving very fast now. The world could be a very different place this time next year.
Just read it. I just think it is too early to see where Trump’s US is going, and of that, how much is down to Trump and how much to the US’s inate trajectory. I read something the other day that dated the economic woes of the US in recent decades to the 1950s and 1960s, which I kinda knew. What I didn’t know was that there was a suspicion then that the US government had sold off a lot of the gold in Fort Knox, some of it belonging to other countries! De Gaulle sent warships to take back French bullion!
It is technically too early, but I'm calling it now: this will provoke a collapse of some sort, and four years from now, the US (if it still exists as one country, which is not guaranteed) will be significantly weaker than it is today. If I turn out to have been wrong, I'll admit to having been wrong. But that's what it looks like to me.
And sure, some of it was inevitable. But Mr. Trump is speeding things along.
I completely disagree with you - Trump is thinking long term with his tariffs policy. Isn't that what many on the right have been wanting for years - to not just just think of the next 4 years or the upcoming electoral cycle but to think decades into the future. Trump is putting the future of American citizens first - something we in the UK can only dream about.
He wants to put an end to globalism and bring jobs and prosperity back home and you are just worried about hurty words? He is doing what a leader should do - putting his own people first. I for one, as a UK citizen will support him all the way and hope that one day we get a leader that does the same.
depends what you mean by globalism. Broadly speaking, most of it is good - rising standards of living, more agglomeration of brainpower, higher life expectancy. I can see the argument for countries bringing back manufacturing capabilities, but tariffs on these scale are going to make most people a lot poorer. I just don't see why this should also involve large-scale migration and settlement of peoples across continents.
I think you noted it in the piece above, but there aren't going to be a lot of jobs to bring back. Automation has killed off the mass assembly lines of yore. Trump is stuck in the past-- it's not 1970 any more, and it's not going to be again. We very much need to find gainful work for a lot of non-college bound people, but old style manufacturing isn't it. And really we need to start thinking about what happens when AI and robotics start to kill off a great deal of employment which still does exist.
Trump said that he wanted to run surpluses or at worst balanced trade with every country on earth.
Either he meant that or he was lying. And if someone wants to argue that he was lying, please explain what end the lie was meant to serve, beyond demonstrating catastrophic ignorance.
Claims that Trump is "thinking long term," or that he is thinking at all, have to address his actual words.
You clearly have a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Just as it was pointless talking to someone who had a bad case of salty Remoaner tears so is it a waste of time talking to someone like you with a severe case of TDS.
It doesn't take TDS to see that Trump is flailing around incompetently. Above I just noted how Reagan managed to bring the NATO countries along with him and his desired policies. Trump is utterly failing to do anything similar.
While vaccine injuries and the WEF are fringe issues they tap into genuine concerns that no major party seems willing to address.
Lockdowns were illiberal, while the mass vaccination campaigns subsequently employed highly coercive tactics. There has been no reckoning over these utterly un-British policies and their impacts. Some of us are not going to let this go -- the scale of what was done was unprecedented and the fallout too great.
RE: the WEF, I concede that there are some pockets of online sceptic communities where the discourse is simplistic and tedious. That said, the bigger issue is that political power is increasingly outsourced to unelected, unaccountable orgs. This happens whether it's domestic quangos like the Sentencing Council or international bodies like the WHO, WEF, etc. People want to understand why power no longer seems to sit with elected representatives and why these same representatives are happier to mingle in Davos than talk to constituents.
Promise this is my last post on the subject for a while - I move onto something completely different next week. On that subject, I'll be on holiday from tomorrow but there are posts scheduled for the coming days, but I may not be so actively looking at comments because I haven't had a day off since the New Year and I'm exhausted.
Enjoy your vacation!
Have a great time in Westmorland!
Finally, I now have the opportunity to swear and curse at my fellow Westies with impunity.
Enjoy the break. Hope it coincides with a happy and blessed Easter.
What happens if you are sheltering from the rain in a the ruin of an abbey in the North Country, and you see someone lurking next to you. You exchange weary wet pleasantries and he asks what you do- your offer writer and he says I am studying Grooming Gangs linked to US Bases in Thule Greenland
"If I were Keir Starmer, I would be issuing statements of solidarity with our Danish friends over Greenland and showing that Britain is 100 per cent behind them."
Thanks Ed, King Alfred's crying now.
But Canute is applauding.
This, and the previous piece, have been making me think! In a lot of ways I really don't know what I make of it all yet. There's a real confirmation bias danger here - if one thinks, as I do, that progressive policies on migration, race, gender, etc are existential issues for Western countries, then of course anyone opposing them will be someone one instinctively wants to win. But if that person is incompetent, or proposes things of a similar level of harm, then we're no better off.
It's difficult. I feel slightly less critical than you on the tariff issue, while accepting that it looks to have been cobbled together very quickly and the calculations done on dubious grounds. The stuff on Greenland and Canada is mad. The Doge work and progress on immigration seem mixed. I'd like to be optimistic, and I'm still not sorry that Harris lost, but agree there's plenty to worry about.
In the UK context, I have similar worries about Reform. Too much of their offer doesn't seem serious - too ready to go off on tangents or gimmicks and not focused on the hard work of reform of immigration, the judiciary, house-prices, energy, etc. Jenrick seems like the real deal, but will his party ever let him do anything?
Jenrick is clever and says the right things now, but he used to be like George Osborne; he consciously changed when the wind changed direction - he even lost weight and got a short back and sides haircut.
Yeah, his position has certainly changed. That might be because he's blowing in the wind, as you suggest, or it might be because he's genuinely had a change of heart. The fact he resigned over immigration policy is at least one reason to think the latter is plausible. I understand the cynicism - it's more than warranted - but my gut feeling is that he's had a pretty genuine change of view. Will be interesting to see if that hunch is ever put to the test.
I think there is a danger of underestimating what it will take to arrest immigration into Europe over the next decade or two, if that’s the goal. The sense of purpose would have to be so singular that it’s difficult to see how this could even emerge from the current political /cultural settlement. The only thing that might change that will be our increasingly poverty.
It's interesting that the speech perhaps most guaranteed to create a degree of distance between the US and Europe was delivered by the centre-right politician Claude Malhuret:
'Europe is at a critical turning point. The American shield is vanishing, and it seems that Ukraine may be abandoned and Russia strengthened.
Washington now looks like the court of Nero, with a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fuelled buffoon in charge of purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States.'
Nothing like getting it off your chest.
Why does everyone keep saying Musk is on ket? I'm genuinely curious. Is it something he's admitted or is everyone basing this off his occasionally odd facial expressions?
Regarding Musk and his K-use, I'm old enough to remember when tales that this or that politician had smoked pot in his youth were regarded as faintly scandalous, not as a badge that he was a normie. And any credible claim that someone used (let alone still was using) harder drugs was career-ending. O tempora, O mores I guess.
Certainly, Trump is a disruptor……
……but, after 30yrs of dishonest, destructive, anti-democratic globalist shithousery, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Western world needs disrupting.
I am surprised you can’t see it:
> climate change
> mass immigration
> wokery
> C-19
> Ukraine
> universal corruption of government
All deliberately instituted scams (and that is the mildest description).
Now they are making it illegal to point any of it out.
Damn right that the Trump administration has to rock the boat to challenge it.
Talk about the ‘wrong side of history’.
Climate change is real and it's bad. I don't think it's catastrophic - although I outsource my opinions to people who know more - but it is a real danger. I value you as a reader, and a paid subscriber, but I'm not going to agree with all my readers on everything.
You don't have to agree with them - but why not refrain from insulting them and adopting sixth form common room attitudes.
Cheerio.
Claiming that climate change is a 'deliberately instituted scam' seems to nicely back up Ed's point: that the worst of populism is mad and out of touch with reality.
'Hey, woke globalisation is bad, so let's be just as bad in the opposite direction!' It's a winning formula, for sure.
We've had nearly 30 years of by far the highest immigration in our history, with almost all of the immigrants coming from countries with lower, often very much lower, per capita emissions. That policy makes absolutely no sense if our polkiticians really believe that there is a man-made climate crisis. It's not as if there are any convincing economic , technological or social reasons for mass Third World immigration.
One of the main ways we've reduced our emissions is by exporting industrty, but that just makes us poorer without reducing global emissions.
The rich, powerful and influential aren't prepared to make the slightest changes to their lifestyles while supporting policies that transfer income and wealth upwards.
It's obviously a scam.
Mass immigration makes no sense however you measure it. I've come to the conclusion that there are only two explanations for it: a vast and complex global conspiracy, or nations run by idiotic pygmies with no vision or clue.
I chose the second option myself.
Your penultimate paragraph is quite right. That doesn't mean that climate change is a 'scam' however. It means that humans like to avoid reality for as long as possible, until they really can't anymore.
The science on climate change has a credibility issue because it is sold as propaganda to children and dissent is not permitted. This is anti- science and people sense it. I do and it has always concerned me. Along with the technocratic power grab in the name of the issue. I get how people reach the conclusion it’s a scam. There is so much temptation for many within the system to exaggerate the issue. But one cannot conclude from this that the prognosis and predictions are not nevertheless true or partly true.
Yes, but I think you're confusing the science with the politics. It reminds me of what happened around covid. After a while it was impossible to trust anything the authorities said, as their propagandistic manipulation of the truth was so blatant. It didn't follow, though, that there was no virus.
Few people hear from, or would even know how to find, the scientists who are actually working on the issue. But I think the IPCC reports are quite clear on what their conclusions are.
Still, at this point the whole thing has been sorted into culture war camps and is thus immutable to logic on both sides. Meanwhile, the world heats up and the insects die away quietly, while we all shout in these unreal forums.
Cheers, Paul.
Not a scam?
Take a look at your electricity bills…….them take a look in the mirror.
I looked in the mirror. I just saw a middle aged bloke.
Climate change as a result of fossil-fuel burning is a reality I'm afraid, however hard it might be to face up to. I tend to believe fifty-years'-worth of science across the board over angry blokes on the Internet, as a rule.
I would also like to pay less for electricity. But I'm not going to make up fairy stories to try and justify it. Limits are real: it's an old conservative principle.
That doesn't mean that 'net zero' or any other proposed solution is a good idea, or will work. But imitating an ostrich does not make for good policy.
Did your ‘fifty year’s worth of science’ teach you that over centuries and millennia, the planet has been quite a bit warmer than it is today. The reason they say ‘it’s warming rapidly’ is because they are measuring from 350yrs ago during a ‘cold snap’.
Our world may indeed be 0.25-degrees warmer today than it was in the eighteenth century, but it has nothing to do with burning coal or oil, it’s the sun and the planet’s relationship with it.
Just as with the ‘pandemic’, knaves invoking the name of science have done incredible damage to our society and prosperity.
Did you look at your electricity bills…..……it’s a stone-cold scam.
Yes indeed, the planet has been through numerous climatic shifts in its 4.5 billion year history. Well done for noticing. I imagine that people who study this closely have also noticed.
I tend to see human-induced climate change through the lens of three simple facts:
1. Carbon dioxide and methane are gases which trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. If this were not the case, the Earth would have no atmosphere in the first place, and would be inhospitable to life.
2. The proportion of these gases in the atmosphere has grown considerably since the Industrial Revolution, when we began burning fossil fuels whose waste product is made up of them. The percentage of these gases added to the atmosphere in the last 200 years has no parallel in history - other, perhaps, than the period of the Late Ordovician mass extinction, which saw a rapid climatic shift as a result.
3. Ergo, the climate is likely to change, and appears already to be changing, as a result of human action
If you do not believe that these three facts are true, you need to demonstrate otherwise with evidence.
If you accept the first two but not the third, you need to provide a reason why an enhanced greenhouse effect will not result from recent human activity.
I'd be happy to hear a convincing answer. 'Look at your electricity bill' won't count, though.
It's very simple - especially since you have accepted that there have been 'numerous climatic shifts in 4.5bn years'.
So if the planet was warmer in previous eras.......what could account increased temperatures in those times given that man was NOT burning oil and coal in any quantity before 1780?
Tricky one innit?
Re: Carbon dioxide and methane are gases which trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. If this were not the case, the Earth would have no atmosphere in the first place, and would be inhospitable to life.
Huh? Well, no. The Greenhouse Effect results from deep quantum physical causes in these gases and how they react to various wavelengths of EM radiation so it's hard to imagine no greenhouse effect. But if that were the case, the Earth would still an atmosphere, but the planet would be much colder, more like Mars.
What are those bills supposed to prove? I looked at mine over a twenty year period (see post above) and there's nothing remarkable about it: the bill has been higher some years, lower others, but there's no trend.
My water bills however had steadily climbed.
How do we measure the planet's temperature? I've never seen a convincing account of how it's possible. Also, 'climate science' is largely shaped by the agendas of grant-giving bodies.
You could try studying the subject. There is a generations' worth of resources out there. And no, people who dig ice cores out of the Arctic are not pretending that they reveal what their funders want to hear. That's a silly conspiracy theory invented by ostriches.
I have no doubt we can get good picture of past temperature levels from geological, ice and plant data. But most current temperature data seems to be gleaned from surface observations on land and sea (thousands of weather stations across the world), averaging processes in modelling etc. Fantastic scope for human errror I would have thought. I am no doubt too sceptical, and am far from expert, but I am old - old enough to have seen a huge number of climate change prognostications fall by the wayside (c.f. gloomy Stern Report of 2002 - 23 Years ago!).
Re: Take a look at your electricity bills
I have very good expense data over the years- I'm anal like that. My electric bills in the year 2003 averaged $110 monthly. In 2022 they averaged $108. This year the average so far is $83, but AC season is not here yet, so that will go up. Yes, I've lived in different places so there's an apples-to-oranges issue with the comparison, but I don't see any clear indication that electricity has gotten grossly more expensive. Now water is another matter...
Bills in Britain have gone up though. I think we have the most expensive energy costs in the world, and net zero plays a part. One reason why we're so poor in Britain. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burdened-most-expensive-electricity-prices-in-world/
In the US energy hasn't really gone up that much on a long term basis (we've had spikes of course, notably on gasoline; and there's definitely a local component to prices that can vary a lot). For us the biggest eroders of the middle class have been housing, healthcare and education for those using private schools and of course for college. Insurance costs are becoming a significant burden too. The US is the world's number one energy producer (first in oil and natural gas, fourth in coal) so that probably helps keep our energy prices down.
"If I were Keir Starmer, I would be issuing statements of solidarity with our Danish friends over Greenland and showing that Britain is 100 per cent behind them."
Yes, but the problem is that Keir Starmer's verbal statements of solidarity aren't worth the paper they're written on. What is he able to actually do? Statements of solidarity are rarely anything more than statements. https://x.com/WerIstDeinPa/status/1895777172830240904
"The American president is reaching levels of global unpopularity previously thought impossible, and with good reason."
You're usually scrupulous about providing citations, but there isn't one here. Worse than GW Bush, really? https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2008/12/18/global-public-opinion-in-the-bush-years-2001-2008/
And don't forget how unpopular leaders can be in their own countries. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-world-leaders-2027934
"Democracy and empire are incompatible" Really? I don't know how far back you want to date British democracy to, but we certainly were a constitutional democracy during the glory years of the British Empire, and Athens had an empire while calling itself a democracy. Napoleon invaded Egypt (a pretty Empire like thing to do) during the French Revolutionary Wars. There's more to empires than zapping planets with Death Stars, you know. (And Trump hasn't done that yet, anyway.)
"British voters dislike his bullying tone and ambivalence about the Ukraine war." But I like Trump's ambivalence about Ukraine. Ambivalence seems the only possible feeling one can have about Ukraine. It's the certainty for one side or the other that I can't stand.
I haven't seen recent favourability ratings of Trump and the US. In 2020 they were certainly better than Bush, I'd be surprised if they aren't a lot worse now
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/01/08/trump-ratings-remain-low-around-globe-while-views-of-u-s-stay-mostly-favorable/
Democracy and empire are incompatible - yes, in the imperially ruled countries. They can do this while being democratic in the metropolis, especially with sea powers. That is indeed what Britain was.
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-good-british
As for Ukraine, even Reform voters, the least pro-Ukraine, are very anti-Putin
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49887-what-do-reform-uk-voters-believe
buy yes you're probably right about the popularity point - unmeasured and unevidenced, based on my own feelings.
Thanks. I believe he is very unpopular, but so have other Presidents been. I think popularity surveys only make sense when people are well-informed, but most people have only a vague idea about domestic politicians, let alone foreign ones. Polling about US Presidents is contaminated by what people think about the USA, and perhaps crucially how they feel at the time, since most people seem to have both positive and negative perceptions of the USA. Anyway, I'm not sure it matters: international relations aren't a popularity contest.
OK, I get your point about democracy and empire now. If democracy is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" then democracy in an imperially ruled country is going to have the by and for changed to a greater or lesser degree to "the people and the Imperial Power"—and I think that's not too far off how the UK has been since the end of WW2.
Yes, I know most British people are very anti-Putin, this doesn't alter my conviction that ambivalence is the correct approach.
Any statements about Greenland should point out that we expect the EU to respect our sovereignty over our waters.
Industrial jobs are not coming back to the west because there are a lot less manufacturing jobs in the world today than in the past. I bet cars manufactured today anywhere in the world have less people working on them than in the past.
yep, and the French are once again being French https://x.com/kateferguson4/status/1910594054401790078
If it 50 people, then let those 50 be British.
Have a good holiday Ed.
You are in US…….I was talking to a fellow Brit.
Here in UK, our bills have increased 3x or 4x in the past 10yrs……
…….having been promised that they would actually go down.
They can’t go down because energy from windmills and solar need huge subsidies to remain viable.
"The European Right are not interested in national greatness; they don’t want territorial gains; they don’t want the world to bend to them; they want good relations with their neighbours. They just don’t want their countries to be overrun by foreigners"
Exactly. This was what the Brexit vote was for, not Singapore-on-Thames or freedom from Brussels. To make it explicit, we want it be OK to be "racist" again: meaning ethnically exclusive, not meaning doing nasty things to other peoples. It's obviously very late in the day and we aren't going back to the 1950s, but I would very happily vote for our version of your pantsuited Swedish woman. The Italian leader seems pretty perfect for the little I know about her.
I don’t trust Melloni or the Argentine chap. Jenrick is trying to do something similar here: pose as a no-nonsense man of the right, but do little different when in government. For all the criticism of Trump, my expectation is that he too will be little different from all the rest in practice, as he was more or less in his first term. Personally, I enjoy the chat on this substack, but I think enclaves are the way forward, with “speak-easys”, mutual assistance groups and the like, while avoiding or ignoring the other groups as much as possible and nodding along at work. It won’t last forever, because the armed forces and police HAVE to have naturally loyal members, and in a multi-cultural state, there is nothing beyond one’s clan to be loyal too. Who in their right mind would even go for a rainy hike on Dartmoor for Kier Starmer or Clearly Badenough? Let alone risk having your legs blown off in some desert dump thousands of miles from home. As to the idea that people are going to drift back to Somalia if we give them a one way ticket, some demob sandals and £50 - Ed cannot be serious!
Footnote. I do actually think world cities and major ports are different, where you inevitably find a mix of folks, and if they get along they can be very exciting places.
I agree that Trump's actions have perhaps disrupted the rightward drift of the electorates of Europe and Canada but you'd have to say that a movement that can be so easily disrupted maybe wasn't very commited in the first place. If all it takes is a couple of unwise policy decisions of a foreign leader to make an electorate swing the other way, then their conservatism was never really that strong.
That said, all it took for me to go from being a Nigel Farage fanboy to not trusting him to boil an egg were the accusations he sanctioned against Rupert Lowe. Of course, they may all turn out to be true. He really may have threatened to kill Zia Yusef, and bullied his staff (actually not even him) and have dementia. But somehow I doubt it. And I would never vote for anyone shown to have indulged in such dirty, low-down tactics. I'd rather vote for the totally unreliable and useless Tories.
You have a point Keith, but while I agree with you I’m also aware that he’s the best hope of political change we’ve had in a very long time. All idols have feet of clay - we always settle for the least worse choice in the end.
Yes, very true. Even so, if it turned out those accusations were made up and Farage was behind them then I'd never trust him again. But as you say, who else is there to vote for? The Tory Party led by Robert Jenrick? I would certainly consider it, though I'm going to vote Reform in the local elections this May. It's still a long time till the General Election and a lot can happened before then.
Most political movements are pretty tentative when they are coming to power. This applies very much to MAGA in the US too. Trump was only elected to the presidency in 2016 due to the electoral college; he did not win reelection in 2020, and his margin of victory last year was not very big. Compare that with Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
The lesson is that one should not create such disruptions that endanger a desired political development. Reagan in the 80s was a master at this and despite some vehement protests he managed to bring Western Europe along with him on his Cold War policy. Donald Trump is no Reagan.
'The lesson is that one should not create such disruptions that endanger a desired political development'.
Yes, of course. But what if the 'desired political development' requires that the system first be disrupted? But first you'd have to inform me what Trump's desired political development is. Unless you know that, you can't know if the present disruption is part of the plan or an unnecessary subplot.
And no, Trump is clearly no Reagan but then again the 2020's aren't the 1980's.
I'm old enough to remember the (late) 70s (in the US context). "Malaise", inflation, the energy crisis, the USSR getting feisty, radical Islam in Iran. And I know the history of the period just before that: riots, assassinations, political bombings, racial conflict, mass protests, the first great surge of the sexual revolution, corruption (i.e., Watergate). No, there was no equivalent for the Covid Pandemic, nor the Great Recession (apart from the Depression still in living memory). But those were dangerous and conflicted times too. And yes, in many ways worse than anything we lived through in the last ten years. Reagan made his mistakes, but he inspired us too. A smile on his face seems natural in memory even if it was an actor's smile and sometimes fake.
The wisdom of the ancients: First do no harm. And: Nothing in Excess.
I wasn't suggesting that today was worse than back in the day, only that things have changed and Reagan might not be the great hit today that he was 40 years ago. For all I know there could be another Reagan in the Republican Party just waiting to be elected yet no one wants him because he's too sensible and soo 1980's. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Reagan. I guess something I said about Trump or Farage must have made some connection in your mind.
Reagan was our last transformative president. He led the US from a bad place to a better one (though some of his actions had bad results later on).
That makes two hyperbolic anti-Trump pieces in a week.
One more and I’m out.
I signed up here for two reasons, the prime one being your broad-minded erudition.
Now I find that you do not have the smarts to appreciate the global situation - or you are playing to your £250k worth of subscribers - and you’re turning into a Tesla vandal of the keyboard.
To be honest, I expect better.
TBH I think you should hang on in there Polymath. Ed never minds being challenged and I’ve found some profound insights in his analysis of various subjects. He’s a good writer and though I don’t agree with his stance on some things, he’s always polite and considered. His articles on immigration have been revealing and honest.
Thank you, Gerry
I've done three!
You stupid boy.
Why can't you handle Ed laying out his reasons for disliking and distrusting Trump? He does it in a way that makes me pause and consider a range of possibilities. I'd rather read Ed's criticisms of Trump -- even if some I disagree with or feel on the fence about -- than read the usual shrill TDS takes on Leftist Twitter.
Also, Ed is prolific. Choosing to write about the same subject twice doesn't make his overall output any less varied.
Finally, have you heard the term "audience capture"? Normally, people value writers who avoid this. But it seems in your view, Ed should actively cater to the biases of his audience and we should all threaten to cancel our subscriptions anytime he spends too much time putting forward arguments we find unconvincing. How in the world would this make his Substack better?
Not at all BK. I knew EW’s politics - he is a wet - were different to mine when I signed-up. As you outline, he writes well and on a broad front, so that was one reason; the second was that he was generous enough to share his experience of publishing a Substack.
However, I find it hard to square his urbane erudition with irrational Trump-bashing [‘The European right must learn to hate Trump’] and views about Brexit [which he described a ‘delusional’].
Why do I have to pay to be mocked?
As I said, I thought he was better than that.
Mr. Trump is simply a more colorful version of Mr. Gorbachev, and he's pulling off an American Perestroika. (BTW, Malcom Kyeyune recently had an article about this in UnHerd. Worth a read.) The hegemon is going kaput, and the rest of the world (some of it nostalgic, some of it jubilant) will have to reorient itself in the new order. That's how it is. I suppose the UK may end up cosplaying Belarus.
The US could gain Greenland quite easily actually. There are already more US troops there than Danish, but it won’t come to that. Greenland isn’t Denmark, it isn’t near Denmark, it isn’t populated by Danes, and it already enjoys a high degree of autonomy from Denmark. Financial inducements to Greenland would be one tactic, coupled with a friendly reminder to Denmark that it is a small country with a big near neighbour that it doesn’t like very much, and wouldn’t it be a shame if Putin got a nod and a wink that the US wasn’t too bothered about funny things going on in Copenhagen harbour, for example? As for a strong message from Kier Starmer? Oooh, Trump’s shaking in his boots.
Exactly. Greenland could gain independence via referendum. I mean, this would be perfectly legal from the Danish point of view, if I understand the matter correctly. If so, there is precisely zero need for an American military intervention. Greenland has a minuscule population. With the right incentives, how hard would it be to get 51% of it to vote for independence?
That said... As I keep saying: Mr. Trump is pulling off a Perestroika. So, all of his Greenland plans (like most of his other plans) are reasonably likely to go poof.
The US gained naval bases from the UK in the Western Atlantic in Newfoundland, Bermuda and the Bahamas, and an air base - Diego Garcia - in the Indian Ocean. It nabbed Hawaii and it took the Philippines from the Spanish. Iceland used to belong to Denmark, and now it doesn’t. I too can see it happening.
Tell me more about how Trump is going to do a Gorbachev? 🙂
If the US doesn't self-destruct, Soviet-style, and if it decides it wants Greenland, then it can absolutely have Greenland. There is very little that Denmark can do about it, and military intervention is unlikely to be necessary.
As for Trump/Gorbachev: I suggest reading Malcom Kyeyune (https://unherd.com/2025/04/trumps-gorbachev-moment/). He says it much better than I could. In any case, things are moving very fast now. The world could be a very different place this time next year.
Just read it. I just think it is too early to see where Trump’s US is going, and of that, how much is down to Trump and how much to the US’s inate trajectory. I read something the other day that dated the economic woes of the US in recent decades to the 1950s and 1960s, which I kinda knew. What I didn’t know was that there was a suspicion then that the US government had sold off a lot of the gold in Fort Knox, some of it belonging to other countries! De Gaulle sent warships to take back French bullion!
It is technically too early, but I'm calling it now: this will provoke a collapse of some sort, and four years from now, the US (if it still exists as one country, which is not guaranteed) will be significantly weaker than it is today. If I turn out to have been wrong, I'll admit to having been wrong. But that's what it looks like to me.
And sure, some of it was inevitable. But Mr. Trump is speeding things along.
We shall see!
I completely disagree with you - Trump is thinking long term with his tariffs policy. Isn't that what many on the right have been wanting for years - to not just just think of the next 4 years or the upcoming electoral cycle but to think decades into the future. Trump is putting the future of American citizens first - something we in the UK can only dream about.
He wants to put an end to globalism and bring jobs and prosperity back home and you are just worried about hurty words? He is doing what a leader should do - putting his own people first. I for one, as a UK citizen will support him all the way and hope that one day we get a leader that does the same.
depends what you mean by globalism. Broadly speaking, most of it is good - rising standards of living, more agglomeration of brainpower, higher life expectancy. I can see the argument for countries bringing back manufacturing capabilities, but tariffs on these scale are going to make most people a lot poorer. I just don't see why this should also involve large-scale migration and settlement of peoples across continents.
I think you noted it in the piece above, but there aren't going to be a lot of jobs to bring back. Automation has killed off the mass assembly lines of yore. Trump is stuck in the past-- it's not 1970 any more, and it's not going to be again. We very much need to find gainful work for a lot of non-college bound people, but old style manufacturing isn't it. And really we need to start thinking about what happens when AI and robotics start to kill off a great deal of employment which still does exist.
Trump said that he wanted to run surpluses or at worst balanced trade with every country on earth.
Either he meant that or he was lying. And if someone wants to argue that he was lying, please explain what end the lie was meant to serve, beyond demonstrating catastrophic ignorance.
Claims that Trump is "thinking long term," or that he is thinking at all, have to address his actual words.
You clearly have a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Just as it was pointless talking to someone who had a bad case of salty Remoaner tears so is it a waste of time talking to someone like you with a severe case of TDS.
It doesn't take TDS to see that Trump is flailing around incompetently. Above I just noted how Reagan managed to bring the NATO countries along with him and his desired policies. Trump is utterly failing to do anything similar.
The only ones "flailing around incompetently" are the pygmies and worms we have for "leaders" in much of Europe.
Two things can be true: European leadership is incompetent. And Donald Trump is incompetent.
You need to book that GP appointment to cure your TDS.
While vaccine injuries and the WEF are fringe issues they tap into genuine concerns that no major party seems willing to address.
Lockdowns were illiberal, while the mass vaccination campaigns subsequently employed highly coercive tactics. There has been no reckoning over these utterly un-British policies and their impacts. Some of us are not going to let this go -- the scale of what was done was unprecedented and the fallout too great.
RE: the WEF, I concede that there are some pockets of online sceptic communities where the discourse is simplistic and tedious. That said, the bigger issue is that political power is increasingly outsourced to unelected, unaccountable orgs. This happens whether it's domestic quangos like the Sentencing Council or international bodies like the WHO, WEF, etc. People want to understand why power no longer seems to sit with elected representatives and why these same representatives are happier to mingle in Davos than talk to constituents.