Following on from the earlier post on Russia's fairly comprehensive plans for its future tsunami of troubled veterans, we now turn to Ukraine. The situation looks potentially to be much, much worse.
On the one hand, whatever the 'outcome', Russia will still be there and Ukraine will not be able to stand down its army.
On the other, its overall manpower problem has been dire from Day 1. If Zelensky has dropped any balls at all, the biggest has been his failure to crack on with a proper conscription plan: so Ukraine has been fighting the war with men (and women) predominantly of age 30+, some a lot older still, when everyone knows that (infantry) warfare is a business for 18+. Those 30+'s have fought magnificently - much, much better than the Russian rabble** they have faced - but there is a limit. Meanwhile, back on the home front, a large percentage of the remaining male population has been (a) bribing the local commissar to keep themselves out of the recruiting office, and/or (b) skipping abroad. There is only so much that can be delegated to a fleet of drones, across a battlefield as large as Ukraine's.
The demographic problem resulting from this is acute, and can only get worse; and I haven't seen much sign of it being addressed. Well, there's a helluva lot else going on.
The precise details of how this plays out will depend upon exactly how the current conflict is "frozen". There are of course many scenarios - too many to legislate for every possibility. There are just two strands I think will feature in any case.
1. For many years forward the EU (and prob the UK) will be sending huge amounts of cash to Ukraine for civil reconstruction and societal rebuilding (a dismal proportion of which will be swiftly embezzled, as has been the case throughout) - it's the only thing the EU really knows how to do;
2. There will be very many violent men roaming the world, offering their services as mercenaries or enforcers for organised crime, either as thugs or as expert hackers and drone operators. As regards the thugs, go back to the first post: that's what happened after Russia / Afghanistan; it's what galvanises Putin; and that was small beer by comparison.
Per the earlier post again: at least Putin is thinking about it. He has that luxury. It will take a worldscale genius to solve Ukraine's manpower issues: and if no such person emerges, the legacy will be long and baleful. Brave, brave Ukraine deserves something better.
ND
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* I first met Russian soldiers in the flesh in 1985 at a conference in Potsdam. They were an unutterable rabble, the officers and men of the proud Soviet Army. The officers wandered around in public with their tunics raffishly unbuttoned and their hats at rakish angles, a parody of caddish behaviour. The men were pathetically thin and unsoldierly in their ill-fitting, coarse uniforms and bizarre outsize flat caps. And this was 3rd Shock Army, the tip of the spear! Forty years on, nothing much seems to have changed: it was troops like this that were humiliated in just a few weeks in Feb-March 2022, and driven off the field in full rout during Ukraine's Kharkiv counter-offensive in the September of that year.
Among many dire woes of various kinds, the combatants in the war in Ukraine each have a massive problem brewing: what to do with their armies when fighting ceases. Any nation does, and always has had. The details are different in each case: I'll look at Russia in this post.
The objective diagnosis is this: hugely disgruntled Russian soldiery returning from their 10-year adventure in Afghanistan 1979-1989, brought with them many personal problems, and were not well looked after. They in turn caused no end of social problems themselves, many of the most violent, brutal and criminal kind. Putin knows all about this from his KGB days, in even more detail than every Russian citizen knows anyway. There will be even more returnees from the 'Special Military Operation' (SMO); and thus far, there has been no large-scale demobilisation (perhaps for this very reason). Even so, those few who have returned, on leave or wounded or just deserters, have been causing all the expected problems. This is not least because when they are serving in the SMO their pay is substantially better than anything they'll return to - often their reason for signing up in the first place. The towns from which they hail (mostly quite a long way from Moscow ...) are trembling at the thought of this happening on a large scale.
Zhukov: definitely not wanted by Stalin in 1946 photo: MoD Russian Federation Mil.ru
Coupled with this is a particular Russian problem: its post-Tsarist leadership has always feared the military. Communist parties always do, the world over: doctrinally, they recognise no higher power than the Party - but they have obviously also spotted that large numbers of men trained in violence are themselves potentially a rival source of power to be reckoned with. Lenin's first actions on taking power were (a) to strike a peace with Germany, quickly followed by (b) disarming the army. Shortly after WW2, Stalin (who had of course eviscerated the Russian army officer corps in the 1930s) dispatched Marshal Zhukov, undisputed victor of the Eastern Front, to effective banishment (ironically, to the Odessa Military District), such was the Marshal's popularity and stature.
Irrespective of the details of whatever outcome in Ukraine, Putin - shaken to his core by Prigozhin just two years ago - knows he has to deal with this comprehensively. Phase One, as noted above, is probably just to avoid demobilising at all for as long as possible. Phase Two is the "Time of Heroes" programme being rolled out, that will reserve a range of sinecures in civic society (in government, deputy mayoral posts etc etc) for veterans of the SMO. Now, word is coming out that veterans will be packed off en masse to build new infrastructure and enterprises in ... Siberia! (And Murmansk, which is just as cold.) The pay won't be great but it will be a job ... As one Russian cynic has it:
"Veterans have already fulfilled the most important task of the state - to fight our enemies. Who, if not them, should perform new tasks, be ahead of everyone in this matter? Veterans, current and future, let's be honest, in civilian life, many of you will not be able to earn as much as in the army. Resettlement in Siberia will be an excellent (and for some, the only) way for you to find yourself in a peaceful life,"
... oh, and it won't be anywhere near Moscow.
Still, at least Putin is thinking about it strategically. Unlike so many other aspects of the SMO. Well, au fond, his training was KGB.
The Corbyn / Sultana new party thing is truly contributing to the gaiety of the nation. The only disappointing aspect must be that it surely can't continue for very long, much as we'd all love it to.
The Beeb reports that an initiative of the Sultana has been thwarted by a cabal of Corbyn plus "Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam", causing her to rail thus:
I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys' club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely. They have refused to allow any other women with voting rights on the Working Group
Now forgive me for making generalisations here; but aren't those gentlemen of cultural heritages where the views of women aren't always, errr, held in the highest esteem? Irony or what?
I am no lawyer: but I am very interested in the 'Duty of Candour' principle. How far, one wonders, will it extend beyond follow-up after "emergency situations" and actions thereupon by the authorities, which seems to be the application for which it is being discussed.
Where I've encountered it before [in my Energy interests] is its application in Judicial Reviews. The principle is that, inevitably, the authorities enjoy a vast disparity of knowledge and information in such cases, and are required to cough it up, even to the extent of revealing advice given and received between officials and their counsel.
I can tell you, it puts the wind up civil servants and ministers - one of the reasons they have been trying to get the courts to be stricter over what gets heard under JR (as predicted here years ago).
Now of course we know that Whitehall etc have long found ways to live with FOI, so as not to have it cramp their style. But it still does, to some extent. Even so, FOI and JR notwithstanding, Whitehall and others still frequently dissemble, nay sometimes lie through their teeth, in official pronouncements.
So - just how much more comprehensive will be the scope of Duty of Candour following the passage of the Hillsborough Law? And how will we be able to invoke it against the bastards?
In a hastily arranged, self-serving interview just a day before the axe fell on Mandelson, he delivered what I called the other day his masterclass in the communication arts for which he is famed. Too late, obviously: but look at the clever ways his mind was working, in the attempt to restore the rapidly worsening position. Recall the context: he had already answered once on the subject, on that occasion simply saying he regretted having ever met Epstein. Early last week, however, he knew he'd shortly be confronted with a good deal more to answer for, see below. He just had to attempt to get ahead of it, to prime the audience with a pre-emptive range of exculpatory framings designed to head off what he knew was coming, and give Starmer a few handy words to use / lines-to-take (which Sir Kier duly did at PMQs).
The analysis is in 'fisk' format: the bold text is the transcript of Mandy's answers to some fairly obvious interview questions. I make only the slightest reference to his body-language: an expert on that could have a field day. Watch it for yourself.
"It was over
20 years ago …... much, much too long
ago to count for anything now.
"I find [my
words from back then] very embarrassing to see and to read, but as you say,
they were written before he was indicted.… and you obviously agree with me,
it was simply ages ago.
"But I just
feel two things now. One is, I feel a
profound sense of tremendous sense, a profound sense of sympathy for those
people, those women, who suffered, as a result of his behaviour and his
illegal, criminal activities;Clearly - see below, several times - M has selected ‘tremendous’ and ‘profound’ from the BS lexicon.And sympathy for women, oh yes, he’s on the side of the
angels alright. ... He was a criminal, you
know – we’re plainly all victims here.Sympathy for the women!
"… and
secondly, I regret very very deeply indeed carrying on that association with
him for far longer than I should have done … oh, I don’t know, it was a matter
of years after I met him …M knows – see towards the end of the interview – that this can’t be contained to
“20 years ago”, so he’s making a big, upfront thing of “regrettably continuing
the association”.Association?A conveniently abstract, thin, technical way of framing their relationship.Actually, we know it was
“best pal in all the world”, to whom M was giving advice even after E had
been convicted.
"… and I
regret very much that I fell for his lies; I fell, and accepted assurances that
he had given me about his indictment, his original, criminal case in Florida,
like very many people I took at face value what he said. ... Oh yes, I’m a victim alright – and just
one among a big crowd, too.We all
believed him.None of us rumbled
him.Nobody could have known.None of us.It’s all of us in the same boat.
"With
hindsight, with fresh information, years later we realized that we had been
wrong to believe him – he’s a charismatic, criminal liar, we now see, and I
regret very much indeed; ... Yes, it
was wholly impossible for us – us, I tell you, plural, lots of us - to have known or even have
suspected at the time.Oh, how our
wrongdoing haunts us, our wrongly believing!
"I felt it
like a – like an albatross around my neck since his death in 2018 or 2019,
whenever it was.... see, I don’t even follow these things very
closely.And it’s been awful for me,
awful, I tell you.
"I feel, I
feel a tremendous sense of regret, not only that I met him in the first place...Regret at ever meeting him was what M had
already placed on record some while ago.So now he has to go even further, in order to be seen recognizing clearly that he
needs to confess to even more, errr, regrets!
"…but that I continued the association, and I
took at face value the lies that he fed me and many others.... yes, I regret “continuing the
association”, that thin and technical matter.Oh, and I regret believing that stuff, as any reasonable person
would have done, and indeed did.
[M now shaking
off a suggestion of ‘informal, back-scratching, introducing people’] "It was not a business relationship … He
operated in a financial and business way, way, way above my level.... way,
way above.He was essentially out of
sight, beyond my ken.Nobody at my
humble level was ever in the know about, well, anything, really.
"He actually
was always saying, “would you like to see so-and-so, I’ve got this friend, I’m
having this dinner, would you like to come, alright, he was a prolific social
networker and a political networker, that is true; ... just such a helpful chap, he could arrange
whatever you wanted … oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. Errr, just such a helpful chap: how could I not believe him, or think anything bad of him?
"... but I would
just want to say this to you, er, Harry, ... you don’t mind me letting the whole world
that you and I are friends, do you Harry?And that I’m a down-to-earth, easy-going, ordinary, relatable, pleasant chap?
"… during
all the time I was an associate of his, I never saw the wrongdoing; I never saw
any evidence of criminal activity.I
never sought, and he didn’t offer any introductions to women in the way that
allegedly he did for others – perhaps it's because I am a gay man, you know.... see how open and upfront I am?And very naïve.And very trusting and innocent, like all
gays.And never even looking at any of
the dozens of nubile young women that always seemed to be fluttering around. Allegedly.Never even noticed them, myself.
"… perhaps
when I knew him, perhaps when I was associating with him those years ago with
my then partner and now husband Renaldo, we never, ever saw evidence or sign of
this activity which has since come to light.... definitely.How would we, when
we only had eyes for each other?
"That’s why
I feel so profoundly upset, er, by what has now been revealed about what he did
to women, and why I feel profoundly upset [looking very wronged] that I was
taken in by him and continued my association with him for far longer than I
should have done.Here we ago
again.We have all registered the point
about the new regrets, haven’t we?And
the association thing?
[Conned?] "I lived in London; I’m a Brit; he lived in
New York; he was an American.Perhaps if
I had been in closer proximity … [But you stayed with him!] I did in the early
years, yes, that’s certainly true.And
now I regret it. Now I regret it.... oh yes.Did I mention regrets?You know,
if you regret something, it’s the same as being absolved from it?
I regret
being taken in by him, as many other people do.But it was 10 years later, when he was Federally prosecuted, that people
suddenly learned what he had been up to for all those years. ... a full
decade later! I’d like you to take away
the idea I let 10 years go by between my “association-of-too-long” and the time
when anyone knew anything about anything. And did I mention there were lots of us?
"The Epstein
files?That’s not a matter for me.I don’t believe I am named in Epstein
files.I have no doubt at all that
there’s a lot of um, er, a lot of traffic, correspondence, exchanges between
us, absolutely.And we know those are
going to erm, er, surface, we know they’re going to come out, we know they’re
going to be very embarrassing, Here’s
the meat of the whole thing, and what M has been working up to, why he wanted to be interviewed: he knows a
shedload of shit is coming along shortly, and he needs to get ahead of it. Because it’s going to be “embarrassing” – but
we can all see, he’s embarrassed enough already: as embarrassed as anyone ever
needs to be, so this next stuff won’t really add anything we need to dwell on, ... because look, I’ve already admitted before anyone’s said anything, that I’m
embarrassed!We all are!And being embarrassed is like regretting – it
absolves you of your wholly understandable and really quite minor sins.
"… and they
[sic] know that I’m going profoundly to regret ... Here we go again. BUT - at least he avoids splitting his infinitives, even at this moment of peril. Good man!
"… ever
having met him and been introduced to him in the first place.Yes!
"But I can’t
re-write history.... so it’s deeply unfair of anyone to ask me
to do so: really, very unfair indeed.I’m the victim here, not just of Epstein, but of those demanding I
re-write history.Listen, I’m confessing
to everything I ever did – meeting, associating, believing, trusting, the lot. Yes, that's the charge sheet against me: believing and trusting. That kind of thing.
"What I can
do, what I can do, is express my profound sympathy for those who have were
badly treated by him; and secondly, I can accept, yes, I can accept …... you see, I really am able to be totally
honest and self-critical !
"… that I
continued my association with him for too long.Yawn.Yeah, we got it. Peter, we know you are very
contrite and very absolved.
"I haven’t
discussed it with either the President or the Prime Minister, and I hope I’m
doing a good enough job as Ambassador here in the United States to continue to
warrant his confidence.Errr …
"… All the
information we have about that dreadful, dreadful man, I wish I could remove
that blot [screws up face] he’s like, he’s like a sort of piece of muck
attached to my, er, shoes, which I find very difficult to kick away.But I will do it, I will do it.But I can only do it by first acknowledging
how much I regret having met him in the first place … Drones on ...
Muck on my shoes, eh? There's gratitude for you!
ND
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UPDATE (see also earlier post): it now transpires that, having first been confronted by Bloomberg with his past emails, and a list of questions, Mandelson sent them promptly to the Sun - hoping that a preemptive 'friendly' Sun leak would be less devastating than what Bloomberg might do. OK: unsuccessful - but what a bold stroke (possibly repaying a favour?). Always plotting, always thinking creatively,always strategising
Being able to do strategy has something in common with being artistic, mathematical, sporty, philosophical or a natural leader. Most people could be made a little more adept at the associated skills and practices - maybe by good schooling or training, maybe by growing up around people who genuinely have the attribute - but fundamentally, becoming really good at any of them is a no-hope matter for most people.
That said, being a natural at any of these things doesn't mean being naturally good at them. It just means: being able to swim in that pool. And many swimmers in the strategy pool turn out to be bad strategists.
Lots of situations and organisations need strategy: and there's a tendency to grab at anyone who seems to be a swimmer in that pool, and/or for people who can to thrust themselves forward. But really good strategists are few and far between: so it's not infrequent for a mediocre, or even poor strategist to be directing things, and it not even be realised for quite a while. What's needed is the leadership to say, decisively, "yes, we need a strategist - but not a crap one". Obviously, Starmer is no such leader.
Among high-profile genuine, but deeply flawed UK political strategists of recent years I would number George Osborne (often lambasted hereabouts for being no more than mere student-politico grade); Dominic Cummings (whose only thought after the very successful 2019 election campaign was "turn government upside down" instead of "deliver actual results from Brexit", making him just a self-indulgent blue-sky obsessive); and of course Peter Mandelson.
Like many of this kind, Mandelson is really interesting. Long-term C@W readers will oft have seen me praising his political creativity and deep understanding of how the levers of power can be used in imaginative ways. I don't resile from any of that. But throughout his well-documented career, he has made gigantic mis-steps galore, often rebounding directly and very personally upon himself, notwithstanding his ability sometimes to deliver superb strategic advice to those he is gazing up to at the time, from the, errr, grovelling position he adopts.
His actions in advancing his own cause or defending his won position - often when seriously up against it - have frequently been purposeful and genuinely adroit, albeit pretty transparent to anyone paying close attention (and sometimes to the whole world). I could list many examples; and particularly enjoyed his very clever handling of what he knew was going to be a ghastly series of revelations the moment the latest Epstein cache hit the media. Getting ahead of it as best he could; lots of well-chosen exculpatory themes, remorse, blame upon others, "being too trusting", willing to be open & honest about it all, "bigger boys / nasty lawyers dropped me in it" etc etc. Ultimately a doomed effort, of course, but a miniature masterclass. (I might even come up with a fisk of his recent performances.)
So: Mandelson - good or bad strategist? My summary would be: technically brilliant; genuinely creative; mostly succeeding when taking on a difficult task on behalf of / at the behest of someone else; oddly lazy in his own cause (a bit paradoxical, admittedly - but I could elaborate: and it's a trait I have noted in others).
It's a big topic. Other first thoughts?
ND
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UPDATE (see also next post): it now transpires that, having first been confronted by Bloomberg with his past emails, and a list of questions, Mandelson sent them promptly to the Sun - hoping that a preemptive 'friendly' Sun leak would be less devastating than what Bloomberg might do. OK: unsuccessful - but what a bold stroke (possibly repaying a favour?).Always plotting, always thinking creatively,always strategising
BTL the previous post, anon regales us with this quote relating to a pronouncement from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:
Donald Trump has reportedly asked the EU to levy tariffs of up to 100% on India and China, in order to increase pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine.
Well, the Polish situation demands some kind of response; else the next "unplanned" wave of Gerberas will be over Finland and Estonia. And I doubt NATO feels able to do much more than throw an aerial defensive screen around, say, Lviv - based firmly in Poland. Economic measures are all that Europe is really up to at the moment. The "coalition of the willing" is only looking at what it might do in the event of a ceasefire.
There is no doubt Russia is suffering economically just now (not to mention a growing shortage of gasoline and indeed water (sic) in the Donbas): and it might be made to suffer more. But it can suffer more! It's increasingly a war economy; and Russians are like that anyway (see this blog on many occasions).
Tense times. Who needs the feeble distractions of Rayner and Mandelson?
Friday morning at five o’clock as the day begins One final glance round the smart Whitehall flat Cursing the lawyers and kicking the cat She goes downstairs to the limo, clutching her handkerchief Now for the letter she knows she must write How did it all turn to shite?
She's (I'm just a working class lass ) breaching (Just a poor working class lass) the Code (What can you do when you've no old school tie?) Hitting the road after breaching the Code in so many ways
Starmer snorts as he wanders round in his dressing gown Picks up the letter the courier brought Standing in triumph; another great snort He laughs loud, and cries to Victoria “Whoopee! - our Angie's gone! How did she think she could have my job? Always just shooting her gob!”
She (I did it all for the kids) was breaching (Nice flat in Hove for my kids) the Code (I wanted everything money could buy) Tried to upload the establishment Code for so many years
Sunday morning at nine o’clock she is back in Hove Making a call to her old comrade Jez Join his new party? - let's see what he says ...
She's (What did I do that was wrong?) no judgement! (I didn’t know it was wrong) None! (Judgement's the one thing that money can't buy) Couldn't explode the establishment Code after all those tears Crushed by the Code (bye bye)
In the right hands, the plumb job in Government is Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Seat in Cabinet. Just below the radar, but enormous power. In charge of government spending - everybody needs to be your friend. The best springboard imaginable: the partial list below is revealing[1].
And now, CSttT Darren Jones has sprung into another such job: CSttPM, no less, invented specifically for him, it seems (and to help dig the Starmermobile out of the rut in which its wheels are spinning idly as the engine races). Yes - Darren, the sharp, confident, facetious smartarse, is in charge of more than just spending now. Let's see what he does with it: because such jobs and such people are in the type of pivotal position that can see significant results along several axes, personal as well as political and practical.
In business, the term once used was "troubleshooter" - a person appointed to get something Big & Awkward done, often away from the corporate centre. Julius Caesar is perhaps the greatest example in history; there's Wellington and Slim in British military annals (and many other besides, of course). Douglas MacArthur: the list could go on. Right now, Putin has Sergei Kiriyenko[2]. It's happened to me three times in my career: being given plenipotentiary powers in the hope I could fix some unexpected, pressing difficulty.
The thing is: you're never sure how things will turn out - with the task itself, and what the Man does afterwards. Caesar came back in triumph from Gaul - and immediately mounted a successful coup. MacArthur had a coup in mind himself. Wellington was a bit more constitutionally correct when he had the whole of Europe at his feet: he still became PM. But Slim just quietly slipped away[3].
The troubleshooter appointment will always be given to someone believed to be capable - that's the whole point - but often also to someone viewed as maverick, which can give rise to the problematic aspect of what happens after the hoped-for success; the unwanted consequence of the Faustian pact. And if he wasn't (identifiably) a maverick before the assignment, well, lots of power and a free hand, sometimes exercised way out over the horizon ... it can turn a man's head. Capable, and hitherto reliable, doesn't always mean predictable.
We shall follow Mr Jones' progress with interest.
ND
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[1] Past CSttT's include: James Callaghan, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Portillo, Alistair Darling, Danny Alexander, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. (Oh yes, and Chris Philp, whose ambitious little heart nearly exploded at the prospect he had it made, when he briefly held the job.)
[2] If you haven't heard of him, well most people haven't. Aye, there's the wonder of the thing - as Sherlock Holmes said in related circumstances
[3] Zhukov, of course, was effectively banished to Siberia! but the CP has always been paranoid about military leaders: when you need 'em, you really need 'em. But afterwards ...
The Angela Rayner Stamp Duty thing is manna from Heaven for the floundering, ineffectual Badenoch; and great stuff for Kremlin-watchers as we see Starmer digging mantraps for himself, and Wes Streeting desperately trying to appear compassionately on Rayner's side, even as the whole world knows she's been set up by the Labour faction that is determined Streeting himself will succeed Starmer, possibly even quite soon.
Thus far, the matter has been discussed in rather pedestrian binary terms:
she's a serial tax-avoider and residence-flipper - and a monstrous hypocrite to boot: or
her personal affairs & backstory are sad, and legitimately complex (*takes out onion*), and this has led her into an understandable error: but look, she tried to get advice, she's been let down, and it's just all very human.
Personally, I suggest there's another strand to this: she's not particularly literate (lack of education, or brainpower, or both) and can't work through the HMRC guidance for herself.
She wouldn't be alone in this. Some of us are fortunate enough in the education and/or brainpower department to be able to make sense of relatively clear HMRC guidance (and a myriad other potentially overpowering bureaucratic verbiage one might meet in the course of a lifetime, e.g. the reams of forms on probate). But that's just irrelevant for very many folks - however much effort HMRC et al put into wording stuff as clearly as possible - because increasingly few people have any worthwhile level of analytic verbal reasoning.
Of course, the truly troubling bottom line is that this is evidently no bar to reaching some of the highest levels in the land. And as noted before with the ignorant cretins at the top of Reform, this leads to one or both of two dire consequences: (a) very bad decisions by the politicians themselves, and (b) leaving them fully at the mercy of the Civil Service - another source of bad decisions - when their own limited analytic powers are overwhelmed.
In the next day or so we'll look at a politician to which none of the above applies: Darren Jones ...
The Donald is, by his own estimation, a legendary deal-maker and negotiator. Well, he does get (some) things done, and indeed sometimes gets his own way. But how much of this is deal-making? And how good are his deals? His reputation in the New York real estate sector sucks is, errr, equivocal.
He's been in action quite a bit this year! So there's something to score: and we can form an early view on his performance as a negotiator up against several prominent counterparties.
vs China: Trump is losing, hands down. The Chinese are playing him like a fiddle, and he's steadily backing down on the tariff war, step by step. Yet surely, by every standard of US foreign policy as espoused in the past decade by both his and the Democrat party, this is the only game that truly matters. Sheesh... this really matters! - did he think he could simply swat Xi aside one spring afternoon while he was mostly busy, errr, earning his Nobel Peace prize, annexing the whole North American land mass, remodelling the White House, peddling his crap merchandise, running feuds against everyone he's ever had a grievance against etc etc etc?
vs Russia: jury still out, perhaps, but Putin won't be particularly disconcerted by their exchanges to date. Relative to the extraordinary prior claims made by Trump ("peace in Ukraine in one day!"), and his huffing and puffing about "consequences", the current state of play is pretty demeaning for him.
vs Mexico and Canada: given how things looked at the start of the whole tariffs round, OK-ish for M & C. They've mostly stood their ground, and the world hasn't fallen down around their ears by any means. Makes Trump's early rhetoric look pretty silly - and that's just on trade. As for annexing Canada ... (I think we can hear the laughter from here - and Greenland probably isn't too worried just now, either.)
vs India: jury definitely still out, because India has options. Trump has dealt his blow - but will he get any pleasure from what happens over the next months and years? Not at all clear. How clever is it to send Modi scuttling to Beijing, hmm?
vs Starmer: surely, 2-1 to Trump. Starmer has chosen to grovel, in return for some relative 'gains' (negatively defined, which is the only thing we can say) when compared to the EC, see below. But it has suited Trump to give a little pat on the head to the biggest arse-licker, just pour encourager les autres.
vs the EC: a seriously bad result for the EU, courtesy of the unelected EC which holds much of Europe's fate in their hands. Feeble stuff. A bit of a surprise, given how comprehensively the EC wiped the floor with Cameron and May. But from this distance, that probably tells us more about them than it does about the EC.
vs Iran: personally, I can't call this one yet. Need to keep it in view: could tell us quite a lot.
