Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Boreades]

Kaja Kallas is making sure the world knows how important and relevant the EU is to events.

[Mick Harper]

Do you recall their attitude during the Falkland Wars? [From memory...] The 'EU' position was an uneasy mix of 'aggression mustn't pay' (support Britain) and 'colonialism mustn't pay' (support Argentina). But the individual countries took up individual positions:

* Spain was for Argentina (not for linguistic reasons but because of Gibraltar)
* Portugal was for Britain (because Spain wasn't)
* France was for Britain (but provided Exocets for Argentinian Super-Etendards)
* Germany was noticeably heads-down.

[Mick Harper]

Migrancy Innovation, Malta

This should be the epicentre of Mediterranean migrant traffic but nobody heads for Malta in small boats. Dunno why, presumably it's because dark-skinned asylum-seekers get short shrift there.

Yet Malta is in desperate need of cheap labour. They've got a nil unemployment rate and jobs aplenty but they've gone quite a different route to meet their needs. They have a system where (white, but poor) people can apply for residency if a Malta employer fills in a form on your behalf. Sounds good, right?

Wrong. You have to work for that employer and nobody else (and they check) so naturally the employer treats you like shit, you've got nowhere else to go. So you stop working for them and appeal to a tribunal to allow you to work for someone else. But that'll take two years (they've made sure of that) so you end up like all the other Mediterranean migrants, either in a terrible job or begging on the beach.

Back to the drawing board.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

What jolly japes. The second-ranking Tory defects to Reform. By any standards, that's epochal. Except today's standards. It's a triumph for Kemi! How do you reckon that? They mucked up the process.

By next week, people will be asking who Robert Genrick was. West Ham were in for him but he decided to stay at Lens until the summer window, I think. Unless he was that serial killer.

[Mick Harper]

Private schools have been closing in droves ever since the Labour government made school fees subject to VAT. Or at least that's what they've been bellyaching about. It turns out that while private schools have been closing in droves, even more have been starting up.

Private schools are just businesses like everything else and they flourish or not depending on the product they put out. Except they aren't. They are hated by Labour-types who want nothing more than the demise of the jolly lot.

This is typical left-wing thinking. In reality private schools benefit everyone because millions of citizens are apparently happy to pay twice, once in taxes to fund state schools and again in fees to send Marmaduke and Hortensia to private ones. If private schools were abolished, we'd have a hole in the PSBR the size of HS2. (Railways are mainly for the rich, but we won't go there.)

The same situation exists in the health sector. Millions--the same millions, by and large--take out health insurance as well as paying for the NHS. Far from waving VAT forms about, the government should be straining at the leash to offer incentives for everyone or anyone 'to go private'. But a left-winger would rather be burned at the stake.

[Mick Harper]

This is a general principle that should be applied more widely. For instance, the retail sector is being increasingly hit by shoplifting on a fairly gargantuan scale. This is because the police have a policy of treating the crime as of less importance than others.

This is perfectly proper, shoplifting is a victimless crime so far as the rest of us are concerned, even though we know we have to pay for it in terms of higher prices generally. But it's not victimless so far as shops are concerned and they (or their insurers) would be happy to pay for a police force with the specific remit of returning retail thievery to 'background' levels.

This time both left and right are opposed to any such thing. Apparently we have a rooted objection to 'private armies'. We are perfectly happy to have a single police force of gargantuan inefficiency rather than two, one of which (you may be sure) would be totally on the ball.

[Mick Harper]

Kemi Badenoch: You're welcome to Suella Braverman, she's a right nutter.
Nigel Farage: You've gotta be in this game.
Kemi Badenoch: Any more in the pipeline?
Nigel Farage: That would be telling but put it this way: we're planning on doing one a week till the next election.
Kemi Badenoch: Tell you what, when it's called, I'll leave the sinking ship too, if you promise me the Chancellorship. In writing.
Nigel Farage: Why on earth would I do that?
Kemi Badenoch: Well, since I'll be the last man standing, I can officially abolish the Conservative Party before I leave, you can then change the name of Reform to The Conservative Party, and we can carry on as if nothing has happened since the 1670's.
Nigel Farage: Deal.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Slovak National Security Advisor (sic) Miroslav Laják has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Robert Fico, over revelations in the released Epstein documents.

We don't know what is fact or fiction within these docs.

Still, it was a bad look, Laják appears to have had a particular liking for Russian girls, whilst Laják and Fico now appear pro-Russian. Even Fico's coalition supporters were accusing the Security advisor.... of being a security risk.

If this logic spreads, ie Use of Russian girls +Epstein/Maxwell connection=Security risk, then we are going to see many more resignations, as therir are lots of mentions of Russian girls in the Epstein docs (Andrew was offered a beautiful Russian by Epstein according to another released document).

The Daily Mail has gone full conspiracy on this, ie Epstein/Maxwell were running a KGB honeypot operation.

Wiley doubts it's this simple.

All parties deny all wrongdoing and knowledge of what was happening involved the use of underage or trafficked girls.

We can probably expect more honourable resignations on the basis of "it does look poor, and after much soul searching, I have decided in the interests of my family, party and country to step down....." "please respect my privacy"..... "it was the honour of my life to have served". If the trail of resignations all point to Russia then the Mail might have a case.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]

Maxwell allegedly had links to Mossad. Similarly, conspiracy theories about the relationship of Epstein (known to have been in 'business' with Ehud Barak) with the Israeli state abound. Epstein did have links with Israel by helping to broker a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syrian civil war though frankly both he and Ghislaine seem too flaky to have been Mossad operatives.

Epstein's 'Russia link' appears to have been facilitating talks between Barak and Putin over a deal to remove Bashar al-Assad and replace him with a pro-Russian dictator who would also be acceptable to Israel.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

It would be interesting therefore to find out who put Andrew in touch with Epstein. We casually assume all these Top People bump into one another constantly at their various lush watering holes but this really isn't so, not anyway in the case of royal princes.

It's true that Andy became a business ambassador-at-large, and hence of great use to and overlapping Epstein, but Epstein couldn't just ring up and say, "Can I speak to Prince Andrew, please. My name's Jeffrey Epstein."

This may be where Maxwell--father and/or daughter--may have played a part. Conceivably, even Mandelson. It would only take one of them to have links with 'a foreign power' to get the ball rolling.