Cummings retro-edit of his blog perfectly timed to coincide with @SenTomCotton mainstreaming the "Wuhan Lab Theory" - the global right want to use this pandemic for a Cold War on China... 1/ My column: newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
2/ The Wuhan Lab story was pushed into the mainstream by a "member of Cobra" and a UK government minister (in the Mail) 10 days before US intel agencies started briefing their own media... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
4/ The UK govt has repeatedly squashed the Wuhan Lab story. I don't know whether they have any evidence for it but as Bannon says Five Eyes and others are looking at it - but if they do, you can bet it will be the Gulf of Tonkin, v convenient for Trump's election strategy...
5/ Bannon, Trump, Cotton, the US right are determined a) to make the election about confronting China; b) to really confront China - because it's in China's interest for globalisation to continue, while their project is "Westphalian"... thewirechina.com/2020/05/24/ste…
5/ The left, too, should be seriously critical of the CCP: here's why #ClearBrightFuture is not on sale in Beijing...
6/ But as I argue here: any Western strategy to contain China by destroying its economy will lead not just to military confrontation - but to a continental-scale Fallujah. The west won't pick up the pieces, the pieces will pick up the pieces...newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
7/ The British political debate is muted on China. The Tory party is split because the City just wants to keep taking the money, same as with Saudi; Labour wary of all geopolitics; military/security rightly focused on Russia... but... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
8/ It's time to activate calm, responsible debate: defend democracy in HK, smart reindustrialisation of UK/Europe, identify and counter (democratically) China's soft power moves here - but reject Bannon's warmongering. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
9/ If you have time, read the 57-page propaganda playbook of the GOP on China... because it's coming here: link in the article... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
9/ While we are here, if anyone wants a free copy of Live Working or Die Fighting in Chinese, I've just put it on Academia... it's the job of the Chinese people to build an alternative to the CCP - not Bannon! academia.edu/attachments/63…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
UK bond yield opens at 4.9% There is no “bond market crisis” - however, the high and rising yield on UK debt is the result of a long-term loss of confidence after the Truss fiasco and the poor fundamentals left by the Tories and Brexit 1/…🧵
2/ … what’s happening throws Reeves’ budget into a new light. She rightly did a “belt and braces” on fiscal credibility, raising NI to plug the massive gaps left by Hunt - but the bond markets still do not see a growth story. Why? …
3/ ...because key elements of Labour policy are at the design stage: industrial strategy, green energy, workforce... whilel growth is flatlining… and because we have a doom loop built into our policy architecture…
Every stunt Russia has pulled since the US election feels to me like a pre-programmed sequence: the cable cutting, the MRBM attack; destabilisation of Romania, Moldova and now Transnistria 1/ ... hard to know the purpose without intel...
2/ ... at baseline it creates uncertainty, shakes the tree, shows a range of options for escalation... but I keep coming back to Orban's taunt against Zelensky - "this is the most dangerous point of the conflict" - ie a warning of "escalate to de-escalate"...
3/ That was surely an echo of His Master's Voice... while Western governments are refusing to attribute RU blatant attacks. Why? Could be an agreed strategem; could be fear of domestic destabilisation. Either way, Finland has put a stop to that...
What a day! Assad fled. Saydnaya liberated. Russian power in the Middle East evaporating. Yes there's a vacuum, yes there are competing forces but Syrians now have a chance to shape their own future free of Russian/Iranian imperialism ... and Britain's response matters 1/ 🧵
2/ There is every chance that Syria fragments into three or four chaotic states. That's a function of the "multipolar world" the Putin/Xi acolytes on the far left are so fond of. Multipolarity = chaos is the theme of 2023-4. And Trump saying "stay out of it" is delusional...
3/ The P5 powers could - if Russia/China want to show an ounce of responsibility - work with Turkey, Israel and Lebanon to stabilise the situation. Because if Syria as a state falls apart - its currency, treasury and central bank evaporate - that will be a case study in chaos...
Labour's defence industrial strategy framework is meaty: it learns the lessons from dirigist countries and marks a break from DSIS2021 - some highlights: 1/ The trade unions are at the table - and so are regional employment objectives... unions will be on the sector council ... 🧵
2/ It is frank about what is wrong.
3/ It contains a - ahem - reminder to the fiscal authorities that not spending money on defence is a false economy ...
Jeremy and his merry bunch echoing Putin's talking points - so let's take them one by one: 🧵1/ it is Russia who has escalated. Firing ATACMs and Storm Shadows is both Ukraine's right; both have been used before and changing the targeting is incremental. Yet they make no criticism of Putin firing the IRBM. Why? ...
2/ There is no threat of "all out escalation" between NATO and Russia. NATO is not fighting Russia. Nor did NATO supply the missiles fired at Russia: Britain and USA and France did. This is not a semantic difference. NATO is a defensive alliance ...
3/ " The risk of a nuclear attack cannot be ruled out." Attack by whom? If there's a risk of Russia nuking Ukraine surely JC and the sectarians should protest this. Maybe write to a Russian newspaper? It is Putin's strategy to stoke nuclear fears and they are amplifying that...
Trump's apparent victory has 5 big implications for the UK: 🧵
1️⃣ It can happen here. He will back Farage, the Musk propaganda machine will crank up against Labour; the Tories will remould themselves into Trump-lite Islamophobes ...
2️⃣ The UK needs to become the European leader of NATO, and all European countries need to hike spending on defence and democratic resilience. America is a permanently unreliable ally in this century
3️⃣ Misogyny will enter mainstream politics - and the whole anti-woke cocktail will be normalised by the BBC and alt media - that's proved successful in America. We need to stand up for women's rights across the board