Sunak has written a weird existentialist letter to Tory members ... implicitly promising no second lockdown and to "make it up as we go along" let's dechypher... 1/
2/ Sunak signalling the economy will come first, public health second... it's Dom's "let em die" line all over again... and notice the far right trope in the word "liberate" ...
3/ "liberate" is a dog whistle to the MAGA/QAnon creeps who are everywhere on the plebeian right... not just to traditional Tory libertarians ...
4/ "I've just inadvertently subsidised the takeoff of a pandemic Second Wave that is going to dwarf the first one and I was "not wrong" ....
5/ Sunak translated: I am going to veto a second lockdown but I have no idea therefore how to stop the virus ... Tory appetite for public health downside risk is boundless ...
6/6 It's not our fault if we start hitting six figure death toll, it's yours, thank you, goodnight and here's a nice portrait of me paid for by the taxpayer...
7/ I finally worked out whose prose style Sunak is channelling here...
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I'm a China hawk but I am sick of Tory duplicity and 💩 Fleet Street commentary on "why don't we designate China a threat"? Neither Johnson, Sunak nor Truss did so, despite Truss threatening... and here's why: 1/ This is what a "threat" to National Security looks like...
2/ ... it's a nuclear capable Russian aircraft with a missile that can travel at Mach 10: three of them spent 12 minutes in NATO airspace last month... and the RAF regularly has to intercept these and other Russian threats...
3/ In 2021 the Tory govt recognised China as a "systemic competitor" - that is, a country determined to compete with us over economic interests, values and geopolitical influence... then, in 2022, China overtly backed the Russian invasion of Ukraine....
I just used my fingerprint to log into my Apple computer; I used facial recognition to pay for an e-bike on my Apple phone; I ordered a repeat prescription on the NHS app that holds every detail of every illness I have ever been treated for on a central server...1/
2/ ... I had to show my drivers' licence to get into a briefing from a civil servant; I used the e-gates at LCY to cross the border without having to speak to a human being... why would I object to "the state" issuing me with digital proof of ID?...
3/... Labour must of course address privacy concerns and the possibility of cyberattacks on a single digital ID - but there are massive libertarian and economic upsides to a society where *everybody is who they say they are*...
Labour's reshuffle was deftly completed and has rewarded competence and narrative skill. Task now is to start not just delivering but telling a story of who we are - I am proud of what Labour is achieving... here's one example... 1/
What happened in D.C.? 🧵1/ We, outside the classified zone, won't know for a while - because the European leaders pulled of something surreal: they pulled Trump back from getting sucked in to Putin's mental framework ... but...
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
There are 3 historical reference points for Trump's Alaska disgrace ... Munich '38, Berlin '40, Moscow '41... which is closest? 1/🧵we've had no readout from an honest source...
2/ At Munich democracies signed up to dismembering Czechoslovakia, sidelining USSR with which it had a mutual defence pact ... so this wasn't Munich, yet...
3/ The Aug 1941 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dismembered Poland and started WW2...
Global investors are selling US stocks because they know Trump's tariffs will kill globalisation and trigger recession 1/... but why are they selling bonds at the same time? 🧵
2/ ....They're selling US bonds - which they would normally buy as a safe haven - because bonds have become gambling chips for hedge funds who are gambling on massive credit ... as @FT explains
@FT 3/ ... what comes next is financial contagion. After 2008 all banks required to keep a stock of capital to cushion instability ... that's rapidly eroded... sudden stop in trade plus massive losses in financial markets is bound to take down some bank somewhere...