Article published in Daily Telegraph
Mrs Von Der Leyen claims “the shift in the world order is not only seismic – but it is permanent”. “We now live in a world of raw power”. This seems to be a response to the possible use of force by the USA in Greenland which Donald Trump has ruled out. Where was she when Russia used raw force from 2014 onwards to occupy parts of Ukraine? Has she forgotten the use of force by the Soviet Union to suppress eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin wall? Has she not seen how Afghanistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern states have been using raw power against their own citizens and neighbouring states? Has she missed the terrorist attacks of the recent decades? Raw power has often been a chosen means of more than half the world which is not democratic.
She also wrongly asserts that the answer to this outbreak of raw power is to speed up and strengthen European union. So how would more EU laws resolve the problems of Ukraine? Would the stronger EU have an army and navy capable of intervening against the abuse of raw power in the Middle East and its disruption of trade and energy? Of course not. The EU’s answer to every bad trend and crisis is more EU, when more EU has pushed the member states further and further behind the USA in growth and military capacity.
Mr Carney rightly observes if “the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself”. He comes late to this realisation. The rules of his idealised Davos world did not protect us from wars, hunger, poor economic policies prior to Donald Trump. When did the UN last negotiate a peace and enforce it? When did the WTO last intervene to stop unfair trade with China? When did the international order last constrain Russia? Why didn’t the UN COP s he so liked get China and the emerging world to produce and hit tough carbon targets in the way the UK and EU did?
Belatedly this globalist has come to offer the advice I have given for years to UK governments. “A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options”. Exactly. The UK needs to grow more of its own food, produce more of its own energy and strengthen its defences. The last 125 years of history shows us we could only rely on the USA to help us in brutal wars, and then only if we had the power and ability to fight alone for a long time until their national interest required them to join in.
What President Trump is exposing in his own provocative way is the so called international rules based system let us down. The UN cannot prevent conflicts and had to allow great powers to veto actions. The WTO allows China and emerging economies asymetric rules that rest easy on them. The COP UN climate change system is ignored or gamed by most of the world. The Davos consensus on how to run economies has delivered vicious cycles with banking crises and nasty recessions. The independent Central Banks of Europe, UK and USin the west in the last six years allowed or created high inflation whilst the politically controlled central banks of China and Japan kept inflation down.
Mr Carney and Mrs Von der Leyen are wrong to think a tilt to China is the answer to their prayers of how they can grow faster and have better defence.
January 25, 2026
Mr Carney and Mrs Von der Leyen are wrong on just about everything and have been for a long time prob. all of their lives?
To grow faster and have better defence you certainly need to ditch net zero and have pro-growth policies which they and Reeves/Starmer have also got totally wrong.
January 25, 2026
Carney and von lies a lot love the autocratic regimes and the WEF would like a world governed by unelected elites just like Starmer. Their realisation that a country that cannot defend or feed itself will be in trouble but this doesn’t stop them continuing ruinous net stupid policies, or closing the EUs porous borders.
The deindustrialising of Europe is making it increasingly difficult to protect against aggression and Trump has exposed the lie.
It looks like Farage spoke to Bessen about the stupidity of giving away Chagos who in turn briefed Trump on the gross stupidity. Now it looks like common sense has prevailed as the treaty with the USA demolished all Hermers spacious arguments for the giveaway. Well done Nigel.
Reply There was plenty of briefing sent to US through a variety of channels. Conservatives made sure Rubio, Bessent, the White House were all briefed.
January 25, 2026
The part of Carney’s Davos sermon that tickled me was;
“More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
What the hell does he think the EU has been doing and demanding for decades and yet used his position as BoE governor to try to influence the EU referendum in favour of us remaining subjugated.
He complains that the rules based order is diminished yet has never been a voice warning against overreach and abuse of power by those “authorities”.
January 25, 2026
Quite so. Send Carney a mirror for his birthday.
January 25, 2026
Starmer’s Chagos fanatics are determined to ensure that this surrender goes ahead
These quislings must never again be allowed near the levers of power
Daniel Hannan today.
Let us hope not. £30 bn for a negative outcome is not clever (circa £1000 per home) but circa half of homes pay no net tax.
But we also had Boris’s £600 bn for very negative outcomes of Covid Lockdowns and net harm Covid “Vaccines” £20K per home. They damaged health hugely and impoverished the nation too.
But largest of all these lunacies is net zero – costing perhaps £6 trillion (just the UK) or £200k per household again with negative benefits. Some of which is destruction of the UK economy, negative growth and an inability to feed or even defend the nation. A deluded war on the gas of life! A con job! Clearly the last one will not really happen in full but vast harm is being done trying to!
January 25, 2026
Wise historical data.
January 25, 2026
What is it about the pandemic that sends the Right so mad? Other countries like Australia suffered far less from Covid and far less economically than UK and did so for much longer than UK without any vaccines at all. Its health service proved far more resilient and the country recovered fully long before the UK. Yet the Right in UK cannot accept these facts. They fantasize about Freedom because they believe the myth there were no restrictions in Sweden. It is just not true. Sweden also suffered far more deaths than Australia, more economic impact and a slower recovery. Despite Australia out performing both countries by all significant measures, the Right in UK just cannot accept the factual success of Australian non-pharmaceutical interventions in the pandemic. They really are deranged.
January 25, 2026
Well I disagree with almost all of that. The difference is that, due to seasonal variations, and being remote they were largely able to keep Covid out until it had become rather less deadly! Dr Claire Craig’s recent book A shot in the dark – is excellent on this topic and much else.
In Australia, COVID-19 vaccinations are recommended (still I think) for everyone 18+ and children 6 months to 17 with high-risk conditions. Most require a single primary dose, with extra boosters every 6-12 months suggested based on risk factors and age. Severe immunocompromise may require 2-3 primary doses.
Dangerous insanity in my view! They must have even worse or more bought perhaps “experts” than those in the UK. The vast majority of young people and children were never at any real risk even in the early stages of Covid unless they had fairly rare conditions!
January 25, 2026
Peter there seems to be some rewriting of history there. I seem to remember Australian and New Zealand had some of the most brutalist regimes after China on the planet.
January 25, 2026
Assuming Burnham is not blocked by Two Tier’s mates (does he have any) and wins the bye-election he will very likely replace Starmer in short order. He is however backed by three rather dire lefties Sadiq Khan, Lucy Powell and Ed Miliband it seems – all rather worrying!
Lucy Powell rather oddly left Oxford after one year (Chemistry) and transferred to the King’s College, London ending up with a top-notch Chemistry degree and a full grasp of quantum mechanics. So she too should surely realise what insanity the May/Miliband Net Zero agenda is? But perhaps not?
Though I am with Richard Feynman—”If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”.