Gloucester Saint

Neither was Obama to Brown nor Cameron. You have to go to back to Thatcher/Reagan, Blair/Clinton and Blair/Bush to find genuine evidence of a special relationship. Truth be told, it was sketchy before that with disputes over Suez in 1956 and tensions over Vietnam and Nigeria. Lammy has actually built some bridges there but it will be an unpredictable administration as May found last time around. With Brexit, we’ve needlessly exposed ourselves to more risk. Whether people like it or not, closer links will be essential especially on security co-operation and trade, because tariffs on China would hit us hard. And Putin will be eyeing up the Baltic states.

That’s his MAGA base but it’s not the 18% of Latinos who switched for the most part. Trump will likely build up another substantial deficit, he’s not a dry fiscal traditional type of conservative, he’s a spender and cultural and demographic one. Latinos may think they can get some of that. Democrats have to make the economic case of steady economic and political growth and daily improvements in people’s access to core services - health, police, environmental.

Trump won’t be bothered by it, has said plenty himself and in fact took time out of his schedule to meet with Lammy and Starmer over dinner privately in Trump Tower in September. He’s America First but if he wants to do a deal with UK, Europe, anybody else that he think is advantageous, he will do it. If he doesn’t, whatever the noise and rhetoric, he won’t. He was the same with May.

This is a good piece by Chris Mason. A pragmatic hedging is best, probably a warm on the surface but transactional underneath as was the case with Teresa May. Trump has never been bothered with the special relationship but if dealings work for both sides then no point cutting off the UK’s nose to spite our face. It will nudge the UK government more economically and on security policy towards Europe which is logical anyway, Obama had a China pivot so that’s not new. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvzjr8w9mxo

They are really, really struggling for goals. Didn’t realise what happened with Colby Bishop - rivalry aside I hope he recovers OK with a young family. Yengi their striker last night looked terrible - turn of pace but no real football awareness for the top two divisions. If they’d had a centre forward or two last night they’d have been out of sight well before Obafemi punished them.

It might be an opportunity for the UK to pick up some of their best biomedical scientists for a few years. Not overtly targeting them but creating the incoming chairs and fellowships that all can apply for.

Hopefully this is one of them. Unfortunately with control of the Senate it’s a slightly different story. But as you say we will see. He has a rather busy foreign policy inbox too.

What I see is quite a lot of rational debate and analysing around the factors behind the scale of the result mostly with the odd more emotive post chucked in which are being criticised. But do crack on.

It’s not just the salary it what’s comes with it in terms of quality of healthcare insurance and packages. America is very uneven and that chasm will continue to grow with tariffs which will hit the lowest earners in their essential weekly items. But it’s their choice.

Xi won’t believe his luck. One rambling, incoherent old man replaced by another at the #1 superpower. Exactly what China wanted in their strategic quest. Putin will be the short-term winner but the door is wide open for China globally. We just need to get closer to Europe again and repair 2016 to mitigate the fallout.

The framing of the discourse could’ve looked very different over 12 months and Shapiro would have been a departure. Harris clearly was punished by the connection to Biden and inflation. It would have lost them more American Arab votes but gained far more elsewhere.

They shouldn’t have waited on the polling, it was obvious and in front of them, and the world really. Biden should only have ever been single term at his age, and held a full primary system. Shapiro would have beaten him, not least winning Pennsylvania but the senior Democrats lack the sharp elbows and by the time Biden did step back, none of them fancied it really in the time left in terms of trying to recover the ground lost. There was an initial bounce for Harris and we don’t agree on how she did but I don’t think they will ever vote for a woman there. She never got the strength of lead to be comfortable.

Forget all the other noise and analysis, this is what the result boils down to ☝️

They need to. Too passive overall, too reactive on the Biden issue and waited until Biden had truly shat the bed on the global stage which was unforgivable. Left Harris with a hospital pass really.

And that’s why it was such a poor decision by our lot in 2016 hitching the wagon to the US and not Europe. Trump didn’t do May or Boris any trade favours last time despite the warm words for the latter, to say the least. We’re a European country culturally, and in terms of the services we expect and rights such as reproduction.

Yep, that’s the reality of it I suspect going by the first exit polls. Plus amnesia about how bad economically Trump was last time and how many people were killed by his appalling handling of the pandemic allied to their ailing and uneven healthcare system.

As Aintforever said, the cost of living issue gave me a bad feeling from the first issues-based exit poll when I went to bed. Horrible for Ukraine and not good for NATO or Western Europe at all. We need to bury the special relationship for a while and focus on rebuilding relationships with the EU rapidly because his tariffs are going to bite economically. What happens to most America and Americans happens frankly, that’s their problem. Given the Republicans have regained the Senate too, good luck being black, female, Latino, young or needing free at the point of entry healthcare. But given the margin of victory, significant numbers of all of those groups have voted for him on the basis they think they’ll have a few more Dollars in their pocket. Even if that were true, which it won’t be in most cases, they’ll have no rights left at all. This isn’t the country of Reagan, Clinton and Bush, that’s for sure. How you can welcome back a movement which on January 6 which tried to overturn an election through violence is astonishing to Europeans in the 2020s and puts America increasingly into the Russia and China sphere for me.

Was he that Head of Media who claimed Trump had the biggest inauguration crowds ever and it was less than half full compared to Obama, Bush, Clinton and Reagan? He should work for the skates, they also love myths and false boasting. Hopefully 🤞 he gets the same result they just got at Plymouth tonight.

Beat celebration against them apart from Beattie’s in the actual derby was Wayne Bridge at Stamford Bridge. Ran the length of their section gloating. Lots of sad little blue faces on camera just before the final whistle goes. ’Pompey stay rooted to the bottom of the league. Another disappointing night for the newly promoted side’. At least it’s not just us - and no parachute payments for them.

‘170 miles we’ve driven, dominated the game and beaten by a fuckin’ scumma’

Michael Obafemi scores!

Seriously, is that true? Maybe it is, there was one last year https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/08/organiser-of-armistice-day-event-at-cenotaph-hopes-pro-palestine-protest-can-go-ahead Not a good idea though and asking for extremists to clash, Cenotaph will need a ring of steel a mile each side around it.

Better toward half-time but Plymouth poor compared to their usual home form. Mind you, the lone striker the skates have is genuinely making Ali Dia look like Mbappe out there. Their players have given him some verbal clog when he’s not made runs or looked out of it.

Quite. Also, some of the Americans of Arabic descent saying they’ll vote for Trump because of the lack of a Gaza ceasefire - err forgotten the travel ban Trump introduced on a whole heap of Arab and Muslim nations when he first came to power?

Rooney needs to shore up his central midfield because the blue few have had 35 passes in Argyle’s half to 4 the other way.