Kipling and Christ

For the retired people in the comments claiming "I paid more than my fair share". Actually, most of you didn't. You're being subsidised by me, my peers, and the children we won't be able to have.

The state pension is a social security benefit funded by today’s working population. This is a fact, whether you like it or not.

By 2027, there will be 3million pensioners who pay higher or additional rate tax. These people, by definition, are in the top 20% of all UK earners. Yet they will still receive a £12K a year state pension, in a direct transfer of cash from the poorer young to the wealthier old.

When I married in 1981 we both worked & most of our salary went on paying the mortgage as the interest rate was 15% at the time. Everything we owned was 2nd hand & we never went out for meals as we couldn’t afford to. We rented our TV Went to the launderette every weekend as had no washing machine. Only had new clothes at Xmas & birthdays as presents. We went without until we could save enough to pay for something. It’s always been hard whether you are young or old. So those out there that think we had it easy we didn’t. Our governments are to blame, not the old.

Let’s be real here. Europe has spent decades freeloading on American security. Even now, with every NATO member finally hitting the 2% GDP target in 2025. But beyond the financial contributions, the real rupture is philosophical and the Iran crisis has shown a spotlight on it. Europe worships process. Endless committees, consultations, and “predictability.” Macron actually calls it a virtue. For Trump, this is paralysis as his style is to articulate a threat, fix a target, and act. The Americans are men of conviction and purpose. Europe on the other hand lives by bureaucratic liturgy and in high-minded abstractions. Sure, Americans might make mistakes when acting. But Europe never considers what the costs of not acting actually are. Just look at how their nations are doing on various fronts, especially on the border crisis, and you see the same cancerous rot that undergirds their foreign policy approach play out domestically. It's the same problem on a different scale. Iran is currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, choking 20% of global oil and spiking prices past $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, the regime is bleeding from strikes, its nuclear ambitions are still alive despite degraded capability, and its proxies are firing missiles at allies and oil tankers. If this isn’t a clear and present danger to the global economy - of which Europe is a part - then I don’t know what is. Yet when Washington asked to use European bases to finish the job - bases the US has defended for generations, the response was hesitation and hand-wringing. The US did strike from RAF Fairford, but only after warnings that British soil could become a “legitimate target.” If you cannot agree that a theocratic regime with eschatological ambitions who have shown no restraint in hitting out at Gulf countries and threatening the world’s energy jugular is an enemy worth confronting, then what, exactly, are we allies about? Europe loves to preen about being tough on Russia. They issue condemnations and speeches and slap sanctions that hardly work to cripple the Russian economy. Now here was a chance to do something concrete: let the Americans use the bases they already pay for, help clear the Strait, and actually degrade the Iranian war machine that arms Moscow’s proxies. Turmp didn’t ask for boots on the ground or any kind of more offensive action. All he wanted was permission to operate from the infrastructure America has underwritten for decades. They couldn’t even manage that. So can you blame the Americans for seeing NATO for what it is? A paper-tiger alliance that expects Washington to bleed and pay while Brussels and London convenes and deliberates. If Europe refuses to treat Iran as the threat it is while happily letting American power keep the Strait open and the lights on, then the alliance is already dead. Trump is simply stating the obvious and the Americans are becoming very reluctant to subsidize the European delusion any longer.