Baroness Spindly-Haddock of the Shire Ⓥ 🕷️

@raconteur_press <judas.mclewdass69 has left the chat>

Oh god…HAROLD!!!!!

Jim Hacker: Humphrey, we have to do something about Iran. Sir Humphrey Appleby: Prime Minister, the government is already doing a great deal. Jim Hacker: Such as? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Monitoring developments, coordinating with allies, reviewing contingency plans and expressing concern. Jim Hacker: That all sounds like nothing, Humphrey. Sir Humphrey Appleby: On the contrary, Prime Minister. In diplomacy it is vital to appear active without becoming involved. Jim Hacker: The Americans are bombing things, the Iranians are firing missiles, the Strait of Hormuz is practically closed and we’re… appearing active? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Precisely. Jim Hacker: Innocent people are dying, Humphrey! Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, Prime Minister. That is why the Foreign Office is drafting a very strongly worded statement about it. Jim Hacker: A statement won’t stop a war. Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, Prime Minister, but it will ensure that we are on record as having been extremely concerned while it was happening. Bernard Woolley: If I may, Prime Minister — the Cabinet Office has identified six possible courses of action. Jim Hacker: Good! What are they? Bernard Woolley: We can condemn the escalation, call for restraint, urge negotiations, support our allies, assist defensive operations or participate directly. Jim Hacker: And what do they recommend? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Supporting our allies. Jim Hacker: That sounds suspiciously like participating. Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh no, Prime Minister. Participating means fighting. Supporting merely means allowing others to fight from places that technically belong to us. Jim Hacker: Humphrey, if Iranian missiles hit one of our bases, we’ll be in the war anyway! Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, Prime Minister, but we shall have entered it with the invaluable diplomatic advantage of being surprised. Bernard Woolley: It’s generally considered the safest way to enter a war, Prime Minister. Jim Hacker: How on earth can that be safe? Sir Humphrey Appleby: Because if the war goes badly, we can say we never meant to join it. And if it goes well, we can say we were there all along.

@Feargal_Sharkey It would be a crime not to snap that up at once.

My daughter just sent me this, Facebook Marketplace, a £10, she thinks I should I get it? 🤔

It would take an entire conference of psychiatrists to diagnose whatever mental illness #Trump has ...

@raconteur_press 🤣🤣You absolutely make my day with these posts! 😆

@KayStoneArt I could sit and look at a field of rape for ages. The colour is just gorgeous, and you've absolutely got that exact colour. The contrasting sky is so dramatic, and against that rich, vibrant backdrop is a wee hare, caught in the moment. I love it.

My painting "The Old Hare "What does everyone think?

@AwTroon You can see him calculating angles and tangents and distances between A and B!🤣🤣

Here we go again ffs. #CatsLoveHighPlaces.

The Pentagon tried to force journalists to sign a "loyalty pledge" to Pete Hegseth. 📝 They walked out instead—and a federal judge just ruled the whole policy UNCONSTITUTIONAL! ⚖️ Huge win for the First Amendment! DETAILS HERE: dworkinsubstack.com/p/trump-cant-s…

Deutsche Bank settled for $75 million. JPMorgan settled for $290 million. Leon Black settled for $62.5 million. That's $427.5 million paid by people who claimed they had nothing to do with Epstein. Nobody has been charged.

Was it for this that the US spent 80 years building power and alliances? Not to be a force for good. But instead to impoverish neighbours, threaten those it protected, rob minerals from war-torn countries, and break its promises to 100s of millions of the poorest in the world? 🧵

New York hospitals dump Palantir. It’s possible @uklabour

@Billbrowder A Russian with family links to the old KGB, given a peerage in the House of Lords by Alexander "security risk" Johnson? Nothing to see here. 🤣

Lord Lebedev of Siberia apparently has the lowest attendance record in the House of Lords of all peers. Makes you wonder why he wanted to be a Lord in the first place. Very strange. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

🚨When it comes to explaining the military situation in Iran, Sky News has Professor Michael Clarke, a Kings College lecturer. GB News has Jeff Banks, a fashion designer. You couldn't make it🤣🤣🤣

Just a vile, hate-filled windbag inviting Iran to bomb a UK town because she hates the people that lives there. Let that sink in, she wants British people dead.

Iran just told Trump to go ahead and pull the trigger. Thirty-three hours left on the clock, and Tehran didn’t blink. It escalated. Trump threatened to obliterate Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t open for business within 48 hours. A reasonable person might have expected some back-channel signal, a quiet diplomatic murmur, maybe a phone call through Oman. Instead, Iran’s senior military command walked up to the microphone and announced that its entire strategic posture has shifted. Not defensive. Offensive. The country has enough reserves to last a year. The Strait is closing completely. Every vital piece of infrastructure in the Middle East, energy, water desalination, IT, is now a declared target. This is not a country signalling that it wants a way out. This is a country that has decided the cost of backing down exceeds the cost of the wall it’s about to hit. Which puts Trump in the kind of position he has never actually been in before: a deadline he set, in public, that the other side just laughed at. He can obliterate the power plants. In which case Iran closes the Strait, hits the desalination plants that keep Saudi Arabia and the UAE alive, and about a fifth of the world’s oil supply disappears overnight. Markets open Monday to scenes that make 2008 look like a minor correction. Or he doesn’t. In which case every adversary on earth just watched the President of the United States issue an ultimatum and absorb a public humiliation in real time. There is no clean exit here. There is no art to this deal. Thirty-three hours. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1