Peter #FBPE🇪🇺🇩🇰🇩🇪#Rejoiner

@domhowson I'd be pleasantly surprised.

🔵⚪️ Extremely tough assignment for #htafc this weekend. Only leaders Lincoln (37) have earned more points in League One than Plymouth (30) this calendar year. The Pilgrims have also won six of their last eight league matches (D1 L1). Can Town go there and grind out a result? 🤔

@RpsAgainstTrump We certainly won't forget the tangerine trollop. I hope that Americans start using their brains in the next election.

Trump: Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER! They didn’t want to join the fight to stop a Nuclear Powered Iran…COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!

@Frio_river @joni_askola I wonder why they're not dropping out of the sky already? Incompetence? No planning? We've got our own oil and gas too, not as much as the US, but you'll still be paying more to fill up. Going green is the answer.

The U.S. has it's own Oil. We don't need you to save Trump. We don't need this oil, other countries, like yours do. But no, I wouldn't pass through yet. Once we get our jamming set up, these drones will fall out of the sky. That, with the air defense and navy escorts, we will get the Oil to you soon,.

Trump is now cornered in the Strait of Hormuz. He is forced to choose between massive military escalation and embarrassing concessions in order to restore global shipping. Stumbling into this severe bottleneck is a textbook example of strategic failure

@Frio_river @joni_askola Would you pass through the strait on a ship full of oil while this hell is going on. I wouldn't. Certainly not to save the orange buffoon.

US Apache helicopters (AH-64) and A-10 Warthogs (Thunderbolt II attack aircraft) have been deployed to hunt and destroy Iranian fast-attack boats, mine-layers, drones, and other threats. They can loiter, scout with sensors, and unleash hellfire precisely. The Apache flies low and strikes with precision weapons (Hellfire missiles, 30mm chain gun, rockets) before the target can react effectively. You don't see it. By the time you hear the rotors, it’s already engaging. Known as the “grim reaper” or “hell from above”. The Strait will be known as The Highway to Hell.

I’ll just drop this little nugget right here.

@RepMikeLevin @KimberlyBold Before the English civil wars started King Charles I would go to Parliament to get the money for wars and would close a session if he wasn't happy with the response. They eventually took action and he lost his head, literally. Trump has more unaccountable power than a king.

$200 billion. No briefing, strategy, or end game. No respect for Congress. I sit on the Appropriations Committee. I have received zero justification. Hegseth’s entire case to the American people is “it takes money to kill bad guys.” That’s an insult. To Congress and the Constitution. And most of all, to the men and women putting their lives on the line right now. Our service members are the best this country has. They are brave, skilled, and they deserve leadership worthy of their sacrifice. They deserve a clear mission. A defined objective. A strategy that someone in this administration has actually thought through. They are not props for a policy that nobody can consistently explain. Yes, a nuclear-armed Iran is a threat. I believe that. But how we confront that threat matters. The path we take matters. The cost in lives and dollars matters. And who gets to weigh in on all of that matters. That’s not weakness. That’s the Constitution. First the reports were $50 billion. Then $100 billion. Now $200 billion. With no breakdown, no timeline, no accountability. Where the hell are my Republican House colleagues? Collins and Murkowski are asking questions in the Senate. The House is silent. That silence is a dereliction of duty. We are a co-equal branch of government. The power of the purse is ours. This is not a technicality. It is the last line of defense against exactly this kind of reckless blank-check governance. Our troops deserve better. The American people deserve better. nytimes.com/2026/03/19/wor…

@SkinnerPm He must be missing quite a bit of his frontal lobe matter to not rein in this type of thinking.

When the president is rude & insane & insulting, he is rude & insane & insulting in our name. All of us. This isn’t a random senile old crank spouting insults. He’s the president of the United States of America. Regardless of your vote, he represents us. And he’s destroying us.

@atrupar Sad man, sad country.

Rep. Scott Perry: "I would actually like to see Iran pay for this. Whether it's $20 billion or $200 billion, whatever it is. Look, they've been at war with us for 47 years and it's finally being ended by the president, which is awesome, but it comes at a cost. They have resources. They could pay that bill."

@BohuslavskaKate They're seeking to blame anyone else in order to minimise the political fallout. Oddly this blame game benefits Russia the most.

Hegseth: "We're still dealing with the environment Joe Biden created—depleting our stockpiles and sending them to Ukraine instead of our own military. Every time we face a challenge, it traces back to 'Well, sent it to Ukraine.'" It looks like they’re just going to blame Ukraine whenever anything goes wrong now, doesn’t it? It’s depressing to watch because while this administration will eventually leave office, a segment of Americans will keep hating Ukraine without even remembering why.

@rothschildmd He's doing a good job of selling nuclear proliferation, not only to Iran but to everyone else.

Trump is so disinhibited and disconnected from reality that he's openly talking about going nuclear in Iran. I'd imagine he has one adviser telling him that using nukes would make him history's most important president and own the woke left, and another reminding him nuclear war would be bad for his golf courses and hotels. Which one he listens to might decide the fate of the world.

Before insulting Japan, Trump insulted Germany, France, Denmark, and, in short, almost all of the United States' historical allies. The one country he has never insulted and probably never will is Russia...

This is probably the most important article of the month: an op-ed by Oman's Foreign Minister, who mediated the talks between the U.S. and Iran, in which he writes that the U.S. "has lost control of its foreign policy" to Israel. He repeats that a deal was possible as an outcome of the talks (something confirmed by the UK's National Security Advisor, who also attended: x.com/i/status/20341…) and that the military strike by the U.S. and Israel was "a shock." Interestingly, given he is one of Iran's neighbors and given that Oman has been struck multiple times by Iran since the war began (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran…), he writes that "Iran’s retaliation against what it claims are American targets on the territory of its neighbours was an inevitable result" of the U.S.-Israeli attack. He describes it as "probably the only rational option available to the Iranian leadership." He says the war "endangers" the region's entire "economic model in which global sport, tourism, aviation and technology were to play an important role." He adds that "if this had not been anticipated by the architects of this war, that was surely a grave miscalculation." But, he adds, the "greatest miscalculation" of all for the U.S. "was allowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place." In his view this was the doing of "Israel’s leadership" who "persuaded America that Iran had been so weakened by sanctions, internal divisions and the American-Israeli bombings of its nuclear sites last June, that an unconditional surrender would swiftly follow the initial assault and the assassination of the supreme leader." Obviously, this proved completely wrong, and the U.S. is now in a quagmire. He says that, given this, "America’s friends have a responsibility to tell the truth," which is that "there are two parties to this war who have nothing to gain from it," namely "Iran and America." He says that all of the U.S. interests in the region (end to nuclear proliferation, secure energy supply chains, investment opportunities) are "best achieved with Iran at peace." As he writes, "this is an uncomfortable truth to tell, because it involves indicating the extent to which America has lost control of its own foreign policy. But it must be told." He then proposes a couple of paths to get back to the negotiating table, although he recognizes how difficult it would be for Iran "to return to dialogue with an administration that twice switched abruptly from talks to bombing and assassination." That's perhaps the most profound damage Trump did during this entire episode: the complete discrediting of diplomacy. If Iran was taught anything, it is: don't negotiate with the U.S., it's a trap that will literally kill you. The great irony of the man who sold himself as a dealmaker is that he taught the world one thing: don't make deals with my country. Link to the article: economist.com/by-invitation/…

Return your unwanted Reform UK flyers to this address and it costs them £2.50 a pop. Pop this address on an envelope with the flyer in, and pop it in a post box! The more we return, the less they will send!

Covid inquiry

Department of Justice, Washington DC

@sailor_rog19339 @alexwickham Iran had just offered everything the West would want in the talks, attended by British officials. We'll be very lucky to get them back into that position again. It's likely that we'll be left with an embittered regime or a very lengthy period of instability. Oh & Greenland.

President Trump posted the most consequential statement about the Western alliance since its foundation. NATO allies, he wrote, privately agreed that Iran could not be allowed a nuclear weapon but refused to help when asked. Asking allies to step up was a loyalty test. Who stands with America when it matters and who hides. Moments like this expose the real value of alliances. Those who refuse to stand up in the most decisive fight for global stability shouldn’t expect to enjoy the benefits of American military might. America no longer needs or desires their assistance. We never did. Understand that statement. This is not bluster. It is a doctrine. Trump is telling every European government that the Article 5 guarantee they have sheltered under for seventy years was always conditional, and that they have now demonstrated they will not honor their side of the arrangement when it matters. The mutual defense alliance that kept the peace in Europe since 1949 has just been publicly declared a one-way street by the President of the United States. Every adversary watching, Russia, China, Iran, will draw the same conclusion simultaneously. The United States now faces a moment that calls for clarity. Alliances cannot be sustained on one-sided commitments. They require reciprocity - in both respect and responsibility. An alliance, by definition, is a mutual obligation. When that principle erodes, so too does the foundation of the partnership. Britain's fingerprints are all over this moment. Starmer blocked Diego Garcia. He needed a drone on his own runway to reverse the decision. He consulted his team on minesweepers. He watched France, Greece and Spain defend a British base while HMS Dragon sat in Portsmouth. He offered an aircraft carrier after the war was won and was told it was no longer wanted. He issued a joint humanitarian statement about Lebanon that did not mention Hezbollah once. At every stage of this crisis he chose the path of least domestic political resistance over the obligations of the oldest and most important bilateral relationship in British foreign policy. Trump's post also hands every adversary a strategic map. A Western alliance whose European members privately agree on the threat but publicly refuse to act against it is not an alliance. It is a talking shop with a defense clause nobody intends to honor. Putin will have read this post with considerable satisfaction. So will Beijing. The fracture that Starmer and his European counterparts have opened is not merely reputational. It is structural. And it will not be repaired by a press conference or a carefully worded statement about the special relationship being in operation. Churchill understood that alliances are maintained by behavior not words. You show up or you do not. Britain did not show up. Trump has noticed. And he has said so, in capital letters, for the entire world to read. The consequences of Starmer's calculations are no longer theoretical. They are here, on Truth Social, signed by the President of the United States of America. At every stage of this crisis, Europe chose the path of least domestic political resistance over the obligations of the oldest and most important bilateral relationship in US-European foreign policy. America is fully prepared to withdraw from NATO and other Mutual Defense Agreements with all that implies: Withdrawing Military Troops, funding, weapon systems, C4I Command & Control Intelligence sharing, Anti-air & Anti-missile systems, nuclear weapons, even the Submarine trident missiles Britain leases… everything and let the arrogant parasitic European and Asian countries defend themselves.

NEW: US allies do not see a realistic way of reopening the Strait of Hormuz without ending the war. G7 countries have been discussing how they could help Trump. There are conversations about a framework for Hormuz security. The UK has sent military planners to the US for talks. But the reality is these conversations are at a very early stage and US allies are not looking at sending naval assets until the conflict eases. US allies are yet to be convinced there is any credible military plan to reopen the strait. The UK has been in talks with Lloyds of London about insurance products and prices when the situation calms. But even then insurance is not seen as the big issue - it is safety. It marks a widening disconnect between the US and Europe over the war amid concerns Trump ultimately doesn’t have a plan. Meanwhile energy prices are soaring, bonds tumbling and interest rates are set to rise. With @EllenAMilligan @golnarM >> bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

A further damning report has just been released on the Covid Inquiry. You’d think it would be worthy of discussion. But as it highlights more catastrophic Tory failure it’s ignored. #PoliticsLive

Hello @Ofcom is there anybody there? Any chance of a statement @Ofcom? Perhaps stating a full review or investigation into GB News is appropriate? Possibly enforcing earlier finding? Maybe getting this issue by the scruff of the neck? Or is it all just a little bit too much?

Right. So let me get this straight. The most expensive military on the planet, a institution that consumes more money annually than the GDP of most countries, looked at a twenty thousand dollar drone and said, yes, the correct response to this is a four hundred thousand dollar missile. Twenty times the cost. They did the maths and thought, brilliant, let’s do that. Repeatedly. And then, magnificently, one week in, they rang Ukraine. Ukraine. The country their own president had just finished publicly flogging in the Oval Office like a Victorian schoolmaster with a particularly dim pupil. Trump stood there, chest out, that extraordinary hair doing whatever it does, and announced to the assembled cameras of the world that Ukraine was absolutely the last country he would ever consider asking for help. Seven days later, someone in the Pentagon picked up the phone. The truly staggering part is not the incompetence. Incompetence is everywhere, it’s practically ambient at this point. No, what takes your breath away is the confidence. These people were not quietly embarrassed and privately regrouping. They were strutting. Full chest, full volume, telling the world how this was going to go. It did not go that way. Ukraine, the country they don’t need, is now apparently quite necessary. Remarkable.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Stay connected, Gandalv @Microinteracti1

We're all wondering WTF @Ofcom is doing? 👇👇 @LisaNandy was on @BBCSounds today, on #R4MediaShow - what's she & Labour Govt #DCMS dept going to do about this 👇👇 Gone on for too fekin long #PoliticsLive #C4News #Newsnight