Justin Bronk has published a very interesting update on RUSI: Four Years On: An Update on the Air War Over Ukraine
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The government consultation document “Making public services work for you with your digital identity” gives its chapters aspirational names like “Useful”, “Inclusive”, and “Trusted”. Here’s the description for “Trusted”:
* There’s an interesting report in today’s Telegraph:
July 5th, 2026 | 5 comments
 And, btw, when it comes to words, Trump made one of his most astonishing public lies recently about how Putin did not help Iran in the recent war. Speaking at the G7, Trump went out of his way to praise Putin for being “neutral” in the Iran War. Here is what he said.
Of course, Russia was anything but neutral in the war, and provided key support to Iran, support that seems to have helped the Iranians win the war and defeat US forces (and defeat Trump). This Russian help went from vital drone components, targeting intelligence to help the Iranians hit US bases, sanctions evasion help and the delivery of finished munitions. So Trump has recently gone to great lengths to lie and protect Putin and to loosen sanctions on the Russian economy. But hey, he did not insult Ukraine. People are such rubes. June 28th, 2026 | 59 comments
Some epic reportage by Caolan Robertson. Highly recommended. June 7th, 2026 | 14 comments
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Many years ago, I was chatting with the grandmother of a family friend, whose name was Hannelore. She grew up in Germany on a family farm in Schleswig-Holstein, not far from Hamburg, and candidly admitted that as landowning farmers, they all feared the communists and so were broadly supportive of the NSDAP during the 1930s. Indeed, when the war started, any misgivings they had evaporated when Poland swiftly fell in 1939, and then France collapsed in a month and a half campaign in 1940. The family even attended some pro-government rallies to celebrate these victories. By 1943, Hannelore said it was clear it was not going to be a short war, as Allied bombers were now a constant presence in the skies above. It was also very hard to find farm labourers as the war effort was consuming more and more resources by then. Yet even so, the family remained broadly optimistic about the war ending with German victory. But then in late July for an entire week, the RAF and USAAF filled the sky over Hamburg by day and by night. And although Hannelore did not know it at the time, it was called Operation Gomorrah. She told me that on one night in particular, her father called the whole family outside. It was bright as day, the entire skyline to the south a line of incandescent light. By morning, white dust entirely covered their home and farmland, with a constant rain of ash still falling from the sky. 40,000 people had burned to death in a firestorm in a single day in Hamburg. And only then, our friend’s grandmother said, did they finally realise everything was not going to be alright and the war had been a catastrophic mistake. Only then, and from then onwards, did everything they read in the newspapers or heard on the radio ring hollow. I was in my late teens sitting in an old farmhouse in Scotland when Hannelore told me that story from her youth. So, on this portentous Beltane as I watched a series of videos from Tuapse in Russia, I had something of a flashback to that story told me several decades ago. In the early days of the ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine in 2022, there was a series of rallies in Tuapse in support of Putin’s government. I wonder if perspectives have started shift now that the reality of this war is coming home to Russia in earnest. May 1st, 2026 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
I will start by saying that there is no doubt whatsoever that Jeffrey Epstein carried out multiple sex offences against children. He was justly convicted in 2019, and should have been brought to justice earlier than he was. But I was disturbed by one aspect of the way this story about Epstein that appears on the BBC website was reported: Epstein housed abuse victims in London flats, BBC reveals
The thing that disturbed me about the BBC’s reporting was the uncritical way in which these adult women were described as “victims” and the way that their claim to have been coerced was reported as absolute fact. Why should that disturb me? Not because I think that Epstein was incapable of such a crime: we know he was a twice-convicted sexual predator. I also know that sexual coercion can be combined with lavish gifts and a luxurious prison. And I utterly reject the barbaric belief that sexual coercion “does not count” if the victim had previously agreed to sex, including sex that was paid for. Allegations of this type of crime must be taken seriously. As I have said many times, “taken seriously” means “carefully investigated”, not “automatically believed”. A pity my first reaction upon reading this story was to laugh. Related posts: Believe or disbelieve individuals, not whole groups – about Neil Gaiman. The feminist movement denies rape victims justice If you don’t care whether a rape really happened, you don’t care about rape April 24th, 2026 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
The media’s fixation on Epstein, sordid though the Epstein story indisputably is, has performed a remarkable public service for those who would prefer the harder questions to go unasked. We are so busy being appalled by the dead paedophile that we have forgotten to be appalled by what the living intelligence services were actually worried about: that Britain sent to its most sensitive diplomatic post a man with deep, documented, inadequately severed financial ties to both Peking and Moscow. That is the scandal. Not the gossip. The geopolitics. I note as I write this that some in the media are finally looking into this aspect. But let’s focus on Nathan Gill and Epstein. April 21st, 2026 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Today please remember the victims of the Katyn Massacre. In 1940, thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals were executed by the Soviet paramilitaries. We will never let this be forgotten. April 13th, 2026 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
J.D. Vance, who is the Vice President of the USA, goes to Hungary, an EU member state, and delivers a campaign speech for Victor Orban, the president of Hungary, in which Vance accuses the EU of… interference in Hungary’s elections. Am I the only one who finds that absolutely hilarious? April 9th, 2026 | 47 comments - (Comments are closed)
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