"More fundamentally, we must ask why so much of official Britain, and especially its security establishment, keeps clinging for dear life to the United States, behaving for all the world like someone stuck in an abusive personal relationship"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/21/britain-us-special-relationship-trump-starmer
@simon_brooke The UK clings to the USA so that it can continue to cosplay empire, long after the empire collapsed.
The UK gets piles of intel, and access to buy small doses of American war toys. Above all, the UK"s leaders still get to put on solemn voices and pontificate in favour of English-speakers massacring brown people, just as they have for centuries.
It's vicarious imperialism.
As you know, Simon, we have skin in that particular ‘over the pond’ game.
The fear and despair is real. Not least because the US is a currently a country that is perfectly content to kill off its own citizens with its insurance based health system.
Allow me to relate a case here:
A fully insured citizen with known cardiac issues is blue lighted to cardiac unit following an automated SOS alerted event. fully insured citizen with known cardiac issues is blue lighted to cardiac unit following an automated SOS alerted event.
This is the patient’s usual hospital where they are normally treated. Patient is tested multiple times/ways and discharged after 2 nights stay in the hospital.
The bill arrives and it is $239,000. Because the patient is fully insured, thank goodness, they only have to find $11,000, payable in a single lump sum, this would increase if only split payments were possible.
For those here in the UK or the EU, this appears almost outlandish. Over the pond people lose their lives, their livelihoods, their homes and their jobs in the name of profit.
I am so sorry Simon. I feel these things personally, as you know, and so try to fight here against descending into the abyss of insurance based health provision.
I note Reform are punting the ‘we will keep NHS free at the point of delivery’ line. This cannot be allowed to go unchallenged given their parallel offering of ‘pay as little tax as possible’
I have and heard Lord Offload’s hideous reply … burble wurble “fruity language in their past life” burble wurble … our candidates are real people burble wurble…
I got a very interesting window into the level of outrage held by Americans well before Luigi became a thing.
I was in a jury pool for what was going to be a reinsurance case.
The lawyers involved went to great pains to explain to us that the case had absolutely nothing to do with the health industry. Apparently, from previous experience, most people immediately assume it’s healthcare and gave vent to exactly how they felt about American health insurance
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @barfilfarm I cannot at all understand how ordinary American voters can be repeatedly be persuaded to vote against universal socialised health care.
But similarly, in the UK we have one of the lowest costs per patient and per treatment of any health care system in the rich world, and outcomes which although not the very best are massively better than in insurance-based systems, but our politicians try to persuade us it's unaffordable.
I wonder why?
And that dark money has made its way into the UK for a long time just different. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power at the same time because rich people had started their campaign to control society.
See there can be too much pesky democracy, and that happens when the great unwashed become educated and have enough time and resources to be involved in their own governance.
@michaelgraaf @GhostOnTheHalfShell @barfilfarm and because with the increasing capital intensity of modern warfare, and the consequent decreasing labour intensity, the oligarch class no longer feel so dependent on the proletariat to fight their wars for them.
Wars end when soldiers refuse to fight; if you don't need soldiers, they don't need to end at all.
@simon_brooke -2 edited correctly, apologies
A fully insured citizen with known cardiac issues is blue lighted to cardiac unit following an automated SOS alerted event.
This is the patient’s usual hospital where they are normally treated. Patient is tested multiple times/ways and discharged after 2 nights stay in the hospital.
Simon Brooke
Claire McNab
Maggie Gordon
Peter Brown
GhostOnTheHalfShell
Michael Graaf
Smiling Heretic