Jeremy's Den: Can We Be Together?

Where are the frontiers? How do I get there?

There are no maps, there are no roads, just you and me on these streets of gold

(Paul Kantner, America, 1986)

The difference between 1935 Germany and 2025 United States is that 1935 Germany did not have ninety years of books and documentaries warning it about 1935 Germany.

(Anonymous on Bluesky, December 2025)

Ten years ago today, we lost the great Paul Kantner, barely three weeks after David Bowie. That was another early sign that 2016 was going to be a really shite year, and we didn't need the results of the Brexit referendum to know that. For half a century, Kantner was the brains of Jefferson Airplane and then Jefferson Starship in its various incarnations, with various short-lived endeavours filling the gaps, like the KBC Band and Wooden Ships. Despite his association with the Summer of Love and such stuff, he was never a real hippie, but more of a inspired political activist turning pamphlets into memorable songs, with his cultural references in the earlier Beat Generation. Today's soundtrack is not a single album, but a collection of Kantner's songs through the years and mostly in chronological order, Not all of them though, as I had to wrap the news about the incoming midterms in Trumpistan in strongly militant songs Kantner wrote later in his career. And you can only dream of what he would write today about the atrocious state of the USA, and how it is deteriorating by the day. But right now, generic polls for the House of Representatives elections look fucking bad and not really improving for the Republican Party despite recent fluctuations.

The background is of course Trump's growing unpopularity with both registered independents and part of the MAGA base. But it is measured differently over there, just like Celsius and Fahrenheit. Keir Starmer can only dream of 40% approval, that would be peak popularity by our standards. But, by American standards, 40% approval is the bottom of the abyss, and Trump is now on 39% according to YouGov. Trump's weapon to avoid an electoral disaster was gerrymandering in Republican states, but it is not going according to plan. Only one Republican gerrymandering has been approved, in Texas. Another one, in Indiana, has been blocked by the local Republican lawmakers themselves, who refused to take their orders from the White House. Meanwhile, a Democratic counter-gerrymandering has been approved by referendum in California, that will nullify the effects of the Texas gerrymandering. So, for the time being, I do not apply any correction to my model's seat projection, although I will reconsider if more gerrymanderings are approved and enforced. So the House is predicted to switch from an uncomfortable majority of five seats for the Republicans to a more solid one of thirty-three seats for the Democrats.

Of course, lousy polls will be irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential if the Orange Baboon does what his most ardent zealots are hinting he could do. Declare martial law nationwide and cancel the midterms. Which would be unconstitutional and violate several dozen federal and state laws, but what does he care? The Supreme Court would whitewash it ex post facto anyway, so he is probably in the mood to try it and has even joked about it publicly. This is probably his only nuclear weapon, as the federal government has very little power to rig elections. Only the franchise is a federal matter, and there is no credible scenario in which the current Congress would even consider altering it. Then the whole electoral process is determined by state laws, including the Orange Baboon's and Elon Muck's pet hate, postal voting. There is actually fuck all evidence that postal voting generates electoral fraud, despite repeated claims from Muck's "citizen journalists", so any attempt to suppress it in Republican states would be purely ideological. The same applies to the use of voting machines instead of paper ballots, also a matter for the states to decide. So, with almost no way to massively rig the elections, all Trump has left is a coup. But, in this case, the SAS motto does not apply, and Who Dares Loses.

We’re doing such a great job, maybe we should just keep rolling. When you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.

(Donald Trump, 15 January 2026)

I’m so much more confident than I was a year ago. If I had to bet money, I’d bet we take back the Senate.

(Chuck Schumer, 14 January 2026)

The incoming elections for the United States Senate may not be as predictable as they once were. Of the 35 seats up this year, 13 are held by Democrats and 22 by Republicans. And, contrary to common wisdom that the party with most seats up is the most vulnerable, all but one of those Republican seats looked impregnable until a few weeks ago. Then came Greenland, which I will explore in depth later, but has already invited itself into the American election cycle. The thought of the USA going into war with the rest of NATO because Trump has a penis issue is quite horrifying for the American public, and four Republican Senators have already warned that it will end his presidency if he does it. Europe's reaction to the invasion threat and the new wave of asinine tariffs, choosing resistance over submission, has also impressed many Americans, as they definitely did not expect us to grow baws overnight. Some of the not-totally-batshit-crazy Republican voters are thinking twice about their allegiance to the MAGA doxa, though it is not quite enough yet to flip the Senate. The January polls predict three seats switching from Republicans to Democrats, but also one switching the other way.

Democrats are officially radiating with more confidence, even if the path to a majority in the Senate is still an uphill race strewn with obstacles. Because Greenland comes on top of other issues that worry the American electorate. Contrary to the Orange Baboon's campaign promises and current lies, inflation is still running high and the American public have at last awaken to the very basic fact that more tariffs will increase it. Even moderate centrists are worried by ICE being used as Trump's personal militia and murdering a peaceful mother of three with total impunity. And more and more are openly mentioning Trump's dementia, and no fabricated health bulletin will alleviate their concerns. The Democratic are definitely counting on the cumulative effect of all this, plus the huge likelihood of further outrageous actions from the White House, and are willing to concentrate their efforts on the weakest Republican seats. Next in line is Ohio, just because of the huge significance of gaining J.D. Vance's old seat just two years after the Republicans unexpectedly gained the state's other seat. They definitely need that kind of upset to do better than the current prediction, that has Republicans narrowly holding the Senate.

There is still one obstacle across the Democrats' path to a take-over of the Senate, their primaries. Four of their incumbents are retiring, and the primary in Michigan is already proving divisive before it even started. Which is really bad as this is the weakest of their seats, predicted by polls to switch sides. Democrats are also having an already divisive primary in Maine, their most likely gain in November, and the latest polls point to a very tight race, though Democrats remain favourites there. The primaries are also already made less predictable because of what you could call the Mamdani Effect, the advent of a new generation of bolder progressives in their forties, whose openly stated goal is to kick out the current Democratic establishment, the majority of which have been there since their forties, around the time of the Clinton presidency. There is thusly still a narrow path for the Democratic Party, between solidifying their expected success and derailing it because of internecine feuds.

At this time last year there was no path for the Democrats. There is a path now, but every single thing has to go right for them.

(Cook Political Report, 16 January 2026)

You got to win the midterms because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be... I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me. I'll get impeached.

(Donald Trump, 9 January 2026)

Elections will also be held for the Governors in 36 states, with incumbents evenly split 18-18 between Democrats and Republicans. There is a symbolic value to these elections as Republicans currently hold 26 governorships and Democrats 24. The Democrats are obviously hoping to switch a few states so they can brag that they are now in charge of a majority of states. These elections may not look like much seen from Europe, as we are obviously paying more attention to what may happen in Congress, and whether or not it will derail Trump's plan to implement the authoritarian Christo-fascist Project 2025. But, for Americans, these elections are just as important, and in some cases even more, given the powers granted to Governors by the rules of American federalism. Based on the results of the previous elections, Republicans seem to be starting with more strengths and Democrats with more weak points.

But this picture of the past is a bit misleading, as 34 of these elections were held in 2022, Biden's midterms, and a lot has changed since. Two, in New Hampshire and Vermont, were held in 2024, and there is no doubt that a lot has changed too since then, as the effects of buyer's remorse are amplifying. So the basic facts that Republicans are defending two governorships in states that Kamala Harris won in 2024 (New Hampshire and Vermont), while Democrats are defending five governorships in states that Donald Trump won in 2024 (Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), may now be totally irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential. Polls actually say that Democrats are generally stronger in the states they hold, while Republicans are generally weaker in theirs, though a couple of exceptions exist. Nevertheless, the aggregate of state-wide polls shows little movement for now.

The current predictions would deliver a nationwide tie, with Republicans and Democrats holding 25 governorships each. Of course Democrats are hoping to do much better than that. Holding the governorship in Kansas, a usually solidly Republican state, may prove too much of a challenge. But they now have their sights firmly set on Georgia, New Hampshire and Ohio, in the hope of a snowballing trickle-down effect from strong Senate campaigns in states where Republicans appear unexpectedly weakened. If the Democrats' master plan is to take back control of Congress, it definitely makes sense to augment this by switching as many governorships as possible too. Especially as the impact on peoples' everyday life would be stronger so long as Trump and Congress keep fighting about foreign policy and fail to significantly address the peoples' more immediate concerns like inflation and health care. States do have meaningful powers, significantly but not exclusively through the devolved part of taxation, so Democrats will be keen to stress how much good their Governors have already done, and how much more could be done in the future with more Democrats in charge.

Now, I won't say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news will say, "He wants the elections canceled. He's a dictator". They always call me a dictator.

(Donald Trump, 15 January 2026)

The president has made his priorities quite clear. He wants the United States to acquire Greenland. He believes this is best for our national security.

(Karoline Leavitt, 14 January 2026)

The self-anointed experts in international relations have got their scenarios for World War Three all wrong. It will not be fought between Russia and the West because of Ukraine. It will not be fought between China and the United States over Taiwan. It will be fought between the European Union and the United States over Greenland. No shit. Before laughing your arse out, just consider this. What were the odds that the First World War would start in Sarajevo, between Austria-Hungary and Serbia? Zero, nada, fuck all. All the experts will testify to this, it should have started between the United Kingdom and Germany somewhere between Kamerun and Tanganyika, in a clash of competing colonialisms. That's what the logic of history said, and the reason why Germany and the United Kingdom had indulged in a massive naval arms race since the end of the previous century. The first skirmish of World War Three may even happen between the United States and the United Kingdom, and I have a YouGov poll to support that. They asked us how we would feel about sending British troops to Greenland to deter an American invasion, and a majority of us support it.

If you agree to send troops to defend an ally against a hostile takeover, then you also agree with what they would have to do if the takeover became reality. Shoot first, talk later, basically. Of course, the Orange Baboon may also follow Marco Rubio's advice and bribe Greenlanders to agree to annexation by the United States. He has reportedly already offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for an undisclosed amount, rumoured to be higher than Denmark's GDP. Which, at purchasing power parity, is $514bn, so that would be $9bn per Greenlander, give or take. And they still told him to fuck off. Nobody really knows if the invasion, and NATO's first civil war will ever happen, because we all know Trump is totally unpredictable as dementia means he can't remember what he has said from one day to the next, so each day is his first day dealing with a given situation. YouGov's branch office in Trumpistan have also polled their people about Greenland, and they don't show much enthusiasm.

Saying that you support something only if does not involve the use of brute force, while knowing that it cannot be achieved without the use of brute force may be peak MAGA stupidity, but the key point is that half of American adults oppose the Greenland adventure. Nevertheless, the feeling of utter confusion surges back with YouGov's next question, whether or not Americans believe that Trump will actually use brute force to seize Greenland. They are split, which is probably the price to pay for unpredictability on the top rung of the food chain. Some of them may also remember that Trump does not have the constitutional power to order such an operation, though he disregarded this wee detail when launching his "special military operation" in Venezuela. He has to seek and receive Congressional approval before sending The Boys in harm's way. Even George W. Bush played it by the book before the invasion of Iraq. But we of course know that the rule of law and precedent mean jack shit to the Orange Baboon. For all we know, he probably doesn't even know what that means.

As always with the Orange Baboon, we must not overlook the psychological side of his obsessive fixation on Greenland. Greenland is fucking big, nine times the size of the United Kingdom and a quarter of the United States. And Trump is obsessively fixated on everything BIG, to compensate for his own tiny dick, reliably reported by eyewitnesses as three inches long. That's why he vandalised the White House to make room for a huge ballroom decorated according to his atrocious parvenu taste. That's why he wants the United States Navy to waste billions on "battleships" named after him, while their needs would be better covered by destroyers less than half their size, that were already planned and funded before Trump 47 happened. Interestingly, the last two leaders who showed such an interest in naval matters were Adolf Hitler, whose unchallenged incompetence destroyed the Kriegsmarine from the inside, and Josef Stalin, whose grandiose and outdated plans were cancelled by his successors after his doctors had taken care of him. Perfect role models for Trump.

I don't think European troops in Greenland will influence President Trump's decision-making process or his goal of acquiring Greenland.

(Karoline Leavitt, 14 January 2026)

If we don’t go in, then Russia and China’s going to go in, and there’s not a thing Denmark can do about it. But we can do everything about it.

(Donald Trump, 7 January 2026)

Besides and beyond Trump's body parts issues, Greenland is of course at the centre of a very real concern for the Western nations, the balance of power in the Arctic. As usual, the Orange Baboon totally fabricated part of his rationale for taking control of the island, when he mentioned Chinese ships on the prowl in Arctic waters. Nobody has seen a Chinese vessel there, military or civilian, for more than a decade, but facts can't be allowed to get in the way of a rehearsed narrative. On the other hand, there are some Russians, but just on their side and not in Greenland's waters, that are Danish territorial waters. And also plenty of Americans and Canadians. YouGov also probed their American panel about which future they are ready to support for Greenland. They don't want it to be part of the USA, except Republicans. They don't want it to join Canada, which is irrelevant as nobody has ever proposed it. But they are really supportive of an independent Greenland, freed from the shackles of Danish colonialism, or summat.

Americans supporting Greenland's independence is certainly not just a gesture of kindness. Many, especially in Republican ranks, surely think that an independent Greenland would be an easier prey. They just overlook what many columns in the European media have pointed out, that Greenlanders are starting to think twice about independence, precisely because of the American threat. And also about their ambiguous relationship with the European Union. Greenland, as a nation, is not part of the EU but its population, as Danish citizens, are citizens of the EU. That sounds like the best of both worlds, as they benefit from the EU's protection without having to follow its regulations, but the idea that it is not and they can do better than that is slowly gaining traction. But the United States's problem may well be that Trump is rooting his extravagant policies in a deeply flawed vision of the real balance of power in the Arctic. And the YouGov poll hints that the American public also have a distorted view of who has lots of power in the region, and who hasn't.

What you have to consider here is that the pizza-slice principle, officially known as the sector principle, is enforced by international agreement in Antarctica, but does not apply in the Arctic. Only Canada and the Soviet Union enforced it unilaterally in the Arctic, but the other three nations with an Arctic coastline (the United States, Denmark and Norway) have always refused to recognise it, so it is meaningless in international law. This makes sense because the Arctic is an ocean, and international law recognises only territorial waters and the exclusive economic zones, not the quartering of an ocean between the neighbouring nations. But the EEZs are defined as 200 nautical miles off the coast, and the diameter of the Arctic Ocean is about eleven times that, which leaves lots of free waters in the middle. So the opinion of the Americans about who hold power in the Arctic lacks strong foundations. And, by ricochet, so does their opinion about who should hold more power, or less, there. The only point in these questions is how the American public's views help support Trump's narrative, and the numbers say that it doesn't help much.

There is another issue that may be the most important of all. If Trump goes all the way and invades Greenland, just to find out it is not defended by two sled dogs, but by 10,000 European Union troops, the inevitable battle that would follow would be the end of NATO. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has already said it loud and clear, and this would be the predictable and unavoidable outcome. The American top brass have also certainly warned Trump that the United States have a lot more to lose than Europe from a breakup of NATO. Because, in the event of US troops shooting and killing European troops, there is no way any European government would be able to resist a massive popular pressure to shut down the American bases on their soil and expel all American military personnel. Not even Keir Starmer. And this would push back the United States' first line of early warning from the Polish-Belarusian border to the American East Coast. There is no way the American military can accept that. They would certainly all remember that their oath is to the Constitution of the United States, to the nation and not to the President, and draw some interesting conclusions from that. So, if Trump wants to do "something", his best choice may actually be to do nothing.

We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.

(Donald Trump, 9 January 2026)

This man's got his finger on the nuclear button. My father's younger than him and we won't give him the controls to the telly.

(Billy Connolly)

Greenland is not the only target of the Orange Baboon's predatory rapacity. Easier to catch, and also fertile ground for juicy business deals disguised as national security concerns, are the Panama Canal and the oil fields of Venezuela. Bear in mind that the USA did not "take control" of Venezuela, they just "arrested" election fraudster Maduro, in violation of their own federal laws, and instantly withdrew. The same modus operandi as a quickie with the small-penised Trump. YouGov found the Great American Public split over Panama, probably because China did gain a foothold there in the past, so squealing about national security does have a modicum of credibility. But they are far less convinced by Trump's arguments about Venezuela, probably because he left unfinished business behind and few see the point in going back.

There is another factor that may have influenced the American public. The Orange Baboon never mentioned it, but the key charges against Maduro, being like a Blofeld of narco-terrorism, have been dropped almost instantly at his hearing in New York City. Because the whole thing was based on Maduro being the head of a criminal organisation that never existed, being a total fabrication of social media. So the Department of Justice had to admit they had no case and backtracked in humiliation. Despite this, or maybe because of it, a strong majority of Americans believe that Trump will use brute force against Venezuela, including a crushing majority of registered Democrats. They are less sure about Panama, though leaning towards Trump resorting to aggression, again especially the Democrats.

There is actually a fucking ironic side to the Orange Baboon's Adventure In Venezuela. It started just like Greenland, with nothing to do with national security and democracy, but everything to do with greed and pillage. And it fucking blew up in his face. If you are owned by one of these spawns of Satan known as cats, you will know the feeling. Trump behaved with the American oil industry like your feline proudly offering you a dead vole while you are having breakfast in bed on a Sunday morning. Donald told the oil bosses, "Look what I have got for you, my beloved", and they went, "Naw, mate, not interested" because Venezuelan oil is not profitable enough by their standards. Fucking hilarious.

No intimidation nor threat will influence us, neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations.

(Emmanuel Macron, 17 January 2026)

The future of Greenland is for the people of Greenland and the people of the kingdom of Denmark to determine and for them alone.

(Lisa Nandy, Sky News, 18 January 2026)

That leaves us with the two most thorny situations, Gaza and Canada. Trump has surely not forgotten his plan to turn Gaza into New Las Vegas, it's just hidden somewhere deep into his surviving brain cells. He just has other priorities nowt, as doing something totally fucking stupid in Greenland has more appeal that doing something just outrageously obscene in Gaza. The American public do not support Trump rushing into either of these adventurous endeavours, and they are certainly right. Why would he charge into Gaza, where he would have to deport two million people, more than his buddy in El Salvador can take, and share the profits with some Arabs? Why would he invade Canada and face years of urban guerrilla on the frozen lakes, when he can put the 57,000 Greenlanders behind an electrified barbed-wire fence in some corner, and start digging for the two-kilometre deep deposits of rare earths?

The Orange Baboon may have toned down his act in front of Mark Carney, who looks more like a real Prime Minister than the woke wanker Justin Trudeau, but I am convinced that the 51st State Plan is still alive in his mind during his short moments of lucidity. So Keir Starmer knows what he will have to do after sending the whole Royal Navy to Halifax to shield Greenland. Halifax, Nova Scotia, not Halifax as in Last Tango, of course. Just order them to stay there because Canada will need them next, and send Marky Mark a monthly aliment for their groceries. But the Great American Public do not believe that Trump will actually use military might against Canada, so Keir will not have to show teeth and baws. Just not yet, that is. Surely Americans still remember what happened the last time they went to war with the Canadians. They lost, and the Canucks burned down the White House. Better than Trump, who has managed to destroy just a third of it. So far.

We Europeans face a massive challenge, as we are caught between Trump and Putin. Trump, because of the progress of his dementia, is stuck on just two settings: aggression and intimidation. Putin, because of his KGB training, is stuck on just two settings: aggression and intimidation. And both are also like the proverbial scorpion on the frog, they can't help it because it's in their nature. And now is the time when we pay the price for thirty years of delusion and falling for the myth of the dividends of peace. We went so far down that rabbit hole that we reduced our defence industry to skin and bones. That's why we have been able to produce only 25 Eurofighters per year since its introduction, while the USA delivered an average 100 F-16s per year and are now producing about 80 F-35s per year. Or why we need seven years to build a destroyer, while Japan and South Korea need only three. Now the Orange Baboon is laughing his arse out, because we are still bickering like brats in the schoolyard instead of rolling up our sleeves and building an integrated European defence industry, which leaves us dependent on the American arms merchants for another generation. Totally our fault, mates.

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown. This is a very dangerous situation for the safety, security and survival of our planet.

(Donald Trump, 17 January 2026)

This is not a moment for grandstanding. It’s a moment for taking the heat out of the situation. It’s a time for sensible diplomacy and dealmaking. There are some in Europe who could do worse than take a cue from our own Prime Minister this morning, that it’s better to talk and discuss than indulge in rhetoric and commentary and gestures.

(Peter Mandelson, 19 January 2026)

The world is now facing a totally unprecedented challenge, as the leader of the soon-to-be-second strongest economic and military power on the planet is showing obvious signs of diminished mental capacities caused by dementia, which leave him alternating between just two settings. In his moments of lucidity, he reveals his own true self, a violent lawless imperialist hell bent on using brute force and blackmail at every opportunity. When dementia takes over, he returns to his primeval state, an abusive toddler having a hissy fit when the adults in the room tell him to get a grip and stop being such a fucking spoilt brat. I still haven't decided which is the biggest threat to our safety and Civilisation As We Know It™, but I have a hunch the Kremlin's Nosferatu knows, as he always pushes the right buttons to make the Orange Man-Child do the most outrageously stupid things.

Keir Starmer is now at a crossroads, or a fork. He can choose to keep pleasing Lord Guacamole, and keep sucking the Orange Baboon's mini-dick until what's left of his self-esteem dies choking on it. Or he can follow in Emmanuel Macron's footsteps and tell the Orange Man-Child to fuck off because we do not compromise on principle and upholding international law against predatory imperialists. If he does not choose the latter, his credibility as the staunchest defender of Ukraine will be dealt a lethal blow, as he will appear to have double standards dictated by a narrow vision of short-term interests. We do not need Keir Teacher dronesplaining the class that we cannot risk angering a demented authoritarian, We need Keir Leader telling the Four Nations that is its time to be brave and stand up to all bullies. Which may be asking a bit too much. The always-ready-to-help YouGov has just probed us about what we think the UK should do if Trumpistan actually invades Greenland, and It is quite revealing that one out of seven Brits are already ready, before anything concrete has happened, to declare war on Trumpistan to protect a European ally.

It is quite interesting too that Scots and the usually amorphous TikTok Generation are the most willing to adopt a more aggressive attitude against the United States, and I can only hope that it quickly spreads to the rest of the Realm, no matter how bombastic Trump becomes. And that only a tiny fringe opine that we should continue to appease the Orange Toddler and do nothing, thusly accepting the exact same kind of brutal imperialist aggression we are not tolerating from Russia. Keir Starmer should think twice about that, when it is the choice advocated by both Nigel Farage and Peter Mandelson, which is reason enough to do something else. The European Parliament have shown us the way to a less violent, but surely as effective, course of action when they decided to block ratification of the trade deal signed between the EU and the USA last year. This is of course meant to put pressure on the European Commission and its president Ursula von der Leyen for stronger retaliation to Trump's threats, but could also be an inspiration for the UK. Before we suspend our own free trade deal with the USA, YouGov have come up with another option, that would be a lot more spectacular and effective, expelling all US military personnel from the UK if Trump seizes Greenland by military force.

The results here are quite sensational and prove that we are ready to face the harsh reality to its bitter end. Even half of Conservative voters and a third of Reform voters would approve shutting down the American bases on our soil. After all, France did just that sixty years ago, and have never regretted it as it enabled them to build a truly independent defence, which the UK still does not have. This poll is quite amazing, and proves we are no longer in denial of the Trumpian threat, even if our politicariat still is. For years, we had been facing just one Hitler Reboot, at the Kremlin. Now we have to deal with two, at the Kremlin and the White House. Trump has already turned ICE into his own personal Gestapo-cum-SS, and he has given solid hints that the United States may be just weeks away from their own variant of Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz of 1933. It is going to be months, and require a clear Democratic victory at the midterms, before Trump can be impeached. In the meanwhile, Europe generally, and the UK specifically, have a part to play in weakening him. Just put our baws on the table and clearly say that Trump's bullying days are over. A clear determination to stop playing nice and meek, and start dealing targeted blows to the United States's military hegemony, may be the best place to start. Like kicking them out of Diego Garcia, so they are spared the embarrassment of benefiting from an "act of great stupidity" they literally drooled over less than a year ago.

We do believe that we need more stability in this world. But we do prefer respect over bullies, and we do prefer rule of law over brutality. We cannot let the world order be dictated by whom has the biggest voice, the biggest stick or the biggest whatever.

(Emmanuel Macron, 20 January 2026)

Putin talks about peace, but he’s stepping up and escalating his attacks. Not just attacks on the Ukrainian military, but on civilians and cities like this.

(John Healey, 9 January 2026)

While the Orange Baboon was driving the whole world nuts with his Greenland Circus, the war was going on in Ukraine, with its daily delivery of Russian war crimes against the civilian population. Our inaction and procrastination are directly responsible for this, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy told us so quite bluntly in his speech at the WEF Meeting in Davos, to everybody's surprise. Clearly, Volodia has had enough, and now the gloves are off. It was bold, but also risky, as he may well antagonise some of the thin-skinned Europeans. But it was also smart, as he started by chastising the Europeans for doing nothing to help the popular revolt in Iran, which was a perfect preamble to the long list of Europe's shortcomings on Ukraine. Volodia was also talking to us, the world's public opinions, above the heads of our leaders. The American branch of YouGov has just released an omnibus poll that proves this may be the best angle of attack. It clearly say that the American public side with Ukraine, even if they are quite pessimistic about the state of the war.

76% of the American public still consider Russia an enemy, including 73% of registered Republicans. 69% consider Ukraine a friend and ally, including 62% of registered Republicans. Russian propaganda does not seem to have had much effect, and has failed to restore their image. But Trump's negative portrayal of Ukraine, including repeated accusations of ungratefulness, have taken their toll. Americans still think Russia is currently winning the war, and is more likely to win it eventually, despite evidence provided by Ukraine that they are in fact again progressing on the Donbas front. But lack of confidence in Ukraine's ability to win the war does not mean that the American public are not aware of which outcome would be the best for their country. Quite the opposite, actually.

A convincing plurality, which turns into a massive majority if you weed out the not-sures, agree that the USA would be better off if Ukraine prevailed. It's not even a debate, the supporters of the Russian Reich are outnumbered 12-to-1. All generations believe that a Ukrainian victory is in the best interests of the USA, and even Trump voters and registered Republicans agree. Of course, such polling will not influence the Orange Baboon one bit. He still has to repay the Russian Reich for the amount of blood money they poured into his campaigns of 2016 and 2024, and also the corrupt oligarchs like Elon Muck, who acted as intermediaries and poured their own billions on top to buy Trump a presidency he is totally unfit to hold. But not all hope is lost, as the farce over Greenland has proved that the Orange Baboon can be forced to back down and give up on all his extravagant demands. Polls are not enough, but the American people have their own way to weaken Trump, with a massive drubbing at the midterms. Loss of political support at home, combined with an emboldened Europe striking back tit-for-tat, may be just what the world needs to burst the Trumpian bubble.

It’s brutal, it’s cynical, it’s exactly why we’ve got to work so hard to help Ukraine secure peace.

(John Healey, 9 January 2026)

Let us have no illusions. Putin's true intention is to continue and intensify aggression. If the Kremlin is not stopped, hybrid aggression against EU and NATO countries will only spread and grow.

(Kyrylo Budanov, 9 January 2026)

The background to these results is that the American public know perfectly where they stand about Russia and Ukraine, and entertain no propaganda-fueled delusions. They know that Russia is an enemy and a threat, while Ukraine is a friend and ally. It is a remarkable and welcome clarity of thought when even their own President wants to convince them that the Ukrainians are just ungrateful bastards that would be nothing without him, and that returning to business as usual with Russia is in the United States's best interests. Even Trump voters of 2024 and registered Republicans agree. It will be interesting to see how Democrats use Trump's well established complicity with Russia during the midterms campaign, and what sort of impact it will have. The campaign will probably focus more on domestic issues like ICE and the cost of living, but surely Democrats should not rule out also making foreign policy a campaign issue and playing on the public's intense dislike of Russia.

YouGov also probed their American panel about another very important issue that the Trump administration surely wants to push under the radars, Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Of course we know that calling these "war crimes" does not reflect the reality of the situation, as most of what happened fits the definition of genocide per the United Nations' Convention of 1948, as the intent matters as much as the acts themselves. The mass murder of civilians at Bucha and Izium was genocide. The mass murder of prisoners of war at the Olenivka prison was genocide, just like the Katyn massacre. The coerced Russification of illegally occupied territories is genocide, just like the coerced Germanification of occupied territories by the Nazis was. The mass abduction and "reeducation" of Ukrainian children is genocide. The deliberate destruction of Ukraine's energy infrastructure to make them freeze to death is genocide, just like Israel systematically destroying key infrastructure in Gaza. But, despite YouGov's reluctance to call a cat a cat, which is French for calling a spade a spade, the American public have no doubt. Russia is guilty of war crimes and committing them deliberately.

The premeditated systematisation of "war crimes" is actually a component of genocide, so YouGov have actually inadvertently proved what they did not want to even mention. But Trump won't listen, because Putin demands a blanket amnesty for all Russian criminals, and relishes in letting his minions retelling the stories of Ukrainian war criminals. Who do exist, but at a ratio of like 1 to 10,000 Russian war criminals, and are already being dealt with by the Ukrainian judiciary anyway. The loopy woke far-left have also covered themselves in shame on that issue, because they are in complete denial of the true nature of genocidal Russian fascism, and won't denounce it because it would shatter one of the pillars of their doxa. That the White White West is by nature always evil, and those who oppose it are heroes and freedom fighters. Like Russia, Hamas, Iran, Maduro and the Taliban. The loopy far-right are just as morally bankrupt, but at least they have the excuse of doing it for the bribes, not because of a nonsensical warped ideology. For us who haven't totally lost our marbles and our sense of decency, we know that our duty is to Ukraine, to make sure they get closure and reparations. They will never forget and never forgive, and so should we.

We will rebuild everything. We will return our people. We will return our freedom. Nobody will break us.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 31 December 2025)

Even for a state like Russia, which is willing to spend heavily on its military ambitions, the drain on their sovereign funds and the overheating of their economy are reaching a critical threshold.

(Kyrylo Budanov, 9 January 2026)

One of the unresolved issues in negotiations between Ukraine, the Russian representatives of Russia and the American representatives of Russia is the ultimate fate of the illegally annexed Ukrainian territories. And also how much of unoccupied Ukrainian territory Trumpistan is ready to coerce Zelenskyy to give up to accelerate their business deals with the Russian Reich. We already know that this would take the shape of a "free zone" to the Northwest of Donetsk Oblast, the part that is still under Ukrainian control, and would de facto become wide open to Russian occupation without any effort to block it from the United States. There even were some disturbing rumours that Zelenskyy was considering accepting the "free zone" as a token of good will, or to appease Trump again. But that was probably just fake news spread by the American representatives of Russia, Witkoff and Kushner. The YouGov poll shows that the American public have a rather pragmatic view of the likely outcome, but that it does not fit at all with what they think the outcome should be.

The American public massively want Russia to keep no Ukrainian territory at all, but have convinced themselves that some parts of Ukraine will remain under illegal Russian occupation. Remarkably, Trump voters of 2024 and registered Republicans totally agree with the dominant opinion in both cases. YouGov then pushed it one step beyond, with a more detailed survey of the actual territorial concessions that may be part of the "negotiated" outcome, and which of these the American public is willing to accept. The contrast is again clear, as Americans favour a return to the pre-2014 borders, but expect that Russia will be allowed to remain in control of Crimea at least, an plausibly of all Ukrainian territories it is occupying today. Needless to say that neither option can come true if Ukraine is not coerced to accept it by the United States acting as Putin's representatives.

There is definitely a massive paradox here, highlighted by YouGov's findings. We know that, for the Orange Baboon, foreign policy issues are domestic policy issues, because he evaluates all decisions according to the impact he expects them to have on his approval ratings. But this does not seem to apply to Ukraine, as Trump is obviously too consumed by greed, an too enamoured with the image of himself sent back by Putin's manipulative flattery. Or he might have become acquainted, through the fanatical Christo-fascists at the Heritage Foundation, with Carl Schmitt's theory of the Großraum, that neatly counterpointed Hitler's project of the Nazi Lebensraum for Großdeutschland. Maybe he actually heard of it from Nosferatu, as Schmitt's conceptualisation also neatly fits with the Cold War era Soviet doctrine of spheres of influence, which the current tenant of the Kremlin is so eager to revive. Would not be the first case of cultural appropriation of bits of Nazi ideology by the Soviet Union, which then passed it on to Putin's fascist New Model Russia. Then the rest of the West still have the means to make Putin's dream of a Russian Großraum impossible to achieve. By standing our ground against joint pressure and blackmail from Trumputin, and destroying so much of the Russian economy that Nosferatu will be forced to concede defeat.

They are beginning to realize that the price of 'victory' may very well be the long-term bankruptcy of the Russian state.

(Kyrylo Budanov, 9 January 2026)

Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.

(Pericles)

Since the very first day of their genocidal aggression of Ukraine, Russia and its bribed agents in the West have been trying to intimidate us with claims that helping Ukraine was an aggression against Russia, and that any step we took was escalation that would only lead to a broader conflagration. We know this to be fucking bullshit because all of Putin's red lines have been crossed, mostly reluctantly and after lots of procrastination, and exactly fuck all has happened, except more genocidal violence against Ukraine. The loopy faux pacifists and the bribed fascists are nevertheless still willing to try and frighten us with predictions of doom and gloom that have been fed them by their handlers at the FSB. Sadly, YouGov's latest poll shows that a large share of the American public all still falling for it. They are split, with a third thinking that the war in Ukraine is likely to lead to a wider war in Europe, and a third thinking it isn't.

The truth is that only the 5% who think that we are already in the midst of a wider war have got it right. Because this is exactly what the so-called "hybrid war" is. Nosferatu has another threat that he regularly dangles under our noses, the use of nuclear weapons. Everybody assumes it would be "small" tactical nukes used on the Ukrainian front, with the likely vehicle being an Oreshnik missile. There are several reasons to disbelieve this threat, from practical to strategic. The Oreshnik has been used only twice in two years, with no payload once and with a conventional payload once, to little effect. It is not mass-produced yet, so there may be very few available. We also have documented evidence that Russia is using air defence S-400 missiles as makeshift ground attack missiles, of which they have a shortage. In that case, basic logic dictates that the manufacture of traditional ground attack missiles takes precedence over that of Oreshnik, making them a rarity rather than a commodity. Then, and more importantly, why would Putin risk mass retaliation, and a potential break up with China, for an admittedly spectacular show of force, but one that would deliver only little military advantage? From where I'm sat, there are more cons than pros to that sort of gamble, and it won't happen. YouGov nevertheless found that almost half of Americans think it will, and less than a third that it won't.

Make no mistake, though. The Russian Reich are threatening us because they know that Ukraine is not losing, despite Trump's best efforts, so the Russian Deep State is in panic mode. The best evidence is that they felt the need to reactivate their bribed agent Gerhard Schröder, the disgraced and discredited former Chancellor of Germany who betrayed the best interests of his own country in return for tens of millions of euros in blood money. Now he is doubling down on his treason, advocating a return to the massive dependency on Russian oil and gas that weakened Europe for a whole generation. Exactly what the Trump administration want too, to help Nosferatu fund the Russian Reich's military industry and the genocide of Ukraine. Schröder thusly just consolidates hi reputation as Laufbursche Putins, or Putin's footman, which led even the cowardly faux pacifists in the SPD to disown and ostracise him. Don't be fooled by the call to stop demonising Russia. All that's at stake in blood money, just like with the Trump administration.

Under this administration, we cannot consider America our ally. The United States is a hostile actor that, in the event of a conflict in Europe, is more likely to align with Russia than with us and other European countries.

(Sverre Diesen, 19 January 2026)

Putin has made probably the biggest strategic mistake in recent history, and he has failed in all of his strategic aims.

(Alexander Stubb, 30 December 2025)

Finally, YouGov probed the American public about the various ways the United States can help Ukraine. Or could, if Trump had not chosen an openly pro-Russian stance. YouGov did not ask if their respondents would support or oppose this or that course of action, but if their considered it a good or bad idea. Which probably makes not difference in the end, but nuances in the line of questioning are the oldest trick in the pollsters' book. What we see here is that the American public have a positive view of a much larger array of possible actions that their government. And they also draw their red lines in the sand much further towards Ukraine than the Orange Baboon, who is only reflecting his BFF Nosferatu's red lines. It is revealing that the most favoured option is also the one Trump wants most to repeal, economic sanctions to Russia. And that the options of aid to Ukraine come right behind with the support of a majority. American public opinion does not support betraying an ally so that Trump's donors can make juicy deals for Russian blood money.

It is also interesting that enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which is one of our collective taboos, scores a solid net positive, though not an outright majority. But that's pretty much a pipe dream even now after four years of Russia's genocidal war on civilians, as NATO countries are not even willing to enforce a no-fly zone over their own territory. YouGov must definitely ask their British panel that same question, just to check if we too are braver and bolder than our government despite the relentless fearmongering propaganda, from the faux pacifists on the left and the bribed Russian agents on the right, about the risks of escalation. Which they dangle under our noses only when we fight back against Russia's escalation, never when Russia provokes us or escalates the genocide of Ukraine. Another reassuring finding in YouGov's poll is that American public opinion's support for military aid to Ukraine has surged again after going dangerously down for three months.

Not that the Orange Baboon will listen, as his priority is clearly not to save Ukraine from enslavement by the fascist terrorist Russian Reich, but to allow the MAGAligarchs who bought him the last election to sign up for business deals with Nosferatu's oligarchs. This plan can only work if Trump first acts on one of his core obsessions, lifting the economic sanctions against Russia. This is the obvious way to avid a total meltdown of the Russian economy, which is already one inch away from the precipice, despite the Russian agents in our midst pretending it is not happening. The American public again do not see eye to eye with their President here. Two thirds support sanctions against Russia, half want to increase them, and registered Republicans are not far from the average position. Again, that will not influence Trump's decisions, the best evidence being that his envoys Witkoff and Kushner are constantly promoting Putin's point of view and demands. But it is still reassuring to see that even their own voters don't buy it.

YouGov also found that 53% of Americans think that Trump will not achieve peace in Ukraine, and only 24% think he will. So we must not be terminally naive and expect anything from the current talks at Abu Dhabi. Because these are not tripartite negotiations between Ukraine, the United States and Russia. It's Ukraine against Russia and Russia, leading to a pre-scripted conclusion written by Trumputin. Volodia Zelenskyy will reject the Russian demands for capitulation, and the Orange Baboon will again rant about Ukraine being the only obstacle to peace. Europe must be ready for this even before the talks have ended. Trump will withdraw support to Ukraine and we will have to compensate, piece by piece and bit by bit. Norway has already started with the delivery of more anti-aircraft missiles, and Czechia has pledged to send specialised anti-drone planes. France and the UK must follow with more deliveries of Storm Shadow missiles, and then force Germany to deliver Taurus missiles. It is our only way to help Ukraine turn the tide and prevail.

Our strategy will continue to move in two directions. First, we will keep supporting Ukraine militarily, financially, and politically. The second direction is to intensify pressure on Russia and its war economy.

(Alexander Stubb, 30 December 2025)

When I was a kid, I feel like America was cool. It was, like, Bruce Willis and Britney Spears. And now it seems like America peaked in high school, you know.

(Janine Harouni)

Thanks to his dementia, the Orange Baboon has kept us in limbo and on the edge of our seats for days, channeling his inner Debbie Harry, Malcolm X and Dr John, to ferociously tell the world that Trumpistan would grab Greenland by the pussy one way or another and by any means necessary because if he doesn't do it, you know somebody else will. Then he gave up on it, or maybe he didn't. Nobody knows for sure, or do we? But it definitely feels like the right time to evaluate what kind of impact the United States have had on the world, and YouGov dutifully polled us about that. First about their historical impact. You know, that's where you throw in 1917 and 1941. The time they intervened because their economic interests dictated it, and the time they were forced to intervene because Japan had kicked their arse. And, as Owen Jones would obviously interject at that point, if Zack Polanski does not beat him to it, what about Iraq? Unsurprisingly, with 250 years of history to rely on as evidence, our dominant verdict is... mixed. What about that, Donald?

Let's consider this from another angle. On the one hand, you have Wounded Knee, the Jim Crow laws, concentration camps for Japanese-Americans and Mark Zuckerberg. On the other hand, you have Neil Young, The Band and Joni Mitchell. Err... wait... they are all Canadians. Fuck. OK, you have Lou Reed, Frank Zappa and Jefferson Airplane. A descendant of Russian Jews. A descendant of Sicilians, Greeks and Arabs. A mixed bag of Finn, Russian, Polish, Irish, Scot, Danish, French, German, English and... wait for it... Canadian! Now that is truly mixed, and not the kind of people The Donald likes. Domestic terrorists! Then YouGov shifted our focus to the USA's impact in recent years. No need to be more precise, everybody got it, the Trump years. Like the surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the sabotage of Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and the demolition of the White House's East Wing. Now the verdict is no longer mixed, it is massively negative, with only Reform voters being cretinous enough to narrowly opine it has been positive.

Of course, YouGov couldn't possibly rest their case there. Because it is not so much about the collective impact of the USA, as lots of Americans would agree with us it has been a fucking disaster each tine the Orange Baboon sat in the Oval. It is more a question of Trump's personal impact, just as Nazi Germany was a lot about just Hitler, the Soviet Union a lot about just Stalin, and Uganda a lot about just Idi Amin. YouGov probed us about three distinct domains. Trump's impact on the USA, the UK and the world. I couldn't resist rearranging the political crosstabs from the right on the left to the left on the right, so you can fully see the progression of common sense and the decline of delusion. Aye, a majority of us do think Trump has had a negative impact wherever you look, and the unquestioning support of Reform voters does not make a fucking difference.

There is nevertheless an interesting paradox in the irrefutably very negative impact the Orange Baboon has had on the world. If Kamala Harris had been elected, her NATO and Ukraine policies would have been the continuity of Joe Biden's. Lots of procrastination, obsession with Russian might and de-escalation, and little timely action. But Europe would have felt very little incentive to awaken from their golden slumbers and carry that weight of their security and aid to Ukraine. Thanks to the Trump administration being an unmitigated disaster, Europe at last kicked themselves in the arse, took initiatives to help Ukraine without begging for the USA's permission and started rearming. What twenty years of Putin had failed to achieve, Trump has made it come true in twelve months. Even Keir Starmer has had to reluctantly and minimally alter his stance. Thank Dog for big mercies.

We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.

(Stephen Miller, 5 January 2026)

If you think he has a conscience, then you really don’t know him at all.

(Odo of Bayeux, King & Conqueror, 2025)

Are the United States the clearest and presentest threat to world peace and the democratic order of things? This was a recurring theme of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War, widely spread within the post-colonial Third World and relayed by the Communist parties of Western Europe. Of course, CIA-led adventurous endeavours like Operation Condor only affirmed and validated the propaganda. It was later recycled by Putin's Born-Again Russian Reich for the benefit of their clients and proxies in the Global South and, now that European Communism is so passé, spread by the loopy woke far-left. Ironically, Trumpistan seems determined to repeat the United States' past mistakes, and prove Nosferatu and his assorted loonies right. At least, that's what comes out of a More In Common poll, where they probed us about what they labeled "Trump and Global Stability". Which we actually perceive as global instability as a crushing majority of us opine that the Orange Baboon has made the world less safe, and even Reform voters agree.

This is of course a self-evident and easily demonstrated truth. Trump may use national security and foreign threats as excuses, you can't escape basic realities. That none of his actions is motivated by principle, but solely by ego and greed. The state of his dementia is such that he can't even hide it, and doesn't attempt to. It is also fairly obvious that his recent actions and those he has announced only embolden other imperialist authoritarian regimes to do the same in pursuit of their own strategic goals. Since Trump and Vance feel free to interfere in our business, YouGov felt we are also entitled to pass judgment on their own domestic affairs and the state of their nation, and our verdict is also negative. We do think that Trump has made the United States a worse place to live.

The odd and worrying part is one out of five Brits think that a year of Trump has made the USA a better place. Would they feel Keir Starmer made England a better place if he used our Border Force as his personal militia and let them storm the streets of Birmingham, and kill people with total impunity? Because that would be the equivalent of what Trump has done with ICE in Minneapolis. This time, Reform voters stand out like a rotten dick as a plurality of them opine that Trumpian authoritarianism has made the USA better. Probably because this is what their Lider Maximo wants the UK to become. An Atlas Shrugged-like jungle where treatment for cancer would bankrupt you, and you would die anyway before getting it because your private insurer would refuse to cover it. Or you would be killed in the street because homicides would increase seven-fold after Benito Farage repeals our post-Dunblane gun laws. Fortunately, a solid majority of us want the UK to become less like the USA, and even Reform voters smell a rat as they are split on this.

It is very healthy that a robust majority of us want to reduce American political and cultural influence, which has brought nothing good to These Isles in the last eighty years, Especially as it definitely looks like we have been propelled by the Orange Baboon into a reboot of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, in which Charles Lindbergh becomes POTUS in 1940 and signs up for an alliance with Nazi Germany while unleashing full institutional racism on his own people. Just bear in mind that, in the novel, Lindbergh is gone and proper democratic order restored after two years, In our timeline, that would be the midterms of 2026, which explains why the Orange Baboon is so eager to suppress them or rig them. There are many ways this Putin-like plan can be derailed but, in the meanwhile, this is a shite state of affairs when the future of Civilisation As We Know It™ hangs on TDS. As in Trump's Dementia Symptoms, not the imaginary Trump Derangement Syndrome.

We believe we must honour our father and our mother rather than transferring all their money to Ukraine.

(J.D. Vance, AmericaFest, 21 December 2025)

If I could come with some advice, it would be for the Senate and House to start to take control of political power in America because with this erratic and mad behaviour, you have to ask the question, is the President capable of running the USA?

(Lars-Christian Brask, 19 January 2026)

All of those who have submitted themselves to the physical, psychological and moral ordeal of watching the entirety of the Orange Baboon's deranged rant at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos have been struck by a few dominant traits. The total lack of self-awareness and the massive hubris. The perpetually condescending and patronising attitude, deeply rooted in that hubris. The constant bullying and demeaning of foreign nations that are still nominally allies of the United States, but Trump sees as nothing more than oven-ready Milchküuhe. The aggressive vindictiveness targeting all those who have had enough of appeasement and submission, and are now speaking their minds. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, when you realise that the planet needs to get rid of Trump as urgently as of Putin, and all the propaganda in the world won't make a fucking difference. For us, the urgency is to totally reframe our relationship with the USA and Europe, and YouGov has of course polled that, starting with a rather dire picture of how we perceive the current situation.

You may get a sense of negativity in our feeling towards Europe, but some key points reflect obvious truths and opinions held by sincere Europhiles. Yes, Europe has been too reliant on the USA, and too weak on the international scene. Exhibits A to Z: Ukraine. From where I'm sat, the really disheartening part is that lots of us still think that the USA are our friend, and that the Orange Baboon sees us as friends. This is just bullshit, the kind of alternative reality promoted by the same faux patriots who travel to Mar-a-Lago to demean their own country from foreign soil. But YouGov also found that we do not have a favourable view of the USA, and that it is clearly influenced by the deeply negative view we have of Trump. In stark contrast, a majority of us have a favourable view of the European Union, a clear sign that Brexit is now bad blood under the bridge. If anything, that should be an incentive for Keir Starmer to stop playing Trump's lapdog in an almost as disgusting way as Mark Rutte, and get serious about restoring and reshaping our relationship with the EU, the only special one we should have.

The obvious upside of rebooting our relationship with the European Union is that we also need to wean ourselves of our delusion of a "special relationship" with the USA. It has been part of the British political doxa for three generations only because our politicariat have been groomed from the cradle to believe in it, and have in turn groomed public opinion. The relationship may have been mutually beneficial in 1944.but it ceased to be in 1945 at Yalta, when a dying and disease-riddled Roosevelt capitulated to all of Stalin's demands about the partition of Europe against Churchill's advice. The only special part that remains now is that it is especially toxic, abusive and one-sided. It was already made clear in 1956 at Suez when the USA pulled the rug from under us in cahoots with the Soviet Union, and became obvious in 2003 over Iraq, when we were treated like Denmark or Poland, just cannon-fodder in their illegal war. The unprecedented levels of distrust of the USA and hate for their President is just what we need to force Keir Starmer to go into "OK, mate, we're done" mode with Trump, and rebuild our future fully within and with Europe.

What I'm asking for is a piece of ice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative. Or you can say no and we will remember.

(Donald Trump, 21 January 2026)

We do not want to be rich like Americans. Look how greedy they are, even trying to invade their friends. We sill not sell ourselves.

(Tillie Martinussen, 19 January 2026)

It is quite a sign of the times that YouGov surveys our thoughts on our future relationship with Europe through the prism of how it would affect our relationship with the USA. The background is an overwhelming and unshakable belief that the USA are stronger than Europe in all key domains, economically, militarily and diplomatically. This despite clear and present evidence that Trump's presidency has weakened the USA more than any other in living memory. Inflation is blooming out of control, mostly thanks to Trump's asinine tariffs. When Trump brags about an "armada" assembled against Iran, it's actually a force of just ten ships, 9% of the combined strength of the main five European navies. When Trump threatens China with massive tariffs and Greenland with invasion, he is told to fuck off and backs down. Not to mention he had to sack ICE's boss and order them to retreat from Minneapolis after the murders of two peaceful citizens. And yet, YouGov has to ask what sort of concessions we would be willing to make to appease the Orange Baboon and maintain good relationships with Trumpistan.

Despite the idiocy of that line of questioning, the replies are mostly reassuring. We will not pay for the catering of US troops on our soil, as YouGov seems to have mixed up contemporary Europe with occupied Scotland under Butcher Cumberland. We will not agree to be looted through extortionate provisions in trade deals. We will not allow chlorinated chicken and neo-Nazi propaganda to flood us. Oddly, all three policies we are willing to enforce are already part of our government's agenda, so there is absolutely fuck all link to an imaginary strategy of appeasement. In real life, increased military spending and aid to Ukraine are in fact going against the United States' plan to hang us out to dry under the bus because that's what Putin wants, and are steps to shield us from Trump's deranged policies, not to cuddle him. Quiet revealingly, YouGov also mentions these same two points as directions we should take to lessen the impact of our relationship with Trumpistan becoming really hostile, which is probably just of matter of months.

Actually, military revival and full support to Ukraine are self-evident options, no matter the state of our relationship with the USA. Simply because they are in our best interests and contribute to our protection against any sort of aggression. Even Green voters agree strongly, which must be quite a shock for Zack Polanski, the irresponsible Putin appeaser who wants us to continue indulging in the comfortable delusions of the first thirty years following the end of the Cold War, when the world has changed beyond recognition since Russia decided to aggressively resurrect the Soviet Empire. We are conspicuously less supportive, or more cautious, when it comes to closer relationships with other major powers. It looks like we have shaken off our belief in the neo-liberal myth of the end of history, that a liberal world order of free trade and globalisation would inevitably lead to the reign of liberal democracy the world over. Nothing could be further from the truth, with an accumulation of evidence that globalisation has done more harm than good. Child labour and slave labour used to keep costs down and profits high. Human rights trampled underfoot because they are bad for business. New shades of fascism and imperialism flourishing on the ruins of the Old World Order. But this item also opens the door to a wholly different chapter, which I will deal with in a wee while.

We know what happened to Indigenous people in Alaska and Native Americans. Their land was taken, and they were not treated well.

(Tillie Martinussen, 19 January 2026)

Middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu..

(Mark Carney, 20 January 2026)

If you want some detox from the neverending flow of Trumpian propaganda spewed by social media, take the time to read the full transcript of Mark Carney's speech at Davos, and for once I can only commend The Hipstershire Gazette for making this powerful piece available to us all. Just the kind of speech I would love to hear from Keir Starmer, but he skipped Davos this year, probably not wanting to be forced to meet the Orange Baboon for a photo-op. But there is little Starmer can do against the Trumpian narrative peddled by the New Model British Union of Fascists, and their accomplices in the increasingly hostile and biased mediatariat, including the BBC. Part of the narrative is that we, and Europe generally, would be nothing without the USA. The YouGov poll seemed to reflect that when they asked their panel what kind of effect a total breakdown of the ancestral relationship between Europe and the USA would have. From where I'm sat, the common wisdom that it could only have negative consequences is both exaggerated and a symptom of social contagion through the media.

The myth of eternal and incurable European weakness totally overlooks some basic facts. The combined population of the UK and the EU is 152% of the USA's, and our combined GDP on purchasing power parity (PPP) is 110%. Before you ask, our combined population is three-and-a-half times that of Russia, and our combined GDP PPP is five times theirs. Just to dispel the fairy tales about Europe being stuck between a rock and a harder rock between two dominant Empires, one of which is nothing more than a Potemkin Village made of quicksand. But the very last question of the YouGov poll is also the most meaningful. Despite all the doom and gloom, and the impact of the Trumpian narrative on the right and the defeatist narrative on the far-left, we are not willing to lose our soul, our identity and our values just to appease the Orange Baboon. And we have to be proud of Scotland, the most massively supportive part of the Realm of preserving our European values against Trumpistan, even it that means a final and total breakup with them.

But we have to wonder if all this polling has been made irrelevant by the Orange Baboon resetting the Doomsday Clock, when he totally backed down on his goal to get full ownership of Greenland, and reportedly offered to settle down on just owning the Pituffik Space Base and possibly a few more square miles of ice. Or maybe it is still relevant, as the hypothetical deal may just be Trump allowing NATO's General Secretary Mark Rutte, his usually very devoted lapdog, to bask in the spotlight for a few minutes at Davos. Then there may not even be a deal in sight at all, because of the all-important detail, that NATO has absolutely no power to negotiate anything with anyone in the name of a member state. At the end of the day, Davos was a fucking defeat for the Orange Baboon. He gave up on an invasion of Greenland, he gave up on the extravagant retaliatory tariffs, and got fuck all in return.

The next chapter will not be easier as, even if they were ready to submit, Denmark cannot proceed with any deal without getting explicit approval from the Greenlandic authorities first, on every item down to the fine print at the bottom, and bypassing that would pave the way for a huge crisis that Mette Frederiksen's government would not survive. Just imagine how we would react if Starmer announced he had decided to sell Lossiemouth to the USA, and take that to the power of 99. Besides, what has been said by Trump and others about the future of the projected land grab is far from clear, so we have surely not heard the last of it yet. Which is probably why Emmanuel Macron, still channeling his inner Tom Cruise, has made a multilingual PR show of his meeting with the Prime Ministers of Denmark and Greenland, and has sent France's Carrier Strike Group from its usual station in the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic.

What matters in hours of despair is not what is true or what is false, but what helps us live.

(Romain Gary)

There is always an undercurrent of worrying about the state of world. The whole world. This is grandiose, ridiculous and ultimately useless but don’t we all do it?

(Suzanne Moore)

Our relationship with the European Union has been brought centre stage again by Keir Starmer himself, but for no good reason that I can see. He definitely looks like he doesn't know what he wants and what he should do, and keeps fumbling, huffing, puffing and obfuscating for one reason only. He is still feart of hurting the feelings of cretinous Brexiteers, and losing votes at the incoming locals. Which should be the least of his concerns, as they will be a fucking disaster for Labour anyway, with votes haemorrhaging from all sides to the loopy Greens and the loopy Turquoiseshirts. Rejoining the European Union is not the only option we have. We could also choose to rejoin the Customs Union, which Keir Starmer has already rejected because of its common external tariffs policy that would rule out separate free trade deals. Though Trump has probably made that objection irrelevant already. Or to rejoin the Single Market, the least integrated level that would also be open to us if we joined EFTA. YouGov has polled all three together sporadically, always with high levels of support for rejoining any of the three.

There is still an obstacle to us joining the Single Market, the least demanding and least integrated option. It is based on free movement of goods and persons. Brexiteers are not against the free movement of goods like Sauerkraut and croissants, but the free movement of humans is total anathema to them, whose leading rabble rousers of 2016 all have a second passport from a EU member country. The irony! The hypocrisy! Especially as the most visible effect of Brexit has been to leave our coasts wide open for anyone who wants ton come in. See my previous article for more on this. Last month, Opinium revived the polling about the three possible levels of our return to Europe, with a slight change of wording. They did not ask if we support rejoining, but if rejoining would be acceptable.

The nuance does not change the logic of the replies. Interestingly, Opinium found the Customs Union far less acceptable, and even more divisive, than the Single Market or even full membership of the EU. One of the reasons is probably that membership of the Customs Union means that we would be represented by the European Commission at the international level, specifically in contacts with the World Trade Organisation, and that further free trade deals would be negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of all members of the Customs Union. Nigel Farage would surely call that "giving back control to unelected bureaucrats" from his holiday resort in Southern France, even if the members of the European Commission are actually elected politicians with national careers behind them. That's just the kind of bullshit that turns Starmer into a terrified rabbit in the headlights but, quite ironically, Trump could make him change his mind about that too. The United States' current aggressive imperialism is definitely pushing us very hard into Europe's open arms, that also happen to be our best protection against Russia's threats. The only real obstacle, once Starmer mans up and genuinely seeks closer ties, will actually be us having been such a fucking pain in the arse for years, which the Europeans have surely neither forgotten nor forgiven.

The need for folk to act as though they are embassies issuing statements on every foreign crisis is mad. It is a product of social media performativity.

(Suzanne Moore)

Trump is acting like an international gangster. The Prime Minister has tried appeasing him for twelve months and has failed. It's time we finally stood up to him and united with our European allies to make him back down.

(Ed Davey, 19 January 2026)

Opinium have also surveyed our views on our relationship with the European Union in less specific terms than rejoining this or that, conceptually almost. But I am not sure this is the most efficient way to find out what we actually think, as four different options might just muddy the waters. Interestingly, our replies have not changed significantly over time. The background to this is the massive feeling that Brexit was the wrong choice, and that successive governments have handled it badly. Making the worse of a bad situation is such a unique British talent, though Emmanuel Macron also seems to have become quite proficient at it recently. The interesting part is we have a steady majority of Europhiles among us, and only a tiny minority of dedicated Europhobes who would gladly weigh anchor and let us drift across the Atlantic, because that is the only destination if we have a looser relationship with the EU, innit? Nevertheless, the problem is that introducing nuances of Europhilia is not how it would work in the real world, which has an uncanny habit of being pretty binary.

Thank Dog again for YouGov, who have polled this same issue on much simpler terms that do not need two pages of explanations, simply asking us if we fucking want to rejoin the fucking European Union or not. Which is, at the end of day, pretty much all that matters. They have been polling that for eons already, since January 2021 actually, which is eons ago in British politics. I could try and distract you with the full sequence and trends of this polling over the last five years, but it is more relevant to focus on the most recent period. We don't have any datapoint for 2026 yet, but what YouGov found the last ten times they asked in 2025 is telling enough already. There is a clear appetite for returning home to the EU, which may not be the best family in the world, but is surely the best we can have even if it is fucking dysfunctional and crowded with cretinous cousins. If you remove the undecideds, to get what a real-life referendum would look like, it is a real massive will to rejoin, and much more conclusive than the rigged referendum of 2016. Two thirds in favour of our best protection against the predatory imperialisms or the Russian Reich and Trumpistan.

Of course, that is an oven-ready way Keir Starmer could save his Premiership and reserve his seat on the balcony of history. Open negotiations with the European Union to rejoin. And, before your start howling at the moon like a Werefarage, consider this. The Prime Minister does not need anyone's approval to open negotiations with anyone about anything. There are two pillars to the United Kingdom's constitutional order. The Royal Prerogative, that is the foundation of executive power. Parliamentary Sovereignty, that is the root on which legislative power sits. Since we are a constitutional monarchy, executive power is no longer Royal, but the Government's and thusly, for all intents and porpoises, the Prime Minister's. So Keir Starmer has the full power to negotiate, and even to sign a Treaty of Re-Entry with the EU. Parliamentary Sovereignty kicks in only then, as only Parliament has the power to ratify the Treaty. And there is no referendum at any point, as referenda just do not exist in the real constitutional order of the United Kingdom. They are a late addition, and an anomaly in the proper order of things on These Isles. Attlee thought so, and Thatcher agreed. So Starmer should just go for it, follow the proper constitutional path, let Farage bark and froth at the mouth, and bring us back into Europe, where we belong. Remember, mate, Who Dares Wins.

I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum, which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and Fascism.

(Clement Attlee, May 1945)

Maybe you're afraid of sinking. Don't think about it. If you don't think about it, you won't sink. If you do, you will.

(Mao Zedong, 1966)

YouGov's poll of our attitudes towards Europe mentioning the UK seeking closer relations with other major powers, even if this means overlooking human rights issues was obviously a very thinly veiled reference to the state of our relationship with China. Keir Starmer's trip to Japan and China is indeed seen as a sign that our government might be looking in that direction as an alternative to the abusive and flawed relationship with the USA. This is of course a highly inflammable and controversial issue, over which Starmer has already received some flak even before the trip happened, as the risks involved in being too cuddly with China have been highlighted many times in recent years. The indefatigable YouGov has of course polled us about China, and found that it is more of a confusing issue than a divisive one, as it looks like we don't really know where we stand and what we want. We are even unable to decide if we would support or oppose closer ties with China is the very likely event that our relationship with the USA totally breaks down.

Of course the TikTok Generation are in favour of cuddling China, because they don't want to lose TikTok and cheap electronics to access it. Green voters also supporting closer ties with China is honestly unbelievable, given China's appalling record on human rights, protection of natural spaces and climate change. But accessing cheap electric cars is probably more important than denouncing the use of child labour to manufacture them. It is sad that this makes us deaf and blind to the threats of Chinese espionage, China's variant of hybrid war or the increased likelihood of interference in our politics and intimidation of Chinese expats through the new super-embassy next door to the Tower. There is clear evidence of that in our assessment of the positives and negatives of our current relationship with China.

The only clear positive is that we can buy cheap consumer goods, mass-produced and mass-exported by China. Next thing you know, we will agree to import Royal Navy warships from China because they build them faster and cheaper. The most appalling part is that so many of us are still reluctant to consider the obvious alternative, closer ties with the European Union and joint efforts to rebuild a powerful European industry to reduce our reliance on non-European imports of basic commodities. Of course, it would help if our European "friends and allies" didn't act hostilely, like when France blocked Ukraine using EU funding to procure Storm Shadow missiles, because Emmanuel Macron wants Ukraine to buy exclusively the identical French-built SCALP, that cannot be built in sufficient number to cover Ukraine's needs. This will definitely do nothing to cure our own ambiguities, like about our readiness to support a tougher stance with China if that meant some unpleasant consequences for ourselves.

From where I'm sat, the idea that China could deliberately orchestrate a downturn of our whole economy if we were tougher and less diplomatic is laughable, simply because it is not in their best interests. They need to protect their foreign investments just like any other nation, and plunging us into a recessions would have the opposite effect. Higher prices for a number of goods and commodities is a more credible option, but you have to bear in mind that the surest and shortest way to this is not any hostile action on China's part. It would be us playing tough by imposing higher tariffs on our imports from China. This seems quite an unlikely scenario, but don't count too much on the opposite one, a fruitful and positive relationship between us and China. Comrade Xi's plan is to make China the world's first power, both economically and militarily, and the guiding light of the Global South. Too close ties would make us as dependent on them as we are now on the USA. The only upside is that The Plan also includes making Russia a Chinese protectorate, as independent from them as Belarus is now from Russia, and snatching back the Far East territories Russia nicked off China in the 19th century. Now that would be deliciously karmic.

Grasp clearly the grand trend that the East is rising while the West is declining. There is a vivid contrast between the order of China and the chaos of the West.

(Xi Jinping, The New York Times, March 2021)

Things have changed since Abraham Lincoln was around. Honesty isn’t exactly in vogue anymore. People lie. Even worse, people have gotten used to it. It’s become an accepted part of our society. Which is why it is so dangerous.

(Jack McCoy, Law And Order, 2022)

The ultimate test for Europe will be the general election in Hungary, just 74 days away. I totally expect all democratic governments in Europe, and surely the illiberal ones too, to have their eyes firmly set on Budapest on the 12th of April. And the 13th, as this is when the results will be announced. Surely both the White House and the Kremlin will, as both certainly have discreet boots on the ground there, to deploy their interference and pour their blood money into the campaign to get Viktor Orbán re-elected. Both need him to keep on pushing the interests of Russia and sabotaging the European Union from the inside. So I hope that others, say France or the UK, are also acting underground from inside Hungary to make sure that the Tisza Party wins and Péter Magyar becomes Hungary's Prime Minister with a healthy margin over Orbán's Fidesz-KDNP alliance. This not a done deal, despite popular discontent, as the trendlines of the polls have both parties pretty much tied.

The problem here is whether or not we can trust these polls, as Hungarian pollsters are anything but neutral, and no Western firm like YouGov has ever ventured there. Foreign observers estimate that as many pollsters are biased towards the opposition as towards the government, but those linked to the government publish polls more often, and we know from our own experience how biased polling can create a narrative in public opinion. The reassuring part is that Fidesz is nevertheless predicted around 10% down on the result at the previous election in 2022, while Tisza are predicted 10% up on United For Hungary, the now defunct coalition that represented the opposition four years ago. But this would put Tisza ahead by only a tiny margin, and the seat projections based on the most recent batch of polls hint at a hung Parliament, with Tisza missing a majority by just one seat.

Of course, 74 days is long enough for this to change favourably, especially as the most recent developments have not yet had an impact on voting intentions. Two small opposition parties had already indicated they would not stand months ago, and three more have made the same decision in mid-January. This proves that Hungarian politicians are smarter than ours, as they can resist the urge to stand at all costs to "send a message" and thusly split the opposition vote. It may not bring Tisza many additional votes per se, but it may also help boost the momentum in their favour. The rest of the European Union, with one or two exceptions, surely hope that Orbán will be ousted, thusly removing a major thorn in their arse, mostly but not exclusively over aid to Ukraine. If he stays and continues to act as Putin's Fifth Column, the EU still have their nuclear option, removing Hungary's voting rights in the European Commission and the European Council. That would be quite brutal, but would send just the right message to Moscow and Washington. The EU seems to have found a new pair of baws behind the sofa, to strike back at Trump over Greenland, and won. So I would certainly not rule out radical action as their contingency plan to remove hostile action from within. Even if Orbán's defeat would be a much cleaner way to achieve the same goal, and the one we can all wish comes true.

If you’re gonna try to kill the king, you can’t miss.

(Jack McCoy, Law And Order, 2022)

Paul Lorin Kantner

(San Francisco, 17 March 1941 - San Francisco, 28 January 2016)

Jeremy's Den

28/01/2026

Can We Be Together?

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Can We Be Together?