Do we want to go back into the EU?

Everyone, well most people, who voted for Brexit ten years ago probably now accept that the move out of the European Union has been an econmic disaster for this country. But I hope before Andy Burnham considers whether to put Britain back into the European economic club, I hope someone good at maths works out how much it's going to cost. During the Brexit campaign run by Boris Johnson, figures were flying around about the huge benefits the UK would get by extracting itself from the EU. The potential was limitless. It was all nonsense. The economy went to pot, the massive trade deals we were supposed to win from around the world never properly materialised. Today, as a country, we are on the slide. Everyone knows it and everyone feels it. Millions of university students now paying tuition fees with loans face the prospect of never being able to pay it all off because the interest rate on the loans is extortionate. There are no jobs for the young. The welfare bill is rocketing upwards. I'm not saying life would have been wonderful had we stayed in the EU, but it would surely have been better. Now Burnham wants to go back into the EU but it's already clear the EU leaders plan to punish the UK for leaving by making reentry so expensive, our economy will suffer even more. So, before we go back in, let's do the sums.

Zelensky is strangely optimistic about a deal with Russia

Volodymyr Zelensky who seems to spend most of his time travelling around Europe like a country-to-country salesman, has said he believes there is a window of opportunity for a big deal with Russia to stop the war in Ukraine before the end of the year. He got this impression from a meeting with representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the US in Abu Dhabi. Russia gave no indication that a deal was emerging, while the US said there had been productive talks which generally doesn't mean very much. Zelensky knows that if there really is a window of opportunity it can only be the case if he is prepared to hand more territory to Moscow in exchange for a security guarantee for his country from the US and Europe. He has always said he would never agree to hand over territory to the Russians but after more than four years of war and destruction, perhaps he has finally come round to the view that a territory handover is inevitable and unavoidable to get peace. Ths is what Donald Trump has been banging on about for ever. So, it looks like Putin will get what he always wanted. Except that he will also get even more if the reports are correct: an agreement by Washington to withdraw troops from eastern Europe. In other words, go back on Nato's expansion to Russia's borders. That would be such a victory for Putin that it would make the deal over Ukraine small by comparison. Could Trump and Europe actually agree to de-expand, as it were? Surely not!

The sweeping blue wave in the midterms WAS about Trump

Donald Trump who these days looks as if he has been hit by a hurricane, was definitely wrong when he claimed that the midterms was nothing to do with him per se. I reckon every American voter went into the polling booths last week with one thought and only one thought in mind: do we still want Trump as our president. A huge number of voters, whether Democratic or Republican, decided they couldn't put the cross against Republican candidates for Congress BECAUSE of Trump. It was all his fault. JD Vance was right when he said it was the Iran war that was to blame. But the Iran war is Trump, it's all about Trump. He must know that, despite what he has been saying. Midterms are generally bad for the sitting president but in Trump's case it was obliteration. Now he seems determined to end the wars in Iran and Ukraine to try and regain some popularity. But the deals in the making don't sound like historic breakthroughs. Ukraine will be carved up, with unconquered land handed to the Russians, and Iran will still be a nuclear threat, with a regime unbowed by America's military superiority. It will be peace at a price, and in terms of Ukraine, will make the whole of Europe more vulnerable to Russian aggression. The future doesn't look good and I haven't even mentioned the world's failure to combat climate change.

Trump's Golden Fleet and Golden Dome look vulnerable

They are President Trump’s two favourite defence programmes, intended to be part of his legacy, keeping America safe from its enemies after he has left the White House. Top Democrats, soon to take control of vital Congress committees, describe them as Trump’s vanity projects, too outlandish and far too expensive. With the Democrats in charge of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump’s Golden Dome, the proposed space and ground-based anti-missile shield, and his Golden Fleet of self-named nuclear-powered battleships, look set to be axed or, at least, starved of funds to make progress unsustainable. Pete Hegseth, the under-fire war secretary, is asking for $1.5 trillion for his budget next year which is already considered by the Democrats to be far in excess of reality. The 15 Trump class battleships will cost about $275 billion over a production period of 26 years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated. It’s not cost alone which is putting these battleships under the microscope. The strategic purpose of these 35,000-ton warships, each costing more than an aircraft carrier and equivalent in cost to ten Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyers, is being questioned. Adam Smith, Representative for Washington state who is seeking support to become the chairman of the House armed services committee in January, wrote in a leaked letter to Democratic colleagues:”We need an appropriate mix of high-end survivable systems and lower-cost attritable [cheap, uncrewed platforms whose loss in battle would be acceptable] capabilities, not a fleet of nuclear-powered battleships as proposed by the president.” The decision to make the battleships nuclear-powered, escalating costs, was confirmed by the US Navy in May. Trump wanted an all-powerful, multi-capable battleship to command the seas, no doubt with China’s huge warship-construction programme in mind. As a result, the design envisaged a warship armed with nuclear and conventional missiles, hypersonic weapons and an electromagnetic railgun that can fire a projectile at seven times the speed of sound. After the CBO published its report warning of rising costs of the Trump class battleship in August, Smith, then ranking member of the House armed services committee, said the programme was “an ill-conceived vanity project”. Trump insisted his Golden Fleet shipbuilding programme would produce a warship “100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” However, without Democratic support for funding his dream, the Trump class battleship, the first of which, set to be named USS Defiant, is supposed to be in service by around 2036, looks doomed. “Given the midterm election results, the battleship programme is now aground and taking on water,” retired US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery told the American TWZ military technology website. Golden Dome will likely survive in some form because air and missile defence of the homeland remains a vulnerability. The Trump clsss battleship which was already unlikely to see the light of day, now almost certainly will only exist in Trump’s fevered dreams," said Eric Edelman, defence policy chief at the Pentagon under President George W Bush. Trump announced his Golden Fleet vision at Mar-a-Lago in December 2025. It followed the Golden Dome project revealed in January the same year; and then came the president’s announcement in September that his proposed triumphal arch, known as the Golden Memorial Arch, would be filled with drones and snipers. None of them look likely to survive. The Golden Dome project has already provoked wildly different estimates over long-term costings. The Pentagon’s Golden Dome project office has estimated that the programme will cost about $185 billion through to 2035., with $17.5 billion being requested for next year. However, the CBO has come up with a figure of $1.2 trillion to develop, deploy and operate the system over a period of 20 years. The Pentagon disputes this figure. Part of the problem for congressional researchers is that the Pentagon has been sparing with cost details. The largest expenditure will be the development and deployment of space-based interceptors, intended to hit incoming missiles during their boost phase.The CBO has estimated these interceptors could cost $740 billion. The debate in a new Democratic-controlled Congress will not just be about affordability. Huge costs scuppered President Reagan’s 1980’s Star Wars programme which was even more ambitious than the Golden Dome. In both cases, however, there were and are strategic issues to be debated: how effective would a national missile-defence system be as a deterrent to potential enemies? Would it encourage Russia and China, for example, and possibly North Korea, significantly to increase their arsenals of long-range missiles, nuclear and hypersonic? If so, would that provoke a new arms race? At present, however, with the victorious Democrats soon to hold the purse strings, it seems to be mostly about the cost of Trump’s favourite defence projects.

Pete Hegseth to face impeachment?

From Day One, Pete Hegseth has been a controversial in-your-face US defence secretary (renamed war secretary, very appropriately). Now, after nearly two years at the helm of the Pentagon, Hegseth looks likely to be the first of Donald Trump's cabinet members to face impeachment by the soon-to-be Democratic-controlled Congress. He can't be blamed specifically for the war on Iran. That was Trump's choice, urged on by Benjamin Netanyahu. However, he has always been an arch supporter of the war and he promised Trump that it would all be over in short shrift. He has been proved very wrong. But, in addition to his bellicose approach, Hegseth has caused an upheaval in the Pentagon with his multiple sackings of top commanders, the ban on transgenders serving in the military, and his dislike of having women in combat roles. There will be plenty of ammunition for the Democrats to hurl at him and it will be a tough fight if he is summoned for an impeachment trial. Will Trump continue to back him? So far, Trump has been his biggest supporter, but that could change if Hegseth is forced to appear before his Democratic critics soon after the change-over in Congress takes place in January. The Democrats appear to have gone for Hegseth first, before Trump, probably because they think he will be easy pickings. Taking on the president is a much bigger deal.

Trump plotting his last two years as president

His first sacking and first appointment since the disaster of the midterm elections has proved beyond doubt that Donald Trump intends to battle ahead against all the political odds with his usual fire and fury. Susie Wiles, who served as his White House chief of staff, was blamed, fairly or unfairly, for the defeat of the Republicans, and her replacement, Stephen Miller, former deputy chief of staff, takes over. He is the hardest of all hard nuts, especually on immigration, and his appointment will put fear in the hearts of every member of Trump's cabinet. He will stand no nonsense. Anyone showing signs of disloyalty to the president to whom he is devoted, will get short shrift. He will also be the gatekeeper who keeps people out of the Oval Office unless he approves. Susie Wiles, known as the Ice Maiden, was pretty tough, but Miller is in a different league. Miller will also, unofficially, be in charge of ensuring that Trump's legacy is enshrined in greatness. That will probably have to include ending the wars in Iran and Ukraine. Trump cannot leave office with these two wars still running. So, look for some big developments over the next few weeks or months.

Could Trump really be plotting to hit Iran's Pickaxe Mountain bunker?

The mood swings in Washington are going wild. One moment, there's talk of a negotiated settlement to end the war against Iran The next, officials hinting that Donald Trump is intent on striking the nuclear bunker buried deep under the granite Pickaxe Mountain. This has been on the cards ever since the war began. But for some reason, never explained, American bombers never targeted it in Operation Midnight Hammer in June last year but concentrated on the other nuclear sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz. However, one of the reasons is that the bunker under Pickaxe Mountain is buried far more deeply. Even the 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) which was used against the three other sites in June last year couldn't destroy Pickaxe. So how is Trump contemplating attacking Pickaxe? Perhaps it's all threatening bluster to scare Tehran into agreeing a deal. But then if they know the US has no weapon, bar a tactical nuke, capable of destroying Pickaxe, why would they suddenly seek peace if they think they, and Pickaxe, can survive another round of strikes? Trump wants to make sure that before he leaves office in just over two years' time, Iran will have been stopped/blocked from developing a nuclear weapon. One way or another, Pickaxe cannot be allowed to remain unscathed because if Tehran wants to accelerate plans to build a bomb, they will do it in relative safety at the Pickaxe site.