Is Keir Starmer facing his last few weeks as British prime minister?

I could say poor Keir Starmer. He won a huge majority for the Labour Party, annihilated the Conservatives who had enjoyed years of total chaos, and promised voters he would not raise income tax. Now, here we are, nearly two years later, and the Labour government under Starmer is also facing political chaos. Starmer promised to spend much more on defence in the light of Russia's increasing aggression towards Europe, and maybe particularly towards the UK, and yet he has failed to find the money to fulfil his promise. The welfare state handouts have gone way over the top, there are a million young people who have never had a job and have no money or prospects and have to live with their parents because they can't afford a home of their own, and, worse for Starmer, many of his cabinet colleagues are fed up with him. Now, this coming week, he will know for sure whether Andy Burnham, a would-be leader of the Labour party currently Greater Manchester mayor, is standing for parliament again so that he can challeng Starmer, beat him and any other contenders, and enter Number Ten as the next prime minister. Andy who, most people in the rest of the world will be saying. Well, he was a minister in a previous government and seemed ok but when he went for the top job he lost to Starmer which is why he gave up parliament and hoofed off to Manchester. He is standing for Makerfield near Manchester in a by-election and if he wins, Starmer will be in trouble. The truth is that whether Burnham or Starmer is the prime minister by the end of it all, it will make very little difference. There will still be no extra money for defence, there will still be a million young people unemployed and nothing much will change. Starmer seems a decent bloke doing his best which isn't good enough, and Burnham is a decent bloke who will try to do his best but it won't solve Britain's economic problems unless he throws away all the Labour promises published in their manifesto at the last election and announces a rise in income tax across the board and a huge tax boost for business which will force them to recruit more people, preferably out of the million young unemployed, and hang on to all the employees they currently have and stop sacking them all in favour of AI. I will end the way I began, poor Keir Starmer.

Fingers crossed, The Iran Deal will be signed tomorrow....or will it?

I love it. Donald Trump says the deal with Iran will be formally signed tomorrow but Iran says it won't! Plus ca change. But the basics of the deal now seem to be fairly simple. The Strait of Hormuz will be opened, the US Navy blockade of Iranian ports will be lifted, there will be no more bombing, sanctions will be slowly lifted, but the nuclear issue will be discussed at some later point. That will all be contained in a memorandum of understanding. But there are so many unanswered questions. Will the Strait of Hormuz be fre and open without any interference whatsoever by Iran, or is Tehran still insisting on some sort of administrative/management arrangement alongside Oman? If Trump agrees to that, the war was all for nothing. And if Iran fails to agree to hand over the 440 kilos of highly-enriched uranium, the war was all for nothing. And if the regime remains a severe, anti-west, democracy-suppressing military junta, the the war was all for nothing. Yes, lots of questions still, Mr President.

Please Mr Trump can we have that deal, so we can all get on with our lives!

Megotiating a complicated peace deal that covers the whole of the Middle East is hugely challenging and probably impossible. But the US president keeps on telling everyone that "The Deal" is as good as done. So, there is only one question. Where the hell is it? Is he really telling us the truth or is he just building up our hopes and can then blame Iran or Israel or Hezbollah or whoever if it all goes wrong? When he decided to call off the strikes planned for the third night in a row on Iranian military targets, he said it was becasue he had had phone calls from important people in Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan who said that, through their endeavours, the full deal was ready to sign. So at the last minute, he called off the bombers and Tomahawks. Tehran instantly denied anything had been totally agreed. The wording was slightly different than before, howeve, so there must be something going on. But there is still no deal on the table. Trump is not yet in position to dollop his massive signature on any piece of paper. I want to be optimistic but in the Middle East anything and everything can go wrong. There are so many egos and bad memories and so much hatred that it would seem beyond any negotiator to find the right formula. But Trump seems super-confident, even though it's not actually him or his special envoys who are doing the tough work. The Pakistan army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is there in the thick of it. Today is Friday. Who knows, perhaps by this weekend or early next week, this famous deal might just come to fruition. Or else, it's back to bombing. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. WATERSTONES, AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Can Trump bomb Iran to the peace table?

Now that the US and Iran are once again "exchanginbg" bombs and missiles as if it's Operation Epic Fury Part One and a Half, the question has to be asked: Can a superior military power literally bomb an opponent country to the negotiating table? Can the US enforce peace by using war? Obviously this concept has worked in the past. The Serbian war against Kosovo was pretty much resolved by Nato bombing, plus, eventually, the parachuting of troops into Kosovo to make sure the Serbian troops went back to Belgrade. But that might be the exception. Normally bombing from the air does not win wars. Vietnam was a huge failure. The mass bombing by the Americans didn't win the war, nor did the infusion of hundreds of thousands of troops. The Gulf war of 1991 was won by brilliant ground warfare, artillery fire, tanks and Apache attack helicopters, as well as air power. The Iraq war wasn't won as such because when it was supposed to be over ("Mission Accomplished"), there followed a murderous insurgency which went on for years. Afghanistan was a disaster. Neither air power nor ground action won that one against the Taleban. So, now we have Iran. This war is different in many ways, but mostly because the regime in Tehran has ruthlessly exploited its advantages - closing the Strait of Hormuz and launching ballistic missiles and drones at every Gulf state, as well as US bases in the ruegion and Israel. So, will the renewed bombing by the US change all that and force the mullahs to negotiate? I fear not. This is because the mullahs are not really in charge anymore. Control is in the hands of the generals who command the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and they are not going to surrender just because the US has gone back to bombing. In fact it will drive them further into their bunkers and they will hang on until Trump realises that being commander-in-chief of the mightiest military power on the planet doesn't actually guarantee winning wars. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. WATERSTONES, AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS. THANK YOU.

What does Trump know about the shootdown of the US Apache helicopter?

Shooting down an Apache attack helicopter is a serious business. It's not like hitting a drone. So did Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps target the helicopter with a crew of two on board? If the helicopter was hit by a missile, the chances are the two crew members would not have survived. But they were picked up safely. So, did the Apache collide with an Iranian drone? That also seems unlikely. The crew would be super-experienced and could evade a drone. Nevertheless, Donald Trump instantly blamed the Iranians and ordered Central Command to retaliate. Iranian air defence systems and communications sites were bombed. The rescued crew will presumably be able to give a better picture of exactly what happened. If it was an Iranian missile, then Iran got what it deserved. But if it turns out, it was a helicopter malfunction, then Iran is going to be very aggrieved. My feeling is that Trump, as commander-in-chief, must have been told something which convinced him it was the IRGC which brought the Apache down. In other words, the fantastic array of US surveillance aircraft around in the Gulf at the moment must have images of a missile or whatever heading for the Apache. If that's the case, then Trump's decision to retaliate was the right one. Central Command said the response was proportionate. Centcom is investigating. Meanwhile the ceasefire between Iran and the US has already been breached so many times that it puts in danger the "oeace" negotiations which, amazingly, are still going on to end the war and reach a settlement.

A deal with Iran in two or three days, says Trump

Claims about the war in Iran coming to an eed at any moment have been made so many times that it is difficult to take any predictions from the White House seriously. But the fact is that while the US naval blockade of all Iranian ports continues, Iran and its poor people are being bled dry. No oil exports, no trade, nothing coming in except humanitarian shipments. At some point there is going to ba another total breakdown of society in Iran and the streets will be filled with thousands of people protesting. This is what Trump is probably counting on, so that even though there are still breaches of the ceasefire, the rulers of Iran do actually want the war to end so that the country can benefit from at least partial lifting of international sanctions. If there really is a deal waiting in the wings will it be the victory for the US that Trump has been boasting about for so long? In his latest remarks, Trump said that the deal would be sigbed in two or three days and as soon as the signatures are on the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will open. As for the nuclear issue, Trump is saying he has got it in the bag, ie Iran will pledge not to build a nuclear bomb. But Iran has said this before, so only if the Tehran regime starts to dismantle what's left of its uranium-enrichment programme and hands over the 440 kilos of 60-per-cent-enriched material will anyone believe that the nukes question is finally resolved. If Trump's latest pledge about an end to the war falls apart, like all his previous promises, then the missiles could start flying all over again. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Israel and Iran back to war

Donald Trump has told Israel to stop bombing Iran but Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has ignored him. This tells a lot. Trump has said he is in charge and if he tells Netanyahu what to do or not to, he obeys. This simply isn't true. The ceasafire is now so shakey it's as good as dead and buried. Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel, supposedly in return for Israel's continued launching of attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump told Netanyahu not to retaliate. But how could he expect Israel not to fire back when Iranian missiles have come hurtling towards them? Of course Israel retaliated, just as Trump has retaliated against Iran when the mullahs have fired missiles and drones at US military forces in the Middle East. Tit-for-tat is an accpeted form of warfare. So, the ceasefire, already a misnomer after masses of breaches since it was announced in April, is over for now. Meanwhile, how will the resurgence of missile attacks affect the negotiations to end the war? Basically, there is never going to be a deal unless there is a comprehensive settlement which involves the US, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. And that sort of agreement, ie no more attacks from any quarter, looks as far away as it has ever been. Even if there is a sort of deal between the US and Iran, there will still be plenty of scope for war if none of the other parties are signed up.