US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has turned up the heat in Brussels today, declaring that NATO countries will raise defence spending to 5% of GDP – or risk losing American support. He warned allies they must be “combat ready”, telling reporters:
“So, we’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5% defence spending across this alliance, which we think will happen. It has to happen by the summit at The Hague later this month. We need our allies here in Europe and in Canada to step up even more…We will deliver that. It’s time for Europe to step up”
Starmer, meanwhile, still hasn’t even committed to 3% by 2034. This comes after furious briefings from the MoD earlier this week, spelling out that the UK could be strong-armed into committing to 3.5% at this month’s NATO summit. Trump’s team now cranking up the pressure on Starmer…
Trump is meeting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the White House later today. Should be interesting…
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart have just given ex-New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern and former progressive heroine a typical softball interview on their Rest is Politics podcast. Ardern is promoting her new memoir “A Different Kind of Power” which is apparently “powerfully evocative and refreshingly open, it is for anyone who has ever questioned themselves, or has wanted to make a difference.” Campbell said he picked up no “yearning political drive” from her memoirs. Look how that went…
Ardern said she never wanted the job:
“I had political drive I didn’t have personal drive. Now that’s not to say I had no ambition for myself – I wanted to be good at my job, I wanted people to believe I was good at my job. But that did not in my mind need to equate to a particular level of office. I certainly didn’t have the ambition to lead my party and I absolutely therefore did not have the ambition to be prime minister.”
The ex-PM then went on to congratulate herself for slugging it out in opposition: “a fairly brutal place to be for nine years – because I was highly motivated by issues and and change.” Ardern quit with her New Zealand Labor Party tanking in polls, the country on the brink of recession, at the lowest business confidence in the OECD, and inflation at the highest level for a generation. The public didn’t fancy her as leader either…
Starmer’s Chagos deal was universally panned in the UK – unsurprisingly, given its dire terms and obscene cost to working Brits of more than £30 billion. And as Guido revealed, the deal was in fact backed by China – contrary to Starmer’s claims…
One of the biggest problems with Starmer’s decision to reopen the entire Chagos debate and enter into a new set of negotiations was always that the terms would never be enough for Mauritius – its politicians take a maximalist position and have every incentive to bleed Britain dry over the issue. In other words, this was never going to be a fair negotiation. And now, like clockwork, Mauritian politicians are coming back for even more…
The leadership of the Mouvement Socialiste Militant (MSM), one of the opposition parties in the country, has issued a communique essentially saying Starmer’s deal doesn’t go far enough: “The MSM maintains that the question of sovereignty over the entire Chagos Archipelago has been central in the negotiations of the previous government with the British side. The MSM insists that the Mauritian population has a right to the truth and denounces any attempt to muddy the waters.”
The party is demanding answers about whether Britain has a veto over construction on other islands in the Archipelago, and the strength of the ‘Security Review’ and ‘Joint Commission’ process put in place by Starmer’s agreement. In short, the Mauritian government is now under domestic pressure to reopen negotiations and get even more concessions from the UK…
And it’s not just political posturing – the Deputy Prime Minister, Paul Berenger, is a member of the MSM and was involved in the process – and the party leader is the former Prime Minister of Mauritius. Will Starmer rule out any further concessions to Mauritius?
Read the MSM’s statement below:
Nationalist Law and Justice party candidate Karol Nawrocki has overnight won the Polish presidential election, beating prime minister Donald Tusk’s candidate the Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski by 50.89% to 49.11%. The first exit poll had Trzaskowski ahead…
Nawrocki’s campaign survived numerous scandals. He was endorsed by the Trump administration which is close to the Law and Justice party (PiS) – which lost power in parliament in 2023. Polish presidents can frustrate parliamentary majorities with veto powers while PiS still has its appointees in the constitutional court. Battles ahead…
Tech supremo Elon Musk has confirmed he’s stepping down from his temporary role in the Trump administration after spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Here are some of his achievements in the role:
The UK public sector is meanwhile crying out for its own specialised cost-cutting project. Guido’s UK DOGE project has so far exposed billions in taxpayer waste. The team stands ready for a call-up from Starmer…
European Central Bank Governing Council member and Slovakia’s central bank chief Peter Kazimir has been found guilty of bribery today, with a Slovak Specialised Criminal Court ruling he must pay a €200,000 fine or face a one-year prison sentence. Oh…
Prosecutors allege that between 2012 and 2019, while serving as finance minister, Kazimir handed over a €48,000 bribe to the then boss of the national tax office to influence tax proceedings. As the verdict can be appealed, with Kazimir maintaining his innocence, he won’t be forced out of office, and is set to participate in the next interest-rate meeting on 4-5 June. And Starmer wants to get closer to the bloc…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”