Or does he like being humiliated?
We need a “coalition of the willing” European leaders to reign in the lunatic in the White House, who obviously despises Europe, before we end up with US sponsored, populist rightwing leaders across the board.
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HMG needs to get over the idea of flattering or appeasing their way into Trump’s good books. He just banks whatever he gets and comes back for more. Starmer should have waited until nearly the end of Trump’s term for the state visit, he could at least have had that as a bargaining chip.
Any agreement signed with Trump isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
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NATO used to be “The French, the Brits and the Germans hold out until the Yanks arrive to save the continent” during The Cold War.
European leaders have 2 critical regional security issues relating to NATO right now:
- Europe hasn’t kept up their military capability.
- The Yanks might decide not to help depending who’s in The Oval Office.
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At the risk of offending any Cousins present, that’s always been the case to some extent.
The US has always had a bit of an isolationist streak, even under sensible Presidents - they kept out of the First World War until 1917, and didn’t join in with WW2 until attacked by Japan and Germany declared war on the US.
Roosevelt was helping as much as he could by stealth prior to that point but there was definitely a reluctance to get involved both times, and I think it would probably be the same again, NATO or no NATO.
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I wouldn’t say Russia’s military capability is up to much and Ukraine is stretching them to the limit .
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How does one ‘defame’ Trump? If a court found in favour of his ridiculous accusations could the BBC refuse to pay up?
I believe they made a lot of money out of it, the allies had to pay for years plus all the nazi brains they plunder for the USA .
Well yes it was “cash and carry” to start with, and the UK didn’t pay off all its debts to the USA for Lend-Lease until the end of 2006.
I remember years ago someone described the space race as the German scientists the Russians had captured competing with the German scientists the Americans had captured. Which I would completely agree with 
I’ve even visited Peenemünde, how sad is that?
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Yes I think that’s true.
The Germans were pretty much the only ones who bothered with ballistic missiles during WW2, out of desperation for something to give them an edge; the Allies concentrated on conventional weapons as they had the overwhelming production capacity and it was tried and tested technology.
So when rockets became important (both for space and for firing off nukes) second-hand Germans were quite useful. 
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This case should be thrown out first for lack of jurisdiction to hear it in Florida, and secondly for being frivolous. Then I hope the BBC countersues Trump. Lastly I hope Trump fucks off never to be seen or heard of again.
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Does Trump actually ever sue anyone? He does a lot of threatening to get people to bribe him to go away, but the first thing I’d do if he ever actually thought of taking a case near a court was ensure he knew (via his people) just how much I was going to enjoy discovery.
I don’t apologise for having used this tactic in almost every similar situation I’ve been involved with, but the one thing that scares the shit out of people with a significant public profile is realising that they may have to face deposition, and what may come up during that. I can honestly say that one for one, when famous or important people realise what I’m intending to do the whole situation takes a dramatic turn. We all know trump lies whenever his lips move so he’s probably got delusional ideas about how he’d handle it, but I somehow doubt even he would be very keen for (the lawyers of) one of the top news organisations of the last hundred years forcing him into an incredibly uncomfortable deposition, if they went for the jugular he’d very likely be in a very precarious situation.
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I may have said this before. I read something recently the estimated he actually goes to court about 25% of the time. What would aggrieve me is if licence payers or the taxpayer end up giving him a settlement worth millions in return for the grift.
Edit: DAG’s blog is out from behind the firewall. He doesn’t think countersuing is the way to go, it could be in this.
I heard here that Trump would not have success in court if he tried:
My impression is that many of Trump’s lawsuits never get to court, because the other side caves and settles out of court just to be rid of him, and/or because it can be cheaper than paying lawyers to fight the suit.
Or, since he became President, in the case of American companies to avoid being victimised by the State apparatus at Trump’s disposal.
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“Critics have noted that the two releases describe the deal in sharply different terms. The British release describes the UK as “the only country in the world to secure a 0% tariff on pharmaceuticals to the US”, while the American one largely focuses on how the NHS will have to pay 25% more for new medicines.”
I guess many others are concerned about Starmer’s ineffective transatlantic bottom licking
I thought one of his tactic was to threaten to sue and the other party would pragmatically back down rather than shelling out to defend themselves. Certainly this seems to have been the case with several US universities.
Hopefully the BBC won’t go down tha road.. Also the amount of damages he’s claiming is so far off any scale that it’s probably a publicity stunt, or winding-up people/organisations
The BBC need to stand up to him but more importantly be impartial to his antics and not be scared of him.
The “special” relationship means that the UK is treated as third rate country and milked . The repayment of the debts from both World Wars encapsulates how the UK , and the then Empire plus Allies had to offer every option to get supplies to survive before the USA entered WW2.
The USA was able to squeeze a one sided deal, and their industrial base established from the Depression to War production meant that the USA had an unique opportunity for world dominance.
NATO is now a husk as the USA dilly dallies , and the only rational response is that Europe, Canada plus the UK reform NATO . In addition these countries should cooperate to produce their military equipment and isolate the USA under Trump. Time is of the essence.
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I don’t disagree, but perhaps the most useful thing these countries could do would be to learn from the Ukrainians’ response to the Russian invasion. In a very short space of time the Ukrainians were able to develop defensive and offensive drones; their development time and relatively lo-tech approach contrasts incredibly with the years long timelines of most Western defence development/production contracts. Europe should be offering the Ukraine facilities and resources to massively expand their drone production, but also drone R&D.
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