The vile regime in Iran may now be entering its end days—but that is hard to say. The latest target of America’s never-ending wars is probably not going to go without some sort of fight. Just at the moment when commentators were suggesting a diplomatic solution was on hand one can only assume that the Trump whisperer Netanyahu convinced the idiot to go in all guns blazing. The last thing Bibi wanted was to attack Iran on his own. That there is, as usual it seems no plan for whatever happens if the regime is ousted, another interminable post-war disaster awaits. That there is no plan is evidenced by both Trump and Netanyahu’s calls for the Iranian people to ’take control’ and enjoy the fruits of their new found freedom, as did Libyans, Iraqis and Syrians, not to mention Afghanistan whose invasion of course at least had the legal imprimatur of the UN.
 
Some people have suggested that the Shah’s son, who has lived in the United States for most of his life could become the figurehead of a new democratic Iran. He reminds me of the US’s once favoured Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi who helped convince George W. & Co  to invade Iraq. Chalabi hardly got a hero’s welcome in the new ’liberated’ Iraq and subsequently was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 22 years in prison. I am not suggesting the Shah’s son is a fraudster of course. I am suggesting vultures are already circling Tehran.

​Naturally, none of this has anything to do with the Epstein files. That would be a gratuitous suggestion! 

I am struggling to understand how the 72 year old man of the moment, Dark Lord and Prince of Darkness whatisname rationalises his situation. The BBC reported:
 
“Lord Mandelson has not publicly commented in recent weeks on the Epstein files, but the BBC understands his position is he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.”
 
It seems Mandelson’s boss at the time of his alleged ‘misconduct in public office’ disagrees with Mandy’s profession of innocence. No doubt the police will get to the bottom of it. So what drove Mandy to share sensitive information whilst Business Secretary? I expect he’ll tell us it was purely about friendship. That friendship, as we know helped Epstein to meet a wider network of power brokers, including Tony Blair. Epstein’s Rolodex clearly expanded with such compliant friends of friends. That will certainly have helped Epstein to a financial gain. In the meantime Mandy will have told himself so many times, over and over again that he was simply and naively a friend of the paedo and all his interactions were totally innocent he will go to his grave believing it and that he has been done a great injustice. The same will be true of Mr Windsor, although his behaviour seems to have been more skewed to the pleasures of the flesh.

I asked the internet ‘what is a nation state?’ Whether the response was from Wikipedia or ChatGTP the answer was the same: ‘just about anything really.’ In my simple imagination I thought the definition may depend on things like having a common language, control of one’s own laws, the means to defend the population, possibly even your own currency—well, it might include all of these things but a lot more besides. And of course ‘controlling your own laws’ doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t share that responsibility with other nation states, nor even your currency or any other number of policies. But ultimately even if you had shared those things you might retain the right to withdraw from sharing them, as the UK foolishly did with Brexit.
 
I am prompted to ask the question ‘what is a nation state’ by coverage of the Epstein scandal, particularly some reporting of it in the Byline Times. Much of this looks at the paedo’s international connections, and the manner in which he used these connections to promote interests outwith the control of any particular nation state. Prominent here is his relationship with the Techbros and the development of cryptocurrency. Choosing your own currency, and the controls under which it is employed is a significant national governance issue. So the development of cryptocurrency, which doesn’t submit itself to any form of regulation is a concern, not least in advancing the cause of ne’r do wells. But it seems to me the likes of Epstein, and others, such as Peter Thiel of Palantir fame are bent on creating their own crypto empires, reliant on and facilitated by technology and supplicated for the time being by pliant governments.. What other explanation can there be for Epstein’s so-called ’philanthropic’ donations to academic institutions working on complex technological issues if not to understand this new world?
 
We are already well in to the era where technology outpaces regulation. Legislators struggle to keep up (and some are bought off, of course). Indeed, if legislators could keep up with the technology, we might find that real democratic oversight would have to be sidelined if not abandoned. The Epstein files give us an invaluable insight into how the techbro-industrial complex meshes together. I maintain my view that the offering up of Mr Windsor, and now even Mandy’s heads will be seen by some as a necessary sacrifice to keep their show on the road. And that road leads to the utter evisceration of what has previously been known as ‘sovereign power.’
 
There’s a huge irony that for the likes of Farage and the populist right the language of sovereign power is crafted to accelerate the emergence of the crypto-state. 

My parliamentary successor but two, Mark Seward MP (the constituency is now called Leeds South West and Morley) has the distinction of being an ‘Honorary Chair of Labour Friends of Israel’ and has just written an article for LabourList in which he trots out the well worn line about the ‘two state solution.’ It barely needs reiterating that the Israeli government (as a whole, not just one or two rogue rightwing ministers) is fanatically opposed to the ‘two state solution’ and is doing all within its power to make it a practical impossibility. But it suits the Israeli government to see innocent consumers of the idea to spout it around where they believe it will help tame the opposition to their rapacious policies. Netanyahu’s government has made it plain with its Jewish state law that even Arabs still living in Israel are de facto second class citizens dwelling under an apartheid regime. As for the West Bank, this has long since ceased to be a contiguous entity and violent evictions of Palestinians from their land continue at an alarming pace. Mr Seward thinks that boycotting Israel is wrong (trotting out the usual ‘what aboutery’ line which suggests e.g. BDS is more about anti-Semitism than anything else). I think if he did his research he would find that boycotts happen all the time, indeed I read only yesterday in Canada’s Globe and Mail that many Canadians are boycotting the United States (and the Canadian government stopped selling US products in state-run liquor stores). In Mr Seward’s assessment if there is any issue with Israel’s approach to the Palestinians it just comes down to a few bad actors (some of whom he approves being sanctioned). He fails to see the institutional issue. This blindness lies at the root of the problem.

In a very sad, deplorable and counter-intuitive way we owe Epstein a debt of gratitude. In death, his life has opened a can of worms so revealing it has got everybody (well, nearly everybody there’ll always be those who aren’t interested) thinking about the form and character of our elite human compatriots and the structures of their networks. As we wait all agog to find out whether Mandelson will have his collar felt we can also reflect on the simple truth that these people (and e.g. their fellow travellers the ‘Masters of the Universe’ who through greed and pure self-interest brought on the financial crisis) are utterly flawed and deserve no more respect than anyone else. So the question is: how do they get away with it? (Query: is Mr Mountbatten-Windsor being offered up to save a few skins? Despite his prominence, he was seen by many as pretty useless.) Perhaps if he’s found guilty and put away (at His Majesty’s Pleasure, as they say) will the powers that be breathe a sigh of relief and hope that this small sacrifice will help them preserve their privileges and nexus? How exactly will this episode pass into history?

+One of these days Starmer is going to tell us that he never knew who he was, or what his job was. He has said, (in relation to  the revelation that his covert campaign group in the Labour Party, the so-called ‘think tank’ Labour Together,’ run by Morgan McSweeney) that he wasn’t aware the group had commissioned a private company to investigate journalists looking into Labour Together’s secretive funding model. “I didn’t know anything about this investigation” Starmer said. Of course, the sum of money at issue, £700,000 is small change. Who would dream of asking where it was all coming from? Just like Jimmy Savile (never crossed my desk), Peter Mandelson (he lied to me) or Jeremy Corbyn (never knew him), Prime Ministerial amnesia and its consequential evasiveness reveal a deeply cynical abuse of public trust.
 
+Chancellor Rachel Reeves showed off her full grasp of economics today after news that the inflation rate had fallen from 3.4% to 3%. She said it was great that prices were falling. No, Rachel, if that were the case it would be called ‘deflation.’ All that’s happened is the rate of increase has slowed down a little—prices are still going up. One of the components in the reduced overall rate of inflation is a reduction in the price of petrol but I’ve not heard quite how government policy has achieved this.

UPDATE 19th February: Inflation figures in Canada also dipped a little, with fuel prices being much of the story. Conclusive evidence I think that that has nothing whatsoever to do with UK government policy. Unless of of course Rachel also runs the Canadian economy.

In the short term I am sure the likes of ChatGTP will be very popular. I have been using it to answer specific questions or to create images for example. Traditional Google searches will soon be a thing of the past. Did I say ‘traditional?’ How long did that tradition last? Anyway, ChatGTP is still free to use, so one might as well take advantage of it. But when it has reached maximum market penetration, charges will be applied. Adverts will proliferate. And it will know so much more about you, and that knowledge will be used in a much more analytical way than previously thought possible. But for the time being we will in our innocence latch on to this new boon. I confess I am increasingly hooked. And it’s so bloody polite I find myself saying—to an unconscious machine—’please’ and ‘thank you.’ Imagine the absurdity of it. Nobody in the 1950s who put a penny into a ‘I speak your weight’ machine would ever get off saying ‘thank you!’ (Well, they wouldn’t would they?) I hope the new, more insidious phenomenon of responsive machines and our response to them will be urgently investigated by psychologists. Our species may be terminally anthropocentric but this new effort of the techbros to humanise their addictive technologies could be quite dangerous, thank you. No, seriously thank you. Please confirm your humanity, as we like to say.

Crystal ball gazing is such fun, especially now that it has revealed so much to gaze at in this quiet period following the ‘end of history.’ I was tickled to read a story on the click bait, provided by the Daily Telegraph that a newish runner in the race to replace Starmer is our Mr. Tough Guy Defence Secretary, John Healey. I first met John in 1992 when we were both standing for unwinnable parliamentary seats—he in Ryedale and me in Beverley. John was an amiable colleague and rather uncontentious. He went on to win the Wentworth seat in 1997. His career has benefited from his overall capacity for being a ‘reliable chap’ about whom I doubt there has ever been a critical (or any) headline. He has melded into his role at the MoD without a hitch, and I think like so many Labour MPs who have taken charge of defence he has sought to bend over backwards to demonstrate that Labour is truly patriotic. This is not to question his sincerity, but merely to say that the pacifist streak in Labour (see my last blog) will always be contained. I’ll fight, fight and fight again as John (no great orator) might wish to say. Curiously another name in the hat to replace Starmer is a junior minister in the MoD, Al Carns MP who was only elected in 2024. He was a Colonel and so can rightly wear a chestful of medals. But, according to the Torygraph some Labour MPs have never heard of him. That of course could be his surprise manoeuvre, probably learnt from Sun Tzu. It amused me today to read in the Yorkshire Post an article by Col. Patrick Mercer (Rtd) MP (Rtd) that Carns might be the right choice. Perhaps it is no longer enough to have risen through the ranks to become a mere top prosecutor; now a career in the army stands you in good stead—both Clement Attlee and Denis Healey were commissioned to name but two.* Back in my time in parliament any former service people were generally ’other ranks’ and there were so few of us I even got an honourable mention once, although I can’t remember where. So it wouldn’t do John Healey’s chances any harm if he signed up, donned the camouflage gear and marched around with the Royal G4S Regiment (or SERCO or BAE Systems, the people who eat up so much of the MoD budget).  How does it go? We’ll fight them in the remote drone control rooms, we’ll fight them  . . .

*Personally, I think a former RAF Squadron Leader should be chosen. In the RAF they take better care of their gear. It costs so much.

What exactly do some people think constitutes ‘Western Civilisation?’ Oft cited as a key ingredient of this slippery beast is the birth of democracy (sic) in Greece, and perhaps more profoundly Greece’s then  enquiring, philosophising culture—I cite Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and a host of others whose thoughts are still pored over in university philosophy departments the world over (and let’s not forget their contribution to the development of Christianity). But no. Think again. In keeping with the deep thinking of the Great GENIUS of the Western Hemisphere, Texas A&M University has told a philosophy lecturer not to teach students about Plato’s Symposium (reports Philosophy Now). This apparently is because the Symposium amongst other things deals with questioning the nature of love. In Trump’s part of America loose talk about love, in the context of ’woke’ is a no-no. I wonder if Trump ever watched Derek Jarman’s film  Sebastiane (1976) which explored its Greek style themes rather explicitly (I saw the film when it was shown at the Humberside Theatre in Hull, where I worked behind the bar. I found it hilarious, but then I was already  the better for several bottles of Sam Smith’s Nut Brown Ale. A similar experience was had with a showing of Brown Ale With Gertie, 1974).* What does such an edict from a university to a philosophy lecturer tell us about the New No-Culture? Philosophy is about questioning, about seeking to understand who we are. I can only assume that following a deep reading of the philosophy of the last 3,000 years the new Curators of the Western Inheritance have come to a cast iron conclusion, which is no doubt based on Trump’s close reading of Plato. The version with pictograms.
 
The same issue of Philosophy Now reports that its last issue was banned in United Arab Emirates, not because of its contents (all about the nature of happiness) but because the mag’s cover artwork included a portrayal of a rainbow with only six colours, not the normal seven. Clearly this would pervert the susceptible citizens of UAE. Except they wouldn’t be susceptible if they were readers of Philosophy Now in UAE. A risky indulgence I imagine. Ultimately it is the job of philosophy to subvert.

*Jarman should have lived long enough to make a version of Melania, methinks.