Tag Archives: iran war

Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 7th June 2026 - 10:04 am

AI

Sitting next to Pope Leo XIV when he launched his controversial encyclical on AI was Chris Olah—co-founder of the AI company Anthropic.

His presence was no accident. The Pope’s 235 page “Magnifica Humanitas”  calls for regulation of technology to protect the dignity of humankind.

Olah’s position is the same and he has made a name for himself by refusing to allow the Trump Administration to use Anthropic for military and intelligence purposes.

Olah is on one side of a technologically-driven political divide in Silicon Valley. On the other side are figures such as Marc Andreesen, who has been involved with many of the tech industry’s leading brands and Peter Thiel, CEO of the AI company Palantir.

Thiel and Andreesen far-right libertarians who want to avoid regulation. They see technological development as essential and that the controllers of technology should also control the politics for the benefit of all. Both men are big contributors to Donald Trump and conservative causes.

The debate goes beyond Silicon Valley to the international political stage. The Trump Administration big concern is winning the AI race with China. Donald Trump recently signed an Executive Order allow government oversight to prevent cyber-attacks. But he did so reluctantly.  He wants to keep regulation to a minimum; encourage private investment in AI and then use the product as an instrument of national power.

The EU wants AI to grow. It wants investment in European AI companies but they view government’s role as a partner and referee rather than spectator.

To put it simply: Trump wants to win the race. Brussels—and the pope-want to control AI. Britain wants to win the race safely.

The difficulty for Britain is that middle positions become harder to maintain as technologies mature. During the early nuclear age, Britain initially tried to bridge Washington and continental Europe. Eventually it had to choose where to place its strategic weight.

AI may force a similar decision. If the next decade brings increasingly powerful AI systems, the central geopolitical question may not be US versus China but whether the Western world adopts the American model of strategic competition or the European model of precautionary governance

Donald Trump and the liberal consensus

The Trump administration has always been an alliance of groups and people that oppose the so-called liberal consensus: the idea that the U.S. government should regulate business, provide social welfare programs, promote infrastructure projects, protect civil rights, and support a rules-based international order.

Since the 1980s Republicans accepted many of the institutional pillars of the post-war order—especially free trade, alliances and global leadership—even while seeking to reduce regulation and constrain the growth of government.

Trump upended that system, promising to dismantle the federal government built around the liberal consensus, the government his voters thought they hated because they thought its protection of equality before the law gave Black Americans, Brown Americans, women, and gender or religious minorities a leg up on white Christian men.

This racist lobby combined with a growing number concerned about immigration, cultural change, distrust of elites, de-industrialisation and globalisation.  Or they thought funding for science wasted their money on the research that right-wing influencers mocked for wasting their money and intruding on their freedom. Or they thought the U.S. contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. participation in alliances did not put “America First.”

In 2024, Trump cobbled together enough groups who thought that way to win the White House, and as soon as he took power, he set out to destroy the liberal consensus government with the help of loyalists he installed in key positions.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey on Kuennsberg to talk about “Trump’s idiotic war” and need to act on food security

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 12th April 2026 - 12:15 pm

Ed Davey was interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire who was sitting in for Laura Kuennsberg this morning. He wanted to talk about our plan to ensure food security by giving a billion to England’s farmers and introduce a Good Food Bill in next month’s King’s Speech.

Unsurprisingly, though, the first question was about whether we supported the UK sending military help to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Ed said:

I think we should work with our international partners, particularly at the UN if possible but certainly with our allies in NATO and elsewhere and in the Gulf Region in particular to see whatever we can do to open the Strait of Hormuz. I think diplomacy would be the best way forward rather than using military assets.

“But you are not against it in principle if it’s with other countries?” asked Derbyshire.

Well, I’d start with diplomacy. You have to open the Strait of Hormuz for the world economy, for British families and businesses who are suffering. This idiotic war prosecuted by Donald Trump and PM Netanyahu, initially supported by Kemi Bademoch and Nigel Farage, let’s not forget, has been a total disaster. It was so predictable and no doubt many American experts would have counselled the President  against this. And let me give some praise to our Prime Minister. He was right to keep us out of this war. We’ve argued from the get-go that he should have stood up to Trump far earlier on the economy and defence and all these foreign policy issues.

We have already asked the Government for  pressing for a price cap and a three-month VAT holiday to cut the cost of heating oil as well as an emergency Fuel Duty cut that would bring the cost of red diesel used by UK farmers down by around £5 million over the next three months.

We are also calling for a £1 billion increase in the farming budget to support British farmers to produce food sustainably and profitably, and for farm payments to recognise food security as a public good. Currently, England is the only country in Europe that doesn’t use its farm payments scheme to support food security. In the interview, Ed said EU rather than Europe. If only…

Ahead of the interview, Ed had said:

Donald Trump’s idiotic war with Iran – cheered on by Reform and the Conservatives – is squeezing British families from every direction: at the pump, on their energy bills, and now in the supermarket. In such an unstable world, Britain needs to become much more self-sufficient, especially when it comes to food.

That is why we are calling for a Good Food Bill in the King’s Speech, to put food security at the heart of the government’s agenda, back British farmers to produce food sustainably and profitably, and make sure everyone can afford the food they need.

The last Conservative Government disastrously undermined Britain’s food security, undercutting our world-class farmers with botched funding and bad trade deals. Labour has shown it doesn’t understand the rural economy, with their terrible mess over the family farm tax.

Only the Liberal Democrats are standing up for British farmers and British food production. It is crazy that England is the only place in Europe where farm payments don’t recognise the importance of food security. That has to change.”

Derbyshire pressed him at length on how exactly this would bring food prices down urgently and how our cut on VAT  would be paid for and wouldn’t accept that the Government is already raking in extra tax as the oil price is going through the roof. 

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