Andrew Cranswick

Socially & Environmentally Responsible Natural Resources development

[Nick Mangwana @nickmangwana]

What do you think of this summary of Zimbabwe? What has been left out?

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@nickmangwana It's good, Nick!

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

Burnham Was Warned. He Appointed Miliband Anyway

Washington does not usually warn incoming prime ministers before they take office. It did this time. The Telegraph has revealed that the White House told Andy Burnham's team, in the informal contacts that precede any change of government, that Ed Miliband would be a problem. Burnham was told before he had the keys to Downing Street. He took the warning, and on Monday he handed Miliband the Foreign Office regardless.

Steve Bannon's assessment is blunt but accurate. Burnham, he says, could not care less. The evidence supports him. This was not an oversight. It was a choice made with full knowledge of the cost.

The cost is not abstract. Miliband spent the past year demonstrating exactly the instincts that made Washington nervous. In February he led the National Security Council in blocking American use of UK bases, a decision that persuaded Sir Keir Starmer to deny Diego Garcia to Washington at the opening of the war on Iran. He beat John Healey, the Defence Secretary whose job it actually was to weigh that call, and Starmer sided with him. The reversal came only after Iran struck a British base, which is to say only after the argument was settled by force rather than judgment. As energy secretary he blocked North Sea drilling, a policy Trump has criticised directly and repeatedly. None of this is buried history. It is the record Burnham had in front of him when he made his decision.

Then there is the personal record, which is worse. In 2016 Miliband wrote of resisting "the worst of Trumpism" and described the president's election as leaving "little solace." He told the BBC that sharing values with Trump "beggars belief," and specified why in terms no diplomat would choose. In 2017 he said Trump had "lowered the bar for idiocy" and marched against him through London. A Foreign Secretary's job includes managing the most consequential relationship Britain has. Burnham has given that job to a man who has spent a decade on record calling the other head of state a bigot.

Miliband's own first words in the role confirmed the diagnosis. He pledged to deepen ties with the European Union. Only after that did he mention, almost as an addendum, Britain's alliance with the United States. A new Foreign Secretary's first public sentence is read closely by every chancellery watching. Miliband's told Washington where it ranks.

Compare this with David Lammy, who held the same brief under Starmer and was quietly sidelined from broadcast interviews once his own historical comments about Trump became a liability. Lammy salvaged something through his relationship with JD Vance. Miliband has no equivalent relationship to fall back on. His connections run to John Kerry and the Democratic establishment Trump defeated twice. His idea of common ground with the president, we are told, is baseball.

None of this happened by accident. Burnham was handed a direct warning from the government of Britain's closest ally and decided the warning did not matter. That tells you what his premiership intends to prioritise, and it is not the transatlantic relationship. A government that begins by ignoring Washington's explicit concerns is not signalling independence. It is signalling that the alliance is now negotiable.

Trump has already shown, in his treatment of Starmer, how little patience he extends to leaders who misjudge him. Burnham has just handed him a Foreign Secretary who spent a decade calling him unfit for office. The special relationship survived Starmer's paralysis. Whether it survives Miliband's appointment is now an open question, and Burnham chose to ask it.

"In 2017 Miliband said Trump had "lowered the bar for idiocy" and marched against him through London."

[The Spectator @spectator]

In my four decades in and around Westminster, I have met plenty of wrong 'uns and seen lots of scandals and disastrous appointments.

But I can say with utter certainty that the appointment of Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary by Andy Burnham is, by a very long way, the most nauseating appointment of my lifetime. It is genuinely sickening.

✍️ Stephen Pollard

Article | https://t.co/7ryqVuMsM8 | @stephenpollard

[Donna Louise @DonnaLouise1212]

🚨 "I am Peter, living man, son of Michael and Lily."

Those were the haunting last words of 61-year-old grandfather Peter Lynch — repeated over and over to prison guards as he refused food and water before taking his own life in HMP Moorland.

Arrested for shouting at police during the Rotherham riots outside an asylum hotel, this dad and grandad got 2 years 8 months. No violence against officers, but part of an angry crowd protesting grooming gangs, open borders & child safety.

Now he's dead. While the government fast-tracked riot sentences and ignored root causes, a confused, vulnerable man slipped through the cracks with zero mental health referral.

This isn't justice. This is what government overreach looks like when it crushes ordinary people raising their voices. RIP Peter Lynch. Britain needs to wake up.

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@AbiluTangwa Excepting for rare lightning induced fires, humans light the fires

Global average temp has no measurable impact (seeice cores)

In most of Africa fires are lit as part of "slash & burn" agriculture which also means mass deforestation

Cheaper fertiliser + education fixes it

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@LeeAndersonMP_ I guess 5-Eyes is now 4-Eyes

[Alina @XNinaross_]

This woman is a child abuser. That's her son mind you. And this was her decision not her son's...!

[🇺🇸Roger Bernards🍊 @RogerBernards]

America!! I think AOC is on to us!!
😂😂😂

[Scrumming Flyhalf @scrumming_ten]

England get eliminated from a rugby, cricket or football world cup and their media spends the following week writing ragebait articles on the team who dumped them out

They can never lose with dignity

[philthy @Asshole19672831]

@DavidUllrich202 Ice doesn’t raise the water level after it melts! It’s more likely to lower it.

[EXPLOREREYES @Gary161718]

One of the most beautiful National Parks in Zimbabwe .
Gonarezhou National Park.

[Pat Condell @patcondell]

The Irish have completely lost their minds over Jews and Israel. Everything they believe about Israel is false. They endlessly parrot the genocide and apartheid lies, and with such certainty and ferocity, when they know absolutely nothing about the conflict or the region. It is wilful gross ignorance at this point, and a severe mental illness. No doubt about it.

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@Irish_On_Tour Fair point

Kudos

Except hang on

Most ABs aren't New Zealanders

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@RossyPrime And the point is ??

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@liz_churchill10 Marco 2028

He'll be the GOAT

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@RobbieA45578 You're too kind

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@joeroganhq Too good

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@Rugby_Scoop England

Sore losers

Sore winners

Absolute lack of geace & sportsmanship

Just sour grapes & gloating

I disown your genetics in me (<50%)

[Andrew Cranswick @ANCranswick]

@itsrosesm Well

I have watched 2 or 3 dialogues before I knew better

The cringe level he induces in me & friends leads me to sense something way darker & more sinister than just an annoying progressive woke puppet

I may be wrong

But seldom am in these instincts