UKTheDutch

Strengthen relations between #UK, the #Netherlands/#EU. And our friends from #Belgium, #Germany, #France etc. Visit

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

A prominent Dutch historian Geert Mak compared in the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad #Putin with a ‘raging bull’. Too many #Russians and some fellow-travellers in #Europe are now willfully looking for a room in this (also morally) decrepit #stable that gives off a terrible #stench

[Francis Scarr @francis_scarr]

An op-ed for state news agency RIA Novosti titled "What Russia should do with Ukraine" by pundit Timofei Sergeitsev has created quite a stir today

The rhetoric is truly horrific, even by the standards of what I'm used to seeing from pro-Kremlin media

Below are a few quotes:

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

https://t.co/wHarW04A20

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

https://t.co/tXQwTW0oeB

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

https://t.co/tWhxUDIrAm

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

https://t.co/ZnJSASe0CF

[ST Foreign Desk @STForeignDesk]

France identifies first case of ebola https://t.co/T6SV343mRT

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Moscow is pressuring Belarus in hopes of using it to expand Russia’s war in Ukraine or launch operations against NATO. https://t.co/bqgvZvpQp9

[Christopher Miller @ChristopherJM]

Hegseth forces out top army officer in Europe

General CD Donahue, a widely respected special forces veteran who has been critical to US efforts to help Ukraine fight Russia, will announce his retirement, according to people familiar with the situation.
https://t.co/ysWEzGCIwt

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

🚨 BREAKING: Former Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren has been appointed secretary general of the External Action Service, the EU's foreign policy wing.

Full story: https://t.co/0dOpvbSqPv

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

Van #Brexit naar #Breturn? Tien jaar na referendum wil meerderheid Britten terug https://t.co/dBpLWpTZAI

[Odatv @odatv]

2008'de Rusya Devlet Başkanı Vladimir Putin'in olimpiyat sporcusu Alina Kabaeva ile aşk yaşadığını öne süren gazeteci Grigori Nekhoroshev ölü bulundu

https://t.co/ZTmwITq1xB

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

The enemies of the Russian dictator are poisoned, fall out of the window or are ‘jumping from roofs’.

[TVP World @TVPWorld_com]

Grigory Nekhoroshev, the former editor of a Russian newspaper that published claims about Vladimir Putin’s alleged relationship with former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, died in Latvia at the age of 69. Local media reported that the likely cause was poisoning from wild mushrooms he had collected near his home.
https://t.co/gXQROObbmN

[BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast]

'How much of the money have you spent?'

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told #BBCBreakfast 'I've done nothing wrong' when questioned about a £5m gift from billionaire Reform backer Christopher Harborne

https://t.co/EzwCYcHHh8

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

If Vance is hailing progress you have to be really worried🥺.

[FRANCE 24 English @France24_en]

🇨🇭 Mediators hailed progress in talks between #Iran and the #US that took place in #Switzerland Monday.

US Vice President JD #Vance said it laid a good foundation for a deal to end the war.

Watch for more ⤵️

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

An interesting view!

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Every British PM’s nightmare

With Keir Starmer expected to fall on his sword shortly, here is my take on the conundrum facing Andy Burnham, indeed any and every British PM.

The true nature of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States has far more to do with American financiers’ willingness to keep borrowing to purchase British government debt than with history, culture or Britain’s defence needs. This is the burden under which every UK Prime Minister must labour.

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit”. The same could be said of prospective British prime ministers, especially after Liz Truss's spectacular defenestration. They all have a plan until the guilt market hits them. Andy Burnham, Nigel Farage, my friend Zack Polanski will have to face this, if they ever move into 10 Downing Street. I think they know it. But I doubt whether they appreciate the true magnitude or nature of their predicament.

Conventional wisdom has it that the bond market comprises people looking to invest their savings in a government's debt. They seek the right balance between a higher interest rate and the increased risk this implies. For example, higher bond yields may signal that the market expects future inflation to reduce the value of the fixed interest payments that their bonds will yield. Worse still, it may foreshadow a risk of government default, as occurred in Argentina and Greece.

That’s more or less what first year economics and finance students are taught. And it’s all true. Except that, in the case of the United Kingdom, this story misses the most fascinating and worrying aspect of its government bond or gilt market: The British government’s ability to refinance its public debt of almost 3 trillion pounds does not depend on savers choosing to invest in gilts. In fact, the British government’s ability to sell gilts hinges heavily on the willingness of numerous US-based financial institutions to borrow substantial sums of dollars to purchase British gilts, which they then use as collateral to borrow for their own purposes within the US.

And there’s the rub. There is a world of difference between needing to borrow from savers and from relying on speculators who borrow themselves to lend you. Savers who lend to you focus on your long-term ability to repay them. They may tolerate your desire to make infrastructural investments that could increase your debt in the short term, in return for future profits that will help you repay them when their bonds expire. However, speculators who borrow in order to lend are a different beast entirely. They are much jumpier and prone to margin calls: situations where, if the bonds they purchased from you begin to lose value, fearing they will not be able to repay their own creditors, they dump your bonds thus turning their decline into a crash.

The question arises: Why are British bonds, or gilts, so much more reliant on American speculators borrowing money to buy them than German bunds, Japanese bonds, Italian bonds or Greek bonds? Why does every British government rely so heavily on American leveraged capital inflows?

It all started in the 1950s when the City of London discovered how to avoid following the British Empire down the road to oblivion. The trick was to carve out a niche for the City within the emerging dollar empire, which was institutionalised within the Bretton Woods system. American financiers faced rigid capital controls within that system, but the City of London was able to alleviate these due to three invaluable features.

First, London’s trading expertise and legal system offered American financiers efficiency with immunity from all sort of interventions, including democratic accountability. Secondly, Britain’s network of offshore jurisdictions offered fabulous tax-minimisation opportunities. And, thirdly, London quickly became the holding depository of a torrent of petrodollars and eurodollars, not to mention the shadowy dollars created outside the United States by foreign bankers.

Thus, the Great British paradox: while the UK's real economy was in decline, the City of London was flourishing. When the Bretton Woods system collapsed in the 1970s, American financiers discovered another use for the City: they borrowed dollars in the US short-term to buy long-term UK government gilts, which they then sold quickly to repay their loans. They would then repeat this process again and again to profit handsomely. This is how the British government became reliant on leveraged US institutions. In order to continue operating as usual, London today requires American balance sheets that are willing to expand through borrowing and use British gilts as collateral in order to maintain liquidity in the US.

Put differently, the flipside of the City’s success story is that, even though it borrows in a currency that it prints, the UK is not financially sovereign. Yes, the City occupies a strategically important position within the global dollar system but the price for this is that the UK government’s sovereignty is circumscribed by its priority to maintain the City’s central position in American finance. While this remains the priority, the occupant of 10 Downing Street is like the captain whose powers are limited to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Is there an alternative to this peculiar form of financial subservience to US-based leveraged financiers? Yes, but it requires a willingness to accept a falling pound and falling house prices while increasing public investment through a new investment bank that issues bonds supported by the Bank of England.

Any Prime Minister who tries to maintain Britain’s financial servitude to US capital while also investing in public goods may well put Britain on a path towards the IMF, whose sole purpose, lest we forget, is to create the political leverage that will bring about – like it did in Greece – the permanent loss of sovereignty over tax and spending policy. The question is: Do the current contenders for Britain’s top job understand this?

https://t.co/xGrWjjcudY

[The Telegraph @Telegraph]

In the midst of all the chaos, Larry the cat is proving to be one of the few constants in Downing Street as he prepares for a potential seventh new owner

Follow the latest updates 👇
https://t.co/08jvhcBz3Q

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

Moscow this morning.

I was thinking about something: as a result of the severe socio-economic consequences of this catastrophically failed war against Ukraine, Russia is facing a long and painful economic decline, social upheaval, massive disorganization, a huge rise in organized crime, and the shock of defeat -- the new 1990s after the collapse of the USSR.

And the most "amusing" part is that when the reckoning for this barbaric invasion of Ukraine finally comes, and the consequences of their deranged fascist regime in the Kremlin become apparent, Russians will once again be sighing and saying how good life was "under Putin" and how everything needs to be put back the way it was.

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Applebaum: Putin has presented a fake image of Russia to the world. He talks about leading a traditional society

In reality, divorce is very high, abortion is common, very few Russians go to church and less than 5% have ever read a Bible. It's not a traditional culture at all 1/

[UKTheDutch @UKTheDutch]

Rusland geeft toe dat oorlogsschip waarschuwingsschot afvuurde op plezierjacht in Kanaal
https://t.co/QAIogUleXt