Gerry Deas

Taxi driver in Edinburgh,the best small city in the world
tired of all the lies

[Billingham Town FC @BillinghamTown]

CLUB STATEMENT

The club would like to address rumours circulating on social media regarding unacceptable behaviour following today’s game away to Seaham Red Star.

After a brief investigation, we can confirm that Billingham Town supporter Phil Smith has received a lifetime ban from the club and has been reported to the Northern League, The FA and Cleveland Police.

Although we are delighted to see Town win, and appreciate that celebrations can occasionally go a little too far, ordering a strawberry daiquiri in a pub, with the lads, on a matchday cannot—and will not—be tolerated.

Furthermore, to ensure the club does not encourage similar behaviour in future, lager tops will no longer be served in the clubhouse.

The club considers the matter closed.

#UTT

[Feel Good Animals 🐾 @FeelGoodAnimals]

I can watch this video all day 😍🐕

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

"I've known the Cottrell family, my family have known the Cottrell family and the broader Hesketh family for 50 years"

But Reform aren't part of the establishment, right?

[IandrewDiceClay @IANdrewDiceClay]

This was only ever aired once, and never released on VHS or DVD due to Michael Barrymore's arrested and cancellation. Jimmy Savile in Bob Martin doing the most hiding in plain sight cameo ever. Creepiest thing I've ever seen.

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

He says “up the RA” for £86

…imagine what he’d do for £5m.

[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

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

The US has circulated its version of the Memo of Understanding with Iran to G7 leaders in France. It’s as bad if not worse than expected.
— The moment it’s signed (Friday) sanctions on the export of Iran oil are lifted. So the regime can start replenishing its coffers immediately.
— The US commits to doing nothing to undermine or destabilise the Iranian regime (it started the war to remove it).
— The US specifically commits to ending its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz but Iran does not commit specifically to returning the Strait to toll/fee free transit exactly as before the war, with no Iranian control/regulation whatsoever .
— All sanctions against Iran will be dropped should phase two negotiations go well. And America will withdraw its forces from the region.
— The US ‘undertakes’ to work with Iran and Gulf allies to create a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran. So America will now become a partner with the tyrants of Tehran, who Trump only recently wanted to overthrow, in rebuilding their economy.
— All matters related to Iran’s nuclear capabilities are kicked into the ‘final agreement’ in 60 days time (or longer if necessary).
— No mention of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities or its financing of terrorist proxies.
And that’s just about it. When Trump insisted the war would only end with ‘unconditional surrender’ it never crossed my mind he meant his own.

[Aaron McIntosh @AaronMcIntosh95]

If you are a Scottish Football fan who isn’t going to America and who likes to know who is the punditry panel to make sure Rio Ferdinand isn’t spoiling a game, then you may like to know that the Haiti v Scotland and Scotland v Morocco broadcast teams has been announced on ICDb 👍

[Baldy Bassey 😎 @Baldy_Bassey]

Every single bit of cheating in Celtic’s favour domestically this season - Thread

Get this retweeted far and wide. It was as sinister as ever this season

[Gary Lineker @GaryLineker]

This might be the worst VAR decision I’ve seen (and there’s a lot of competition). Extraordinary given the significance.

[The LTDA @TheLTDA]

Driverless cars, what could possibly go wrong? What would have happened if the driver was not in the car and had not taken over?

[Gerry Deas @dieseluk01]

Didn't go quite as planned in the comments

[Ian Murray MP @IanMurrayMP]

It was first in my in-tray too as Scottish secretary but it was simply too late as Tories & SNP done nothing to prevent closure.

It suddenly became of interest to SNP & Tories after the ‘24 Election.

Charlatans that sat on their hands.

We’ve delivered nearly £500m in response.

[Clarence Beeks @DoThough58510]

British fighter jets flying over Cyprus brilliant work by the cameraman

[Jan Venegoor of Citylink @GaelicRoadSign]

The UK is a cesspit of hatred. One minute you've got people screaming about asylum seekers, the next they're wanting to take Mobility cars off the disabled. A race to the bottom whilst corruption and greed at the top go unchallenged.

[Stu Cameron @stucam7771]

World War II the most brutal war ever.

Photo below of a German submarine picking up British sailors after they torpedoed their warship.

Today, the American submarine sailed away leaving any Iranian survivors to drown.

Imagine having less moral standards than the Nazis…

[ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret]

The scale of Trumpland corruption is out and out gangsterism. And Farage Badenoch and the out of touch right wing rags think we should be giving blank cheques to the gangsters on policy too.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

Holy crap. If you missed the Sergeant at Arms announcing Trump's entrance to the SOTU circus on Jimmy Kimmel Live, you're welcome...

You gotta see this. Savage! 🤣

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

Peter Mandelson, the Russian superyacht and the scandal we completely misread https://t.co/URyaG93Xjv

[SK 💃🏾🕺 @Rimmesfk]

In March 2011 it became public knowledge that Virginia Giuffre (then using the surname Roberts) claimed she had been trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and forced to have sexual encounters with Prince Andrew.

8yrs later in June 2019 the below photo of the “concerned couple” was taken at Windsor castle seen here laughing & chatting & embracing Andrew,knowing what the rest of the world knew of what Andrew had done to Virginia(God rest her soul 🙏🏾)

2026 after the world backlash & outrage the concerned couple transmitted their faux “Concerns & thoughts to the victims” through their spokesperson, it appears Andrew is also seen as a victim of Epstein in all of this, otherwise this concern would’ve been made known years and years ago..

[John Nichol ✈ @JohnNicholRAF]

Long ramble:
I have been mulling if I should comment on President Trump's inane comments about NATO involvement in Afghanistan. Although 35 years ago, during the US-led first Gulf War, I was lying, handcuffed & blindfolded - literally 'shoulder to shoulder' - with a US colleague on a concrete floor in an Iraqi interrogation bunker, I rather feel it should be the current generation who express any anger at the President's ludicrous, demonstrably false utterings. Which is why I earlier shared some posts from others.
But perhaps I will reflect like this - I watched Trump's press conference in the wake of the terrible tragedy when a US helicopter collided with a civilian airliner last January in disbelief. 64 people lost their lives but it seemed to be about him - his expertise, his knowledge, what he thought had happened. Much of what he said was incorrect.
So I realised back then that it was going to be pointless trying to analyse any upcoming word-salads. Everything is clearly about him; his expertise in every subject, his grasp of all situations. His need to say something, anything, to show he is the best, the cleverest, the smartest, the most knowledgeable kid on the block.
The pub-bore, the braggart, the know-it-all, pontificates on anything and everything in the hope of bolstering their own, clearly very low, self-esteem.
I wonder that, in the President's mind, that it doesn't matter if what he says is factually correct? I wonder if he knows, understands, even cares, what is true? He is saying some words, which in his mind, seems to suggest that he's important and people will admire him, laud him. The fact that everyone around him then applauds this character trait, thanking him for his 'leadership' at every turn, just amplifies his desire, his need to continue. He's got want he wants - in his mind - attention, praise, admiration.
So to sum up, trying to analyse Trump's ramblings is like trying to play chess with a pigeon. Somewhat interesting at first, but ultimately, truly pointless and rather frustrating.
To those he has hurt, insulted, vilified, I send you my deepest condolences for your loss, and gratitude for your service.