Worth noting that the US told the UK and impacted firms that tariffs paid between the announcement of the deal and its implementation would be reimbursed. And then they weren’t.
Writer, podcaster and former diplomat. https://www.rusi.org/people/snell arthursnell.substack.com
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Worth noting that the US told the UK and impacted firms that tariffs paid between the announcement of the deal and its implementation would be reimbursed. And then they weren’t.
This is really interesting.
Whilst proving he’s not dead.
New story w/ @hilaryburns.bsky.social: A DOJ lawyer accused Harvard of ‘indifference to antisemitism.’ As a Harvard undergrad he wrote a paper from Hitler’s perspective. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
As an addendum to this, I wrote about the dumbness of Trump's India policy and how it empowers China and others. open.substack.com/pub/arthursn...
See what you did there
If he closes down his stupid pub that would be good. #MakeCotswoldsGreatAgain
Remove Hungary’s voting rights. It should have been done a long time ago
They seem pretty cheap on Amazon.
America is in decline and shifting to authoritarianism so it makes sense to move to a country in steeper decline, shifting to totalitarianism. on.ft.com/45L4bYO
The Today Programme is unlistenable. I've switched to the FT Business Briefing every morning. More informative and definitely less enraging.
A Turning Point The post-American world is being created in front of our eyes, in real time, rapidly Substack by @snellarthur.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/arthursn...
Thank you!
As an addendum to this, I wrote about the dumbness of Trump's India policy and how it empowers China and others. open.substack.com/pub/arthursn...
🐍 MEDUSA - Here's Looking At You, Kid 🪦 Before Medusa was monstrous, she was beautiful. And before she was beautiful, she was powerful. She is a riddle that defies solution, from a time before the shape of things was settled. 🍊 open.spotify.com/episode/67sR... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
The “Putin wants peace” crowd, especially the “poor persecuted Russia just has some reasonable security requests” variety, really need to reckon with . Peace-seekers don’t go after the bureaucrats and diplomats.
In just the past week or so, Russia has bombed a US factory in Ukraine, bombed an EU office in Ukraine, and jammed the navigation system on a plane carrying the EU president, forcing the pilots to land using paper maps. Putin does not want peace. He will keep pushing until we fight back.
The standout best podcast of all right now is @sturdyalex.bsky.social’s Poddyssey. Have a listen to the season finale! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
“We” the UK? There’s also the European Space Agency
When I heard there was a gutsy female judge taking no shit from the fascist regime called Sparkle Sooknanan I thought “she must be a Trini” and sure enough, born in 🇹🇹, product of Naps Girls. She will know that a backlash is coming and did this anyway. Courage. ✊ en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkle...
I’ve never been a Straw fan, from his earlier NUS & anti-EEC Barbara Castle days (he also let Nazi war criminal Kalejs evade justice in 2000). Now he pops up to support Ekins Policy Exchange’s house lawyer. Ugh.
"entirely groundless" This is how public discourse is being is being debased. The GFA expressly requires access to court in Northern Ireland for ECHR. But what Straw says is not tested, just repeated, and so a "both sides" "debate" is created. The actualité drowns. Sad to watch in real time.
It’s fun to watch and of course some of it did happen. I’m not a purist with these things; I just don’t always understand the choices made by screenwriters.
Do you remember the people who said that the UK economy would be rescued if we could turn left on a red light? 🤦♂️
Obsessed with images of a giant promotional statue of King Kong that accidentally caught fire
Please don’t f*ck this up BAE
Me when my wife sees the browser history
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
If you, @lincolnproject.us or @mehdirhasan.bsky.social haven’t seen this I really recommend it www.trumpactiontracker.info (Also the @snellarthur.bsky.social Behind The Lines podcast)
Was actually thinking of King and Conqueror.
on.ft.com/46eXCO6 Crossings of small boats to UK in August fall to lowest since 2019. Poor Nigel.
Yes I like that - partly because we know we’re not trying to be historically accurate.
At least while alienating all of our allies, Trump has been instrumental in bringing others closer together.
I always find it weird when historical dramas add things that didn’t happen in place of something really interesting that did happen.
No, Carswell and others like him haven’t been ‘radicalised’. They’ve always thought like this. The only thing that has changed is that they now realise they can get away with saying it out loud.
Exactly this. He knew when he confirmed him that RFK is a dangerous kook.
School term begins next week. I reckon that’ll kill it off.
If Biden outlives Trump… well nothing will happen because the cultists who run America will be too busy anointing their new dictator.
Must be Gruden’s favorite golf outfit since he wore it last week at Trump’s club in Virginia.
"i've got access to the kids, but they don't wanna see me"
Douglas Carswell’s massive racism update:
Filiu is correct. If encourage everyone to preorder his forthcoming book, ‘A Historian in Gaza’ “The Islamist movement, instead of prioritizing the integrity of the Palestinian people, repeatedly provides Israel with pretexts to devastate the Gaza Strip” No paywall: archive.md/2025.08.31-1...
Jo Cox was murdered by a man with a house full of neo-Nazi agitprop and this was then retconned into a vague narrative about social media abuse
bsky.app/profile/snel...
The strategic genius of the short-fingered vulgarian who’s managed to upset 40 years of geopolitical reality simply because he thinks he deserves a Nobel Prize and Modi didn’t agree with him.
Well done Donald @chadbourn.bsky.social @snellarthur.bsky.social @quietriotpod.bsky.social China and India pledge to be 'partners not rivals' www.bbc.com/news/article...
A wonderful episode of @snellarthur.bsky.social with @dankaszeta.bsky.social about the Baltics, their history with russia, Germany, and the neighborhood. Highly recommend. open.spotify.com/show/4bpdB1i...
I feel it's more like: It was the what-the-fuck of times, it was the jesus-fucking-christ-what-now of times.
Russification. Who needs Prigozhin when you have Prince?
I hope he combines this with a campaign for people to have larger families so we don't get replaced. I mean, might as well go there, right? bsky.app/profile/news...
A downed Russian surveillance drone type Gerbera contained test footage from the Chinese factory from which it was delivered.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness Actually it was just the age of foolishness.
Helluva shrubbery
The Knights Who Say Ni****
Podcast with the great @dankaszeta.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Jerusalem. Signs read "STOP BOMBING GAZA" "EVERY CHILD IS INNOCENT."
What is there left to say about America’s obsession with firearms? One suspects the UK public is no longer surprised by these awful school shootings, feels the Americans need to ban guns & that there’s nothing at all we here can do about any of this. We can’t expect to be interested.
Nobody can look at 🇺🇸 and see anything except a country in terminal, rapid decline. I’m British, I know the feeling, but we’ve tried to do it slowly. You guys are going for broke.
There’s only one country that has the destruction of world trade as a stated policy objective. That thinks that making things more expensive for its own people is a way of saving money.
There’s only one country where national policy is to increase the power of your enemies and undermine your allies. North Korea knows whose its friends are.
There’s only one country where there is a concerted effort to make it easier for unsuitable people to access powerful weapons. There’s only one country where the use of vaccines is being made harder.
There are countries that have a national incentive to deny climate change (Arab Gulf) but actually they don’t do that, they slow-pedal the energy transition (of course: that’s logical for them.) There’s only one country that has a political leadership that denies its existence.
To a large degree, the collapse of American power is driven by the stupidity of its leaders.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but we don’t need to fight fairly against fascism. We just need to fight.
Just listened to this podcast. Very interesting!
Dear Americans, welcome to the thrilling game of ‘Did this dictator die or just disappear for a day?’ We’ve been playing it with Putin and Lukashenko for decades. Enjoy the suspense.
Indeed. Plain truth is that there is a vast majority in the country as a whole to be rallied against this stuff. Labour seem to want to lead a republican front without ever saying “Vichy was bad”, and other than Obese-Jecty, Tory MPs seem to think someone else will deal with the problem for them.
But even if it does, why don’t they want to stand up and be counted? There’s no possibility Starmer himself thinks like this so somehow his advisers are telling him that most people are a bit fash. I don’t think that’s real.
Et voila! Case proven. #solar
Who better to talk to than @dankaszeta.bsky.social about the Baltic states? podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
That's a fair point. I like Paul Mason on this - his point is that liberals, soft conservatives and socialists had to work together to defeat fascism last time. So there has to be flexibility at the same time as there being a fixity of purpose.
The media across the spectrum did a bad job of context last weekend, by reporting aspirations of a massive wave of protests as a fact. The earlier prediction that the injunction to empty the hotel would see protests grow proved wrong. We don't know if the new verdict will. Don't assume, do report
Slug
🌾 DNA-edited wheat and soil bacteria Scientists have boosted wheat’s apigenin levels with CRISPR, encouraging nitrogen-fixing bacteria to thrive on roots. This results in higher yields with less fertiliser. 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pbi.... #SciComm #Agriculture #CRISPR 🧪
I agree except I must stand up for Wedgwood which is remarkably solid. Doesn’t chip easily.
I predict a couple of weeks on memeing on how the T is now a duplicate/double/clone and we get back into doomposting there will be a subculture of terminally online people who will earnestly believe he died and was replaced with an impostor they will inevitably split along party lines
Indeed. Which is why feverish speculation seems like the right category.
Go me! Unzoomed #590 1/6 🟢⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com
It’s a long game. We have to stop reacting to every Trump move every second and build up our resilience to limit our connections to America and its fascist allies.
Well I have always supported a party that seeks to change our voting system.
Oh I don’t think he’s incapacitated. But you can be very ill and still able to rant on social media.
bsky.app/profile/thed...
Getting into the feverish speculation with everyone else, I’d just note that wealthy Americans with access to the best medical care can be dying for years. 25th Amendment doesn’t work in a dictatorship.
Short historical note: in 1988 the UN general assembly held its Palestine debate in Geneva, as the us refused to grant Arafat the necessary visa.
If Trump is actually ill, I truly hope that he's getting the best medical attention that RFK Jr. can offer.
In my view the climate denialism is integral to his fascistic tendencies.
The only political battle that matters in the world right now is the one against authoritarian nationalism (the word 'fascist' is succinct). Very simply: if *any aspect* of your political platform aids authoritarian nationalism, we must oppose you with everything. *Any* aspect. Reflect on that.
There you go. We can both multitask
I’m enjoying an evening watching cricket!👍 you?
I’m not selling. We live in an era where the casual assumption about the values of people we’ve never met on both sides of political divides contributes to all kinds of polarisation and worse.
Canary, Telegraph and GB News aren’t sources I follow. Your instinctive reaction to this makes me wonder how you manage to do your day job.
Posts can inspire actions. Anyway, he’s deleted the post because he knows he’s wrong.
I’d not seen it reported anywhere until Ben’s post. Go figure.
Yep. A think tank should be tackled with thoughts. Clue’s in the name.
I didn’t know until now. I’m part of the ‘they’ you so casually dismiss. I think this is disgraceful but your response is also.
And in this article we learn that Susan Collins, another oxygen thief and GOP senator, is “concerned”. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
Sen Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who knew *exactly* what RFKjr is about, voted to confirm because he’s a brainless MAGA loyalist. Now he’s pretending to be alarmed that worm-brain has fired the head of the CDC. Cowardice, the defining feature of the modern right. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/h...
“The reality is that the Israelis are fast destroying the remaining chances of Palestinian statehood and there is little the UK can do about it.” I wrote about the UK’s recognition of Palestine for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social
"may try to disrupt" 🤦♂️ It's a nailed on certainty that he'll do whatever he can to rig the outcome.
tbf it's more than most of us have...