Latest news with #neo-Nazi-sympathising
The National
08-08-2025
- Politics
- The National
These images of JD Vance and David Lammy fishing will make you cringe
Unfortunately, that is what we have been dealt. The excruciating pictures show the US vice president – in double denim – brandishing a fishing rod while the Foreign Secretary grins beside him. The VP is visiting Chevening House in Kent, the Foreign Secretary's grace and favour home, as part of his 'holiday' to the UK. (Image: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Wire) Lammy and Vance have reportedly struck up a friendship since Labour came to power, with Lammy on a charm offensive – probably because he called Vance's boss Donald Trump a 'tyrant' and 'woman-hating neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath' in 2018. Vance probably has bigger fish to fry nowadays, such as criticising buffer zones around abortion clinics in Scotland. (Image: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Wire)In the grand scheme of US-UK photo ops, it is not the worst we've seen, after Trump was pictured looming over Keir Starmer while he picked up paper dropped by the US President. Nonetheless, the 11 pictures that appeared on the PA news wire is an undoubtedly cringey attempt to make the pair appear great pals. (Image: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Wire) It does somewhat look like a bad attempt at a rom-com, a Brokeback Mountain without the cowboy hats. In one image, Lammy looks as if he is holding Vance from behind. Surely the right-wing family man Vance did not want to give that sort of impression. In another, Vance appears to be screaming at the fish. Does he think they are immigrants? (Image: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Wire) But what is most hilarious about this completely natural set of photos – definitely not taken for PR purposes or intended for the Saturday papers – is the shoes the pair are wearing. Vance at least has thrown on a pair of trainers, while Lammy is in dress shoes. Smells a bit fishy to me.
Daily Mirror
08-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
JD Vance to spend summer in Cotswolds manor - next to Jeremy Clarkson's farm
JD Vance, who previously slammed the UK as 'some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years' is spending his summer in a sprawling Cotswolds mansion costing £8,000 a week JD Vance will be spending his summer in the UK just a mile from Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat Farm - months after the pair clashed in a very public row over Britain's military record. Donald Trump's vice president has rented an 18th-century Cotswolds manor for £8,000 a week, tucked behind a 15ft stone wall in a quiet Oxfordshire hamlet. The six-acre estate, now crawling with US secret service agents in navy jackets and khaki chinos, sits close enough to Clarkson's land that an awkward run-in is possible. It comes after the former Top Gear host branded Vance a "t**t" who has "no clue about history" in a Sunday Times column. The insult followed Vance's claim the UK was "some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years" - despite British soldiers being deployed to Iraq and comes after Donald Trump was seen with a mystery mark in Scotland after his chronic health diagnosis. Clarkson fired back: "Vance is a bearded God-botherer who pretty much thinks that women who've been raped should be forced to have the resultant child. I've searched for the right word to describe him and I think it's t**t. He also has no clue about history. Because far more recently than 30 or 40 years ago… our brave young men were being blown to pieces in some godforsaken desert to support whatever madcap scheme the American president had embarked upon that week." Locals near the Cotswolds manor have noticed a heavier security presence since Vance's arrival. "There has been a lot of activity at the manor this last few days. It is hard to miss. Security absolutely everywhere. "Men dressed identically… Blacked out Mercedes vans shuttling people around every few minutes. We have never seen anything like it. It's like something out of a film," one told the Daily Mail. Inside the grounds, suited guards have been seen checking security clearance at the gates while more stand at each corner of the property. A helicopter landing pad has also been mown into a nearby field, while gardeners have been drafted in to perfect the lawns. Asked about the high-profile arrival, one secret service agent only said: "We can't tell you anything." The property's owner also declined to comment. Vance, his wife Usha and their children Ewan, Viviek and Mirabel are also due to stay overnight with Foreign Secretary David Lammy at Chevening in Kent. The two "will have a short bilateral meeting, no doubt discussing Ukraine, Gaza, trade and tech. They'll wrap it up and then the family will join," a source told The Telegraph. Lammy once called Trump a "woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath" but now reportedly considers Vance a "friend" and says they "completely relate" to each other. The Stop Trump Coalition, who are planning protests during Trump's proposed September state visit, have already began targeting the vice president. "JD Vance is every bit as unwelcome in the UK as Donald Trump," the group said. "We remember how Vance cut short his ski trip in Vermont because he was so enraged by the sight of a few protesters. We are sure that, even in the Cotswolds, he will find the resistance waiting."
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lammy is endangering our national security
When David Lammy, our gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary, talks about 'egregious actions and rhetoric', as he did when condemning Israel's actions in Gaza, he could equally be talking about his own unimpressive track record since taking up residence in King Charles Street. His history of uttering gratuitous insults about US president Donald Trump, whom he famously dubbed 'a neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath' in 2018, has effectively made him persona non grata within the Trump administration's inner sanctum. The disinclination of serious players, such as secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff, was clearly evident last month when they pulled out of the London Ukraine conference Lammy had organised. This left the foreign secretary in the ignominious position of having to withdraw from his own conference. Then there is his hapless handling of the Chagos Islands sell-out, where the dire national security implications of placing a prized military asset like Diego Garcia at the mercy of hostile states like China, Russia and Iran seems to have passed him by. Lammy's commitment to supporting a politically motivated attempt to prosecute Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes has caused a major rift in UK-Israel relations, with the Israeli premier declining to meet with Britain's foreign secretary when he visited Jerusalem last year. Few will be surprised by Lammy's decidedly underwhelming performance at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office given that he has struggled under the illusion that Libya in North Africa borders Syria in the eastern Mediterranean. Then there was the time when he congratulated Azerbaijan for forcing more than 100,000 Armenians to flee their homes in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, a clear-cut case of ethnic cleansing if ever there was one. Even by his own pitiful standards, Lammy's egregious track record puts him on course to become the country's worst foreign secretary in living memory, on a par with the equally ineffectual Robin Cook, whose devotion to his so-called 'ethical foreign policy' rendered his contribution to world affairs largely irrelevant. Lammy's decision, therefore, to jump on the anti-Zionist bandwagon by suspending trade talks with Israel over its 'intolerable' military operations in Gaza is entirely in keeping with his world view. Rather than condemning the real architects of Gaza's misery, the Iranian-backed Hamas jihadis who started the conflict with their murderous October 7 assault on Israel, Lammy has gone for the easy option. Joining forces with such luminaries of global diplomacy as Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Lammy accused the current Israeli government of isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world through its efforts to destroy Hamas. The fact that Israel is fighting against an organisation that is proscribed in the UK because of its terrorist activities appears lost on Lammy, as is Hamas's obvious delight that the British Government has decided to publicly lambast one of its closest allies in the Middle East. Instead, the Foreign Secretary feels more at home siding with other dedicated anti-Israel activists, such as the governors of King's College, Cambridge, who have decided to divest from arms companies in protest, in part, at Israel's continued military offensive in Gaza. What Lammy and his ilk fail to understand is that, given the determination of Hamas and its Iranian backers to destroy the Jewish state, the Israelis have little alternative other than to maintain their military campaign in Gaza. Given the existential threat Israel faces from Hamas and its backers, perhaps Lammy should consider what other country would allow a terrorist organisation that had perpetrated the worst atrocity in its history to continue operating on its doorstep? But that would be to indulge in statesmanship, a quality as far removed from Lammy's skill set as his grasp of geography. So, rather than holding Hamas to account for committing murderous acts of terrorism, the British Government now finds itself in the invidious position of castigating a key ally for seeking to defend the Israeli people from suffering further acts of Islamist-inspired terrorism. By adopting such a fundamentally flawed policy towards the Gaza conflict, moreover, Lammy is inadvertently placing our own security in jeopardy. By ignoring the threat posed by a sophisticated terrorist organisation like Hamas, London is sending a message to other Islamist-inspired entities, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, that it has no interest in curbing their activities. It is surely no coincidence that, at the same time that Lammy decided to pick a fight with Israel, the security services are reporting a marked upsurge in Iranian terror activity in the UK. In terms of safeguarding the security of the British people, focusing our efforts on confronting Iran would make far more sense, with designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the group responsible for overseeing Tehran's anti-Western operations, a good place to start. If Lammy were to concentrate his efforts on denouncing Iran as a pariah state, as opposed to Israel, then people might start to take him seriously, and not as the joke he is today. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
For Remoaners, Starmer has just committed the ultimate betrayal
All hail Keir Starmer, who has just marked VE day by making his own history. Against all odds, this dreariest, unluckiest of Prime Ministers has somehow succeeded where so many of his predecessors failed and pulled off a landmark US-UK trade deal. How Rishi Sunak, for whom high profile Brexit wins proved frustratingly elusive, would love to have been able to announce something that sounded this good. As for Boris Johnson, who prided himself on 'delivering Brexit,' he would surely have swapped his trademark blond mop for a buzz cut to deliver this. On the face of it, it is an extraordinary triumph for Downing St, stunning all those who struggled to imagine Donald Trump doing Starmer any favours. After all, the two men could hardly be more different. Behind one set of negotiators was a dull, grey technocrat whose yearning for closer relations with the EU might have derailed all this. Behind the other set was the magnetic, mercurial, swashbuckling Trump, who despises Brussels and wants to teach its leading lights a lesson. Yet there they both were today, playing footsie across the Pond, gushing about how the deal they have struck makes the Special Relationship stronger than ever. What a coup! From the leader of a political party whose MPs, activists and grassroots supporters almost all detest Trump, the spectacle must have been a tremendous shock. Leading Labour figures like Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who not so long ago labelled the US President a 'neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath', and the UK's ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson – who once described him as a 'bully' and 'danger to the world' – may have spent the last nine months desperately trying to gloss over these old insults, but we all know what they really think. As for Labour backbenchers, few bother to conceal their contempt for the occupant of the White House. As their great leader dispensed with all formalities today, addressing the President affectionately as 'Donald' not once; not twice; but an astonishing eight times; many will have been cringeing and praying for him to stop. However, that fleeing discomfort pales into insignificance relative to other adjustments they, and the rest of the Left-leaning Establishment, must now make. For as of today, their dreams of rejoining the EU are now well and truly over. On this front, the small print of today's deal does not matter a jot. Whether it turns out to be 'so good for both countries', as Trump cheerfully proclaimed, or whether the master deal maker has stitched us up, there is now absolutely no going back. In landmark deals with both India and America, Starmer has cemented our departure from the UK. We are now on a very different path. For the many die-hards who have spent years trying to derail or reverse Brexit, it is quite a blow. That it is game over, for them, thanks to Starmer is a particularly nasty surprise. They had every reason to hope he would help. A staunch Remainer himself, the prime minister has spent much of his Premiership trying to rebuild ties with the EU. Earlier this year, he thrilled Remainers by becoming the first British prime minister since Brexit to attend an EU meeting in Brussels. Downing St has repeatedly indicated that he wants to 'reset' the UK's relationship with the bloc. All this has raised hopes among Remainers that he and his EU friends would conspire to create 'Brexit in name only'. This week's deals have put paid to all that. It will take some time to identify the various winners and losers in these agreements. Amid all the jubilation, already there are signs that some UK sectors will lose out. (Amid a deluge of cheap US agricultural products, for example, our own biggest food export – salmon – of which a quarter goes to the US, now faces a ten per cent tariff. Previously, it was zero.). If it does turn out that we have been shafted, there will be one great consolation: Remoaners will be among those Trump has put out of business. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
What can Keir Starmer say at the White House that Donald Trump might listen to?
For British prime ministers, with their ideas about the world shaped by the histories of Churchill and Roosevelt, Maggie and Ronnie, and the rest of the folklore about the transatlantic alliance, the prospect of a visit to the White House usually causes tingles of excitement. One of our senior diplomats once offered me an explanation of the allure: 'The red carpet is laid out, the national anthems are played, all that stuff is very seductive.' This will be customarily accompanied by ritualistic words about the importance and invincibility of the 'special relationship'. Number 10 lobbied hard to get Sir Keir Starmer across the Atlantic early in the second term of Donald Trump and, until recently, Downing Street people were telling themselves that an encounter between the two men needn't be a disaster and might even turn out to be a success. In the weeks since Trump's re-election as US president, UK policy might be summarised by the phrase 'Don't poke the beast'. Keep the temperature cool. Ignore provocations. Attempt to trade on British heritage – golf, the royal family – with which this US president has an affinity. Put David Lammy out there to suggest that there is lots to respect about the man whom the foreign secretary used to call a 'woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath'. Softly-softly was the doctrine and they thought it was bearing fruit. While a fusillade of blistering Trump attacks have been launched against other countries – among them places as various as Canada, Denmark, Mexico and Panama – the UK has so far avoided being whacked. While trade threats have been made against China, the EU and America's neighbours, ministers still hope the UK has a fair chance of dodging the tariff bullet. They were rather pleased with themselves at Number 10 when, a few weeks ago, the US president called Sir Keir 'a very good person' who has done 'a very good job thus far'. Perhaps, they told themselves in Downing Street, it was going to be OK. Nobody sentient in Number 10, the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence is relaxed now. Not after what has been unleashed over the past 10 days. As a doctrine, 'Don't poke the beast' only worked for so long as the beast chose not to bite off your leg regardless. Sir Keir, less than eight months into his term and still a relative novice in geopolitics, is flying to America this week with transatlantic relations smashed up like they have never been before. Although it is not his fault, the haunting thought for him is that the alliance forged during the Second World War is disintegrating on his watch. The first swing of the wrecking ball was Trump's declaration that he had initiated land-for-peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the heads of Kyiv and the European members of Nato. That ambush has been followed by the US secretary of state meeting his Russian opposite number in Saudi Arabia with Ukraine uncordially uninvited to have any say about its fate. In a deeply disturbing speech to the Munich security conference, the vice-president, JD Vance, trolled Europe by questioning whether the continent's values were worth defending, before holding a taboo-busting meeting with the leader of the far-right AfD on the eve of the German elections. We have since heard the US president falsely brand Volodymyr Zelenskyy 'a dictator' and baselessly blame Ukraine's democratically elected leader for the war that has ravaged his country. No one should really need reminding that the conflict was started three years ago by the barbaric Russian invasion intended to extinguish its smaller neighbour as an independent state. The span of the UK political spectrum has rejected the US president's regurgitation of risible Kremlin propaganda, which attempts to shift culpability from the aggressor to the victim. Even Nigel Farage, usually an unashamed cheerleader and apologist for Trumpery, has had to say he can't go along with that. Sir Keir was quick to repudiate the attack and call President Zelenskyy to express his support. Says one member of the cabinet: 'Keir has been quite ballsy about that.' One question accompanying the prime minister across the Atlantic is how 'ballsy' he is prepared to be when he is up close and personal with the US president. Should Trump repeat his smears about Ukraine, the prime minister will have a choice to make. If he responds meekly or mutely, it will be at the great risk of looking pathetically pusillanimous. If he calls it out as a calumny, it will be at the serious peril of making himself the target of the fiery wrath of this thin-skinned and vindictive US president. That's just one of the jeopardies of a visit pregnant with hazard. Another danger is that Sir Keir is greeted with a flat rebuff when he attempts to convince the American that Europe must have a role in negotiations and Ukraine has to be 'kept in the fight' to strengthen the west's hand with the Russians. Some in the UK government contend that the odds on making headway could be a bit better than they look. 'A lot of commentary is jumping way ahead of itself,' says a senior figure closely involved in the preparations for the visit. 'The Trump administration is still settling down. Even hard-declared positions change 24 hours later. There are multiple voices competing for Trump's ear.' Number 10 has spent a lot of time wondering how to make the voice of the prime minister persuasive enough to influence US policy. Trying to talk up Sir Keir as a 'bridge' between America and Europe sounds vainglorious. This US president doesn't see a bridge without wanting to blow it up. European leaders baulk at the idea of the UK representing itself as an interlocutor, especially since we are no longer a member of the EU. There's more sense in coordination with Emmanuel Macron, whose trip to Washington will precede Sir Keir's, to marshal the argument that Europe can't be excluded from decisions that critically effect the security of its own continent. Another task for the prime minister is to challenge the view, held by some in the Trump circle, that the US will profit from a deal with Putin because it will break the Russia-China alliance. I'm told that the prime minister will contend to the president that leaving Europe insecure will undermine the strategic position of the US because it will embolden aggressive moves by China and strengthen Beijing's ties with Moscow, exactly the opposite of what Washington wants. Sir Keir will also make the case that Europe is now heeding Trump on taking more responsibility for its own security. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion 'We've got to say to the US: 'We hear you',' says one senior minister. 'We know we must do more, more quickly.' To the ears of the president, this is likely to sound feeble unless it is backed by something firmer than a promise to raise British defence spending to 2.5% of GDP at some unspecified date in the future, which is half the 5% of GDP that Trump has lately taken to demanding. Intelligence-gleaning should be a priority for the prime minister and his team during their time in Washington. Listening to Trump and his courtiers will be at least as important as speaking. Precisely what kind of deal do the Americans think they can land with the Kremlin? That would be worth knowing, even if the answer turns out to be a scary one. Forewarned is forearmed. The truth may very well be that members of the Trump regime haven't settled upon or don't agree among themselves about their desired endpoint. Diplomats reckon that there is one approach with the greatest potential to have traction on this occupant of the Oval Office. That is to appeal to his ego and self-interest with the warning that a dirty carve-up of Ukraine on the Kremlin's terms will project Putin as the apex predator and leave the US president looking like a weak dupe. Kim Darroch, a former UK ambassador to the US, suggests: 'If I were Starmer, I would say to Trump that this is your chance for your place in history, the man who brought peace and ended this war. But it has to be a fair deal. If it's a bad deal, you are not going to get that praise, you are going to get a load of criticism and that will be your record in the history books.' Vanity is one of the more reliable traits of Donald Trump. Leaning into his narcissism may be undignified, but it may also be essential if Sir Keir is to come home from Washington with anything that he can call a success. Andrew Rawnsley is the Chief Political Commentator of the Observer
