Burned Again?

 

Friends, the revolving door that is the British premiership has temporarily elevated Andy Burnham to be head of government in the U.K.  A few months ago he wasn't even a member of Parliament...and now he's head honcho.  Makes a ton of sense, right?  Well, it does if you're a Labour backbencher, and you're prepared to role as many dice as it takes to revive the fortunes of your moribund party.  Presumably, Burnham won't change the substantive policies of the Labour government much, but he will govern with a bit more style and panache than poor Sir Keir.  The Reform Party is licking its chops, hoping that Labour's new leader, and the country's new P.M., will flop, and then a general election will be called.  Nigel Farage and Reform are under furious attack by the establishment, so it's not clear how well they would perform in an election...but there's only one way to find out.  If Labour gets its way, we never will.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gjz907pppo 

 

In other news, not content to bomb Iran indefinitely, DJT seems to be angling for a secondary conflict with...Canada?  He's pushing a new set of tariffs against our neighbor to the north.  He says Canada isn't playing fair on trade.  Well, maybe, but don't we have broadly even trade, i.e. a relatively small trade deficit with Canada?  Why give China a pass when it's a much worse offender in terms of protectionism and intellectual property theft?  Personally, I think Trump has a grudge of sorts against Canada, and I'm not at all sure that that's a rational basis for tariffs.  Oh well.  The chances that Canada will invade us in response are low.  Perhaps this is just more gamesmanship with an eye to getting a better "deal" out of trade negotiations, rather a serious move towards a trade war.  I hope so.

 

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-imposes-additional-50-tariffs-on-certain-canadian-goods-5ab06a45?st=W7JhYr