A sudden and intense heatwave across Europe has caught many nations off guard and set new temperature records for May, including for both day and night time, from Ireland through to Slovenia as well as Britain, and which has contributed to several deaths.
Indeed, the UK has been gripped by a strange paralysis through May, with several political clouds gathering over Westminster and an uneasy sense that some kind of storm might be about to break, not helped by the very real possibility of actual thunderstorms. For now, Keir Starmer is insisting that he is still prime minister and still in charge but no one expects that to last for long. All eyes are on a by-election in Makerfield, just west of Manchester, and the efforts by Andy Burnham, currently mayor of Manchester, to win a ticket to Parliament and challenge Starmer for the top job.
The Labour government desperately needs a ‘move fast and break things’ approach, but that is beyond Starmer and it’s not at all clear from the by-election campaign so far that Burnham will be any better. Makerfield voted for Brexit back in 2016 and could quite easily vote for the Reform party this time around if only for the comedy value of sending the Labour party’s hopes slinking back to Manchester.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Tony Blair has pushed Starmer to follow his old approach; basically, back the American play no matter what. But those were different times, with a different president in the White House, and even then subsequent events proved that to be a bad plan. So there won’t be any redemption for Blair, no matter how much he might crave it.
Surprisingly, inflation in the UK actually fell, down from 3.3 percent in the year to March, to 2.8 percent in the year to April according to the most recent figures. However, this is largely due to the government’s efforts to reduce energy bills which has since been upended by the conflict in the Middle East so most economists expect the inflation rate to rise over the coming months, possibly up to 4 percent by the end of this year. There’s little chance of the previously expected cut in interest rates, which might even rise if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
In an effort to save her own job, the chancellor Rachel Reeves has urged government departments to spend their procurement budgets on British suppliers but without explaining why this was not already automatic government policy. Instead Britain and the EU are still clinging to a free market model that is no longer fit for purpose. It’s leaving individual companies and entire market sectors such as automotive to compete against Chinese companies, which are operating under a hybrid model with some free market elements grafted onto a centrally commanded economy. And that’s before we factor in the effect of the US tariffs and America’s generally more protectionist stance.
The European Union is attempting to fight back and has fined the Chinese online retailer Temu €200 million for allowing dangerous goods to be sold on its platform, including poor quality electrical chargers and unsafe baby toys. Temu is also required to present an action plan to address what the European Commission described as a failure “to diligently identify, analyse and assess the systemic risks” of these products.”
At the same time, the Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, hosted separate visits from both Trump and Putin. Neither appear to have gained any significant concessions from Xi, though Xi did press home China’s claim over Taiwan and Trump does appear to have paused some arms shipments to Taiwan. Taken together, these visits suggest that China increasingly sees itself not as equal to the US or Russia but as the power broker that they and other leaders must court. And indeed, China does look like a dominant global power. It has become the leading EV automotive producer, has the largest population and biggest military, and is likely to win the new space race to colonise the moon, following the rapid unscheduled dismantling of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket last week.
In the meantime, various ceasefires are continuing to hold, albeit in name only. Some 900 Palestinians have died during the ceasefire in Gaza, and the Israeli Defence Force has now announced that it plans to increase the area with the Gaza Strip that it controls, from 60 percent to 70 percent, while Hamas is still refusing to disarm. The ceasefire in Lebanon is more of a technicality since the IDF has now pushed beyond the Litani river, deeper into Lebanese territory.
The situation in the Gulf is more complex, with little sign that either the Americans or Iranians want to return to fighting but with both apparently content to continue blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Trump appears unwilling to put in the work needed to negotiate a deal and instead simply expects the Iranians to surrender. However, the Americans do not appear to have the military capability to break the Iranian blockade, or the political will to commit to a ground attack. So the stalemate is likely to continue despite both sides having carried out further strikes.
Besides, anyone with even a passing interest in history knows that victory is often just an illusion. Just consider how the end of the second world war led directly to the cold war, or how the fall of the Soviet Union was followed by the rise of Putin. It’s unlikely that Trump can achieve anything more with Iran that improves on the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Instead, US military forces are gathering off the coast of Cuba, signalling another potential conflict, most likely in a vague effort to distract from the total clusterfuck of the US attack against Iran.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues and has now spilled over into Romania – which is a member of NATO – with a Russian drone having hit a block of flats and injured two people. British intelligence has estimated that Russia has lost half a million soldiers in its pointless war.
Many nations are still rearming at a rapid rate. This includes Japan, which recently lifted restrictions on arms exports as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi tries to expand Japan’s scope for overseas military activity. This has sparked a number of protests over fears that article 9 of the Japanese constitution – renouncing military capability beyond a small defence force – may be overturned and expose Japan to overseas misadventures. Takaichi is arguing that defence should include supporting allies, which is one way of getting drawn into someone else’s war.
But the real lesson from these conflicts is the effectiveness of cheap drones and their ability to undermine conventional military approaches. Hezbollah appears to have deployed drones using fibre optic controls from Lebanon against Israel, much as the Russians have used similar technology to beat Ukrainian defences. Even the Americans appear to have learnt some lessons in developing longer range drones similar to those used by Iran. The Americans are trying to go further with the toy action man figurine that is also known as Pete Hegseth, who is currently the US secretary of Defense, calling for the development of Artificial Intelligence systems that would be capable of not just making targeting decisions but also determining if and when to carry out strikes entirely autonomously. Even the Pope has weighed in on the need to stop this and to disarm AI.
But it’s hard to see that particular genie being put back into its bottle. Sadly no one has thought to develop an AI for predicting all the likely trouble that’s coming our way and how to avoid it; it’s just lucky that we still have newspapers that can gather together all the different strands of what is happening in the world and give us some sort of forward warning – at least for those few people that are still reading newspapers.
Nessan Cleary 
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