Obama clarified his comments on Instagram:

I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!

What’s crazy is that Trump would never say anything even half as intelligent as that.

I noticed a similar thing with Reform - at one of their rallies, nearly everybody in the audience was an old white man.

Larry is apparently 19. I didn’t know cats lived to such a grand old age.

If you want to support European companies then Here is apparently majority owned by a group of German companies (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, Continental) with 15% owned by Intel and the remaining 31% owned by Japanese companies (Mitsubishi, NTT, Pioneer).

Add some veg, and some butter for the bread, and it’s a good meal

Anyhow, Keir seems like a lame duck right?

If he can keep Labour members of parliament happy then perhaps he can stay as prime minister. But he might lose his job if Labour do badly in the May local elections. Polling shows they might indeed do badly.

Unfortunately the world doesn’t have an appetite for sensible ideas like yours. Instead they’d rather blame immigrants and brown people for everything

Yeah that’s fair enough. Maybe the UK will eventually reach a Norway-style arrangement but like you suggest, it could take some years.

You might be right, but if the UK did have to adopt the Euro like you say, I would guess that British support for rejoining would decline. If it really is a red line for the EU then it would probably lead to a lot of debate in the UK. Like I said though, for the moment the UK will probably just adopt half measures which bring the UK slightly closer to the EU.

With Trump’s recent ambitions regarding a seizure of European land, maybe more Brits will now recognise that reliance on the US isn’t a great idea

Would today’s voters vote the UK back into the block?

According to this polling, 56% of Brits either “strongly” or “somewhat” support the UK rejoining the EU. In reality it would be bitterly contested within the UK though, especially if the UK would have to adopt the Euro. In a few years’ time (5 to 10 years or more) the prospect of the UK rejoining the EU might become more realistic.

I think the UK could eventually rejoin the EU but it’s not going to happen soon. Brexiteers are probably a minority of the British population now (Brexiteers tend to be older, and some of those voters have passed away since the Brexit referendum). But the pro-Brexit camp has wealthy backers who will kick up a fuss.

Maybe what will happen is more indecision and half measures for the next 10 or 20 years, perhaps followed by another referendum that would take us back into the EU.

As for terms, it depends on what the EU would insist. Perhaps they would insist upon the UK adopting the Euro.

If I were president of Europe, I would merge the FCAS fighter jet programme undertaken by Germany, France, and Spain with the GCAP fighter jet programme being undertaken by the UK, Italy, and Japan. Then use the resulting plane instead of the F-35.

But alas, there is still too much bickering and division between non-American western allies.

As a Brit I would support the UK reducing its ties with the US and increasing its ties with Europe. The UK’s values (democracy, rule of law, public healthcare, welfare safety net) are closer to those of Europe, than those of the US. Maybe over the next few years the UK will slowly get closer to Europe.

You said before that “those fuckers… voted for Brexit” but remember that only 52% of voters supported Brexit and 48% were against it, and Brexit is now less popular than it was in 2016.

I’m not sure it will do much good, the numbers are very close when it comes to CON + “reform” , compared to LIB + LAB. (~10mil v ~12 mil, favouring left).

Fair point. The latest YouGov poll shows 44% of British voters favouring Reform and the Tories so I guess a majority are against the Tories and Reform. But yeah, due to being split between different parties, Reform look likely to win the next election. We really should have proportional representation.

Speaking of left-wing purity tests, when the next UK election comes, I wonder if anti-Reform voters will be able to unite around a single party to keep Reform out of power, or whether they’ll be spread into factions between Labour/LibDems/Greens/SNP/Plaid and even the Tories.

If anti-Reform voters can’t unite behind a single party then Farage will surely be the next prime minister.

True. They could be fined more for certain practices.

Yeah regulation is important. Previously you mentioned European democracy. Ideally European companies will be accountable to Europeans through a democratic European parliament. Whereas Americans could elect a government (perhaps the current one) who will tell AWS to seize private data of European governments on AWS servers.

I’ve heard good things about Kofola. I’ll try to remember to buy some if I find myself back in central Europe.

Sure, ideally any European tech companies wouldn’t replicate the enshittification of America’s big tech companies. Still, I think it would be good if Europe had larger tech companies, who can provide what Europe’s companies and governments need. At the moment Europe relies on Microsoft Windows, Oracle, AWS, etc. If European companies could serve those needs then those companies would be accountable to European law. It could avoid a situation where Trump decides he wants to spy on European government data stored on AWS servers, for example.