Memorandum of Understanding

Is there any way that we might goad the United States into launching a war against the United Kingdom? After a little less than four months, and having changed absolutely nothing, that would end with the Americans' agreement to pay us $300 billion on condition that we promised not to acquire a weapon that we did not want in the first place. That could be something out of science fiction, or something made up for the paperwork. Or Donald Trump could do us another favour and order us to scrap Trident, pretty much doubling our money.

Such fantastic sums might almost be enough even for the BBC. Simulcasting Newshour on Radio Four and the World Service could be worse as a replacement for The World Tonight, but they are different programmes for different audiences. In place of the Midnight News, or Crossing Continents, or Money Box Live, or AntiSocial, or The Law Show, how will the airtime be filled? With yet more drivel about how the 23-year-old son of a Russian diplomat had the codename El Money, spoke fluent Ukrainian (in the real world, while almost all Ukrainians speak Russian, almost no Russians speak Ukrainian), was in a position to dole out Russian passports, was astroturfing both Islamist and neo-Nazi activities on the streets of London, and was hiring Ukrainian rent boys to execute incompetent arson attacks on Keir Starmer's old car, his flat from long ago, and the house that he owned but which was inhabited by his sister-in-law, all properties known to the rent boys?

Not even in Russia, nor in China or Iran, are Verified Private Networks illegal outright. Next month, Starmer will announce that Britain was joining the ranks of Belarus, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and the Iraq that I vaguely recall that we were supposed to have liberated at some point in the distant past, in the way that I vaguely recall an Online Safety Act that was supposed to have solved all of these problems. Anything, absolutely anything at all, to force everyone to have digital ID from the Tony Blair Institute and from the Palantir that meant ICE and the IDF, while preventing the young and the poor from coming across any political opinion other than those of the Epstein Class.