UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

Rather, you've showed an article where the primary complaint of the headlined report, that the potential biases of a commentator or a source are not made apparent, does not apply because the bias of the person quoted, that xe is politically connected to the government whose actions are being scrutinized in the piece, is very much given as context.

As with the drug trade lawyers are happy to take £££ of your obviously stolen Russian cash to help you argue that you and that money are legitimate. And if you lose? Oops, the payment to the lawyers is magically exempt so they keep that. The incentives to work for people who you know are crooks are very strong, just need to get cash up front because when anything goes wrong they're suddenly penniless and have never met you.

That's the stupidest thing about Trump's lawyers. These guys must have represented crooks before, so he's not different on that score, but why did so many of them not demand cash up front?

The BBC used to deride Sky for being "never wrong for long", but the race to "break the news" changed that. If the news is about something that happened today it's barely worth looking at.

Personally I get my general news from "The Week" magazine each week, which occupies half an hour on a Saturday morning. It has a selection of articles from across the UK and international press, cut down to give an idea. This week I see ones from The Observer, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and the Spectator. There's a coverage of america, with input from the NYT, Washington Post, National Review, New Republic, Bulwark and Politico. Elsewhere coverage of Cuba includes stuff from Global and Mail in Toronto, Diaro de Cuba and El Salto in Madrid and 14YMedio in Havana.

Edited to caveat: of course, if you ask an American what foreign newspaper they read, most of the time we will say none. But if we do, it's probably the Guardian.

I mean, the public can look up his current roles and the grounds for clearing him to take them on a government website if they really want to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carter-nick-chief... Or read what some of his former US counterparts said about him on Wikipedia if they're searching for stronger reasons to disagree with him...

But like most adults, I understand that former generals are not magical bastions of neutrality towards the defence sector, but people who generally have a very strong interest in the government spending on the institutions they devoted most of their lives to (Even Eisenhower spent more of the government budget on his military than any of these guys would ever ask for...). So the likelihood someone has a bias towards spending money on soldiers is very well captured by describing them as a someone who had a long and distinguished career as a soldier, without the need to mention every other tangentially related job they might have had.

So no, I don't think any of these part time roles are remotely more relevant to Gen Carter's comments the UK should spend of its budget on defence increases than the fact he's worked in defence all his life, and the comments echo similar comments he made in more peaceful times in 2018 when he didn't hold any of these positions but was Chief of Staff for UK defence. Not even some part-time consultancy for a German drone startup that doesn't have any commercial relationship with the MoD, never mind his advisory work for banks, insurers or advice on questionable interior security operations in Bahrain. You might as well ask why you saw fit not to mention Eisenhower's role at Columbia University when quoting him.

Now if he was specifically saying "the MoD should focus on autonomous systems and procure hardware from German startups" his advisory position with Helsing might actually be more relevant to his desire to see more funding for the defence sector than his most prominent roles in the defence sector, and ACOBA might even question the appropriateness of his interventions. But that's not what he said, and so we can associate his throwaway quotes with the stuff he's actually known for.

See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBe_36XfZb4

UK military capability is not what perhaps persists in some people's imaginations, even compared to say 20 years ago.

Britain does need to increase military spending.

However, murder is meat. Wars feed people. Not often the 'right' people, but the moment one starts drawing another such thin line about who and who doesn't deserve to be fed, the narcissist demon draws closer and so then, is the warrior devil justified.

Anti-war rhetoric is unpopular, it is true - but there is more of it out there than most people realize, or else we'd all be ash already. Warrior narcissists are only given the space for such identity by quiet, humble peace-makers. Get louder about making peace and stay proud about it.

Perhaps direct your Socratic Simplicio more accurately.

I guess it's debatable whether the drone attack was proportional. I'd say that attack on clearly military installation of active ally is proportionate. Bombing bases in Britain would be more appropriate I think, since that's where the bombers that attacked Iran flew from and were loaded with weapons.

Oh, you mean that base the UK had let the US use for its attacks on Iran?

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/3/2/starmer-lets-us-...

> Iran has also been sponsoring terrorism in the UK.

You remind me of that 'Yes Prime Minister' episode when Hacker and Humphrey decided to announce they were expelling so-many Soviet diplomatic staff because they were supposedly engaged in espionage.

Well, no in fact it isn't. Hence the question. Like, say the US bombs an Iranian city then the Iranians counter-strike a US base somewhere in the Middle East with an IRBM or whatever they are called. Sake of argument, the base isn't being actively used in the attack.

If the US response to that strike is to destroy the launcher, are you going to characterise that response as fundamentally offensive or defensive in nature? The US isn't hitting the launcher in a premeditated way. Note that the US base probably isn't on US soil since Iran can't hit targets that far away.

If UK/US wanted to be in the in the clear they could have asked UNSC to authorize use of force against Iran.

Iran attacked US forces and bases all across the Gulf, which played pivotal roles in the USA/Israel attacks.

Radars, airfields, HIMARS installations, airports used for refuelling US tankers, and anywhere that hosted the aggressors in any way were and are fair game.

You can't say Iran attacked innocent and peaceful Kuwait whilst ignoring the US forces firing HIMARS into Iran from Kuwait. Iran has every right to attack those US forces wherever they are parked.

Anyway, I live in the UK, and I don't swallow the same propaganda as you.

Not to mention he was never punished even for blatant violations, has been trusted with positions of power and influence since, and is making a public political comeback in 2026 too.

Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.

That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.

We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.

Just because Britain couldn't afford it anymore. And after bloodshed, in India, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Not out of the bigness of their heart.

And the post-colonialism never ended. The same grabby hands get everywhere they can get.

And why exactly are those "small overseas territories" unquestionably retained? "No biggie, just an island here, an island there, and island there, some land in here"

Why did British people decide to move from the Northern Hemisphere to this island? Because the climate looked similar?

And yes, here is a dispute between a historically imperialist versus a settler state. It’s weird.

In that case - why do you think it's "in a large proportion of their business"?