On Saturday, the United States, joined by Israel, launched a large-scale unprovoked attack on Iran.
Trump claims this war is ahead of schedule and should last just four or five weeks. He does so while refusing to rule out ‘boots on the ground’, which would surely extend the intervention considerably, saying that, regarding such a deployment, he doesn’t yet have the ‘yips’. A golfing term.
The US has been involved in talks with Iran for weeks, as warships and aircraft carriers amassed in the Persian Gulf. Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the talks, appeared on CBS in a last ditched effort to curtail the inevitable strikes. A deal might have been just days away! Iran was open, he claimed, to depleting and diluting their enriched uranium deposits and to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Why should Iran or any other country negotiate in good faith with the US if it is all a charade. In the immortal words of Bush Jr., “Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me–you can't get fooled again.”
Throughout, I include the far more eloquent words of the late Tony Benn, Labour party giant and president of the Stop the War coalition from its inception in September 2001 until his death in 2014. They are all taken from an address to parliament in February 1998, condemning a motion that would express parliamentary support for the bombing of Iraq which occurred at the end of that year, and are italicised:
“There is no provision in the UN charter for a preventive war. If we are realistic–we must not fool ourselves–that huge American fleet of 30 ships and 1,000 aircraft is not waiting to be withdrawn when Saddam [the Iraqi dictator] makes a friendly noise to Kofi Anan [the UN secretary-general]. The fleet has been sent there to be used, and the House would be deceiving itself if it thought that any so-called ‘diplomatic initiatives’ would avert its use.”
The US’ apparent legal justification is farcical. Israel was going to attack Iran, so the US had better respond to the future imminent threat Iran would pose. All that posturing by ‘diplomats’ (real estate developer and US envoy to the region Steve Witkoff) in Iran, and it appears the US were simply waiting for the green light from Israel. That is not to say the US and its wannabe dictator are not the leading decision makers, of course. But their indefensible and unpopular war had better have something going for it with the MAGA base, and leaping to the aid of the Israeli state would go some way to that, with its evangelical constituents, who believe that Jewish control of Palestine is vital for the coming of the end-times. America First and all that.
Meanwhile, Israel is once again at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, after the latter fired rockets into Israel to avenge the death of Khamenei. The Lebanese government are trying desperately to prevent and disavow action by the paramilitary terrorist organisation, having made the unprecedented move to ban military action by the group, which exerts significant influence both militarily and politically. Israel has sent troops into southern Lebanon, nonetheless. In the background, it has resumed its total blockade of Gaza.
“I am not trying to equate Israel with Iraq, but on 8 June 1981, Israel bombed a nuclear reactor near Baghdad. What action did either party take on that? Israel is in breach of UN resolutions and has instruments of mass destruction.”
Though initially limiting itself to defensive action, scrambling fighters to protect UK bases in the middle east, the UK government has now permitted the use of its bases by the US to fire missiles into Iran. For this misguided support for our allies, all Trump had to say was that Starmer took far too long to allow it. The action is so clearly unlawful. Starmer has couched his words, but he knows as much, and yet he rolls over to the American bully, getting nothing in return. This government was meant to restore good governance and the UK’s soft power and yet it simply besmirches it further.
“The British Government have everything at their disposal. They are permanent members of the Security Council and have the European Union presidency for six months. Where is that leadership in Europe which we were promised? It just disappeared.”
How will it end? There are no goalposts. The objectives of this new war are garbled and contradictory. Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons which Iran has been years or just months away from producing since 1992. (Netanyahu addressed the Knesset that year, “Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb.”) A military nuclear programme which neither the US nor Israel has provided any evidence for. Nuclear capability which Trump claimed last year to have “completely and totally obliterated.”
So, the aggressors want regime change? They’re doing an awful job. Yes, they have successfully assassinated the despicable supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who oversaw and encouraged the brutal systematic massacre of thirty thousand protesters last month, and some of his children and grandchild. But who does the US see as his successor? Trump told ABC, "It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead.” The strike killed about forty other senior officials.
Besides, Khamenei was not immortal (evidently). Being 86, there will certainly be established and detailed plans on his succession. But don’t expect the top players in the US administration to have a clue. When has bombing alone every changed a regime anyway? The US would much rather the people of Iran rise up and overthrow their own government themselves. Wouldn’t that be helpful for the US! I think they are confused as to which common enemy they must encourage the people of Iran to unite against.
Trump clarified, “All the people of Iran - Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Balochis, and Akhvakhs.” The Akhvakhs, of which there are no more than ten thousand, live in Dagestan in Russia. They would do well to get involved.
“There is no UN resolution saying that Saddam must be toppled. It is not clear that the Government know what their objectives are. … Do they imagine that if we bomb Saddam for two weeks, he will say, ‘Oh, by the way, do come in and inspect’? The plan is misconceived.”
Not only is the Trump administration stupidly incompetent, but it is both despairingly unserious and callously evil. There have been no on camera Pentagon press briefings since December and Trump dedicated just three of 107 minutes of his long and tedious record-breaking State of the Union, just last week, addressing Iran. At the time of writing, at least 1000 Iranian military personnel and at least 700 Iranian civilians are dead. This includes about 150 reportedly killed by a strike that hit a girls’ elementary school near Minab. A school.
The US losses stand at six, with more soldiers in critical condition after a successful Iranian strike on an undisclosed US base. US secretary of defence and former Fox News host, Pete Hegseth said of the matter, “Every once in a while you might have one [a missile] – unfortunately, we call it a squirter – that that makes its way through.”
A squirter, in military slang, is a hostile or presumed hostile who flees a target following a strike. Hegseth means ‘leaker’. It’s a pitiful response to a loss of life. And this isn’t the mess hall! ‘Oh, I, the Secretary of War, was in the military don’t you know.’ He can’t even get the slang right. People are being killed.
“What fools we are to live as if war is a computer game for our children or just an interesting little Channel 4 news item.”
What is the administration’s real purpose, then? Perhaps they figure a war as this might help Trump’s approval. I can’t see that happening. No more forever wars, except this one we’re going to start when the Epstein files furore is getting a bit much and midterms are approaching. Clinton’s bombing of Iraq in 1998 was conveniently timed to distract from his impeachment. And Trump and Hegseth don’t appear to need much persuading to play general. Or perhaps they have deluded themselves into thinking they’ll actually put an end to the Iranian state-sponsored terrorism they decry. What are they doing now if not terrorising innocents in Iran? What better conscription campaign could the Iranian regime have asked for, than bombardment such as this? What does it matter to Trump and Hegseth anyway – Iranians are neither White nor Christian. It beggars belief, but that is the disgusting level on which these most powerful men operate.
“I was in London during the blitz in 1940…. It was terrifying. Are not Arabs and Iraqis terrified? Do not Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does not bombing strengthen their determination?”
Has the US learned not a thing?
“On 24 October 1945…the United Nations charter was passed. The words of that charter are etched on my mind and move me even as I think of them. It says: ‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our life-time has brought untold sorrow to mankind.’ That was the generation’s pledge to this generation, and it would be the greatest betrayal of all if we voted to abandon the charter, take unilateral action and pretend that we were doing so in the name of the international community.”

You can watch Benn's speech to parliament in full on YouTube, here, or read it in Hansard, the parliamentary transcripts, here, starting at column 924.

On Thursday, Labour were toppled as the Greens took the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton in the first by-election of 2026 and just the second in the current parliament.
Just days before the election, Opinium’s 400 voter poll told the story that had dominated the coverage: one of a three-horse race between Labour, who had not lost in Gorton since the 1931 general election (when Labour were reduced to just 52 seats), the Greens, eager to capitalise on the disillusionment of the left wing, and Reform, eager to capitalise on a more general sinister disillusionment. 28%, 28%, 27%, Opinium reported. Well within the margin of error.
But the ballot box did not return the same lack of conviction. The headline result was clear. Greens: 40.7%. A monstrous 26-point swing from Labour, who had an absolute majority of the vote in 2024. What a result! The political analysts dream. The usual caveat on drawing conclusion, that by-elections have low turnout and are therefore wonky affairs, doesn’t apply. Granted, the turnout was low in absolute terms, at just 47.6%, but it was only a fifth of a percentage point reduced from the general election and represented a greater actual number of voters.
One common caveat does rear its ugly head, however. The particular incumbent, Andrew Gwynne, had sat as independent since February last year, suspended from the Labour party for offensive and bigoted messages in a WhatsApp group for Manchester Labour politicians. The incumbents shot themselves in the other foot then, when Andy Burnham, former cabinet secretary and current Mayor of Greater Manchester, announced he would pursue the Labour candidacy. Both unwilling to bend the rules barring incumbent metro mayors from contesting Westminster by-elections (and to incur the steep cost of the ensuing mayoral by-election) and worried that a Labour win would return to the Commons the leading challenger for the party leadership, the party’s National Executive Committee rejected his request. Instead, Angeliki Stogia, a Manchester city councillor was nominated instead. Was this the moment Labour lost the by-election? Perhaps. Polling suggested Burnham would have won, and the actual result suggests his popularity would have commanded an amply sufficient left-wing vote. But Labour faced an uphill battle from the start. This was the moment, then, that they forwent their chance to win, rather than the moment they turned a win to a loss.
It is a far worse outlook for the government, that this was not their by-election to win. The effective campaign of Green candidate Hannah Spencer, joined by Green party leader Zack Polanski, clearly convinced voters who was best placed to beat Reform. A taste of every British election for the foreseeable future: Reform vs everyone else. While it will be much harder to replicate on a national scale, it still bodes very well for the Greens, that they managed to convince voters they were the everyone else who could win. It sets a precedent. And tactical voting was on full display in Gorton and Denton. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats each got less than 2% of the vote, losing their £500 deposits, alongside another six minor parties. (In another heartening result, Sir Oink-a-Lot of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party eked out a 5-vote lead over the far-right Reform splinter group Advance UK.) Labour dropped to third, with 25.4%, and Reform came second with 28.7%, trailing the winners by over four thousand votes. It was a bad loss for Reform’s Matt Goodwin, former academic and current GB News presenter. While they command a strong grip on a large minority of voters, the party appears to be finding that they galvanise opposition too. Admittedly, Gorton and Denton was a safe left-wing seat, but when consolidated around a single party, this opposition will prove hard to challenge in constituencies less secure than this.
Results like these put to shame our first-past-the-post system. While reticent to write-off the two-party-system, results like this leave no other option. With the Conservatives continuing to hold on, England will have a five-party-system on its hands, with an extra party in each of Scotland and Wales. (Northern Ireland, which returned six different parties across just eighteen seats in 2024, looks like it was ahead of the curve.) Indeed, this was the first parliamentary by-election in England to see two parties in the top two spots, neither of which were Labour nor the Conservatives.
So, things are hotting up as we approach this year’s local elections. Two weeks ago, the government U-turned on yet another piece of legislation: the postponement of this year's elections in some councils undergoing restructuring. Facing a legal challenge from Reform, on new legal advice, the government has decided these 30 council elections, most of which are Labour held, will go ahead as normal. Of course, the opposition parties have seized the opportunity to berate and mock the government for what is another humiliating U-turn, all hoping to make gains in May. Like with the proscription of Palestine Action, the decision to scrap the winter fuel payments, or the decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap, Labour continue to spend all the costly political capital they have managed to accrue on decisions they then renege on anyway. With each of these moves, they have managed to alienate practically all parts of the political spectrum. It is ridiculously poor form for the governing party. They need to listen in advance rather than after the fact and come off considerate, rather than weak.
Of course, the postponement of council elections is not a new policy: the Conservatives did it whilst they were in power. But it was understood as a necessary step to allow for restructuring and forego the cost of holding a council election for a district council that wouldn't exist the next year. But the legislation used is secondary, another instance of the statutory instrument (briefly explained here in the headline article: 16/02/26), and simply hadn't been previously challenged. To be fair, the current government postponed these elections in a much greater number than the previous administrations, undertaking as they are the biggest restructuring of councils in fifty years. (In general, they are eliminating overlapping district and county councils and replacing them with more powerful and simpler unitary authorities.) Will enough voters know and care that their elections were postponed to see a significant drop in Labour support in the seats which wouldn't otherwise have had elections, above the already expected reduction in the Labour vote? Something to look out for.