Politics
Our survey: Members convincingly back the new Conservative policy of banning under 16s from social media
That 64.5 percent of our members survey are in favour of banning under 16’s from social media is quite a sea change. Societally it has ‘something of a journey.’
I have been on it.
Two of my children are over 16. The eldest in their twenties, the second late teens. And they loved and still love their screens.
I definitely allowed a smart phone too soon, and know that it’s my fault when I observe even today that they can spend way too much time just looking at their phones. When they were younger I was using Twitter extensively for work, so I was just as bad, and my example was not a good one. I mention my kids because there is a symbiosis of their generation with the whole phenomenon of social media.
Twitter (now X) and Facebook (Meta) – certainly not the prime choice of today’s younger generation – are now the ‘grandads of social media’ and they are still only 20 and 22 years old. Now there’s Tik-Tok, Instagram, and Snapchat, who if they were children under the ban the Conservatives are looking at for under 16’s would not be able to use themselves as they are way too young!
These companies grew up with my kids. And I was just as fascinated by it.
Early adopters of social media were constantly learning and finding new ways to use it. Experimenting with how different behaviours and styles could be created, which say the advent of the meme, the ‘sh*tpost’, ratioing, YOLO, ROFL and now a lexicon of user generated slang, methods and motivations that would making learning Hungarian seem easy.
However all the time the developers and owners, of these increasingly powerful behemoths were learning all about us. And we handed so much to them without giving it a second thought or every wondering what that might ultimately mean.
This is not a piece about Digital ID, but one of the biggest arguments levelled at the idea is that we already effectively have it. All packaged up in those ever more sophisticated slices of metal and plastic we seem not to be able to do without, we constantly spray out data we often have no idea we’ve tacitly agreed to give away.
Nine years ago I started working at the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England under Anne Longfield, and then Dame Rachel de Souza. The single most common question we were asked by politicians, the media, teachers, just ordinary members of the public either officially or just privately was “do you think it’s ok for my kids to be spending so much time online, on their phones?”
The answer by the way is less about time and quantity, but light touch supervision and quality, but that’s never going to be and effective slogan. Besides we did not believe ‘it was ok’ but not everyone agreed. Age verification became a battle over adult privacy. Privacy primacy became a locked door to the investigation of grooming, abuse, county lines drug running, exploitation and bullying and a whole host of very dark stuff that had nasty, sometimes fatal real world consequences.
The companies always fielded their ‘heads of responsibility’ or some such with bountiful and seemingly sincere claims of taking child safety more seriously than anything else. It was transparently untrue. Yes, they did take it seriously but not whenever is clashed with exponential company growth and market share. Then for a variety of reasons having said they’d stop at nothing to make their social media worlds safer, they stopped and did nothing if it was really going to hurt the ‘bottom line’.
Yesterday the BBC made a good attempt to prove this. They had talked to whistleblowers inside the companies Meta and Tik-Tok who all told the same story: push the boundaries of acceptable content because ‘outrage drove engagement’.
One ‘engineer’ described orders from above to allow more borderline harmful content in users feeds:
“They sort of told us that it’s because the stock price is down”
Times have changed. My youngest child is 7. His mother doesn’t want him having more than quite strictly rationed screen time, no smart phone for some time, and – to show my age and how things sometimes go full circle – for us to emulate the iconic Jerry Lee Lewis-esque theme song to 80s children’s TV classic “Why don’t you?”
Yesterday the Government had Keir Starmer himself tweeting about the BBC story and how much he’s personally determined to tackle the problem.
The Conservative Party has changed. A past reticence about taking on the platforms than can sway voters opinions, a nervousness about how far any Online Safety legislation should go, seems to have been shelved in the face of public concern, and mounting solid evidence. Kemi Badenoch and shadow education secretary Laura Trott, have been determined that whatever the previous position may have been the party would now ban under 16s from using social media because of the damage it can cause.
There are still voices that say this is intolerable interference in freedom of choice, state interference in people’s privacy and I’m not going to argue they don’t have valid points, indeed some may make the case on ConservativeHome, but it seems many people have just moved on.
That includes Conservative Party Members.
Our February ConservativeHome survey produced convincing backing for the banning of under 16s from social media.
Now let’s be honest many of our members are not teens wanting to use social media, far from it, but they do care about freedom of choice and have less nanny-statism. But 64.5 percent of responders said the policy was the right one. Just 23.9 percent said no. That’s still nearly a quarter, but with don’t knows at just 11.5 percent it’s pretty decisive.
The key, as always is how you enforce it? However from work done some years ago across a range of child protection pilots in the online sphere, the harder you made it, the more socially acceptable it was not to be involved at all. The more you not only prevented it, the more young people got over their thirst for it in the first place. Not all, probably never all, but most.
It is why most schools in some form or another do actually ban the use of mobile phones in school hours, and have done so for some time, and why banning them altogether from schools makes sense.
The policy is a step change from what I saw outside the last government but looking in and worth pointing out to those who say change is beyond the party, a marked change from where they were before.
It would seem members are broadly happy with that, too.
Politics
AIPAC faces its biggest test this year in Illinois
CHICAGO — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is making a nearly $22 million bet in Illinois that its money, if not its policy views, can still hold sway in Democratic politics.
In three of the four Illinois House races it’s targeting, AIPAC appears to be using shell PACs to largely conceal where that money is coming from rather than spend from its main super PAC vehicle, United Democracy Project. Like in other recent contests, their ads focus on anything but Israel.
But AIPAC appears at risk of inadvertently helping the candidate most hostile to its views in the race to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky — just as it did in New Jersey last month. The group has taken a sharp tactical shift in recent days, pivoting from attacking a Jewish candidate who has criticized Israel and focusing instead on a Palestinian-American candidate who has been more outspoken.
Interviews with a dozen Democratic elected officials, candidates and strategists — including both supporters and critics of Israel — revealed growing concerns about AIPAC’s interventions. Strategists warn that AIPAC’s attacks on Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, created an opening for progressive social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American who is a vocal critic of Israel and appears to have late momentum in the race, over AIPAC’s preferred candidate, more moderate state Sen. Laura Fine. In the past week, the group has pulled down all of its anti-Biss messaging, but it could prove too late.
“There’s been a strategy shift,” said a person directly familiar with AIPAC’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “Our primary goal in Illinois is to prevent potential ‘Squad’ members from being elected to Congress.”
Tuesday’s primary will be the first test of AIPAC’s political muscle in the 2026 primary season after amassing nearly $100 million in its warchest, even as polls show more and more Democrats have negative views of Israel — and of the group itself.
“AIPAC may deliver another candidate who is plainly not on their agenda and … the concerns about their interventions within the primary electorate are only going to intensify,” said David Axelrod, a longtime Chicagoan and former senior adviser in President Barack Obama’s administration. “These ads are not branded as AIPAC for a reason, so there’s a recognition that they are a controversial presence in Democratic primaries.”
AIPAC recently spent $2 million to sink former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) in a special election primary. Malinowski, a pro-Israel moderate who would not support unconditional aid to Israel, lost to Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer who has said Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The move infuriated centrist Democrats, who saw it as a spectacular self-induced fumble — and are worried it may be happening again.
“No one wants to see another New Jersey 11 … and everyone should be concerned about it happening,” said one Democratic donor adviser close to AIPAC who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics.
The organization has become increasingly controversial on the left for its full-throated support of Israel’s war in Gaza and is facing a new layer of hostility in the wake of Israel’s joint attack with the U.S. in Iran. Among Democrats, 62 percent think America is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 22 percent who think the support is about right and 8 percent who think it’s not supportive enough, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week.
Democratic candidates and strategists expect AIPAC to intervene in a range of House primaries in the coming months, as well as the Senate primaries in Michigan and Minnesota. They’re watching to see how the group’s interference plays with voters amid the backdrop of the war.
“You’re going to see more of this unfortunately” across the country, said former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a noted Democratic strategist now weighing a run for president, of the influx of outside spending — from AIPAC to crypto groups. “Illinois is literally the first stop on the way to an ugly future, where billionaires will be the dominant players and candidates will be pawns in their world.”
In Illinois, an AIPAC-aligned super PAC called Elect Chicago Women, had spent heavily against Biss on TV and digital ads, while also spending more than $4 million on TV ads and mailers boosting Fine. In recent days, another AIPAC-aligned group, Chicago Progressive Partnership, put out ads attacking Abughazaleh and propping up another progressive in the race, Bushra Amiwala, in an apparent effort to split the vote.
Local strategists noted the abrupt shift when the Biss attacks stopped earlier this month.
“It looks like they’re changing their tactics” after the New Jersey backfire, said an Illinois Democratic lawmaker, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “Is there evidence that [AIPAC] is adapting and taking lessons from the last election? Yes.”
Biss, for his part, predicted there would be “backlash” to AIPAC’s moves in Illinois in future primaries.
“They’ve chosen to make clear that it’s unacceptable to them to have members of Congress who don’t believe in a no strings attached blank check of military aid to the current Israeli government, no matter what they do in Gaza,” Biss said “So that’s what people in the district and around the country will be interested to see what the outcome is.”
Abughazaleh sees the shift to attack her as a sign that AIPAC is “panicking” to control the race. “They’re realizing that they didn’t take us seriously, and that people aren’t looking for the status quo. So they are panicking,” she said in an interview.
Fine has opposed adding conditions to U.S. aid to Israel, though she has expressed general frustration at the role of “dark money” and the lack of transparency from political action committees, saying it’s “a big problem in our political system.”
AIPAC’s super PAC declined to comment on its involvement in Illinois, including its use of pop-up super PACs to filter funds to candidates. AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement, “Our members are focused on building strong bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel partnership in the 120th Congress.”
The group is also spending heavily for its preferred candidates in the races to fill seats left open by Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi, who are running for the Senate, and Danny Davis, who is retiring.
AIPAC’s allies are not confident about their chances in Kelly’s district. The group is backing Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, but former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) has been bolstered by more than $1 million in spending from a pro-cryptocurrency super PAC. Plus, he has sky-high name recognition, especially in the wake of the recent death of his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Pro-Israel Democrats feel more confident their preferred candidates can win in two other races.
Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin has benefited from nearly $5 million in positive ads from AIPAC’s main super PAC, United Democracy Project, in a crowded 13-candidate primary for Davis’ seat. State Rep. La Shawn Ford has strong name recognition in the district and Davis’ endorsement, but he has struggled to keep up with fundraising.
In Krishnamoorthi’s district, moderate former Rep. Melissa Bean has benefited from nearly $4 million in supportive messaging from the “Elect Chicago Women” group that’s also supporting Fine in the 9th.
AIPAC’s critics argue that the group’s moves in Illinois, particularly concealing the funding sources of its super PACs, demonstrate that “they themselves understand how toxic they are,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the progressive J Street group, which bills itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”
“In every part of their political work, they’re doing this surreptitiously,” he added.
Jessica Piper and Andrew Howard contributed reporting.
Politics
Jane Fonda Questions Barbra Streisand’s Oscars Tribute To Robert Redford
During the ceremony, there was an extended “in memoriam” tributes section, specifically remembering screen legends Rob Reiner, Catherine O’Hara and Diane Keaton.
However, Jane Fonda has now admitted that she thinks she should have been invited to take part in the segment to help pay homage to Robert Redford too.

At an Oscars after-party, Jane was asked by Entertainment Tonight how she felt about Rachel McAdams’ on-stage tribute to Diane Keaton.
“Oh I didn’t see that!” she admitted. “But oh god, her passing really hit me hard. We lost a lot of talented people [in the last year].”
She then added: “I wanna know, how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford? She only made one movie with him – I made four! I have more to say!”
The host then prompted Jane to “say it now”, to which she quipped: “I was always in love with him! [He was] the most gorgeous human being, and such great values, and he did a lot for movies, he really changed movies, and lifted up independent movies.”
The pair appeared together in 1966’s The Chase, 1967’s Barefoot In The Park, 1979’s The Electric Horseman and, more recently, 2017’s Our Souls At Night.
He also made an uncredited small appearance in 1960’s Tall Story, in which Jane shared the screen with Anthony Perkins.
Following his death in September of last year, Jane said: ““It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying.
“He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”
Politics
Former Army General Condemns Trumps Comments On Allies
A former US Army general has hit out at Donald Trump’s “repulsive” comments about America’s allies over the war in Iran.
The president is putting pressure on other countries, including the UK, to send ships to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open as the conflict goes on.
Speaking on Monday, he said: “They should be in here very happily helping us,” he said. “They should be jumping to help us because we’ve helped them for years.”
Lieutenant General Hodges, the former commander of the US Army in Europe, told Radio 4′s Today programme: “This is embarrassing for me as an American to hear any American president showing such disdain for any ally, and we are going to regret in the long run as … nations lose confidence in us, lose trust in us and start finding other ways to look after their strategic interests.”
Taking aim specifically at the prime minister, Trump said: “Keir Starmer yesterday told me, ‘I’m meeting with my team to make a determination’.
“I said, ‘you don’t need to meet your team, you’re the prime minister, you can make your own decision.’”
But Lt Gen Hodges said: “Many of the problems that we’re having in the United States right now are because the president has gotten rid of the normal national security staff and he’s put in place people who are sycophants.
“Any leader worth his or her salt depends on a team, so I find this repulsive to say the prime minister or the German chancellor or the president of any other country doesn’t need to speak to his or her team.”
Politics
Teyana Taylor Addresses Criticism About Her Behaviour At This Year’s Oscars
Teyana Taylor has responded to criticism aimed her way following this year’s Oscars.
On Sunday night, the singer and actor attended the Academy Awards, where she had been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress title off the back of her performance in One Battle After Another.
At the beginning of the ceremony, this award was the first to be announced, with Teyana visibly jumping to her feet when the winner was revealed as Weapons star Amy Madigan.
Later in the night, when One Battle After Another was announced as the recipient of the Best Picture prize, Teyana was seen celebrating with director Paul Thomas Anderson, even jokingly putting him in a headlock on their way up to the stage.
Following the ceremony, one critic on X questioned “WTF” was “going on with Teyana”, accusing her of “wildin’ at the Oscars”, while another claimed that they “knew from the first hour something was off” with her.
Teyana reacted on Monday night, lamenting to her X followers: “The world holds so much misery that miserable hearts forget the face of happiness. They grow comfortable being sore losers, so when they see real sportsmanship it unsettles them! Like holy water touching a demon.
“Because clapping for someone else’s victory requires something many people never learned… how to win with grace and pure joy, and how to lose with grace, chin up and dignity.”
Asked about the headlock moment by Variety, Teyana also claimed: “What’s crazy is we kind of took it back to [the] Critics’ Choice [awards] when I told him, ‘listen, if you get that Best Picture, I’m telling you now, we’re going to get you a helmet’. Because I’m such a sports girl, so I’m just like ‘yeeeeeeeah!’.
“It’s our little inside joke – so he already knew the headlock was coming. He knew the headlock was coming.”
Back in January, Teyana won a Golden Globe for her work in One Battle After Another, and was also nominated for a Bafta, an Actor Award (previously known as a SAG Award) and Critics’ Choice Award.
One Battle After Another was the big winner at this year’s Oscars, triumphing in six categories overall, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and the inaugural Best Casting prize.
Sean Penn also scooped Best Supporting Actor, marking his third Oscar win, but he did not attend the ceremony to accept it.
Politics
BBC Expert Explains Why Trumps Hormuz Help Plea Is Pointless
A BBC foreign affairs expert has delivered a reality check to Donald Trump over his call for other countries to send warships to help open up the Strait of Hormuz.
Frank Gardner, the corporation’s security correspondent, said “no amount of navies” will help to release the “chokehold” Iran has on the vital waterway.
Around one-fifth of the global oil supply passes through the Strait, meaning its effective closure is having a devastating effect on the world economy.
Trump has repeatedly called on countries from around the world – including the UK – to send ships to ward off Iranian drone and missile attacks on tankers.
But speaking on Radio 4′s Today programme, Gardner said that would effectively be a waste of time, even if America’s allies wanted to help.
He said: “Nobody’s particularly keen on this, in fact they’re kind of annoyed about it because this was a war of choice that Israel and the United States chose to do. It’s not one that was backed either by Gulf states in this part of the world, nor by America’s Nato partners.
“There’s a kind of collective heavy sigh ‘OK, clearly you didn’t plan for this, it’s got unintended consequences that maybe you should have thought of when you started this, now you’re asking us to help clear up the mess’ and people are not particularly keen to put their navies in harm’s way.”
Garner added: “Iran has really got a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz at the moment, and that’s only going to stop by negotiation. No amount of navies are going to stop that.
“The real problem is simply that Iran controls the coast between the north of the gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and they can attack whatever shipping they want, unless they agree not to.”
Politics
UK Rejects Social Media Ban For Children: What Happens Next
Conversations around social media (and how kids use it) are only going to heat up in the coming months.
Just this week, MPs voted against a social media ban for under-16s in the UK.
The ban, which would’ve been similar to one implemented in Australia at the start of this year, had originally been backed by the House of Lords, but was later defeated in the Commons.
That said, it could still technically happen. The government is currently looking at children’s digital wellbeing (and how social media plays into that) as part of a consultation running until May.
While we all know the myriad arguments for banning social media (addictive design; disruption to sleep, attention and mental health; exposure to harmful or distressing content; and opening kids up to bullying or abuse), campaigners and charities have warned a social media ban could drive teens to murkier, less regulated parts of the internet.
It could also leave them “unprepared” for navigating the online world when they do eventually reach adulthood.
Nova Eden, founder of One Power Collective and a children’s digital wellbeing expert, believes a ban would have offered children much-needed, urgent protection.
“Ministers are already floating half-measures such as time limits and curfews [in their consultation], yet voting for the ban would have been immediate action,” she told HuffPost UK.
“We cannot afford to waste any more time, children need protection now.”
Similarly Dr John Allan, head of impact and breakthrough learning, at PGL Beyond, believes the latest vote against a social media ban is a “missed opportunity to reset children’s relationships with screens”.
There’s no social media ban. So, what needs to happen now?
Well, there are a few ideas.
Rather than adopting a blanket ban, Lee Chambers, founder of Male Allies UK, is of the belief that tech giants should be facing more pressure to make the internet safer for children,
He also wants the government to “take accountability for the ever-escalating risk and bad behaviour that is infiltrating our, and our children’s, phones”.
“We need to invest in digital literacy, and we need to make the companies that are letting harm seep across social platforms accountable for their negligence,” he told HuffPost UK.
“We need to tackle the root cause, not just switch the lights off.”
For Geoffrey Williams and Jenny Garrett, co-founders of Rocking Ur Teens, a UK social enterprise supporting teenagers, there’s a lot more work that needs to be done.
Geoffrey wants to see more education on ethical usage [of social media] and creation of spaces that reinforce positive messages, “rather than the negative content that currently dominates most platforms”.
Jenny added that while a ban “would have been a wise move”, it’s “possibly too little, too late”.
While regulation has an important role to play, both experts say real-world exposure, mentorship, and hands-on experiences are what help teenagers navigate social media pressures, develop confidence, and build resilience.
Jenny’s daughter Leah struggled with low self-esteem as a teenager, which inspired the mum to create Rocking Ur Teens.
“We have been running a live experiment on children with platforms that were never designed with their psychological safety in mind.”
– Leah Garrett, Dawn Intelligence
Leah now runs Dawn Intelligence, which helps schools, workplaces and local authorities track and prevent gender-based violence using AI insights and real-time data.
She thinks a social media ban alone wouldn’t solve the problem. Instead, stronger boundaries surrounding social media use are key.
“We have been running a live experiment on children with platforms that were never designed with their psychological safety in mind,” she said.
“I work in AI now. I understand how systems are built. Most of these systems are not built to protect the most vulnerable user in the room. They are built to retain attention.”
Leah thinks a ban on its own is a “blunt instrument” and it should instead sit alongside education about how algorithms shape perception, amplify extremes, and how online identity can distort self image.
“Otherwise we simply delay exposure rather than prepare young people for it,” she added.
Wider context around social class is also often missing from the debate, she noted, and this needs to be addressed. “Some young people are parented through their devices because families are stretched, underfunded and exhausted,” she said.
“We cannot moralise individual parenting decisions while ignoring structural pressure. If we want healthier digital environments for teenagers, we need investment in youth spaces, extracurricular access, community programmes and safe physical spaces to belong.
“Technology is not going away. The real work is governance, literacy and accountability.”
Noting that parents “have lost trust in tech firms’ ability to keep their children safe”, Ofcom recently announced it’s cracking down on major sites and apps that kids use the most.
The regulator has given a number of major social media sites one month to implement effective minimum-age policies, strict grooming protections, safer feeds for children, and put an end to “product testing” new features on children.
Politics
What Kids Should Do If They Get Lost: A Parent’s Guide To Teaching Safety
I was at Disneyland with my three-year-old and her baby sister when I told our eldest: “If you can’t find us, head to the carousel and we’ll come find you.”
I wasn’t expecting her to get lost – my baby was snoozing in a carrier so all eyes were firmly on our eldest, with one of us gripping her hand tightly wherever we went – but I wanted to make sure that if, for whatever reason, she did lose sight of us, she’d know exactly what to do.
Thankfully we didn’t lose her on that trip. But if we had, it turns out the advice I gave her might’ve ended in disaster.
According to paediatrician Dr Joel Warsh (known as Dr Gator on social media), most parents teach their kids: “If you get lost, come find me” – and while it sounds pretty logical, it’s the wrong advice to give.
“When children realise they’re separated, they do three things almost automatically: They panic. They wander. They try to find you. Every step makes them harder to locate,” he explained on Substack.
“Search works best when movement stops,” added the expert.
His advice, then? Teach your kids to “stop, stay, yell”.
It’s crucial for kids to stay put if they get lost
It’s important to have ongoing conversations with kids, in an age-appropriate manner, to ensure you can locate them if they do become separated from you.
Leanne Mcleish, development and quality manager at NSPCC, told HuffPost UK that for pre-schoolers, “these conversations are unlikely to be appropriate” as the children are “too young to clearly understand how to keep themselves safe”.
Instead, she advises parents to continually monitor where they are and put steps in place, such as using harnesses, prams or holding hands when out in public, to keep them safe.
“It can also be helpful for young children to wear bright clothing or reflective clothing so that they can be clearly seen when it is dark or late at night,” she added.
For those of primary school age, “children should be encouraged to stay where they are, where possible, and not walk to a new area – this is to make sure that the parents can retrace their steps”, said Mcleish.
You could also encourage them to shout your name, rather than “mum” or “dad”.
“Children should be encouraged to not talk to any strangers, unless they are in uniform – such as a police officer, security guard or employee of the establishment,” added Mcleish.
You can also teach children to memorise phone numbers – Dr Warsh said even young kids can memorise a number with repetition. His advice is to practice it like a song: “Sing it in the car. Chant it at bedtime. Turn it into rhythm.”
For children who have their own mobile phone, parents should regularly check that the phone has battery power and that they have telephone numbers to allow them to contact a trusted adult to share where they are.
“The child should try to share any key identifying information such as road name, shop details or landmarks to help them be located,” added Mcleish.
“If they are in a place where they feel unsafe, they should ring the police immediately whilst trying to get into an open space with lighting.”
If you’re heading to a busy place, it might be helpful to take a photo of your child before you go (so you can remember what they’re wearing) and also to pop your phone number on a sticker and attach it to them.
And if you do happen to lose your child in a public space, the ‘looking loudly’ method could help reunite you quickly: shout a description of what your child looks like and what they’re wearing, rather than their name.
The idea is that rather than relying on a young child to respond to their name, you’re putting dozens, if not hundreds, of adults on high alert to find the child.
Politics
Why The Strait Of Hormuz Is Critical To World Energy Supply
As the US war with Iran drags on, much of the focus has been on a crucial waterway: the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait is a narrow channel that links the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It’s bordered by Iran from the north and Oman from the south, and it spans roughly 21 miles at its tightest point.
Due to its location, a major portion of the world’s oil produced by Persian Gulf countries – including Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq – must pass through the Strait in order to reach other destinations.

Sabrina Blanchard, Luca Matteucci and Valentin Rakovsky via Getty Images
In the wake of US and Israeli attacks, Iran has effectively shut down the Strait by threatening to target ships that pass through it. In doing so, it’s driven up oil prices worldwide – and ramped up economic pressure on the US.
Now, the Trump administration is grappling with how to navigate the closure of the Strait as its operation in Iran enters its third week.
Why Is The Strait Of Hormuz So Significant?
Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and one-fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas are transported via the Strait, making it one of the most important shipping lanes on the planet.
Many of these supplies typically go to countries in Asia, including China, India, Japan and South Korea.
Because the Strait has been largely closed since the start of the US war on Iran, oil supplies from the Persian Gulf have been broadly stuck. Per CBS News, roughly 400 oil tankers carrying 200 million barrels of oil are among the vessels that have been stalled.
Iran has significant power over the Strait due to its proximity to the waterway. As The Guardian noted, segments of the Strait’s transit lanes are located only three to four miles from Iran’s shores, so it can swiftly deploy drones and missiles to target boats passing through them.

What Is The State Of The Standoff Involving The Strait?
Shortly after the US began its strikes on Iran, Iranian officials issued threats related to the Strait.
“The Strait (of Hormuz) is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards’ commander-in-chief, said on March 2, according to Reuters, which cited Iranian state media. Iran has also appeared to follow through on its threats, claiming responsibility for attacks on multiple ships that have tried to enter the Strait.
According to CNN, Iran has reportedly placed a few dozen mines in the Strait, further heightening safety concerns.
Because of these threats, shipping traffic in the Strait has slowed significantly. Typically, more than 100 ships pass through the Strait each day, according to CBS News, but that figure has dwindled to just a handful.
In recent days, Iran has signalled that it may be open to allowing non-American ships to move through the waterway.
Over the weekend, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had been approached by “a number of countries” about ensuring safe passage of their vessels, and noted that the decision to allow them through would be up to its military.

Trump is searching for ways to neutralise Iran’s broader threats so that shipping traffic can resume to prior levels. Although US airstrikes have already hit multiple Iranian mine-laying vessels, any wholesale effort to combat Iranian attacks will be challenging, The Guardian noted. That’s due to Iran’s access to small, swift boats that it can use to lay mines, and its proximity to the waterway.
Trump has also implored other countries to send ships that could help reopen the Strait; however, so far, their response has been tepid.

If the Strait remains closed, pressure will continue to build on oil and gas markets worldwide. Trump’s threats about attacking Kharg Island again, which is home to an Iranian oil export hub, could add to these pressures.
Has The Strait Played A Role In Past Conflicts?
Iran has leveraged its access to the Strait in past conflicts, though this type of closure is unprecedented, Erik Broekhuizen, a tanker researcher, told NPR. In the 1980s, Iran laid mines in the Strait during a “Tanker War” with Iraq, and damaged a supertanker, according to Bloomberg. Iranian lawmakers have also weighed closing the Strait before, including after the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear sites last year.

Gallo Images via Getty Images
According to a Wall Street Journal report published last week, Trump’s top military adviser, General Dan Caine, had warned him that Iran could shut down the Strait in retaliation for US attacks. Trump reportedly suggested that Tehran would surrender first and that the US would be able to combat efforts to close the shipping route if the Iranians took that path.
“The Pentagon has been planning for Iran’s desperate and reckless closure of the Strait of Hormuz for decades, and it has been part of the Trump administration’s planning well before ‘Operation Epic Fury’ was ever launched,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed in a statement to the publication.
Politics
Andrew Bowie: Debunking some of the myths about the Tory position on North Sea oil and gas.
Andrew Bowie is Shadow Minister of State for Energy.
https://x.com/andrewbowie_mp/status/2033616473164276069?s=61
The post Andrew Bowie: Debunking some of the myths about the Tory position on North Sea oil and gas. appeared first on Conservative Home.
Politics
Trump Finds Out That After Insulting Allies Forever, They Don’t Feel Like Helping Him
President Donald Trump may be learning the hard way that berating, insulting and threatening America’s traditional allies for years makes persuading them to bail you out of a jam more difficult.
Nato countries have been cool to Trump’s demand they send warships to help the US Navy safeguard the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow opening to the Persian Gulf that oil tankers are currently unwilling to transit because of the threat posed by Iran, which Trump and Israel began attacking two weeks ago.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters on Monday at the White House, Trump continued complaining that other nations — none of whom was consulted prior to the start of the air attacks — were not “enthusiastically” responding to Trump’s request.
“They should be in here very happily helping us,” he said. “They should be jumping to help us because we’ve helped them for years.”
Trump has spent many years, from even before his first term, calling other Nato members freeloaders and mischaracterising the alliance as a form of protection scheme in which other nations were supposed to pay “dues” to the United States.
“Trump doesn’t understand how alliances work. He wants what he wants when he wants it. It’s just that simple,” said John Bolton, one of Trump’s national security advisers in his first term who disclosed that Trump had planned to withdraw from Nato had he won re-election in 2020.
After he returned to office last year, Trump disparaged Nato member Canada and said it should be the 51st state while also threatening a military seizure of Greenland from Denmark, another Nato ally.
The Greenland threats, even as they were largely mocked as unserious in the United States, provoked a months-long crisis in Europe.
Now, after attacking Iran without first seeking any input from those and other allies, he is expressing dismay that they are not eagerly sending ships and service members to ease the global energy calamity he himself created, which has caused domestic gasoline prices to jump more than 70 cents a gallon.

Trump on Monday again repeated his false claim that Nato would not stand by the United States: “I always said when in need they won’t protect us.”
In fact, the alliance’s mutual defence clause, spelled out in Article 5 of the charter and which states that an attack on one nation is treated as an attack on all, has only been invoked once: following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US.
Trump, however, speaks as if Article 5 language requires its members to join with the United States in an offensive war of choice, which it does not.
“He’s so confused. He never did understand Nato,” said Jim Townsend, a former staffer at the Defence Department and Nato and now with the Centre for a New American Strategy, a centre-left think tank.
Jan Techau, with the Centre for European Policy Analysis in Berlin, said he’s not sure Trump much cares about the treaty’s actual language. “He looks at dependencies, power relationships. If he thinks he can put pressure on Nato members that way, he does it,” he said.
Thus far, that effort seems to be falling short.
“What does Trump expect from a handful of European frigates that the powerful US Navy cannot do? This is not our war, we have not started it,” German defence minister Boris Pistorius said in Berlin on Monday.
British prime minister Keir Starmer, while saying he supports a plan to reopen traffic through Hormuz, said the United Kingdom would not be “drawn into the wider Iran war”.
One of the least oppositional voices, ironically, came from Denmark, the nation Trump was directly threatening just months ago but which is home to a large commercial shipping fleet. “We must face the world as it is, not as we want it to be,” foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters as he headed into a European Commission meeting to discuss a response to the Hormuz Strait situation.
Trump claimed Monday that “numerous” nations were going to send warships to the Strait to help get tanker traffic moving through again but refused to say which ones.
He then continued a pattern of contradictory statements that call into question his understanding of his own war. He demanded help with his Iran war and its global consequences while simultaneously claiming he didn’t need any such help. He claimed he had “obliterated” all of Iran’s military, including its fleet of mine-laying boats, but then said he understood why ship owners still do not wish to send their vessels through.
“Every one of them is gone,” he said of the mine-laying boats, “but it only takes one.”
Trump also revealed yet more evidence that he had not fully appreciated the risks he was taking when he began the largest US war in two decades. “They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East,” he said of Iran’s decision to attack its neighbours that host US military facilities. “So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.”
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