Britain’s New Prime Minister’s Bold Vision

Andy Burnham replaced Keir Starmer and officially became Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade today, promising “the biggest changes in the last 40 years.”

Britain needs big changes:

• Britain’s debt is rising faster than that of any other nation in the world except Botswana.
• In 2023, 1.3 million migrants arrived.
• Most schoolchildren in London do not speak English as their first language.
• Shoplifting is at an all-time high.

[BRIEF]

Yet there is a point in British history where things were arguably even worse: the 1970s.

• Inflation peaked at over 25 percent, its highest rate since the Napoleonic Wars.
• The top rate of income tax hit 83 percent.
• The pound collapsed in value, forcing the government into the humiliating position of being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund.
• Strikes by miners who worked for the government-owned National Coal Board forced offices and factories to work only three days a week to conserve electricity.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher came to power. Britain’s only decent postwar leader had the courage to push through controversial changes, take on the trade unions, and turn things around.

Now Andy Burnham is boldly promising dramatic reforms—to undo Thatcher’s reforms and take Britain back to the 1970s.

Britain took “a series of wrong turns” in the 1980s, he said last week, in his first major speech since returning to Parliament. He promised to bring “life’s essentials back under public control.” In other words, he wants the government to once again control major industries like mining.

Socialism comprehensively failed Britain in the 1970s, but Burnham wants to try it again. The ideology pays no attention to cause and effect or judging by fruits. It argues that past failures of communism occurred only because they weren’t communist enough.

The socialism of the ’70s destroyed British mining and manufacturing. It culminated in the “winter of discontent” in 1978–1979. Voters were so outraged at Labour that it took them almost two decades to return to office. And even then, it was only through Tony Blair, who rebranded the party “New Labour,” pledged allegiance to the free market, and professed to disown the socialism of the past.

The return to the ideology that almost destroyed the nation once before shows how desperate our leaders have become.

Our feature story today explores the causes of Britain’s leadership void. The solution to Britain’s problems is “a wholesale change in national lifestyle” and repentance.

But Britain is not ready to repent and turn to God. That is too extreme. Its leaders would rather try the failed policies of the 1970s.

It won’t work. God will keep cursing the nation until we see that repentance is the only solution.

‘Eternal Peace in the Middle East’ Remains Elusive

If there were any doubt the United States’ ceasefire with Iran was over, the events over the weekend have dispelled it.

• Iran struck a U.S. military base in Jordan Saturday, killing two servicemen. These are the first U.S. casualties since the April 8 ceasefire. About 17 servicemen have been killed since the war began on February 28.
• The U.S. retaliated hours later and continued strikes into Sunday evening, targeting “Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks,” according to Central Command.
• Kuwait claimed Monday morning it was responding to Iranian drone attacks.

The U.S. claims it is now trying to bring Iran into final submission. But there are serious questions if the U.S.—which has sorely lacked the willpower to decisively win conflicts since World War ii—is even physically capable of winning a conventional conflict anymore.

• A “U.S. official” speaking with the Washington Post claimed the military’s stockpile of munitions is shrinking too fast to keep up a meaningful campaign, saying, “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that.”
• nbc reported on July 14 that the cost of the Iran war could approach $100 billion. This is still only 10 percent of America’s annual military budget, but it is far larger than the $29 billion cost the government estimated in May.
• Oil prices briefly reached over $91 a barrel Monday, a monthly high, with average gasoline prices in the U.S. exceeding $4 a gallon. Diesel exceeded $5 a gallon.

President Donald Trump said in his inauguration speech that he wished his “proudest legacy” to be “that of a peacemaker and unifier.” Yet his attempts to bring peace to the Middle East are ending in failure. There is a missing dimension to peacemaking that President Trump is completely overlooking. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains what this missing dimension is in The Way of Peace Restored Momentarily.

China Is Stealing Advanced U.S. AI Technology

Communist China is stealing artificial intelligence technology from Anthropic, OpenAI and other American companies. On Thursday, Chinese start-up Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, an open-source AI chatbot that matches or comes very close to the latest versions of Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

• In February, OpenAI accused Chinese company DeepSeek of stealing its technology.
• In June, Anthropic told Congress that the Chinese company Alibaba used 25,000 fake accounts to pull 28.8 million answers from its Claude AI to train its own AI models.
• In April, White House science official Michael Kratsios said China is running “deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns” to steal U.S. AI technology.

Stealing enables China to create advanced AI models much faster and cheaper—threatening U.S. national security. Analysts estimate that without the thefts, China would be about 18 months behind the U.S. in the best AI technology. Thanks to a method called distillation, it is now only six to nine months behind.

The late Herbert W. Armstrong warned that communism would be used to take from America its historically unprecedented national blessings.

“We are not fighting a single nation in a military war, but a gigantic, worldwide, plain-clothes army, masquerading as a political party, seeking to conquer the world with an entirely new kind of warfare!” Mr. Armstrong wrote in 1956. “It’s a kind of warfare we don’t understand, or know how to cope with. It uses every diabolical means to weaken us from within, sapping our strength, perverting our morals, sabotaging our educational system, wrecking our social structure, destroying our spiritual and religious life, weakening our industrial and economic power, demoralizing our armed forces, and finally, after such infiltration, overthrowing our government by force and violence!”

Mr. Armstrong’s warning focused on Communist Russia’s demoralization efforts to pervert our morals, wreck our social structure, and destroy our spiritual values by promoting the “God is dead” movement in American universities. But in terms of industrial and economic power, the main force has been Communist China.

The theft of American AI know-how is part of a long pattern that is seriously weakening the United States.

Major Political Reshuffle in Germany

Jens Spahn, one of Germany’s top conservative politicians, was forced to resign on Saturday. He and his homosexual partner paid a woman in the U.S. to be impregnated by the partner and give the child to him and Spahn, a practice that is illegal in Germany and opposed by Spahn’s own party. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked Spahn to resign.

• Spahn was the parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union.
• He was responsible for uniting the faction behind the chancellor. It has been speculated that success was hindered by his personal rivalry with the chancellor.
• His removal may benefit Merz, who is struggling with low poll numbers and lack of support within his party.

Spahn could not be trusted. He was seen as a power-hungry opportunist and major rebel during the administration of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

• He was also extremely unpopular due to his work as Germany’s minister of health during the coronavirus epidemic and its associated government lockdowns and scandals.

Getting rid of Spahn could be an opportunity for Merz. He is not only getting rid of a rival and controversial figure, but the needed reshuffle could give him an excuse to move other low-performing ministers out of key positions.

However, the German political scene is currently thin on talent. The cdu/csu has been declining in popularity, and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland could win major victories in upcoming state elections in September.

Bible prophecy indicates that a weak German government will enable the rise of a prophesied strongman (Revelation 17:11-12).

• “There will be 10 dictatorships, exerting iron rule over 10 European nations,” the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in June 1956. “These 10 will give all their military power to the central overall leader—pictured under the prophetic symbol, ‘the beast.’”

For this prophecy to be fulfilled, Europe’s democratic system must fall into a desperate state. More and more, Germany’s interminable political turmoil matches that description.

IN OTHER NEWS

Are Russia and China helping Iran kill Americans? After Iranian strikes on a U.S. base in Jordan killed two U.S. military personnel and wounded several others, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Russia and China likely supplied Iran with advanced targeting intelligence. Such assistance would align with Moscow and Beijing’s long-term objective of steadily weakening U.S. influence and undermining Washington’s global standing.

Houthis declare naval blockade against Saudi Arabia: A week after Saudi Arabia bombed the Houthi capital of Sanaa, the Iran-backed terror group in Yemen indicated it would target shipping heading to Saudi Arabia. The Houthis’ reactivation after a similar embargo on Israel that ended last year further demonstrates the power of radical Islam to disrupt world trade.