Why the truth does matter

As a preface to me providing a detailed strategy for the Truth Matters Project, I think it’s worth examining why it has an important part to play.

In a world where lies travel around the world before the truth can pull its socks up, social media seems to find nothing more attractive than the usual ‘he said, she said’ slop that has come to dominate the political conversation. Does it annoy me? Absolutely it does, because the nonsense that Trump and his enablers spew today will just be amplified by liberal voices who will focus obsessively on it, rage-posting it all day long. I’ve made the decision to leave that behind regardless of the cost, because I have no intention of being an unwitting amplifier of his bullshit.

The fact that we are just a few weeks away from the most consequential election in modern history and the Democratic narrative remains: ' Vote for us because we’re not fascists’ should tell you everything you need to hear. Establishment Democrats have bet the house on the Trump protest vote. If that doesn’t leave you incandescent with rage, you’re either deaf or you’re a corporate Democrat living in hope of punching your ticket for the gravy train on November 3rd.

It is a shameful, unconscionable betrayal of the American people that there’s no vision, no ambition to deliver a ‘people first’ agenda except for a few notable exceptions. Democrats might win in a few weeks; indeed, I genuinely hope they will. However, they will not have won. Trump will have lost, and that, my friends, is an important distinction. The end result might be the same, but it’s not the same as winning on the merits of a vision for a better tomorrow. This is at the very heart of why American politics is broken, and the losers every time are hard-working Americans who have done nothing to deserve the indifference they are forced to endure by the political class every single day. It makes me feel physically sick.

‘What’s it got to do with you? You’re not an American’ is often the refrain. If ever there were a lazy argument, this is it. In a global interconnected world where the country you have grown up believing you should look up to is behaving like a drunk uncle wanting to fight with everyone while stumbling around intoxicated on power, you had better believe it has something to do with me. My grandchildren will, through no fault of their own, be forced to live with the consequences of this catastrophic situation. Am I here to help in the fight to preserve American democracy? Absolutely I am; but I’m also doing this for my children and grandchildren’s future. A future which the mob boss in the Oval Office and his transnational extortion gang are openly threatening.

I’ve only been part of this fight since 2019, which is much less time than many of you have been in political combat. What I would say is, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s a hill I’m prepared to die on for all of us. I don’t bring with me any allegiance to any political party; the only weapons I bring to the fight are the truth and an unquenchable thirst to win. Mine is an objective, pragmatic approach that I believe adds value in this battle to survive these monsters. I often ask myself: what does it take to get people to accept that someone might just want to help because it’s the right thing to do? Why is that an alien concept to so many?

A little over three years ago, after working extensively with ChatGPT in chat, exploring its APIs, and seeing its potential, I believed it could democratise knowledge and change the world. You might be surprised to hear I still believe that’s possible. I remember thinking back then that this wouldn't be how it unfolded, because we humans just can’t help ourselves. We have a habit of turning a societal potential for good into the trash, in service of power and greed; it’s just who we are, and true to form, it has come to pass.

At the time, I decided to explore how I could help Democrats deliver messaging more efficiently to help them do something still, to this day, they seem to find impossible to do: effectively articulate a political argument. Back then, AI chat was good, but I had the technical ability to programmatically work with it beyond asking it to plan a holiday or put together ingredients for a recipe. I wanted to see how it could be used to help preserve democracy, not fill my bank account.

I’ve always believed in the power of the human spirit and ingenuity; I’m an idealist at heart, but I could also see the threat Trump posed not just to Americans, but to my family and those I love living an ocean away. History tells me that if American Democracy falls, the same will follow in the UK.

Here, in Britain, politicians have long obsessed over ‘the special relationship’. Frankly, it’s a joke: the US, after the Second World War, saw an opportunity while Europe was on its knees following the destructive rampage of the Nazis through Europe. It was an opportunity to profit big from the devastation left in the wake of the jackboots.

The US mainland had suffered no damage; indeed, it would never have got embroiled in the war at all, had Japan not brought it to them on December 7th 1941, when it attacked Pearl Harbour. Before that, the US had done everything in its power to avoid getting dragged into the conflict. After the war, Europe had to be rebuilt, and the US was in pole position to benefit from the enormous industrial capacity it had built to support its own war effort. Britain was on its knees; its empire, which had once controlled 25% of the earth’s landmass, was almost broke, and it owed the US money. A loan which, incidentally, Britain didn’t repay in full until 29 December 2006. That was the scale of how far in the hole Britain was after the war.

The US did what all great predatory rising powers do; it took advantage while the big dog in the world was on the ground, injured. Britain had done it since the 18th century across the world. The US pressed its advantage, and the dollar replaced sterling as the world’s reserve currency. From that point forward, it became the dominant world power. However, it knew it could not keep its position at the head of the table without allies, especially given the threat it perceived from the Soviet Union.

The lesson here is not one from history but a rather pointed account of how the US became an empire in everything but name. It has established military bases around the world, an estimated 750 of them. This is a legacy of its foreign-policy expansion since the Second World War, much like its profiteering from the Ukraine war today. In a post-war world, the US led the creation of a new world order to serve its global interests. Be in no doubt, it would not have maintained that power without its allies' cooperation. Britain played an important role in that strategy, particularly in intelligence and defence technology. A role the US to this day still relies upon, despite what Trump would have you believe.

America can project power and forward-position military and diplomatic assets because of its allies, not in spite of them. It’s somewhat ironic then, that the American people chose to elect a criminal fantasist and extortionist madman to burn it all to the ground. What did Joni Mitchell write? ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone’. There’s no better example of life mimicking art.

The US political class believes that all it takes is a change of government to fix this geopolitical rupture that it has caused itself. I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed. The Biden administration was the shining example of why the world will never trust America again. Not for the example he set by delivering the fastest post-pandemic economic recovery in the G7. (despite the lies that Trump peddles all day long). Rather, for demonstrating that the words ‘America is back’ now have little value in a world where, four years later, a schizophrenic electorate punches itself in the face and elects a criminal malignant narcissist as their representative on the world stage. In what world does that make sense? Let me help you with that: IN A GREED-FUELED WORLD, where everyday people become acceptable collateral damage in pursuit of power and wealth.

The catastrophic damage Trump has caused through a mixture of gross incompetence and greed lust, may not ever be repaired, but I believe it certainly won’t be resolved in my lifetime. Though allied leaders will never go on record saying so, the US is now regarded as a Pariah state across most developed democracies; trust is gone, and without it, US opportunities to advance economically evaporate because nobody likes a bully. In reality, the US has always been a bully, but it’s never been out and proud as it is in this moment.

Trump believes that power and aggression always win. How many times have you heard him say, ‘To the victor go the spoils of war’? There’s only one problem with this assertion: there has to be a victory in there somewhere. How’s the winning going, by the way? The US has never had a solo victory in ANY war, including the War of Independence. Without the French, King Charles would likely be the monarch of America. It’s this inflated sense of worth that has long proved to be the American Achilles ' heel. Wealth does NOT guarantee success, nor does military power; it simply gives you a better shot, until you come up against an adversary who doesn’t follow the American script. The British presided over the greatest empire the world has ever seen, which at one time included what became the United States.

All empires rise and fall without exception. Italy is evidence of this: all that remains of the Roman Empire are crumbling ruins, open-top tourist buses, and economic growth of around 0.5%. In Britain, if you visit London, which many Americans do, there are architectural remnants of Empire everywhere you look, no better demonstrated by the grand buildings on every street. In these days of political polarisation and populism, it's easy to fall for the belief that Britain is irrelevant. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2016, the same lunatic right-wing fringe that has blighted American progress, lied its way to a referendum that saw the UK leave the EU.

It was a catastrophic political unforced error led by Trump’s buddy Nigel Farage, or, as I like to call him, Liz Truss with a bitcoin account. With few exceptions, the rich MEN who architected Britain's exit from the EU moved many of their business interests and assets to Europe BEFORE the exit doors locked shut on prosperity for everyday citizens. They knew the economic damage it would cause, but it also offered an upside: the opportunity to profit. Indeed, many became dual citizens to play both sides for profit.

It’s estimated that in the decade since the UK left Europe, its economy has shrunk by between 6% and 8%. Given how polarising the issue is, assessment of the damage varies widely, but after doing some deep research, I believe it’s led, at the very least, to a cumulative cost of between £180 and £240 billion. Some estimates put the cost closer to £1 trillion. Regardless, it’s been an economic disaster.

If you want a really good analysis of the cost and impact of Brexit, Richard Partington wrote a great piece in The Guardian on June 14th 2026, entitled How Brexit has made Britain poorer – in charts. It’s well worth a moment of your time. In 2016, the thinking was that the UK would hit an immediate recession. Few considered that this wasn't about the immediate impact, but rather the cumulative damage from friction caused by diverging regulation and mountains of paperwork now required for any business doing business with former European partner nations.

We in Britain have seen the consequences of Trumpian economics for real, much as Americans are just starting to feel now. Liz Truss, in the time it took for a lettuce to rot, wiped £30 billion from the UK bank account and gave the country the gift of rising inflation and higher mortgages. Britons are still paying the cost of this legacy today. It was as if she had infected the UK economy with a dose of the economic clap. We here in Britain have lived the endgame. That’s why I respectfully suggest we may have been wounded, but we are not facing fatal consequences yet, however hard Trump tries. I would add, though, that it’s not for the want of politicians walking us off an economic cliff. Despite the economic class's abject failure, the UK remains among the top economic performers in the G7, but performs less well compared with a wider sample of European nations. Innovation in engineering and technology is surging again, and I believe we will emerge stronger than most think.

In PART TWO, we’ll take a closer look at AI and its implications for the political discourse, democracy and economic opportunity moving forward. In particular, we will examine how it’s deployed within the Truth Matters Project.

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