The party in power (in this case, Labor) always does badly in these off-year contests. The question tonight is “how badly?”

Also, Nigel Farage’s Reform party is again challenging the Conservatives for top spot on the right side of the political spectrum.

I’ll be updating results in this space. Some towns in England are counting votes tonight. While votes in the rest of England, Scotland, and Wales will be counted tomorrow (Friday)

Sky News UK is tracking the live results. As expected, so far Reform are the big winners with Labor the big losers.

I assert in the adjacent post that it’s a challenge to ascertain the state of play in our conflict with Iran, let alone the ultimate demands of the Trump administration to resolve it. The current status of the Strait of Hormuz adds to the difficulty of the challenge. Iran should not be in a condition to pull this off again if and when the Trump administration arrives at a mmemorandum of understanding with the Iranian regime.

As Operation Epic Fury progressed, President Trump made a series of increasingly vivid threats to (in effect) destroy the Iranian economy if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not open the strait, and the campaign against economic targets never happened. 1/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

On April 7, the president announced a ceasefire with Iran, conditional on Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not open the strait, but it got the ceasefire anyway. 2/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

On 13 April, following the sputtering of negotiations, the U.S. Navy began blockading Iranian ports. 3/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

This past Sunday the president announced Project Freedom, a limited operation to begin restoring traffic to the strait. Iran retaliated by attacking in the strait and targets onshore in the UAE… 4/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

…Then on Tuesday evening, in the face of this retaliation, after turmoil with regional allies, and purportedly to set the conditions for further talks, the president "paused" the effort to reopen the strait, leaving it under de facto Iranian control. 5/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

The US blockade remains in place. But otherwise, the story since early April is a story of unilateral American concessions, unanswered Iranian attacks, the bizarre climb-down with Project Freedom, and presidential threats that have yet to be acted on. 6/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

In addition to their (plausible) belief that closing the strait gives them economic and political leverage over Washington, the pattern of facts outlined here can't but give confidence to Iran's leaders that their position is not as weak as it might otherwise seem. 7/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

It seems unlikely that they will be in a mood to swiftly offer major concessions on the nuclear file and the strait. After all, President Trump promised the American people a 4-6 week war–and his actions clearly telegraph a reluctance to return to major combat operations. 8/9

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

Bad results from the war–like Iran controling the strait indefinitely–could happen. The best way to shift leverage decisively in our direction would be to restart efforts to clear the strait while maintaining our blockade. My thoughts in @TheFP. 9/9https://t.co/n1kOAzsenu

— Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) May 7, 2026

The U.S. says it needs Iran’s attestation that it doesn’t seek nuclear weapons; the dismantlement of the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities; a ban on underground nuclear work; and on-demand inspections with penalties for violations. The U.S. seeks a 20-year moratorium on Iranian nuclear enrichment and demands the handover of all enriched nuclear material.

Iran would have to reopen Hormuz—gradually, as the U.S. relaxes its blockade, and then fully with the final deal. Most U.S. sanctions relief would be tied to Iran’s performance of the deal, not merely its signing, though some assets could be unfrozen to begin.

The Journal’s editorial is headlined “The deal with the Iranian regime.” We shall see.

Back in 1985 I was working as a senior consultant for the entertainment division of a large, prominent accounting firm in Los Angeles. This firm happened to be the auditing and tax firm engaged by Turner Broadcasting System. Ted Turner had just completed a complex stock purchase and merger agreement to acquire MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian in which Turner paid about $1.5 billion but simultaneously got back $470 million by selling the United Artists subsidiary back to Kerkorian.

Turner was being widely mocked in the Hollywood party circuit for being played for a sucker by Kerkorian. The press was also reporting that Turner had paid a sum far in excess of MGM’s business worth and would have trouble financing the deal – he needed to raise about $1 billion. The difficult financing and subsequent poor performance of MGM’s new film releases slowed down the completion of the deal for several months. Ultimately, Turner’s dream of owning a film studio fell through and he ended up selling off most of MGM’s assets (including the venerable MGM studio lot in Culver City) back to Kerkorian (and other entities) for about $300 million.

However, Ted Turner had confided to his accounting and tax advisors that what he really wanted out of the deal was the film library which consisted of the MGM classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (Ted’s two favorite movies) and also the good parts of the Warner Brothers and RKO libraries as well.

Turner went to great lengths to preserve his ownership of the film library. In order to complete the transaction and take advantage of certain tax benefits (the tax accounting part of the transaction was complex and way over my head), he engaged his accounting firm to conduct a valuation of the film library. I was assigned to the project because of my particular expertise in designing and programming computer software for entertainment asset valuation.

I worked closely with the accountants to ensure that all possible revenue streams including foreign, domestic, TV syndication, new media (videocassettes, pay cable, and so on) were assessed and calculated by the software. The program ended up being extremely complex and, because it was valuing over 2,000 films, it strained the computer resources available at that time.

I remember working all night to deliver the final valuation number (and about 2,000 pages of worksheet calculations as backup). The number for the entire library, as I recall, was around $90 million (Net Present Value) which was a lot of money in 1986, but far lower than Turner had effectively paid for the rights.

Since I was just a young tech guy, I wasn’t in the meeting in the board room when the accounting firm partners delivered the news to Ted Turner. I was waiting in the adjacent room and I could hear through the walls Turner screaming his objections. He called the partners “bean counters” with no imagination and concept of entertainment. He said something like, “You have no idea what these films are worth, they’re priceless. I am creating new channels and new technologies to exploit these films. This library is easily worth over a $1 billion.”

After the meeting was over, the partners asked me to make some adjustments to the software to account for new distribution and technologies. I remember them telling me to create a “colorization” parameter and apply it to certain classic films in the library. I asked what this was and they told me that Turner has the crazy idea to use new computer software to turn black and white films into color films.

The tweaks to the various parameters added a few million dollars to the value of the library which I was told by the partners would not satisfy Turner. He was not only concerned about the tax consequences of the lower valuation, but also of his image as a mogul – i.e., reinforcing the impression that he was taken advantage of by Kerkorian. Ultimately, the conservative accounting firm could not risk its business reputation by increasing the valuation to match Ted Turner’s grand vision.

As the years went by, I watched (and often was involved in the valuations) as Turner launched TNT and TCM to exploit the library. He also purchased Hanna-Barbera, which allowed him to launch the Cartoon Network.

Ted Turner got in over his head in the mega corporate entertainment world and ultimately had to sell out to Time Warner. I never liked his left-wing politics and he fell short as a solid business leader, but Ted Turner definitely understood the value of entertainment content and was brilliant in finding new ways to exploit it. Bottom line: his acquisition of the “rights to just about every worthwhile movie ever made” was a deliberate and savvy business strategy that paid off. In the end, the MGM film library really was worth over a $1 billion.

The video is posted at Alpha News with this accompanying story by Liz Collin and J.C. Chaix. The Alpha News story includes a reminder of the Star Tribune’s profile of the “suburban dad” during Operation Metro Surge this past January. The profile constituted only one small component of the Star Tribune’s incessant campaign in support of illegal immigration waged on its news pages during the operation. The Star Tribune itself hasn’t mentioned the profile of Ostroushko in the context of the April 11 assault.

Let’s not forget the praise @StarTribune poured on these people just months ago… https://t.co/RTxZjiCtKg pic.twitter.com/MgwA7gR50H

— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) April 29, 2026