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What is this nonsense ?
The US administration seems to believe it has the right to force an unstable peace, on disadvantageous terms to Ukraine, and then take no responsibility for policing it.

Given it's Europe's future that's at stake, and Europe that's expected to pay for Ukraine's security, why do they get to decide our future ?

Russia will “have some stake” in discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine — US Vice President J.D. Vance.

“How can you reasonably provide security guarantees without talking to the Russians about what would be necessary to bring the war to a close?” Vance said during an NBC News interview.

Vance also reiterated that the US won't deploy American military personnel to Ukraine, while emphasizing that European nations and other countries would take on significant responsibilities.
https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1959875270610989128

We need to take a much firmer line with the US. If they want us to look after ourselves (which is good) then they don't get to tell us what we can and can't do with regard to threats against ourselves and our neighbours.

Frankly I am of the opinion that the US can go fuck themselves.

'Afternoon pb.
I've had an amazingly busy bank holiday weekend. I have any amount of anecdata to regale you with, but I can't actually be bothered - just rest assured it backs up whatever conclusions about the UK you had already reached. But more excitingly, I have:
- been to a wedding (though only the night time - I didn't know them that well)
- been to the tip
- been to a match in the rugby world cup
- met/fed/stroked a capybara (two capybaras, in fact.)
- discovered an awesome new animal (the binturong - look him up - he's ace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binturong (when I say 'discovered', I'm talking in a purely personal sense - other humans already knew about him)
- flown a kite
- won a toy seagull in a game of skill (darts)
- been involved in a family drama about a lost bracelet, thrillingly resolved after an hour with the use of a big stick
- watched a glorious sunset with my daughters
- erected a tent
- hosted a children's party (at which, impressively, someone is playing 'Never Gonna Give You Up' on the kazoo, quite well).

The idea that Hamas would detain foreign journalists is nonsense . It’s in their best interests to elicit sympathy from the west , holding journalists would do the opposite. The IDF Netenyahu apologists are defenders of genocide. The biggest recruiting sergeant for anti semitism are the actions of the IDF and Netenyahu.

The level of Hamas advocacy on here is quite startling and disturbing

I don’t want to make assumptions about your antecedents, but do the IDF take gentile foreign volunteers? Perhaps time for another empty gesture?

The IDF seem to be doing quite well at grinding down Hamas by themselves.

They should just keep up the good work until there are zero Hamas supporters left alive, or they surrender unconditionally.

Just as we did with WWII with both Germany and Japan.

I believe the IDF is suffering from battle fatigue and trauma from all those double tapped kids and bulldozed women. Is there an historical parallel whereby a nation saved their brave soldiers from the disgusting but necessary task of personally slaughtering women and kids by thinking up a more clinical method of dispatch, a final solution if you will?

Why do you doubt the humanity of the IDF?

Three Israeli hostages mistakenly killed by soldiers in Gaza on Friday had used leftover food to write signs pleading for help, Israel says.

The men had been staying at the building next to where they were shot "for some period of time", according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The head of the IDF told troops that they are "absolutely not" permitted to shoot those surrendering.

"The IDF doesn't shoot a person who raises their hands," said Herzi Halevi.

He said Gazans with a white flag must be arrested and not shot "if they lay down their arms and raise their hands"...

...Israeli officials have admitted that killing the three men who were holding a white flag was a breach of "rules of engagement".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67745092

That's the difference between Hamas and Israel.

Israel tells its troops NOT to shoot innocents or those surrendering, though mistakes will always happen in the fog of war.

Hamas tells its fighters TO shoot innocents.

The way to end the fighting is to fully defeat Hamas and everyone who supports them, until they surrender unconditionally and there's no more fog of war.

Israel tells its troops NOT to shoot innocents, you say? What about https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/27/israeli-soldiers-ordered-fire-civilians-aid-war-crimes-idf/

Proves my point.

From your link it is clear that Israel's policy is not to fire at civilians and allegations that some have are being investigated by the "military advocate general".

Any criminal who breaks the law should face charges, but the Israelis investigate their own and have standards.

Hamas don't investigate those who shoot innocents they tell them to do so and reward them.

Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza, https://news.sky.com/story/israeli-soldier-describes-arbitrary-killing-of-civilians-in-gaza-13393422 An Israeli reservist who served three tours of duty in Gaza has told Sky News in a rare on-camera interview that his unit was often ordered to shoot anyone entering areas soldiers defined as no-go zones, regardless of whether they posed a threat, a practice he says left civilians dead where they fell.

'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000

Can you send me that link to the story from the independent Gazan journalist criticising the actions of Hamas?

It's perfectly possible to believe that (a) Hamas are evil, and (b) some of the actions of the IDF (and the Netanyahu regime) have crossed the line.

@peterrhague

It’s hard to overstate what a disaster Boris Johnson turned out to be. It’s likely none of the present tensions would be happening in the UK if he hadn’t done this. The worst thing is, I couldn’t tell you if he did it on purpose or by accident. Either is quite possible.

At the time I remember plenty of Brexiteers saying things like "it's not about the numbers, it's about control" and claiming that immigration from the Commonwealth would be less unpopular with the sort of people who don't like immigration than immigration from the EU. I have to say that both arguments seemed implausible at the time.

With the odd exception, I don't think immigration from the commonwealth is a problem. Immigration from India is very visible in my part of the world, but it isn't really a problem: these are by and large skilled immigrants whom Britain has sought and who integrate easily. The problem is illegals and dubious asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa.

It's the Euroopeans who have disappeared that I miss the most. You could go round towns and cities all over the UK and it was full of young attractive people speaking a multitude of languages. It's like that in the Sounth of France everywhere and it used to be like that in England. It's difficult to realise how it's changed over the last nine or ten years

You're comparing your current fantasy world with your earlier fantasy world.

Without considering which of them people who live in this country might actually prefer.

Though perhaps one reason you might think there are fewer Europeans in Britain is that many of them have integrated and now speak English.

Not at all. It was a more transitory population. My ex lives the life of a hippy in Crete and lives with a revolving population. She loves it. She's never been happier. Different people turn up at different times and they live a great life. If success is your thing she's had that. If your thing is six pints of beer on a Saturday night then little in the UK will have changed.

The Spanish have a saying about 'The smell of the paint' which is just another way of describing 'the vibe' and to a lot of people it doesn't matter at all. Leon despite his tales of derring do is one of them. I don't think there's a more MOR person on here. He swoons over Taylor swift and thinks Sydney Sweeney is the most alluring person he's seen. That's fine. That's his taste. Take a look at his room featured on here often. Enough said! Not everyone is sensitive to what goes on around them or the styling of the place they live in and that's why some like you and Leon like Brexit and others like me don't

I'm currently lying on the beach in Marbella, drinking beer and listening to Taylor Swift, so I hope that if anyone holds the vulgarity crown today it is me.

I cannot regard Howe as a villain. It is not his fault that the Tories obsessed about Europe for the subsequent 30 years to the detriment of themselves and the country. It is not is fault that Thatcher went on too long undoing some of the good that she had done with his considerable assistance.

What I am concerned about is where are the Howes of today? He was a serious intellectual heavyweight who thought deeply about public policy and the public good. Like every human he wasn't always right but he was deeply focused on that public good, ahead even of party political considerations. I cannot think of his equivalent in the House of Commons today. Instead, our most prominent politicians are interested in sound bites, social media, clickbait and, above all, themselves. They are obsessed with what sounds good rather than what is good. Gestures instead of substance. It's sad.

Edit, see this fracking nonsense this morning.

This is what concerns me when I look at the UK today: the fundamentally unserious nature of political commentary and by extension politics itself. The number of commentators with a deep and layered understanding of political realities has given way to celebrity presenters who obsess about political theatre and process but fail to understand anything about political ideologies or even the basic mechanisms of administration. The contrast between say Charles Wheeler of thirty years ago and Naga Munchetty of today is pretty astonishing. Thus when people like Gove or Johnson, or Farage for that matter, come up with superficial and even absurd ideas then their media pals do not analyse them as ideas but simply in terms of shallow political positioning, because human interest is all they (and apparently we) really understand. The result is that really bad ideas get adopted with little scrutiny and both policy making and even public administration itself are degraded. The fact that so many politicians in the current crop of Tories were media workers themselves compounded the problem. Gove may have had "enough of experts", and I think that tells you that he had lost the plot in terms of enacting reasonable or even workable legislation. It has been said that Brexit was a fundamentally unserious policy and has been executed in such a ridiculous way as to guarantee its failure: that is where this fundamental lack of seriousness in British politics brought us.

Both policies (bright ideas) and the execution of policy (actually enacting workable laws) have much lower priority than presentation and media management, and this is why Britain is failing to address the multiple crises that it faces. All is not well in Estonia, but it is not considered being a nerdy swot to have read books and to be able to engage with the various experts in policy and execution in an organised and serious way.

Basically the UK needs to get real, but apparently a few hundred flag shaggers are more important than reform of our tax code and a total overhaul of our public administration and infrastructure. That, of course is what the Mail, Murdoch etc are misdirecting you towards, and ultimately it results in the Trump world of cretins.

@peterrhague

It’s hard to overstate what a disaster Boris Johnson turned out to be. It’s likely none of the present tensions would be happening in the UK if he hadn’t done this. The worst thing is, I couldn’t tell you if he did it on purpose or by accident. Either is quite possible.

At the time I remember plenty of Brexiteers saying things like "it's not about the numbers, it's about control" and claiming that immigration from the Commonwealth would be less unpopular with the sort of people who don't like immigration than immigration from the EU. I have to say that both arguments seemed implausible at the time.

Then why didn’t Remainers use that as a campaign slogan?

“Stay in Europe so most immigrants are white and Christian”

I think we know why. Yet now they hypocritically whine

You voted for every bit of the mess.

Yet now hypocritically you whine.

I cannot regard Howe as a villain. It is not his fault that the Tories obsessed about Europe for the subsequent 30 years to the detriment of themselves and the country. It is not is fault that Thatcher went on too long undoing some of the good that she had done with his considerable assistance.

What I am concerned about is where are the Howes of today? He was a serious intellectual heavyweight who thought deeply about public policy and the public good. Like every human he wasn't always right but he was deeply focused on that public good, ahead even of party political considerations. I cannot think of his equivalent in the House of Commons today. Instead, our most prominent politicians are interested in sound bites, social media, clickbait and, above all, themselves. They are obsessed with what sounds good rather than what is good. Gestures instead of substance. It's sad.

Edit, see this fracking nonsense this morning.