Why wasn't more done to defend Ukraine after Crimea in 2014?
Russian oil, handy dirrty Russian money. Trump. A disbelief that Putin would go the whole 9 yards.
Western leaders over the last 15 or so years can look at hemselves in the mirror and resign themselves that the hey could have averted this by some means or another
Obama was in power in 2014!
And? I am blaming Western Leaders for the last fifteen years. Obama,, one could argue doing nothing in 2014, facitated the Putin backed Trump victory. Keep up!
Agreed.
Though it's worth remembering that Putin's propaganda was far more effective back in 2014. Quite a few were arguing on his behalf that Crimea really was Russian anyway, and that it's being part of Ukraine was an anomaly. And some even accepted the tale of a popular uprising aided by the Russians rather than an armed land grab.
What's happening now is the destruction of a democracy and unprovoked military occupation of an independent state. That's obvious even to Russia's propagandised citizens.
Sir Alex Younger (ex head of MI6) on R4 this am had an interesting take on Putin, that he had in fact changed over the years and current events are not the culmination of some decades-long strategy but the outcome of Putin’s current mindset. I guess 2014 could be seen as the first symptom of the ‘new’ Putin. He also seemed to think VVP had misjudged this situation and may come a cropper. Hope springs eternal..
I woud personally see 2008, and the South Ossetia business as the first conclusive sign of the "new" Putin. Disillusioned with the West, quietly seething about Iraq and his concerns about NATO being sidelined, and coming under pressure from his old Chechen friends to revert to authoritarian leadership. It was also exactly around 2008 that press freedom in Russia took a sudden dive, and a few months later the journalist Anna Politovskaya was murdered, probably by his henchmen from the Chechnya conflict again. The pattern seems to have been increasingly set after that.
It was also in 2008 that year that he released "learn Judo with Vladimir Putin." The cult of personality was underway.
The current situation has been an obvious scenario for years. When I said on here that we needed to push back, after Crimea, after Donbass, after MH17, after the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, after Salisbury - people said I just wanted to start WWIII.
Well, we didn't do enough then, and we're deeper into the abyss than ever.
They did not have answers, only apologies foe evil.
They were too busy filling their pockets with Russian lucre.
Malc, could you point me to a post from those times where you called for more action against Russia and Putin?
No?
WTF did I have to do with Russia, that is what I pay the robbing cheating Tories thousands every month for. If they did their jobs rather than lining their pockets with any crooks money they can get then perhaps we would not be here. Get a F***ing grip and be realistic, wtf have you done about it, suare root of F*** all as you have no say in anything just like me. next it will be Salmond making money pish. PS: I have previously said that licking teh butt of dictator's would not end well.
I'll take that as a no. You're too busy being a poor copy of Father Jack.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
The original Plan 1 loans went/go until 65. The amounts were, of course, much smaller.
I was on one of those. Don't earn megabucks, and didn't really start repaying till my late 20s. Paid off last year at the age of 39. It's less onerous than today's grads, and waaay less than the new proposed arrangements.
Why wasn't more done to defend Ukraine after Crimea in 2014?
Russian oil, handy dirrty Russian money. Trump. A disbelief that Putin would go the whole 9 yards.
Western leaders over the last 15 or so years can look at hemselves in the mirror and resign themselves that the hey could have averted this by some means or another
Obama was in power in 2014!
And? I am blaming Western Leaders for the last fifteen years. Obama,, one could argue doing nothing in 2014, facitated the Putin backed Trump victory. Keep up!
Agreed.
Though it's worth remembering that Putin's propaganda was far more effective back in 2014. Quite a few were arguing on his behalf that Crimea really was Russian anyway, and that it's being part of Ukraine was an anomaly. And some even accepted the tale of a popular uprising aided by the Russians rather than an armed land grab.
What's happening now is the destruction of a democracy and unprovoked military occupation of an independent state. That's obvious even to Russia's propagandised citizens.
Sir Alex Younger (ex head of MI6) on R4 this am had an interesting take on Putin, that he had in fact changed over the years and current events are not the culmination of some decades-long strategy but the outcome of Putin’s current mindset. I guess 2014 could be seen as the first symptom of the ‘new’ Putin. He also seemed to think VVP had misjudged this situation and may come a cropper. Hope springs eternal..
I woud personally see 2008, and the South Ossetia business as the first conclusive sign of the "new" Putin. Disillusioned with the West, quietly seething about Iraq and his concerns about NATO being sidelined, and coming under pressure from his old Chechen friends to revert to authoritarian leadership. It was also exactly around 2008 that press freedom in Russia took a sudden dive, and a few months later the journalist Anna Politovskaya was murdered, probably by his henchmen from the Chechnya conflict again. The pattern seems to have been increasingly set after that.
It was also in 2008 that year that he released "learn Judo with Vladimir Putin." The cult of personality was underway.
The current situation has been an obvious scenario for years. When I said on here that we needed to push back, after Crimea, after Donbass, after MH17, after the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, after Salisbury - people said I just wanted to start WWIII.
Well, we didn't do enough then, and we're deeper into the abyss than ever.
They did not have answers, only apologies foe evil.
They were too busy filling their pockets with Russian lucre.
Malc, could you point me to a post from those times where you called for more action against Russia and Putin?
No?
WTF did I have to do with Russia, that is what I pay the robbing cheating Tories thousands every month for. If they did their jobs rather than lining their pockets with any crooks money they can get then perhaps we would not be here. Get a F***ing grip and be realistic, wtf have you done about it, suare root of F*** all as you have no say in anything just like me. next it will be Salmond making money pish. PS: I have previously said that licking teh butt of dictator's would not end well.
Quite remarkable how Salmond has managed to go even lower in the public's estimation than he was before.
For a time, he was easily the most effective politician in British politics. Just swatted the opposition aside at Holyrood and loved getting in the mix with the likes of Cameron et al at Westminster, who he measured himself against. One of the few politicians capable of making the political weather in his prime.
Nick Robinson on R4 this morning was taking pains to pronounce it Kyiv - and Lyse Doucet remarked that a big change she has noticed is that Ukrainians now take pains to correct foreigners use of the Russian pronunciation.
He did slip at least once then apologised.
I’ll only believe it when Bird’s Eye gets on board.
One gets an idea of what it was like to live in the 1930's. The endless attempts on far right and far left to justify the actions of expansionist dictators, the whataboutery, the fellow travellers arguing that resistance is futile etc.
It’s emotional, angry, belligerent on PB today. Not sure how constructive that is, but might be right to let it run it’s natural course 😕
Except we can be more joined up and constructive on these?
SWIFT. I am taking a que from Robert Smithsons posts yesterday, and at least one thing Carlotta linked to, there are arguments its not just German cowardness, that’s it’s not that effective against Russia compared to hit on ourselves, and there are other strong measures not taken up yet as well we could also focus on. It’s true there’s a sense the allies are not joined up on sanctions, I sense US going further than EU, regardless of their exposure.
SPORT. For example, a football match has been moved, but is Uefa and other sport still taking the dirty money such as through Gazprom?
Putin’s useful idiots on PB. I flagged up yesterday Putin may want fear and terror in Ukraine and Ukrainians fleeing into the country’s out the western back door he’s left open - so should we so quickly share fake Twitter news and pictures likely created in Russian spin factories to help him? PB can’t do much to hurt Putin, but we could be careful not to help him?
Starmer. I don’t rate him - he’s not PM material. His calling for RT to be closed down by Boris decree is reactionary BS. But he did produce the better of the two leader broadcasts yesterday, by taking so much time to level with the voter the sanction war will hurt us too, it’s not all one way, an important bit of leadership Boris keeps running away from.
Wallace. I thought he was a solid Minister, probably best in cabinet up to this week, but he appears to be all over the place, one minute “thrashed them before we will thrash them again” pep talk, when we are not even fighting but letting Ukrainian fight to the death, and this morning he may have overdone how terribly the war is going for Russia so far. What do you think? 😕
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't join.
"seem to have been"
Perhaps. But I guess there were 'verbal assurances' that Russia would be a good member of the international community and not a murderous, evil regime?
However, this period is very complex. The West ripped up a lot of precedents in Iraq, and his regime wasn't particularly murderous - outside Chechnya - at this point. To the values of his Chechen friends he returned.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Why wasn't more done to defend Ukraine after Crimea in 2014?
Russian oil, handy dirrty Russian money. Trump. A disbelief that Putin would go the whole 9 yards.
Western leaders over the last 15 or so years can look at hemselves in the mirror and resign themselves that the hey could have averted this by some means or another
Obama was in power in 2014!
And? I am blaming Western Leaders for the last fifteen years. Obama,, one could argue doing nothing in 2014, facitated the Putin backed Trump victory. Keep up!
Agreed.
Though it's worth remembering that Putin's propaganda was far more effective back in 2014. Quite a few were arguing on his behalf that Crimea really was Russian anyway, and that it's being part of Ukraine was an anomaly. And some even accepted the tale of a popular uprising aided by the Russians rather than an armed land grab.
What's happening now is the destruction of a democracy and unprovoked military occupation of an independent state. That's obvious even to Russia's propagandised citizens.
Sir Alex Younger (ex head of MI6) on R4 this am had an interesting take on Putin, that he had in fact changed over the years and current events are not the culmination of some decades-long strategy but the outcome of Putin’s current mindset. I guess 2014 could be seen as the first symptom of the ‘new’ Putin. He also seemed to think VVP had misjudged this situation and may come a cropper. Hope springs eternal..
I woud personally see 2008, and the South Ossetia business as the first conclusive sign of the "new" Putin. Disillusioned with the West, quietly seething about Iraq and his concerns about NATO being sidelined, and coming under pressure from his old Chechen friends to revert to authoritarian leadership. It was also exactly around 2008 that press freedom in Russia took a sudden dive, and a few months later the journalist Anna Politovskaya was murdered, probably by his henchmen from the Chechnya conflict again. The pattern seems to have been increasingly set after that.
It was also in 2008 that year that he released "learn Judo with Vladimir Putin." The cult of personality was underway.
The current situation has been an obvious scenario for years. When I said on here that we needed to push back, after Crimea, after Donbass, after MH17, after the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, after Salisbury - people said I just wanted to start WWIII.
Well, we didn't do enough then, and we're deeper into the abyss than ever.
They did not have answers, only apologies foe evil.
They were too busy filling their pockets with Russian lucre.
Malc, could you point me to a post from those times where you called for more action against Russia and Putin?
No?
WTF did I have to do with Russia, that is what I pay the robbing cheating Tories thousands every month for. If they did their jobs rather than lining their pockets with any crooks money they can get then perhaps we would not be here. Get a F***ing grip and be realistic, wtf have you done about it, suare root of F*** all as you have no say in anything just like me. next it will be Salmond making money pish. PS: I have previously said that licking teh butt of dictator's would not end well.
I'll take that as a no. You're too busy being a poor copy of Father Jack.
Poor copy? Whaddya mean? He's an extraordinary improvement and development. A PB treasure. It's a shame OGH can't bottle and sell it. "Essence of Malc."
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Lavrov is just as bonkers as Putin. Ranting on about banning English in countries such as Ireland and what the western reaction would be, ranting about Anglo Saxons, Ukrainian government are Nazis..
Struggling hard to justify the invasion
LOL. A relation of Mons. Macron?
French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’ Notes, minutes, letters and meetings will be ‘French-first’ when France takes over European Council’s presidency In an article for Le Figaro, they said the use of French in Brussels “had diminished to the benefit of English, and more often to Globish – that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself”.
English is quite a poor language for diplomacy due to the prevelance of parataxis and phrasal verbs. These can cause confusion even for very adept non-native English speakers. Pronunciation is also a problem due to wide variations and very subtle realisation of vowels.
Italian or Greek would be very good choices for a standard working European language.
Although Russian is the native language of more Europeans than any other. This may become universally inevitable with Putin's Progress.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Mr. Dickson, do you think Scottish nationalism, which would've separated Scotland from both the UK and EU, would also have been a 'triumph for Putin'?
I suspect that Putin would encourage Sindy too, as he did with Brexit. A major theme of his foreign policy is to foment internal division in Western countries. Hence his troll farms being anti-woke too.
It doesn't invalidate the legitimacy of the issue, whether Brexit or Sindy, or BLM, but we should be aware of Putin's manipulations, and decide issues on their own merits.
Putin also foments Wokeness, on the Woke side. Of course you fastidiously pretend otherwise
Heck, Putin probably has a Reasonable Centrist Dad department in one of his troll farms. Sowing as many divisions as possible is what he does.
He knows there will be no united or effective responsive to his invasion from the west and sadly he will be proved right. The fact we are talking about moving the Champions League final from St Petersburg as if this will strike a terrible blow to Russia indicates the paucity of the response.
There has been a united effective response. Everyone is united in wanting to make life miserable for the Russian elite for the next few years. This is the only sustainable solution albeit less quick and emotionally satisfying that firing a gun. Everyone is also united in not wanting a war with a nuclear superpower (except Ben Wallace).
So far the united response has been to make strong speeches but otherwise do very little of real substance because we can't agree what to do.
I don't think there would have been the stomach for military intervention on behalf of Ukraine so I don't think there is much else we could do to really damage Putin. He knows that and, sadly, I think he will be proved right.
All the west can realistically do now is try to come up with a united plan to deter Putin from going any further.
The only way to do that is to demonstrate by actions now that should any aggressive action be taken by Russia against a NATO state, Art 5 will be invoked and military action will follow.
That doesn't mean fine words and the promise of unspecified sanctions. It means, I fear, being willing to fight for all those Baltic and Eastern European countries which were once part of the Soviet Union. We must be prepared to do this and Putin must believe that we are willing to do this.
If not, we will see the violent break up of the Eastern half of the EU and the reimposition of an Iron Curtain in Europe.
Perhaps I am unduly fearful. But it is the logical consequence of both Putin's speech the other day and his statement about the collapse of the Soviet Union being the worst thing to have happened in his lifetime. Why wouldn't he try to reimpose it if he thought he could?
One gets an idea of what it was like to live in the 1930's. The endless attempts on far right and far left to justify the actions of expansionist dictators, the whataboutery, the fellow travellers arguing that resistance is futile etc.
The expansionism is coming from two places.
Russia and China.
Both have been aided and abetted by people across the political spectrum.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Similar things were said about West reliance on China given the chaos over COVID, and little to nothing has changed. The problem is few politicians are willing to tell its people, we are taking these tough moral positions that will cause you all a lot of financial pain. And if they do, opposition politicians come along and promise sunshine and rainbows.
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I specifically attacked Germany and Italy before for selling their souls and was inanely accused of anti European prejudice by Kinabalu and now you think I delusionally believe it's all about Trump.
How about no. Germany's policies for years have been an utter disaster. So was Trump. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I guess Ukranian forces winning battles against the Russians is a man bites dog type story, whereas the Russian gains particularly from the south are barely reported.
Why wasn't more done to defend Ukraine after Crimea in 2014?
Russian oil, handy dirrty Russian money. Trump. A disbelief that Putin would go the whole 9 yards.
Western leaders over the last 15 or so years can look at hemselves in the mirror and resign themselves that the hey could have averted this by some means or another
Obama was in power in 2014!
And? I am blaming Western Leaders for the last fifteen years. Obama,, one could argue doing nothing in 2014, facitated the Putin backed Trump victory. Keep up!
Agreed.
Though it's worth remembering that Putin's propaganda was far more effective back in 2014. Quite a few were arguing on his behalf that Crimea really was Russian anyway, and that it's being part of Ukraine was an anomaly. And some even accepted the tale of a popular uprising aided by the Russians rather than an armed land grab.
What's happening now is the destruction of a democracy and unprovoked military occupation of an independent state. That's obvious even to Russia's propagandised citizens.
Sir Alex Younger (ex head of MI6) on R4 this am had an interesting take on Putin, that he had in fact changed over the years and current events are not the culmination of some decades-long strategy but the outcome of Putin’s current mindset. I guess 2014 could be seen as the first symptom of the ‘new’ Putin. He also seemed to think VVP had misjudged this situation and may come a cropper. Hope springs eternal..
I woud personally see 2008, and the South Ossetia business as the first conclusive sign of the "new" Putin. Disillusioned with the West, quietly seething about Iraq and his concerns about NATO being sidelined, and coming under pressure from his old Chechen friends to revert to authoritarian leadership. It was also exactly around 2008 that press freedom in Russia took a sudden dive, and a few months later the journalist Anna Politovskaya was murdered, probably by his henchmen from the Chechnya conflict again. The pattern seems to have been increasingly set after that.
It was also in 2008 that year that he released "learn Judo with Vladimir Putin." The cult of personality was underway.
The current situation has been an obvious scenario for years. When I said on here that we needed to push back, after Crimea, after Donbass, after MH17, after the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, after Salisbury - people said I just wanted to start WWIII.
Well, we didn't do enough then, and we're deeper into the abyss than ever.
They did not have answers, only apologies foe evil.
They were too busy filling their pockets with Russian lucre.
While Wee 'Eck was earning an honest rouble working for a UK based production company.
He was selling an independent product to an ofcom regulated business, since you are such a smart arse can you justify any of teh millions pocketed by Tories and what services were rendered for it. Thick tw*t.
It doesn't seem that Putin got value for money from the Conservatives.
Lavrov is just as bonkers as Putin. Ranting on about banning English in countries such as Ireland and what the western reaction would be, ranting about Anglo Saxons, Ukrainian government are Nazis..
Struggling hard to justify the invasion
LOL. A relation of Mons. Macron?
French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’ Notes, minutes, letters and meetings will be ‘French-first’ when France takes over European Council’s presidency In an article for Le Figaro, they said the use of French in Brussels “had diminished to the benefit of English, and more often to Globish – that ersatz of the English language, which narrows the scope of one’s thoughts, and restricts one’s ability to express him or herself”.
English is quite a poor language for diplomacy due to the prevelance of parataxis and phrasal verbs. These can cause confusion even for very adept non-native English speakers. Pronunciation is also a problem due to wide variations and very subtle realisation of vowels.
Italian or Greek would be very good choices for a standard working European language.
Although Russian is the native language of more Europeans than any other. This may become universally inevitable with Putin's Progress.
Of all the languages I’ve made a stab at, Italian is easily the best. Super easy to learn and great rewards for effort. Much clearer than English, which is (intentionally) full of obfuscation.
Swedish also quite easy, but less rewarding. They all speak Globish anyway.
One gets an idea of what it was like to live in the 1930's. The endless attempts on far right and far left to justify the actions of expansionist dictators, the whataboutery, the fellow travellers arguing that resistance is futile etc.
Dunno if it was even just far right and far left. The Popular Front seemed tailor made for the centrist dads of the day, much to Orwell’s disgust.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Scottish Unionists urging fracking and drilling.
Fine. But you’ll have to win an election first. It’s a novel concept called democracy.
Not been following today's news but if I understand right that Germany and Italy are blocking Russia's expulsion from SWIFT then that is an utter disgrace.
They've sold their souls for Russian gas it seems and need to get it back Swiftly.
Apologies if I've misunderstood.
Ah, nothing like the smell of a visceral anti Europe post from Bartholomew Roberts in the morning.
It's not visceral anti Europe and shame on you if that is what you read into it!
Many European nations have been very strong on this. According to Sky's Europe correspondent last night most European nations are in favour of expelling Russia from Swift but just Italy and Germany are against it, because of gas allegedly.
So kudos to the majority of European nations who want to do the right thing and shame on the two named specific nations (and any others if they exist too) that don't!
And shame on you for thinking there's anything but revulsion at Putin invading Ukraine and a firm belief that Russia must face the most serious sanctions including SWIFT expulsion as a result.
Shame on me for being able to read you like a book? Ok, let's go back to pretending you are not primarily driven by visceral anti-EU sentiment then. I'm cool with that. And they do need to get their act together on this, don't they? The more that Russia is isolated economically (and in other ways too) the more difficult things might get domestically for Vladimir Putin.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Similar things were said about West reliance on China given the chaos over COVID, and little to nothing has changed.
It is perfectly possible to remove usage of oil and gas from the economy. Just as we have removed coal.
The advantage to doing this is that the alternatives remove* the river of money that goes to bad people**. Plus their short term leverage over us.
Imagine Putin without the oil and gas money. Imagine Iran without the oil money. Imagine Saudi without the oil money.
*Someone will say rare earths, Which aren't rare and aren't earths. **Apart from the Norwegians
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Johnson indicated in the debate yesterday he might be prpeared to countenance 'transitional' fracking.
When I did Russian History in school, when we got to the provisional Government, I almost had a feeling akin to hope. I felt like it almost came good. Of course, sat in a classroom in the late naughties I knew how it actually went...
My mother's family knew the Kerenskys and I met Mrs Kerensky (who by then, quite elderly, was separated from her husband) a few times myself - I remember wriggling in her bear-hug, as small boys do. My rather apolitical mother's view was that Kerensky was a decent guy but out of touch with popular feeling in 1917, preoccupied with constitutional reform and liberal democracy when people were close to hunger, so the Bolshevik "peace and bread" slogan cut through. She was an infant herself at the time so was merely passing on what she was told later. My impression (at two removes) is that the intelligentsia in Moscow at that time was genuinely persuaded by liberal thinking, but very much isolated from what ordinary people in provinces were thinking after 3 years of war.
Yes, slogans work - though "dictatorship or death" would have been more honest.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Similar things were said about West reliance on China given the chaos over COVID, and little to nothing has changed.
It is perfectly possible to remove usage of oil and gas from the economy. Just as we have removed coal.
The advantage to doing this is that the alternatives remove* the river of money that goes to bad people**. Plus their short term leverage over us.
Imagine Putin without the oil and gas money. Imagine Iran without the oil money. Imagine Saudi without the oil money.
*Someone will say rare earths, Which aren't rare and aren't earths. **Apart from the Norwegians
It is possible, but you need a really strong leader willing to take a huge amount of personal criticism and perhaps whole legacy tarred for the rest of history e.g. Thatcher.
The West isn't exactly blessed with politicians of that ilk at the moment.
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I've been assuming that Putin is mainly looking for evidence on Hunter Biden, on Trump's request. So, yes.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't join.
"seem to have been"
Perhaps. But I guess there were 'verbal assurances' that Russia would be a good member of the international community and not a murderous, evil regime?
However, this period is very complex. The West ripped up a lot of precedents in Iraq, and his regime wasn't particularly murderous - outside Chechnya - at this point. To the values of his Chechen friends he returned.
The issue is that you have repeatedly (I think) said that the west broke assurances to Putin over NATO membership of eastern European countries. That *may* be true. However, that 'sin' is massively outweighed by Putin's own actions, and it seems odd to concentrate on the assurances given his actions at the time.
To add to the long and horrific list, Russian intimidation, murder and detention of journalists over the last couple of decades.
Putin is more than a bad actor: he is an evil actor. There is a good chances that however much we appeased him, including rolling over and presenting our backsides, would have ended up with eastern Europe being screwed.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
NATO: 100+ warplanes on high alert in case Russia decides to go beyond Ukraine. No signs this will happen but then Russian officials did say: “100 per cent we are not going to invade Ukraine. This is just Western hysteria”. #UkraineRussia
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I specifically attacked Germany and Italy before for selling their souls and was inanely accused of anti European prejudice by Kinabalu and now you think I delusionally believe it's all about Trump.
How about no. Germany's policies for years have been an utter disaster. So was Trump. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Do I wish the Republicans had a better leader than Trump? hell yes.
Do they? one that the working class base and the Bushite country clubbers could all get behind?
Isn't the big problem with nuclear is the West are miles behind on this technology. The Chinese now lead the way, so again if we wanted a big nuclear programme that could be deployed within any sort of reasonable timeframe, we would have to jump to paying the Chinese to produce the new generation of reactors.
its a depressing fact of modern life and media that we have short attention spans - This forum was full of ideas and angst when the Taleban captured Afghanistan - now nobody gives it a moments thought (even on here) and its what only a few months since that ?.Ukraine will go the same way . Life and politics moves on very quickly in the 21st century
It was striking how when the Afghan story lost the drama of the US exit it faded right away. The ongoing oppression and hardship isn't enough to keep it in the news. This shows that much of the talk about our concern for the Afghan people was for show. I don't think it's due to modern short attention spans, though. I think it's more that people are naturally engaged by military plotlines and by things happening close to home or which involve the UK or the US. When those things are absent they kind of put the book down.
It is still in the news occasionally, though most seem to ignore the growing famine.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I'd agree that Ukraine was very justified in seeking membership for itself and on its own terms, particularly from about 2006-08 onwards, but that doesn't excuse longer-term western errors in the management of the policy.
As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's also no evidence that Putin has always been on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I specifically attacked Germany and Italy before for selling their souls and was inanely accused of anti European prejudice by Kinabalu and now you think I delusionally believe it's all about Trump.
How about no. Germany's policies for years have been an utter disaster. So was Trump. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Do I wish the Republicans had a better leader than Trump? hell yes.
Do they? one that the working class base and the Bushite country clubbers could all get behind?
No.
Trump isn't fit to lick the late Senator McCain's boots when it comes to good Republicans but if Trump is the best the Republicans have to offer then their best just isn't good enough. By a long shot.
If he's the best, then any Democrat is better. Even Biden, as poor as he is.
Not been following today's news but if I understand right that Germany and Italy are blocking Russia's expulsion from SWIFT then that is an utter disgrace.
They've sold their souls for Russian gas it seems and need to get it back Swiftly.
Apologies if I've misunderstood.
Ah, nothing like the smell of a visceral anti Europe post from Bartholomew Roberts in the morning.
It's not visceral anti Europe and shame on you if that is what you read into it!
Many European nations have been very strong on this. According to Sky's Europe correspondent last night most European nations are in favour of expelling Russia from Swift but just Italy and Germany are against it, because of gas allegedly.
So kudos to the majority of European nations who want to do the right thing and shame on the two named specific nations (and any others if they exist too) that don't!
And shame on you for thinking there's anything but revulsion at Putin invading Ukraine and a firm belief that Russia must face the most serious sanctions including SWIFT expulsion as a result.
Shame on me for being able to read you like a book? Ok, let's go back to pretending you are not primarily driven by visceral anti-EU sentiment then. I'm cool with that. And they do need to get their act together on this, don't they? The more that Russia is isolated economically (and in other ways too) the more difficult things might get domestically for Vladimir Putin.
I think you're wrong on this, kinabalu. Our piratical friend is generally anti-EU although I don't sense he's particular obsessed with the EU now we're out, but he's not one of the posters viscerally against other European countries. If he was he'd be posting about Macron snaffling up the Champions League final for his own ego, rather than welcoming the move. Or finding ways to criticise Macron for Russia's invasion.
I disagree with Barty on many things, but he is sometimes unfairly characterised as being on the generally nutty/foaming at the mouth fringe, whereas I only think his economics are (mostly) loopy. I rarely find us far apart on social issues.
As Moonrabbit (I think) posted, we're all a bit tetchy on here this morning. Let's not be, unecessarily. You're better than your original reply in this thread - you normally play the ball, not the man.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't join.
"seem to have been"
Perhaps. But I guess there were 'verbal assurances' that Russia would be a good member of the international community and not a murderous, evil regime?
Rather more than that, since they are signatories to the UN Charter.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
Putin only falls if the military desert him. The only feasible scenario where this occurs is that there is mass unrest among the civilian population or the war turns into a quagmire (the WWI scenario). One probably goes hand in hand with the other, to some extent.
There is little chance of that occurring right now. Of course the picture might look different in 6 months time.
The problem also comes in what replaces Putin. What is the alternative? For many Russians the liberal democracy that should have been such a success following the end of the Cold War was a dark period of economic turmoil and corruption.
Excellent. Let's then go beyond what was announced yesterday and ban all Russian airlines (not just Aeroflot) and all flights to the UK originating from Russian airspace including stopovers in between to boot, in order not to let weaker nations off the hook. I'm all for escalation of sanctions, even if it takes Russian retaliation to get there.
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I specifically attacked Germany and Italy before for selling their souls and was inanely accused of anti European prejudice by Kinabalu and now you think I delusionally believe it's all about Trump.
How about no. Germany's policies for years have been an utter disaster. So was Trump. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Do I wish the Republicans had a better leader than Trump? hell yes.
Do they? one that the working class base and the Bushite country clubbers could all get behind?
No.
Romney would have been the best GOP President since Reagan and Bush Snr, only problem was he got the nomination in 2012 v Obama and therefore lost rather than 2016 v Hillary or 2020 v Biden both of whom he would surely have beaten
Mr. Dickson, do you think Scottish nationalism, which would've separated Scotland from both the UK and EU, would also have been a 'triumph for Putin'?
I suspect that Putin would encourage Sindy too, as he did with Brexit. A major theme of his foreign policy is to foment internal division in Western countries. Hence his troll farms being anti-woke too.
It doesn't invalidate the legitimacy of the issue, whether Brexit or Sindy, or BLM, but we should be aware of Putin's manipulations, and decide issues on their own merits.
Putin also foments Wokeness, on the Woke side. Of course you fastidiously pretend otherwise
Heck, Putin probably has a Reasonable Centrist Dad department in one of his troll farms. Sowing as many divisions as possible is what he does.
He knows there will be no united or effective responsive to his invasion from the west and sadly he will be proved right. The fact we are talking about moving the Champions League final from St Petersburg as if this will strike a terrible blow to Russia indicates the paucity of the response.
There has been a united effective response. Everyone is united in wanting to make life miserable for the Russian elite for the next few years. This is the only sustainable solution albeit less quick and emotionally satisfying that firing a gun. Everyone is also united in not wanting a war with a nuclear superpower (except Ben Wallace).
So far the united response has been to make strong speeches but otherwise do very little of real substance because we can't agree what to do.
I don't think there would have been the stomach for military intervention on behalf of Ukraine so I don't think there is much else we could do to really damage Putin. He knows that and, sadly, I think he will be proved right.
All the west can realistically do now is try to come up with a united plan to deter Putin from going any further.
The only way to do that is to demonstrate by actions now that should any aggressive action be taken by Russia against a NATO state, Art 5 will be invoked and military action will follow.
That doesn't mean fine words and the promise of unspecified sanctions. It means, I fear, being willing to fight for all those Baltic and Eastern European countries which were once part of the Soviet Union. We must be prepared to do this and Putin must believe that we are willing to do this.
If not, we will see the violent break up of the Eastern half of the EU and the reimposition of an Iron Curtain in Europe.
Perhaps I am unduly fearful. But it is the logical consequence of both Putin's speech the other day and his statement about the collapse of the Soviet Union being the worst thing to have happened in his lifetime. Why wouldn't he try to reimpose it if he thought he could?
Biden has already said plainly that the US will meet any attack on any NATO member with military force, so I think that is pretty well the position already. Subject to future US elections.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
Similar things were said about West reliance on China given the chaos over COVID, and little to nothing has changed.
It is perfectly possible to remove usage of oil and gas from the economy. Just as we have removed coal.
The advantage to doing this is that the alternatives remove* the river of money that goes to bad people**. Plus their short term leverage over us.
Imagine Putin without the oil and gas money. Imagine Iran without the oil money. Imagine Saudi without the oil money.
*Someone will say rare earths, Which aren't rare and aren't earths. **Apart from the Norwegians
It is possible, but you need a really strong leader willing to take a huge amount of personal criticism and perhaps whole legacy tarred for the rest of history e.g. Thatcher.
The West isn't exactly blessed with politicians of that ilk at the moment.
That is exactly the path this country is on - we even have end dates for major chunks of oil usage.
I think the Green energy agenda died when the first Russian tank went over the border. Strategic thinking at the top must surely kick in after decades of wishful thinking. The increase in energy bills will also change the political mood. I know someone is bound to respond with "now we need to increase the adoption of renewables". I think that is fantasy land unless some major technical break-through occurs. A big nuclear programme might allow decarbonisation to continue but it will take time. I think we might even see fracking pilots restarted and we certainly should.
It could affect the Green vote, to the benefit of Labour.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I'd agree that Ukraine was very justified in seeking membership for itself and on its own terms, particularly from about 2006-08 onwards, but that doesn't excuse longer-term western errors in the management of the policy.
As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's also no evidence that Putin has always been on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
The error arguably was not facilitating their membership.
Come off it. He would be dropping the nukes on Kiev himself.
What an unbelievably childish and stupid comment from EPG. Straight out of the sixth form debating society playbook that has led us to where we are.
Indeed.
Trump would be telling the Ukrainians he'd get involved, so long as they dig up dirt on his political opponents for him.
German policy over the last decade is turning into a total and complete catastrophe. Trump, arrogant and insensitive as he is, saw that, and tried to warn them in the excerpt HYUFD quoted.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
I've been assuming that Putin is mainly looking for evidence on Hunter Biden, on Trump's request. So, yes.
That this moment in history has been forgotten by Trump's sneaking regarders is illustrative. The agenda was always to isolate Ukraine.
BBC piece asking why is it so hard to fix the Met's toxic culture. I'd have thought the answer is simple, as with any organisation and institution with cultural problems - that the organisation doesn't want to change, and those who might force it to don't want to, even if they say they do (actions speaking louder than words)
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I'd agree that Ukraine was very justified in seeking membership for itself and on its own terms, particularly from about 2006-08 onwards, but that doesn't excuse longer-term western errors in the management of the policy.
As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's also no evidence that Putin has always been on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
The error arguably was not facilitating their membership.
I wouldn't agree there, unless that had been made clear in the early 1990's. Changing your stance every few years to a historically large power in the region isn't very intelligent policy.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
The economy would benefit from more people going into apprenticeships and trades and fewer going to university followed by non-jobs.
Putin only falls if the military desert him. The only feasible scenario where this occurs is that there is mass unrest among the civilian population or the war turns into a quagmire (the WWI scenario). One probably goes hand in hand with the other, to some extent.
There is little chance of that occurring right now. Of course the picture might look different in 6 months time.
The problem also comes in what replaces Putin. What is the alternative? For many Russians the liberal democracy that should have been such a success following the end of the Cold War was a dark period of economic turmoil and corruption.
The only feasible path is I think different to that, arising instead from the Russian political/business elite turning against Putin. It would be to take such effective and far ranging sanctions that all the oligarchs who benefitted from cosying up to Putin suddenly find that his has become a liability as the West takes action to strip them of their assets and confine them to pariah status. Not some, but all. (So, for example, ownership of Chelski is taken from Abramovich and transferred to a supporters' trust aka Barca.)
Only at the point where Putin becomes a liability to the Russian elites will he be at serious risk. At that point they'll all be collectively looking to replace him with someone who will pursue less toxic policies and enable them to resume their hobby of personal aggrandisement beyond the borders of Russia.
"To stop the advance of the tank column, the decision was to blow up the Henichesk bridge. The engineer Skakun Vitaliy volunteered to perform this task. He mined the brdige but couldn't leave and blew it up together with himself." The unit successfully redeployed - Land Forces https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1497135949180026881
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't join.
"seem to have been"
Perhaps. But I guess there were 'verbal assurances' that Russia would be a good member of the international community and not a murderous, evil regime?
However, this period is very complex. The West ripped up a lot of precedents in Iraq, and his regime wasn't particularly murderous - outside Chechnya - at this point. To the values of his Chechen friends he returned.
The issue is that you have repeatedly (I think) said that the west broke assurances to Putin over NATO membership of eastern European countries. That *may* be true. However, that 'sin' is massively outweighed by Putin's own actions, and it seems odd to concentrate on the assurances given his actions at the time.
To add to the long and horrific list, Russian intimidation, murder and detention of journalists over the last couple of decades.
Putin is more than a bad actor: he is an evil actor. There is a good chances that however much we appeased him, including rolling over and presenting our backsides, would have ended up with eastern Europe being screwed.
I was talking there more really about Ukraine in particular as a neutral zone. I think the West was right to grant membership to all those former warsaw pact states, and indeed to a certain extent that was actualy factored in by many in Russia at certain times.
I'd also agree that Putin is certainly an evil actor now, but not that he was always equally so ; the evidence just doesn't stack up for the second assertion.
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Why wasn't more done to defend Ukraine after Crimea in 2014?
Russian oil, handy dirrty Russian money. Trump. A disbelief that Putin would go the whole 9 yards.
Western leaders over the last 15 or so years can look at hemselves in the mirror and resign themselves that the hey could have averted this by some means or another
Obama was in power in 2014!
And? I am blaming Western Leaders for the last fifteen years. Obama,, one could argue doing nothing in 2014, facitated the Putin backed Trump victory. Keep up!
Agreed.
Though it's worth remembering that Putin's propaganda was far more effective back in 2014. Quite a few were arguing on his behalf that Crimea really was Russian anyway, and that it's being part of Ukraine was an anomaly. And some even accepted the tale of a popular uprising aided by the Russians rather than an armed land grab.
What's happening now is the destruction of a democracy and unprovoked military occupation of an independent state. That's obvious even to Russia's propagandised citizens.
Sir Alex Younger (ex head of MI6) on R4 this am had an interesting take on Putin, that he had in fact changed over the years and current events are not the culmination of some decades-long strategy but the outcome of Putin’s current mindset. I guess 2014 could be seen as the first symptom of the ‘new’ Putin. He also seemed to think VVP had misjudged this situation and may come a cropper. Hope springs eternal..
I woud personally see 2008, and the South Ossetia business as the first conclusive sign of the "new" Putin. Disillusioned with the West, quietly seething about Iraq and his concerns about NATO being sidelined, and coming under pressure from his old Chechen friends to revert to authoritarian leadership. It was also exactly around 2008 that press freedom in Russia took a sudden dive, and a few months later the journalist Anna Politovskaya was murdered, probably by his henchmen from the Chechnya conflict again. The pattern seems to have been increasingly set after that.
It was also in 2008 that year that he released "learn Judo with Vladimir Putin." The cult of personality was underway.
The current situation has been an obvious scenario for years. When I said on here that we needed to push back, after Crimea, after Donbass, after MH17, after the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, after Salisbury - people said I just wanted to start WWIII.
Well, we didn't do enough then, and we're deeper into the abyss than ever.
They did not have answers, only apologies foe evil.
They were too busy filling their pockets with Russian lucre.
While Wee 'Eck was earning an honest rouble working for a UK based production company.
He was selling an independent product to an ofcom regulated business, since you are such a smart arse can you justify any of teh millions pocketed by Tories and what services were rendered for it. Thick tw*t.
It doesn't seem that Putin got value for money from the Conservatives.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
The economy would benefit from more people going into apprenticeships and trades and fewer going to university followed by non-jobs.
I have ever understood the value of a degree compared to an apprenticeship.
With an apprenticeship you get paid to learn, you finish with a trade that will last a lifetime and in the M & E sector you will be on £40k+ by the age of 21 with no tuition fees to repay.
Bad for civilians, but cities are great tank traps:
I presume the Ukrainians *want* to fight the Russians in major metropolitan areas rather than exposed fields, so as to reduce the impact of the Russian air & armour advantage? So I guess one shldn't regard fighting reaching Kiev as a sign of Ukrainian defeat? It's their plan.
I'm assuming given the pretext for invasion was defence of the 'independent' republics, and the need to defend them from aggression, that the latter is justification to attack all of Ukraine to ensure that defence, but doesn't justify occupation once the job is 'done'. A chevauchée. Since it's totally not about conquest after all, nossir.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
The economy would benefit from more people going into apprenticeships and trades and fewer going to university followed by non-jobs.
But we've gutted, casualised and closed FE facilities and the folk who work in them. Who will teach them? And where?
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Number of mainstream parties that currently agree with you on that one?
Bad for civilians, but cities are great tank traps:
I presume the Ukrainians *want* to fight the Russians in major metropolitan areas rather than exposed fields, so as to reduce the impact of the Russian air & armour advantage? So I guess one shldn't regard fighting reaching Kiev as a sign of Ukrainian defeat? It's their plan.
An asymmetric goal. The Russians need regime change, which includes taking Kyiv. The Ukrainians happy enough with the urban environment, but not being 1km away from the seat of government falling.
Not been following today's news but if I understand right that Germany and Italy are blocking Russia's expulsion from SWIFT then that is an utter disgrace.
They've sold their souls for Russian gas it seems and need to get it back Swiftly.
Apologies if I've misunderstood.
Ah, nothing like the smell of a visceral anti Europe post from Bartholomew Roberts in the morning.
It's not visceral anti Europe and shame on you if that is what you read into it!
Many European nations have been very strong on this. According to Sky's Europe correspondent last night most European nations are in favour of expelling Russia from Swift but just Italy and Germany are against it, because of gas allegedly.
So kudos to the majority of European nations who want to do the right thing and shame on the two named specific nations (and any others if they exist too) that don't!
And shame on you for thinking there's anything but revulsion at Putin invading Ukraine and a firm belief that Russia must face the most serious sanctions including SWIFT expulsion as a result.
Shame on me for being able to read you like a book? Ok, let's go back to pretending you are not primarily driven by visceral anti-EU sentiment then. I'm cool with that. And they do need to get their act together on this, don't they? The more that Russia is isolated economically (and in other ways too) the more difficult things might get domestically for Vladimir Putin.
I think you're wrong on this, kinabalu. Our piratical friend is generally anti-EU although I don't sense he's particular obsessed with the EU now we're out, but he's not one of the posters viscerally against other European countries. If he was he'd be posting about Macron snaffling up the Champions League final for his own ego, rather than welcoming the move. Or finding ways to criticise Macron for Russia's invasion.
I disagree with Barty on many things, but he is sometimes unfairly characterised as being on the generally nutty/foaming at the mouth fringe, whereas I only think his economics are (mostly) loopy. I rarely find us far apart on social issues.
As Moonrabbit (I think) posted, we're all a bit tetchy on here this morning. Let's not be, unecessarily. You're better than your original reply in this thread - you normally play the ball, not the man.
Ok, noted. My sense of the poster (who I find interesting) is a bit different but it's mixed rather than all bad. Only a casual one liner anyway. Not intending to imply anything terrible.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I'd agree that Ukraine was very justified in seeking membership for itself and on its own terms, particularly from about 2006-08 onwards, but that doesn't excuse longer-term western errors in the management of the policy. As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's no evidence that Putin was always on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from he who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
This is just a reheat of the crap "poked bear" analysis. Putin certainly has changed in his outlook, fairly profoundly, but this is as likely a consequence of the violent, macho political and economic strictures in which he finds himself. Russia is not a democracy and there a very powerful and malevolent actors. There's no succession principle which means the whole system is brittle.
Strong-man systems like Russia's breed violence. It's one of the many ways than strategy and internal legitimacy interact. That interaction is also why collective defence is a Good Thing: it decompresses politics and salts the soil in which authoritarianism grows.
Strong-man systems are as old as time itself. What matters is how we stand up to them.
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
The economy would benefit from more people going into apprenticeships and trades and fewer going to university followed by non-jobs.
But we've gutted, casualised and closed FE facilities and the folk who work in them. Who will teach them? And where?
It's quite interesting how Labour has pretty much stabilised around 39% now despite everything even including opinium in the polling averages. At the same time an average ~5% Labour lead will help secure Johnson in place (combined with the Tories doing OK relative to expectations in the local elections in Scotland, London and the Midlands even if they continue to heavily bleed votes in the north such as in yesterday's Ferryhill by election).
Putin only falls if the military desert him. The only feasible scenario where this occurs is that there is mass unrest among the civilian population or the war turns into a quagmire (the WWI scenario). One probably goes hand in hand with the other, to some extent.
There is little chance of that occurring right now. Of course the picture might look different in 6 months time.
The problem also comes in what replaces Putin. What is the alternative? For many Russians the liberal democracy that should have been such a success following the end of the Cold War was a dark period of economic turmoil and corruption.
The only feasible path is I think different to that, arising instead from the Russian political/business elite turning against Putin. It would be to take such effective and far ranging sanctions that all the oligarchs who benefitted from cosying up to Putin suddenly find that his has become a liability as the West takes action to strip them of their assets and confine them to pariah status. Not some, but all. (So, for example, ownership of Chelski is taken from Abramovich and transferred to a supporters' trust aka Barca.)
Only at the point where Putin becomes a liability to the Russian elites will he be at serious risk. At that point they'll all be collectively looking to replace him with someone who will pursue less toxic policies and enable them to resume their hobby of personal aggrandisement beyond the borders of Russia.
I notice the denial of visas for boarding schools was laughed off by the PM.
Things pretty bad now and Zelensky clearly knows it won’t be long before he’s removed .
One can totally understand his desperation given his latest comments . Whether early compromises re a neutral stance on NATO would have made any difference we’ll never know .
(And possibly pretty foolish. I can't prove it, but I suspect that tendrils of the government employ a lot of the lower-paid graduates.)
You don't start to repay until earning over £25k and continue repayments into your 50s now as that is the age of highest earning
The pay-level for the start of repayments has gone down, and the amount that will actually be paid has gone up.
Martin Lewis was very critical of the changes on the box last night.
£25k for the start of graduate repayments is still well above the median salary for a young non-graduate of £21,500
It turns out that this is not just valid for when they are young and starting out, but, shockingly, remains an imposition all the way into their thirties. And forties. And fifties. And now, the sixties.
Believe it or not.
(I'm assuming you were unaware as you just zoomed in on the earliest days of its imposition)
If you study creative arts for example at university and never earn £25,000 or more then you do not need to repay a single penny of your student loan.
If as a graduate you do earn over £25,000 then yes you will now keep repaying into your 50s, not your 60s, as that is the age of peak earnings
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying. And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295. It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Most graduates will earn more than non graduates so it is right they pay for their degree if it gets them that higher earnings once they earn over £25,000 post graduation (which on those figures will be only past the age of 21 once they are in work and have graduated).
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
The economy would benefit from more people going into apprenticeships and trades and fewer going to university followed by non-jobs.
But we've gutted, casualised and closed FE facilities and the folk who work in them. Who will teach them? And where?
Skilled tradespeople. On the job.
That's what's been claimed for years. Who does the quality control? Because otherwise you have the State funding a private business to employ a dogsbody on the cheap. With absolutely no guarantee they'll learn owt at all.
I genuinely don’t understand this mad Republican admiration for Putin and his deeds
Yes I think Putin is right on Wokeness, I also think Mussolini handled the Mafia well and Hitler was great at flag design. I can still see that they are all malign tyrants who generally do - or did - bad stuff.
Farage is the same. And Salmond. Some weird fanboi worship of brutal power. Is that it? Is that all it is?
Putin pretends to be a Christian, is fervently nationalistic and hates gays. That's enough.
Yes, as with Trump, many people don't really follow the details - they decide on superficial evidence if someone is their sort of guy and then dismiss criticism as biased or made-up. It's like left-wingers who thought Pol Pot was a good guy until the Vietnamese - hardly right-wingers themselves - decided they'd had enough of him. And right-wingers who deplored Vietnam's intervention because they were those commies who'd caused so much trouble for the US. See Alastair's piece for more on this sort of thinking.
Most people are more or less rational, and there does come a point where they do say hell, I can't support THIS. Most of the left is now vehemently anti-Putin - all the MPs who signed the equivocal Stop the War statement have now withdrawn their support, and McDonnell said last night that he's helping organise a demo outside the Russian Embassy tomorrow. Conversely, I know Republicans who remain viscerally anti-Democrat but simply will not tolerate the idea of voting for Trump.
The extreme left in the Labour party who have supported STW and signed up to all their letters and petitions have for years agitated on the basis that almost everything aggressive about Russia is the fault of the USA, NATO and the UK.
Such as this on 22 Feb - three days ago
This dispute could and should be resolved peacefully, and that remains the only basis for a lasting settlement, rather than the imposition of military solutions. That it has not been resolved is not, however, the responsibility of the Russian or Ukrainian governments alone.
The conflict is the product of thirty years of failed policies, including the expansion of NATO and US hegemony at the expense of other countries as well as major wars of aggression by the USA, Britain and other NATO powers which have undermined international law and the United Nations.
The tragedy is that there are elements here that definitely have some basis, but they can't see the present imperative. The West definitely made errors that were not just defensive but also offensive, but Putin has been off on a course after that which was possibly unrecoverable for as much as 15 years now. Farage also doesn't know what he's talking about in mentioning 2014.
No, in the light of this week's events it is very clear that the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were justified in seeking the benefit of collective security within NATO membership, and NATO was right to extend their security guarantee accordingly, because had they not those states would clearly be next on Putin's list. Just as they were on Stalin's list when they were last invaded by Russia in 1939/40. It is not about Western "hegemony", it is about giving democratic states the right to peacefully exist through agreements that guarantee their security against a hostile expansionist dictatorship.
There was nothing wrong with giving those states memebership, I would say. The issues were the verbal guarantees not to extend to Russia's borders, and from a legal point of view in terms of Putin's faith in the Western heralding of the rules-based order after Iraq, I would say.
He was clearly predisposed to return to an autocratic direction as a KGB man, as I said, but there's no question that the west also made clear mistakes there , particularly between about 2001 and 2004.
Putin's actions hardly made those states feel secure, did they? From Georgia onwards he has shown Russia to be an unfriendly neighbour.
If he doesn't want neighbouring countries joining a bigger defence club, he should not threaten neighbouring countries.
I'd agree, but there also seem to have been verbal assurances that Ukraine wouldn't be considered for membership. A "neutral state" option might have worked our better but this was just one of things sending Putin off on his crazy way.
There were also "verbal assurances" given when Ukraine passed the Soviet nuclear weapons in its possession back to Russia, so that is the starting context. At that point, Ukraise was content to both give up nuclear weapons and to avoid NATO membership.
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
I'd agree that Ukraine was very justified in seeking membership for itself and on its own terms, particularly from about 2006-08 onwards, but that doesn't excuse longer-term western errors in the management of the policy. As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's no evidence that Putin was always on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from he who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
The path dates back much further than that and was manifest even during the time of the Chechen wars. That's why I said "at least the turn of the century".
I am not arguing that everything about Western policy from 1990 onwards was fine. But where I am taking issue with you is that Putin's path from then to now owes much if anything to the course of Western policy over that period.
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Number of mainstream parties that currently agree with you on that one?
Zero.
Well they should take this as a wake up call then.
Reasons why i could never be a diplomat or politician no. 1325, from BBC
In a phone call on Friday, China's President Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis via dialogue, Chinese state television CCTV reports.
Even if you are a brutal authoritarian I don't know how you can say something like that with a straight face. And why even bother? Even if you think Russia completely justified in its actions it has not been resolving matters through dialogue, and whispered surrunders after the shooting is not really the same thing.
Another example
And here's more now from Sergei Lavrov's news conference in Moscow.
He questions the stability of the Ukrainian state - and accuses Western nations of deliberately militarising the country.
Lavrov told reporters that Ukrainian people must now have the chance to "choose their own future".
I mean really, there's putting your country's position and then there's just taking the piss. Yes, the Ukrainian state is somewhat unstable at the moment, why is that I wonder?
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Number of mainstream parties that currently agree with you on that one?
Zero.
I am aware of that but Putin has changed everything
Things pretty bad now and Zelensky clearly knows it won’t be long before he’s removed .
One can totally understand his desperation given his latest comments . Whether early compromises re a neutral stance on NATO would have made any difference we’ll never know .
Nick Palmer would just have said that was 'poking' Russia into the invasion.
This is why his comment was so unutterably and totally wrong. I'm glad he's changed his tune.
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Number of mainstream parties that currently agree with you on that one?
Zero.
Well they should take this as a wake up call then.
Though of course they won't.
Anybody who thinks that net zero was something the tories bolted on to their manifesto as an afterthought better think again.
Net zero is clearly an absolutely core commitment for the tories, arguably their most core commitment.
The pressure of events is building massively, and yet they are still resisting.
Zelensky has made an appeal for Europeans with military experience to go to Ukraine to join their defence.
My heart sinks further when I read things like this
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
Number of mainstream parties that currently agree with you on that one?
Zero.
Well they should take this as a wake up call then.
Though of course they won't.
No they won't. Energy policy in this country is crazy. We need fossil fuels until we transition and simply sitting by while the price of gas is high, doing little to try to bring it down, hoping this makes the roll out of green measures more economically viable is simply going to make us all far poorer. Apart from those making money from the transition.
Clinging to humour in these times, I see the wikipedia page for the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary elections has a party listed as being called 'Pro Specific Actions'. If that's an accurate translation I'd suggest a new winner in the 'vague platitude party naming' stakes.
Reasons why i could never be a diplomat or politician no. 1325, from BBC
In a phone call on Friday, China's President Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis via dialogue, Chinese state television CCTV reports.
Even if you are a brutal authoritarian I don't know how you can say something like that with a straight face. And why even bother? Even if you think Russia completely justified in its actions it has not been resolving matters through dialogue, and whispered surrunders after the shooting is not really the same thing.
Another example
And here's more now from Sergei Lavrov's news conference in Moscow.
He questions the stability of the Ukrainian state - and accuses Western nations of deliberately militarising the country.
Lavrov told reporters that Ukrainian people must now have the chance to "choose their own future".
I mean really, there's putting your country's position and then there's just taking the piss. Yes, the Ukrainian state is somewhat unstable at the moment, why is that I wonder?
Blatant lies, as has been noted many times, are a characteristic of authoritarian regimes. Lying with impunity demonstrates their power.
Comments
It's less onerous than today's grads, and waaay less than the new proposed arrangements.
For a time, he was easily the most effective politician in British politics. Just swatted the opposition aside at Holyrood and loved getting in the mix with the likes of Cameron et al at Westminster, who he measured himself against. One of the few politicians capable of making the political weather in his prime.
Now, look at him...
I’ll only believe it when Bird’s Eye gets on board.
https://www.birdseye.co.uk/range/category-inspirations/inspirations-chicken/2-inspirations-garlic-herb-chicken-kievs-wrapped-in-crispy-breadcrumbs
One gets an idea of what it was like to live in the 1930's. The endless attempts on far right and far left to justify the actions of expansionist dictators, the whataboutery, the fellow travellers arguing that resistance is futile etc.
Except we can be more joined up and constructive on these?
SWIFT. I am taking a que from Robert Smithsons posts yesterday, and at least one thing Carlotta linked to, there are arguments its not just German cowardness, that’s it’s not that effective against Russia compared to hit on ourselves, and there are other strong measures not taken up yet as well we could also focus on. It’s true there’s a sense the allies are not joined up on sanctions, I sense US going further than EU, regardless of their exposure.
SPORT. For example, a football match has been moved, but is Uefa and other sport still taking the dirty money such as through Gazprom?
Putin’s useful idiots on PB. I flagged up yesterday Putin may want fear and terror in Ukraine and Ukrainians fleeing into the country’s out the western back door he’s left open - so should we so quickly share fake Twitter news and pictures likely created in Russian spin factories to help him? PB can’t do much to hurt Putin, but we could be careful not to help him?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60513452
Starmer. I don’t rate him - he’s not PM material. His calling for RT to be closed down by Boris decree is reactionary BS. But he did produce the better of the two leader broadcasts yesterday, by taking so much time to level with the voter the sanction war will hurt us too, it’s not all one way, an important bit of leadership Boris keeps running away from.
Wallace. I thought he was a solid Minister, probably best in cabinet up to this week, but he appears to be all over the place, one minute “thrashed them before we will thrash them again” pep talk, when we are not even fighting but letting Ukrainian fight to the death, and this morning he may have overdone how terribly the war is going for Russia so far. What do you think? 😕
(https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2021#employee-earnings-data , going to the data files, and Table 15):
18-21: 17,849
22-29: 26,021
30-39: 32,994
40-49: 35,846
50-59: 33,336
60+: 28,848
So - we now go from the majority of 22-29s not paying anything to the majority paying.
And the peak age of earnings seems to be in the forties, where they still paid before this change.
Forty years after graduation is 62. And most of those in their early sixties will therefore still be paying (formerly, they would have stopped at age 52 and could accrue more funds towards their retirement)
Those who never earn over £25,000 will be significantly fewer than those who never earn over £27,295.
It's a real-time cut of over 10% in gross income.
It does help richer graduates and the children of richer parents, and hurt poorer graduates and the children of poorer parents. That's incontrovertible. Defending it means defending that.
Oh but its all Trump's fault, right? delusional.
Said the actress to the bishop.
Italian or Greek would be very good choices for a standard working European language.
Although Russian is the native language of more Europeans than any other. This may become universally inevitable with Putin's Progress.
That doesn't mean fine words and the promise of unspecified sanctions. It means, I fear, being willing to fight for all those Baltic and Eastern European countries which were once part of the Soviet Union. We must be prepared to do this and Putin must believe that we are willing to do this.
If not, we will see the violent break up of the Eastern half of the EU and the reimposition of an Iron Curtain in Europe.
Perhaps I am unduly fearful. But it is the logical consequence of both Putin's speech the other day and his statement about the collapse of the Soviet Union being the worst thing to have happened in his lifetime. Why wouldn't he try to reimpose it if he thought he could?
Russia and China.
Both have been aided and abetted by people across the political spectrum.
How about no. Germany's policies for years have been an utter disaster. So was Trump. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Swedish also quite easy, but less rewarding. They all speak Globish anyway.
Fine. But you’ll have to win an election first. It’s a novel concept called democracy.
The advantage to doing this is that the alternatives remove* the river of money that goes to bad people**. Plus their short term leverage over us.
Imagine Putin without the oil and gas money.
Imagine Iran without the oil money.
Imagine Saudi without the oil money.
*Someone will say rare earths, Which aren't rare and aren't earths.
**Apart from the Norwegians
The head of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) has said Boris Johnson was wrong to claim more people are in work now than before the pandemic.
Writing to the PM, Sir David Norgrove said the number in work was estimated to be around 660,000 fewer than before coronavirus struck.
He suggested Mr Johnson had excluded a fall in self-employment numbers when making the claim.
He warned the "selective use of data" would "give a misleading impression".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60506565
The fact is that Ukraine only later sought NATO membership at a when it became clear that it could not otherwise guarantee its own security in the face of expansionist Russian policies and Putin's hostility after clear majority of its people democratically sought to turn away from a path of Ukraine becoming a client state of Russia aka Belarus. And the fact of seeking that membership, even though it was refused, is still now being used as a ridiculous pretext for Russian invasion.
It's also pretty clear that since at least the turn of the century Putin has been pursuing policies aimed at bringing the former Soviet republics back under the wing of Russia wherever he can, if necessary by threats and now invasion. Putin did not embark on "his crazy path" because of Ukraine's actions, rather those actions have just exposed the path he had long been set on.
The West isn't exactly blessed with politicians of that ilk at the moment.
To add to the long and horrific list, Russian intimidation, murder and detention of journalists over the last couple of decades.
Putin is more than a bad actor: he is an evil actor. There is a good chances that however much we appeased him, including rolling over and presenting our backsides, would have ended up with eastern Europe being screwed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10548307/John-Kerry-urges-Putin-help-fight-CLIMATE-CHANGE-Russia-bulldozes-Ukraine.html
https://twitter.com/FrankRGardner/status/1497172727894925312
Do they? one that the working class base and the Bushite country clubbers could all get behind?
No.
There's a long feature this week in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/22/children-on-the-edge-of-life-in-afghanistan
As mentioned below I think from the diplomatic or MI6 source quoted on Radio 4 today, there's also no evidence that Putin has always been on an equally expansionist course. He's a very different man today from who he was in 2001, and probably has been for a decade and a half.
If he's the best, then any Democrat is better. Even Biden, as poor as he is.
I disagree with Barty on many things, but he is sometimes unfairly characterised as being on the generally nutty/foaming at the mouth fringe, whereas I only think his economics are (mostly) loopy. I rarely find us far apart on social issues.
As Moonrabbit (I think) posted, we're all a bit tetchy on here this morning. Let's not be, unecessarily. You're better than your original reply in this thread - you normally play the ball, not the man.
Retirement age is moving to 67 too, so even if 62 year olds are still repaying no problem if most of them are still working and earning a wage and not yet retired.
If some non Russell Group and non STEM graduates find their degree only ever earns them £25- £30k a year and they would be better off after student loan repayments doing an apprenticeship instead, no problem.
That saves them money and also this policy saves taxpayers money too
There is little chance of that occurring right now. Of course the picture might look different in 6 months time.
The problem also comes in what replaces Putin. What is the alternative? For many Russians the liberal democracy that should have been such a success following the end of the Cold War was a dark period of economic turmoil and corruption.
Given medal to daughter of imprisoned human rights publisher Gui Minhai.
It is a disgrace that the Olympics were held in a totalitarian dictatorship currently carrying out genocide. Shame on the world.
Can you ask teacher to do something about all the pushchairs outside please? They're blocking the pavement.
Subject to future US elections.
It does seem looking back that Zelensky perhaps never thought the Russians would actually invade .
Hardly any experience but plenty of ‘expertise’.
Is your tank amphibious, or do you want us to book you a ferry ticket?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60352112
Culture can be hard to change, but not as much as people suggest - where there is a will culture changes rapidly and decisively.
Only at the point where Putin becomes a liability to the Russian elites will he be at serious risk. At that point they'll all be collectively looking to replace him with someone who will pursue less toxic policies and enable them to resume their hobby of personal aggrandisement beyond the borders of Russia.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1497135949180026881
I'd also agree that Putin is certainly an evil actor now, but not that he was always equally so ; the evidence just doesn't stack up for the second assertion.
I have been in tears at times the last few days and what is happening is just dreadful
I have no idea where this is going, but it has to be time to allow Cambo and our own gas developments as we transition to green self sufficiency over the next 20 years
BYOB
Orwell's experience when he went to Spain was cadet corps at Eton, plus a spell in the filth.
With an apprenticeship you get paid to learn, you finish with a trade that will last a lifetime and in the M & E sector you will be on £40k+ by the age of 21 with no tuition fees to repay.
I presume the Ukrainians *want* to fight the Russians in major metropolitan areas rather than exposed fields, so as to reduce the impact of the Russian air & armour advantage? So I guess one shldn't regard fighting reaching Kiev as a sign of Ukrainian defeat? It's their plan.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1497177893008547843
Who will teach them? And where?
Zero.
CON: 35% (+1)
LDM: 9% (-1)
GRN: 6% (=)
SNP: 4% (=)
Via
@techneUK
, 23-24 Feb.
Changes w/ 16-17 Feb.
It's quite interesting how Labour has pretty much stabilised around 39% now despite everything even including opinium in the polling averages. At the same time an average ~5% Labour lead will help secure Johnson in place (combined with the Tories doing OK relative to expectations in the local elections in Scotland, London and the Midlands even if they continue to heavily bleed votes in the north such as in yesterday's Ferryhill by election).
One can totally understand his desperation given his latest comments . Whether early compromises re a neutral stance on NATO would have made any difference we’ll never know .
Who does the quality control?
Because otherwise you have the State funding a private business to employ a dogsbody on the cheap. With absolutely no guarantee they'll learn owt at all.
I am not arguing that everything about Western policy from 1990 onwards was fine. But where I am taking issue with you is that Putin's path from then to now owes much if anything to the course of Western policy over that period.
Though of course they won't.
In a phone call on Friday, China's President Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin that China supports Russia in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis via dialogue, Chinese state television CCTV reports.
Even if you are a brutal authoritarian I don't know how you can say something like that with a straight face. And why even bother? Even if you think Russia completely justified in its actions it has not been resolving matters through dialogue, and whispered surrunders after the shooting is not really the same thing.
Another example
And here's more now from Sergei Lavrov's news conference in Moscow.
He questions the stability of the Ukrainian state - and accuses Western nations of deliberately militarising the country.
Lavrov told reporters that Ukrainian people must now have the chance to "choose their own future".
I mean really, there's putting your country's position and then there's just taking the piss. Yes, the Ukrainian state is somewhat unstable at the moment, why is that I wonder?
This is why his comment was so unutterably and totally wrong. I'm glad he's changed his tune.
Net zero is clearly an absolutely core commitment for the tories, arguably their most core commitment.
The pressure of events is building massively, and yet they are still resisting.
Lying with impunity demonstrates their power.