Sadly the International Harvesters tractor factory is no more. It was sold off to an Italian firm at the behest of the EU and they were given a grant to move all the equipment to Italy...
I think we are underselling the British public in this. There will always be a vocal minority who see any asylum as the thin end of the wedge but they can be rightly ignored. I think the vast majority of people will support us taking in these refugees given what they are facing and putting an upper limit on it in this way sends entirely the wrong message.
The Government have done pretty well so far on this crisis. This though is a major misstep. They have given the appearance of having been dragged to make a concession and then not even got that right when they made it. It compares extremely poorly with what our neighbours are doing.
Indeed.
I could kind of understand the wariness over Afghan refugees without papers or not taken directly from Afghanistan.
But a mother with children carrying a Ukrainian passport isn't going to turn out to be ISIS.
Let them in.
I'm sure the government will get it right eventually, but the delay looks terrible.
+1 - the only people coming here are going to be those who already have family or (generous) friends here - i.e. just those with some ties to the UK.
Most Ukrainians will want to be closer to home in the hope that they can return there quickly.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Demilitarisation is tantamount to giving away the Sudetenland all over again. Ukraine must be able to defend itself from further Russian aggression tself, or as part of NATO.
So Boris would stay PM in his nuclear bunker with a Conservative majority while he is launching retaliatory Trident nuclear missile strikes against Moscow and St Petersburg
Boris wouldn't have a seat though....
One man, one vote...
How do you do first past the post when there are no posts left standing?
Very interesting how , if correct, Putin's demands there don't even mention Dombass, which was supposed to have been the pretext for this whole conflict. His authority somewhere must be collapsing.
They're recognised as independent states by Russia. I assume the omission is because Russia considers it's troops there to not be on Ukranian soil, therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding these territories between Russia and Ukraine - that would be a matter between LPR, DPR and Ukraine.... ; whereas Crimea is, in Russia's facts part of Russia.
You'd think so, but then I'd still expect recognition if to be included as a demand.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Ukraine has just been invaded and has given Russia a bloody nose. The price for their peace is to give up all their weapons? Putin wants to reunify Russia with Belarus and Ukraine against the wills of their people. Why wouldn't Russia just wait for them to get rid of their weapons and invade again?
In a matter of days, we were able to build Nightingale hospitals for tens of thousands that were never even used. We can afford beds for a few hundred thousand Ukrainians.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Wow,
This is wrong on two counts.
Firstly, there's no windfall right now as fracking is not currently economic in the UK.
Secondly, I have spent an awful lot of time around this industry, and holy fuck you would notice. Getting the rig into position. Drilling 24 hours a day. And then the sound of the diesel compressors getting the water pressure up. Yeah, you'd notice.
The government, to my great surprise, has done very well on the Ukraine crisis so far, yet the refugee stance risks undoing a lot of that good work. These people are in need of a safe nation to reside in temporarily and we should enable them to come here. Ukrainians are very patriotic people and once Ukraine has been made safe to return I doubt many will decide not to go back and those who don't we should be happy for them to stay.
Priti Patel has once again showed why she's unsuitable for the leadership.
Again right wing ante immigration attitude nuanced in your posts
Of course numbers need to be considered, but right now most want to stay in the area around Ukraine but your attitude damages public sentiment that we should not put barriers in the way of Ukrainians seeking asylum here
Just 9% of British voters want to take in hundreds of thousands of Ukranian refugees on that poll.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Nothing to do with us whether Ukraine wants to be neutral or renounce it’s claim Crimea on. However it is our job to support Ukraine in not agreeing to do such things under duress with a gun to its head.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
How do you denazi something that's not particularly Nazi? (*) Particularly when the side demanding denazification are behaving much more like nazis than the side they want denazified?
As for demitilitirisation: why should Ukraine demilitarise?
When doing a search for this, I just came across the following from TASS. They're obsessed with Nazis.
"Russian army’s main clashes in Ukraine are with neo-Nazis - Putin Russian President stressed that the Ukrainian nationalists were playing the role of the army’s ‘blocking detachments’"
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
It's all OK except the demilitarisation and "denazification" bit, whatever that's means. He's going to have stick that, because the Ukrainians would never accept it.
I can't agree to that. Putin would be getting a win i.e recognition of Crimea after starting a totally unprovoked war. And it's very precious of him to talk about Russia's security concerns. What about Ukraine's?
One of Trump's advisors was on Fox saying that we should absolutely let Russia take parts of Ukraine.
It was so bad the Fox anchor had to do a minutes long rebuttal.
But sure, tell me about how if Trump (who impeached for attempting to withhold aid to Ukraine) was in charge Putin wouldn't be trying to seize Ukrainian territory.
I’m ignoring your analysis on Trump and Ukraine.
I’m waiting for Mr Ed’s fair and balanced take on it.
No need to wait, I can do it -
"I know this will be unpopular on here and I'll probably get shouted down for it but Trump was an unpredictable son of a bitch and it's likely Putin wouldn't have dared mess with him. Of course this doesn't justify what Russia is doing. Sure they have a valid claim from their point of view on Ukraine and it was probably unwise of the West to disrespect this (as Trump warned, to be fair to him), but that's no excuse for a full invasion. A half of an invasion, maybe, but not one like this. Still, we are where we are, no point wailing and virtue signalling about it, what's needed now is some hard-headed dealmaking. The sort of thing that Trump, love him or loathe him, and to again be fair to him, quite literally wrote the book on. Shame about Biden."
Not bad.
Actual quote from the 11th Feb. Much as you - and others on here - slag me off for saying I preferred Trump over Biden, this is exactly the reason why I would stand by my choice. There is a reason Putin didn’t try any sh1t when Trump was President and it wasn’t because he was Kompromat. It was because Putin was wary of provoking someone like Trump. Biden is weak but my overriding fear is that, in order to give off the impression of strength, Biden tries too hard and pushes the world into a catastrophe...
Also... ...But the US has essentially sold Ukraine down the river by making it clear it won’t get involved and, even if there are sanctions, they will be limited in scope.
What looks more clear is that Putin despises Biden, sees him as weak and a pushover. And predictable. And that’s dangerous...
Well, I think @MrEd is partly right. I think the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan told Putin that the US was not up for a fight.
What Putin got wrong is that Biden is an old cold war warrior, who sees Russia as a threat, and who is a big supporter of NATO.
It is also worth noting that Russia did invade Ukraine on Trump's watch. The breakaway areas in the East were invaded by Russian troops on Trump's watch, and he did absolutely nothing.
Did Trump try to blackmail Ukraine's government for security support in exchange for faked evidence against Biden's family before or after the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine?
A good outcome for HYUFD. A Conservative Government remains in power. But only so long as those MPs remain in their constituencies and he is at a reunion convention in Aberystwyth when the curtain falls.
Very interesting how , if correct, Putin's demands there don't even mention Dombass, which was supposed to have been the pretext for this whole conflict. His authority somewhere must be collapsing.
They're recognised as independent states by Russia. I assume the omission is because Russia considers it's troops there to not be on Ukranian soil, therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding these territories between Russia and Ukraine - that would be a matter between LPR, DPR and Ukraine.... ; whereas Crimea is, in Russia's facts part of Russia.
You'd think so, but then I'd still expect recognition if to be included as a demand.
But that would be a demand from DPR/LPR themselves. By not bringing it to the table, Putin (In his mind) reserves the right to move troops there at will. Recognition of the republics would be a seperate negotiation between those republics and Ukraine....
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
It's all OK except the demilitarisation and "denazification" bit, whatever that's means. He's going to have stick that, because the Ukrainians would never accept it.
I can't agree to that. Putin would be getting a win i.e recognition of Crimea after starting a totally unprovoked war. And it's very precious of him to talk about Russia's security concerns. What about Ukraine's?
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
"Whatever political disagreements any of us have with Liz Truss - and I have many deep differences with her - we should not fall for this transparent Russian attempt to divert. The only person responsible for Putin’s despicable nuclear threat is Putin."
No, that is dim of Nicola.
You meet a lunatic with an axe who wants to murder his wife. He asks about her whereabouts. You truthfully tell him. The person responsible for the ensuing despicable axe murder is the husband, but you don't come out looking great either.
This let's all get behind the Trussster nonsense is inexplicable. Never seen anyone so far out of their depth.
Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time. It doesn't excuse how enthusiastic some outlets are to parrot the Kremlin line.
Sturgeon got the tone right there. It's a good intervention, politically, as the SNP need to find a way to be relevant in a UK Gov dominant issue.
The other thing would be to propose a deal with Germany over offshore wind.
"Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time."
Well of course she can. She is a useless person in a consequential position.
You reckon Putin is breathlessly waiting on every Truss tweet, moving Russian subs into position based on the number of flags in the background?
It's just that in a tense and worrying crisis she seems to be in this different place - the one called LizTrussfornextConLeaderland - and it's not what you want. It's fair to express that opinion, I think, even with a war on.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
Very interesting how , if correct, Putin's demands there don't even mention Dombass, which was supposed to have been the pretext for this whole conflict. His authority somewhere must be collapsing.
They're recognised as independent states by Russia. I assume the omission is because Russia considers it's troops there to not be on Ukranian soil, therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding these territories between Russia and Ukraine - that would be a matter between LPR, DPR and Ukraine.... ; whereas Crimea is, in Russia's facts part of Russia.
You'd think so, but then I'd still expect recognition if to be included as a demand.
But that would be a demand from DPR/LPR themselves. By not bringing it to the table, Putin (In his mind) reserves the right to move troops there at will. Recognition of the republics would be a seperate negotiation between those republics and Ukraine....
Edit: Everyone knows they're puppet regimes. But that's the point (For now), and why Putin corrected his spy chief when he said the quiet part about Russian annexation out loud.
Very interesting how , if correct, Putin's demands there don't even mention Dombass, which was supposed to have been the pretext for this whole conflict. His authority somewhere must be collapsing.
They're recognised as independent states by Russia. I assume the omission is because Russia considers it's troops there to not be on Ukranian soil, therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding these territories between Russia and Ukraine - that would be a matter between LPR, DPR and Ukraine.... ; whereas Crimea is, in Russia's facts part of Russia.
You'd think so, but then I'd still expect recognition if to be included as a demand.
But that would be a demand from DPR/LPR themselves. By not bringing it to the table, Putin (In his mind) reserves the right to move troops there at will. Recognition of the republics would be a seperate negotiation between those republics and Ukraine....
To me, though, it indicates it's not even a main rhetorical priority. That's extremely odd, because his propaganda outlets have been blaring out worldwide for six years that Russian rights there are the main cause of the entire conflict there. So I personally would expect at least some sort of reference to those regions, in the manifesto of demands - if that's what these are.
If that is the full list, that would suggest to me that Putin may not even be in charge of the main prioritising for the conflict any longer. That's a bit of a claim and may be jumping the gun, but I think there's some possible sign of it there.
Nuclear apocalypse would actually work out alright for the SCONS. Rosie Duffield, meanwhile, becomes leader of the Labour party, much to the delight of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or what's left of them, anyway).
"Whatever political disagreements any of us have with Liz Truss - and I have many deep differences with her - we should not fall for this transparent Russian attempt to divert. The only person responsible for Putin’s despicable nuclear threat is Putin."
No, that is dim of Nicola.
You meet a lunatic with an axe who wants to murder his wife. He asks about her whereabouts. You truthfully tell him. The person responsible for the ensuing despicable axe murder is the husband, but you don't come out looking great either.
This let's all get behind the Trussster nonsense is inexplicable. Never seen anyone so far out of their depth.
Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time. It doesn't excuse how enthusiastic some outlets are to parrot the Kremlin line.
Sturgeon got the tone right there. It's a good intervention, politically, as the SNP need to find a way to be relevant in a UK Gov dominant issue.
The other thing would be to propose a deal with Germany over offshore wind.
"Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time."
Well of course she can. She is a useless person in a consequential position.
You reckon Putin is breathlessly waiting on every Truss tweet, moving Russian subs into position based on the number of flags in the background?
It's just that in a tense and worrying crisis she seems to be in this different place - the one called LizTrussfornextConLeaderland - and it's not what you want. It's fair to express that opinion, I think, even with a war on.
After your 'mistake' earlier, I'd have thought you'd have quietened down about Truss.
These uppity women going for the top job, eh? Can't have that...
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
Number 2 is the tricky 1. They can’t forfeit their army. And there’s no reason why the “Nazi in Chief” should resign as President. A promise not to host foreign military assets but then beef up their own capability perhaps.
Hopefully room for a compromise in there somewhere.
Fingers crossed. Though there remains the question about the mass murderer in the Kremlin.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
"Whatever political disagreements any of us have with Liz Truss - and I have many deep differences with her - we should not fall for this transparent Russian attempt to divert. The only person responsible for Putin’s despicable nuclear threat is Putin."
No, that is dim of Nicola.
You meet a lunatic with an axe who wants to murder his wife. He asks about her whereabouts. You truthfully tell him. The person responsible for the ensuing despicable axe murder is the husband, but you don't come out looking great either.
This let's all get behind the Trussster nonsense is inexplicable. Never seen anyone so far out of their depth.
Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time. It doesn't excuse how enthusiastic some outlets are to parrot the Kremlin line.
Sturgeon got the tone right there. It's a good intervention, politically, as the SNP need to find a way to be relevant in a UK Gov dominant issue.
The other thing would be to propose a deal with Germany over offshore wind.
"Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time."
Well of course she can. She is a useless person in a consequential position.
You reckon Putin is breathlessly waiting on every Truss tweet, moving Russian subs into position based on the number of flags in the background?
It's just that in a tense and worrying crisis she seems to be in this different place - the one called LizTrussfornextConLeaderland - and it's not what you want. It's fair to express that opinion, I think, even with a war on.
True.
I'm just hyper sensitive to any excuses or explanations for Putin's actions. Some parts of right wing Twitter were celebrating Putin's threat of nuclear war: "told you we shouldn't have pissed him off!".
At the same time, I'm pretty nervous about us getting a bit too involved in Ukraine and really setting him off. These drone strikes are just devastating the Russian columns and it's utterly humiliating.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
One reason I disagreed with Cyclefree on the City x Russia is the next round of sanctions. Having a huge market share of international finance, even from the dodgier countries like Russia, gives us a lot of latent power. Today we've locked Russian companies out of our capital markets and derivatives clearing. Russian companies won't make payroll within weeks if this continues. The Russian government looks set to be locked out of selling bonds in London as well, that means the soldiers are going to go without being paid within weeks.
If we had taken a hard line stance over this Russia would have already cultivated alternative capital sources and markets which we would have no control over and no ability to curb.
The whole moaning about the City being hooked on Russian money and Londongrad etc... is a really bad take because allowing it to go through London gives us this power over the Russian and other economies that we wouldn't otherwise have. As Putin has now realised the British government has got it's boot on the neck of the Russian economy. Had we listened to the morons who kept saying we shouldn't allow this business to take place in London we'd simply be hoping that the Singapore government would do it or the Chinese would order the HK executive to block it.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
What about we do a swap? - Ukraine is left alone. Putin can have New Zealand.
Nuclear apocalypse would actually work out alright for the SCONS. Rosie Duffield, meanwhile, becomes leader of the Labour party, much to the delight of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or what's left of them, anyway).
It does look like EURef2 might go the way of rejoin. Every mushroom cloud has a silver lining...
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Well, if he'd done it in October it would have caused enormous problems in Europe.
But done at the beginning of March, when the Germans are only using 4GW of natural gas in power gen, it's not anywhere near as big a threat.
How long would it take for us or the Germans to get other measures in place for next winter to ensure security of supply? LNG is going to be in short supply for delivery, and you can't just build coal plants or enough renewables that quickly. In the case of Germany, they'll have to build terminals - how long would that take?
Whatever, I cannot see many countries taking much gas from Germany in the medium term unless te terms are *very* good. You don't want them to just switch off the tap.
Doable on my understanding, but eyewateringly expensive. Means filling every storage facility with top dollar LNG over the summer months to get through next winter. Good thing though is every subsequent winter will be easier.
I think they need to get their chequebooks out for storage for next winter. Six months moratorium on Russian gas, then they can take a view on whether to switch supplies back on in the Autumn.
As @rcs1000 says, lucky for us the invasion wasn't earlier. Thank Xi and his Olympics.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
"Please lay down your arms and wait patiently for the Second Russian-Ukraine War, currently scheduled for 2029."
Demilitarization of Ukraine would either be capitulation or very dangerous. If it is not simply capitulation then it will have to have international guarantors. If it has international guarantors that include NATO or countries in NATO then Russian separatists could provoke unrest leading to WW3 as the guarantors would have to act if there was a future Russian incursion.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Perhaps the US could give Russia a taste of its own medicine and hold a US-China summit in order to propose the Finlandisation of Russia.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
Indeed, and agreed, he is a traitor.
I think he's probably a lay for the GOP nomination – his rivals will have an absolute field day quoting his pro-Putin, anti-American rants back at him.
You sure ?
It's not the GOP of Mitt Romney and John McCain any more. His base doesn't care.
Hmm. How big is that base?
Polls say 85% of Americans are appalled by Putin's invasion. The other 15% are probably too zonked on Fentanyl to care
That's not a great base for a Putin-lovin' Epstein-huggin' weirdo with orange hair to win the nomination, when the Republicans surely know they have a much better chance of actually seizing the White House with a more sensible candidate
I'm not convinced. They are appalled, but not enough to change their tune on Biden. They've swallowed sillier arguments than Trump pretending he is not a Putin fan. Theyll lap up his talk of it not happening on his watch.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Additionally of course, next year Putin will have fresh demands, will identify agreement 'breaches', etc...
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Job 1: ensure the people (and non cockroach animals) of the world live through to summer. Job 2: figure out how to stop a re-invasion of Ukraine.
One reason I disagreed with Cyclefree on the City x Russia is the next round of sanctions. Having a huge market share of international finance, even from the dodgier countries like Russia, gives us a lot of latent power. Today we've locked Russian companies out of our capital markets and derivatives clearing. Russian companies won't make payroll within weeks if this continues. The Russian government looks set to be locked out of selling bonds in London as well, that means the soldiers are going to go without being paid within weeks.
If we had taken a hard line stance over this Russia would have already cultivated alternative capital sources and markets which we would have no control over and no ability to curb.
The whole moaning about the City being hooked on Russian money and Londongrad etc... is a really bad take because allowing it to go through London gives us this power over the Russian and other economies that we wouldn't otherwise have. As Putin has now realised the British government has got it's boot on the neck of the Russian economy. Had we listened to the morons who kept saying we shouldn't allow this business to take place in London we'd simply be hoping that the Singapore government would do it or the Chinese would order the HK executive to block it.
Well said.
By being the world capital of finance we have their wallets in a vice that we can, when we choose, weaponise and clamp down upon. If we unilaterally abandoned that position, the finance would go elsewhere and the ability to sanction them would too.
There is an excellent piece in the FT today breaking down Russian Central Bank sovereign reserves and how they can be sanctioned. TL;DR summary: the UK and USA combined have a lot of power to weaponise, sanction and disrupt hundreds of billions of Russian state-owned reserves.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
What about we do a swap? - Ukraine is left alone. Putin can have New Zealand.
Interesting fact: Putin went to NZ in the 90s I think as a “shoe salesman”.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Re; Putin still being able to roll through quickly, I don't think so. Russian domination of Ukraine within a few days now is only possible with the use of massive bombardments and massive casualties. His credibility internally is already teetering, and may well be destroyed in that case.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
I don't think so. Russian domination of Ukraine within a few days now is only possible for the use of massive bombardments and massive casualties. His credibility internally is already teetering, and probably would be destroyed in that case.
I really fucking wish you were correct. But I just have dread this morning.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
Your line appears to be capitulation to all of Russia's demands, and God help 44 million 'Nazis' in Ukraine.
Ukraine's independence needs to be assured. That means they need an independent military. Russia doesn't want that.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
I am sure you hope for the same outcomes that I do - in the short term a stop to the butchery, in the long term a free and independent Ukraine. (As do, of course, almost everyone here.) I just disagree with you about whether taking Putin's offer would be effective in achieving either of those.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Demilitarisation is tantamount to giving away the Sudetenland all over again. Ukraine must be able to defend itself from further Russian aggression tself, or as part of NATO.
And the problems with "neutrality" are that:
(1) Under Putin's definition it would preclude Ukrainian membership of the EU, or an independent Ukrainian foreign policy. It would be effectively vassal state status, but minus Russian military occupation, and,
(2) The whole concept of neutrality as we've understood it is falling apart as a result of this crisis. Switzerland is implementing EU sanctions on Russia. Ireland describes its position as, "neutral, but not neutral". This makes the prospect of Ukraine declaring neutrality a bit meaningless.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
I don't think so. Russian domination of Ukraine within a few days now is only possible for the use of massive bombardments and massive casualties. His credibility internally is already teetering, and probably would be destroyed in that case.
I really fucking wish you were correct. But I just have dread this morning.
You don't get to capitulate on behalf of other people. If they had the same attitude as you, they would have given in when Putin first massed his invasion force.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
What about we do a swap? - Ukraine is left alone. Putin can have New Zealand.
Interesting fact: Putin went to NZ in the 90s I think as a “shoe salesman”.
His concerns over catching Covid would have been resolved had he stayed there.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
That relies on Russian forces being completely driven out of Ukraine and Kyiv not falling into Russian hands which we are a long way from yet.
If there was any prospect of Ukraine joining NATO we would be a million miles from that
Demilitarization of Ukraine would either be capitulation or very dangerous. If it is not simply capitulation then it will have to have international guarantors. If it has international guarantors that include NATO or countries in NATO then Russian separatists could provoke unrest leading to WW3 as the guarantors would have to act if there was a future Russian incursion.
It is totally unworkable IMO. And Putin probably (hopefully!) knows it.
I don't want to sell 44 million people into Russian servitude.
Why does Putin always sit a dozen yards from people he is having meetings with?
It looks seriously weird.
It makes him look mad and ridiculous, which I don't think is the effect he's aiming for. The real question is not why he has these long tables but why his PR emphasises how long they are.
Why does Putin always sit a dozen yards from people he is having meetings with?
It looks seriously weird.
It makes him look mad and ridiculous, which I don't think is the effect he's aiming for. The real question is not why he has these long tables but why his PR emphasises how long they are.
A good outcome for HYUFD. A Conservative Government remains in power. But only so long as those MPs remain in their constituencies and he is at a reunion convention in Aberystwyth when the curtain falls.
My parents in law live in rural East Kent, one of the few places in the less than 10% of the UK which might survive
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Well we have lines. Estonia is in NATO. We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
I don't think so. Russian domination of Ukraine within a few days now is only possible for the use of massive bombardments and massive casualties. His credibility internally is already teetering, and probably would be destroyed in that case.
I really fucking wish you were correct. But I just have dread this morning.
The only 'win' the Russians will get is if they decide to escalate this to Grozny levels.
From what we've seen, even taking it all with a pinch or two of salt, there's no chance that they will be able to hold any city from the ground if they leave it intact.
I fear for Kharkiv, although we can hope that carpet bombing Russian speakers might turn out to be the last straw in all this.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Always been a mystery to me too! There used to be a lot of longish-distance commuters to Manchester from the Fylde (another place with a definite article) but less so nowadays. There's a lot of retirement there.
Why does Putin always sit a dozen yards from people he is having meetings with?
It looks seriously weird.
It makes him look mad and ridiculous, which I don't think is the effect he's aiming for. The real question is not why he has these long tables but why his PR emphasises how long they are.
He sits on a raised platform too. (I have no actual evidence for this, but it's almost certain)
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Yes. There are times when you are faced with a situation where a disagreeable compromise is the least worst option, but this isn't one of them.
This is a situation where a line has to be drawn, and if we don't draw it here we will be faced with the necessity of drawing it somewhere closer to home later.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Retirees from SE Lancs, Manchester and the like.
Held up a fair few sub post offices, but not made quite Isle of Man money.
Perhaps on occasions, polling outcomes should cede to the moral case.
Morality, other than what is found in religious texts, in a democracy is ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follows into policy and law
Come now Ayatollah Khomeini.
Hmmm. The man with the small moustache demonstrated an immorality "in (initially at least) a democracy ... ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follow(ed) into policy and law".
Hitler on no level represented Christian morality no but he did represent the views of enough Germans for the Nazis to win most seats in the German Parliament in the 1930s.
Absent religious morality, morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time, which in turn through the elected government then influences lawmaking
I can't think of a more nebulous construct than "morality". Nonetheless "morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time" must be just plain wrong. If public opinion is immoral (e.g. support in WW2 Germany for anti-Semitism) it is by definition not moral.
I am not religious but I see the ten commandments as a pretty reasonable moral code. TV Evangelists or Catholic Priests espousing the ten commandments but ignoring a handful when it suits them is not "religious morality".
Anti Semitism is only immoral to Jews ie in religious terms as it is in opposition to the Torah and also to the Christian morality of love thy neighbour as set out in the New Testament.
There is nothing automatically immoral about anti Semitism beyond that religious morality if a majority of the public become anti Semitic. Indeed in parts of the Arab world today anti Semitism is rife unfortunately, as it is in parts of the far left
"Whatever political disagreements any of us have with Liz Truss - and I have many deep differences with her - we should not fall for this transparent Russian attempt to divert. The only person responsible for Putin’s despicable nuclear threat is Putin."
No, that is dim of Nicola.
You meet a lunatic with an axe who wants to murder his wife. He asks about her whereabouts. You truthfully tell him. The person responsible for the ensuing despicable axe murder is the husband, but you don't come out looking great either.
This let's all get behind the Trussster nonsense is inexplicable. Never seen anyone so far out of their depth.
Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time. It doesn't excuse how enthusiastic some outlets are to parrot the Kremlin line.
Sturgeon got the tone right there. It's a good intervention, politically, as the SNP need to find a way to be relevant in a UK Gov dominant issue.
The other thing would be to propose a deal with Germany over offshore wind.
"Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time."
Well of course she can. She is a useless person in a consequential position.
You reckon Putin is breathlessly waiting on every Truss tweet, moving Russian subs into position based on the number of flags in the background?
It's just that in a tense and worrying crisis she seems to be in this different place - the one called LizTrussfornextConLeaderland - and it's not what you want. It's fair to express that opinion, I think, even with a war on.
After your 'mistake' earlier, I'd have thought you'd have quietened down about Truss.
These uppity women going for the top job, eh? Can't have that...
Oh do stop it. It was my one and only follow-up and merely an explanation of why I don't rate her. Attributing it to sexism is *such* a cheap shot.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Additionally of course, next year Putin will have fresh demands, will identify agreement 'breaches', etc...
Who says?
It is tempting to write Putin off as mad, or insatiable, or Hitler, but those don’t help the overall analysis of how we should respond to minimise bloodshed.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Additionally of course, next year Putin will have fresh demands, will identify agreement 'breaches', etc...
Who says?
It is tempting to write Putin off as mad, or insatiable, or Hitler, but those don’t help the overall analysis of how we should respond to minimise bloodshed.
Experience of watching Mobsters mobster.
Start slowly and just ramp the demands up month by month, year by year until you've gotten everything...
There’s gap right now btw govt rhetoric and what policy actually is - only applies to UK nationals but that’s expected to change later today, details tbc but Home Sec expected in parliament https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1498225236638150660
Holomodor, Generalplanost, now this. Ukraine seems to have had a rough time of it to put it mildly over the previous hundred years.
Previous 1000 years, I'd say. When the Mongols came calling, Kyiv was one of the biggest cities in Europe. Of 50,000 citizens, 48,000 were killed. Then a long slog of servitude and serfdom to various overlords.
"Whatever political disagreements any of us have with Liz Truss - and I have many deep differences with her - we should not fall for this transparent Russian attempt to divert. The only person responsible for Putin’s despicable nuclear threat is Putin."
No, that is dim of Nicola.
You meet a lunatic with an axe who wants to murder his wife. He asks about her whereabouts. You truthfully tell him. The person responsible for the ensuing despicable axe murder is the husband, but you don't come out looking great either.
This let's all get behind the Trussster nonsense is inexplicable. Never seen anyone so far out of their depth.
Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time. It doesn't excuse how enthusiastic some outlets are to parrot the Kremlin line.
Sturgeon got the tone right there. It's a good intervention, politically, as the SNP need to find a way to be relevant in a UK Gov dominant issue.
The other thing would be to propose a deal with Germany over offshore wind.
"Truss cannot be useless and consequential at the same time."
Well of course she can. She is a useless person in a consequential position.
You reckon Putin is breathlessly waiting on every Truss tweet, moving Russian subs into position based on the number of flags in the background?
It's just that in a tense and worrying crisis she seems to be in this different place - the one called LizTrussfornextConLeaderland - and it's not what you want. It's fair to express that opinion, I think, even with a war on.
After your 'mistake' earlier, I'd have thought you'd have quietened down about Truss.
These uppity women going for the top job, eh? Can't have that...
Oh do stop it. It was my one and only follow-up and merely an explanation of why I don't rate her. Attributing it to sexism is *such* a cheap shot.
It is transparent inverted gammonry. and particularly puzzling in that the right, 3 days ago, photograph makes your point 100x as strongly as the wrong one did. She is a very unpleasant and deeply unserious person, and qualms about what you can say about the laydeez should inhibit nobody from saying so.
For a glimpse of the future under Russian occupation, Stanislav Aseyev's "In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas" might provide some guidance.
It's an account of his two and a half years in an FSB torture camp. I've ordered a copy of the paperback reprint which comes out at the end of this month. The camp is apparently still in operation.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Always been a mystery to me too! There used to be a lot of longish-distance commuters to Manchester from the Fylde (another place with a definite article) but less so nowadays. There's a lot of retirement there.
Thanks.
In my geeky local govt re-org fantasy, I’d provisionally bundled the Fylde (and Poulton-le-Fylde from the Wyre) into a Blackpool metro.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
It is choosing, though. It’s choosing right now. I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
But it's not obvious that we would be avoiding more butchery. Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios. And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
Yes. There are times when you are faced with a situation where a disagreeable compromise is the least worst option, but this isn't one of them.
This is a situation where a line has to be drawn, and if we don't draw it here we will be faced with the necessity of drawing it somewhere closer to home later.
I agree.
Putin will really hate Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians now because they have made a fool of him. The destruction of Ukrainian cities will be personal.
Very interesting how , if correct, Putin's demands there don't even mention Dombass, which was supposed to have been the pretext for this whole conflict. His authority somewhere must be collapsing.
They're recognised as independent states by Russia. I assume the omission is because Russia considers it's troops there to not be on Ukranian soil, therefore there is nothing to discuss regarding these territories between Russia and Ukraine - that would be a matter between LPR, DPR and Ukraine.... ; whereas Crimea is, in Russia's facts part of Russia.
You'd think so, but then I'd still expect recognition if to be included as a demand.
But that would be a demand from DPR/LPR themselves. By not bringing it to the table, Putin (In his mind) reserves the right to move troops there at will. Recognition of the republics would be a seperate negotiation between those republics and Ukraine....
To me, though, it indicates it's not even a main rhetorical priority. That's extremely odd, because his propaganda outlets have been blaring out worldwide for six years that Russian rights there are the main cause of the entire conflict there. So I personally would expect at least some sort of reference to those regions, in the manifesto of demands - if that's what these are.
If that is the full list, that would suggest to me that Putin may not even be in charge of the main prioritising for the conflict any longer. That's a bit of a claim and may be jumping the gun, but I think there's some possible sign of it there.
The main person to look out for now I suspect is the Defence Minister, Shiogu. He is apparently one of the few people Putin trusts but he has also been in pretty much every Russian Govt since 1991, which suggests he is happy to change tack when required. He also must be aware that, given the performance so far, he will a scapegoat if things go wrong further. I can see a situation where he decides the wind is blowing in a certain direction and decides it makes sense to push Putin out in a military coup (a fair few Generals are likely to be also worried about their prospects). If that's the case, you would probably get a figurehead like Lavrov as the nominal President with Shiogu and the military holding power (Shiogu is an ethnic Tatar so it's very unlikely he would wear the crown given how Russians view anyone non-Russian).
The Ukraine-Russia peace talks ended with no results, the two sides agreed to meet at the Polish-Belarus border in the upcoming days.
Putin will keep agreeing to talks because it makes him look reasonable via RT to his domestic audience. His demands are a complete non starter though, so right now those talks aren't going to get anywhere - not even to mention the fact he (I think) isn't bringing up Donbass as the Ukrainians will need to negotiate separately with those individuals.
FWIW, I am hearing from friends with contacts in Russia that there are some very serious conversations going on across the regime and we may see some serious attempt to "resolve" the problem quite soon. If and it is a very big IF, Putin holds off attacks on civilian targets and the road to Kyiv stays open as primised to Macron, then the talks can continue. Russian side privately admitting that the situation is difficult, and things are still very dangerous,
My guess is that if the Ukrainians can hang on for another week, then the exit ramp will be looking very attractive to the Kremlin, "Neutral and no return of Crimea" seems to be the bottom line, but there are still a lot of issues to work through on the Russian side.
BTW if I were Oleksander Lukashenka tonight I would be feeling very nervous indeed.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Additionally of course, next year Putin will have fresh demands, will identify agreement 'breaches', etc...
Who says?
It is tempting to write Putin off as mad, or insatiable, or Hitler, but those don’t help the overall analysis of how we should respond to minimise bloodshed.
#Parliament is working! We gathered as leaders of the factions to vote for the important matters: - appeal to #EU for Ukraine to join EU on a simplified procedure - appeal to remove #Russia from UN Security Counsel - prepping legislation to freeze Russian assets inside Ukraine 🇺🇦 https://twitter.com/kiraincongress/status/1498315548807028737/photo/1
Unrealistic, sure, but they are pushing a strong media and diplomatic campaign.
Doesn't look Putin is ready to back down: he said a deal "is possible only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account.
Those interests include:
– recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea – demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state – ensuring its neutral status
Ukraine said it was open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that's happened."
We should grab at this, even if it sticks in the throat. It’s close to what I’ve been proposing since this kicked off.
Ukraine to stay neutral and demilitarise; Crimea to be recognised as Russian.
I don’t know what denazification means, except the deposition of the Ukrainian government. But we can’t agree to that.
Why should Ukraine lay down its weapons?
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
Demilitarisation of Ukraine is a non-starter.
After this, so should neutrality be.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
Additionally of course, next year Putin will have fresh demands, will identify agreement 'breaches', etc...
Who says?
It is tempting to write Putin off as mad, or insatiable, or Hitler, but those don’t help the overall analysis of how we should respond to minimise bloodshed.
Who says we should respond to minimise bloodshed?
It’s not the sole criteria, of course. But its a big one.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Always been a mystery to me too! There used to be a lot of longish-distance commuters to Manchester from the Fylde (another place with a definite article) but less so nowadays. There's a lot of retirement there.
Thanks.
In my geeky local govt re-org fantasy, I’d provisionally bundled the Fylde (and Poulton-le-Fylde from the Wyre) into a Blackpool metro.
I’m guessing it would cause uproar.
It would, yes! More uproar in Fylde, I think, than Wyre. I don't think many from Lytham or Kirkham have much cause to go to Blackpool.
Perhaps on occasions, polling outcomes should cede to the moral case.
Morality, other than what is found in religious texts, in a democracy is ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follows into policy and law
Come now Ayatollah Khomeini.
Hmmm. The man with the small moustache demonstrated an immorality "in (initially at least) a democracy ... ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follow(ed) into policy and law".
Hitler on no level represented Christian morality no but he did represent the views of enough Germans for the Nazis to win most seats in the German Parliament in the 1930s.
Absent religious morality, morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time, which in turn through the elected government then influences lawmaking
I can't think of a more nebulous construct than "morality". Nonetheless "morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time" must be just plain wrong. If public opinion is immoral (e.g. support in WW2 Germany for anti-Semitism) it is by definition not moral.
I am not religious but I see the ten commandments as a pretty reasonable moral code. TV Evangelists or Catholic Priests espousing the ten commandments but ignoring a handful when it suits them is not "religious morality".
Anti Semitism is only immoral to Jews ie in religious terms as it is in opposition to the Torah and also to the Christian morality of love thy neighbour as set out in the New Testament.
There is nothing automatically immoral about anti Semitism beyond that religious morality if a majority of the public become anti Semitic. Indeed in parts of the Arab world today anti Semitism is rife unfortunately, as it is in parts of the far left
You really do have so much more in common with Jeremy Corbyn than you realise. Two peas in a pod!
Perhaps on occasions, polling outcomes should cede to the moral case.
Morality, other than what is found in religious texts, in a democracy is ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follows into policy and law
Come now Ayatollah Khomeini.
Hmmm. The man with the small moustache demonstrated an immorality "in (initially at least) a democracy ... ultimately determined by the majority of public opinion which the elected government then follow(ed) into policy and law".
Hitler on no level represented Christian morality no but he did represent the views of enough Germans for the Nazis to win most seats in the German Parliament in the 1930s.
Absent religious morality, morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time, which in turn through the elected government then influences lawmaking
I can't think of a more nebulous construct than "morality". Nonetheless "morality is just simply the view of the majority of public opinion at the time" must be just plain wrong. If public opinion is immoral (e.g. support in WW2 Germany for anti-Semitism) it is by definition not moral.
I am not religious but I see the ten commandments as a pretty reasonable moral code. TV Evangelists or Catholic Priests espousing the ten commandments but ignoring a handful when it suits them is not "religious morality".
Anti Semitism is only immoral to Jews ie in religious terms as it is in opposition to the Torah and also to the Christian morality of love thy neighbour as set out in the New Testament.
There is nothing automatically immoral about anti Semitism beyond that religious morality if a majority of the public become anti Semitic. Indeed in parts of the Arab world today anti Semitism is rife unfortunately, as it is in parts of the far left
Arabs are of course a Semitic people. Tell an Iranian that he's from an Arab state and you're asking for trouble.
At the request of the Ukrainian government, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has spoken to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the Elysée palace has said in a statement:
The president reiterated the international community’s demand that [Russia] halt its offensive against Ukraine, and reaffirmed the necessity of immediately establishing a ceasefire. With ceasefire talks between Kyiv and Moscow under way on the Belarus border, Macron also asked Putin to ensure that for the duration of the negotiations all strikes and attacks on civilians and their homes would be halted, civilian infrastructure would be preserved, and all main roads – particularly the road south out of Kyiv – would remain safe to use.
Putin “confirmed his willingness to commit to all three points”, the Elysée statement said.
I agree with you entirely but Russia's Useful Green Idiots have been opposing the bit in bold.
@Richard_Tyndall is 100% right we need hydrocarbons to get us through the transition to clean energy and we should be developing our own instead of importing it from Putin and Sheiks.
The loony elements of the Green movement oppose any and all exploration and extraction of domestic hydrocarbons. That does play into the hands of the likes of Putin who simply ignore those loons and do as they please.
Dixiedean:
One may say the same about those who have fought tooth and nail to prevent anything to restrict the demand side. We hear surprisingly little about that from the other side. It's going to take both to get anywhere near.
Somebody made a good point, it isn't just green policy that's preventing fracking in the UK, its nimby-ism. Just as everybody supports other people paying higher taxes, so everybody supports cheaper gas drawn from fields near others.
To make it work, the government needs incentives for people to agree for their areas to be fracked.
In case you've missed it, my attitude to NIMBYs is long-established. I have as little respect for NIMBYs here as I do anywhere and they would if it were up to me get the exact same response as I'd give them elsewhere. Fuck NIMBYs.
However incentivising areas that get fracked is a very good idea, and is what the Americans have done very successfully.
That’s easy - let local authorities rather than central government levy taxes on production. If everyone in your district gets a cheque instead of a council tax bill, people might suddenly be in favour of it.
Trouble with this, is that knowing the average Local Authority, they'll waste the entire windfall on some ill thought-out scheme to invest in Dutch tulips, and end up demanding a council tax increase instead.
A better system would be that say 80% of the windfall was distributed as a council tax reduction (but in no way controlled by the council), and 20% went directly to the council budget. That would provide the right incentives all round, but prevent local councils from doing too much stupid stuff with the windfall. (This would be a better arrangement than all the S106 planning stuff too).
The irony with fracking is that there is virtually nothing for the nimby's to get excided about anyway - if it didn't need lots of planning consent etc, they would never even notice it happening - it's just that somehow the crusties have convinced the world fracking will result in the four horsemen of the apocalypse appearing on the street.
Visit the Fylde. It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits. Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I don’t get the Fylde. Isn’t it next to Blackpool? Where is the money coming from?
Always been a mystery to me too! There used to be a lot of longish-distance commuters to Manchester from the Fylde (another place with a definite article) but less so nowadays. There's a lot of retirement there.
Thanks.
In my geeky local govt re-org fantasy, I’d provisionally bundled the Fylde (and Poulton-le-Fylde from the Wyre) into a Blackpool metro.
I’m guessing it would cause uproar.
It would, yes! More uproar in Fylde, I think, than Wyre. I don't think many from Lytham or Kirkham have much cause to go to Blackpool.
Comments
Most Ukrainians will want to be closer to home in the hope that they can return there quickly.
This is wrong on two counts.
Firstly, there's no windfall right now as fracking is not currently economic in the UK.
Secondly, I have spent an awful lot of time around this industry, and holy fuck you would notice. Getting the rig into position. Drilling 24 hours a day. And then the sound of the diesel compressors getting the water pressure up. Yeah, you'd notice.
https://twitter.com/Mr_John_Oxley/status/1498318853507538945
As for demitilitirisation: why should Ukraine demilitarise?
When doing a search for this, I just came across the following from TASS. They're obsessed with Nazis.
"Russian army’s main clashes in Ukraine are with neo-Nazis - Putin
Russian President stressed that the Ukrainian nationalists were playing the role of the army’s ‘blocking detachments’"
https://tass.com/russia/1411363
(*) Yes, I know Ukraine has a problem with neo-Nazis. But there's no way the state is Nazi.
I mean, I can see the other things - no NATO (fine) and Crimea should never have been part of Ukraine.
But ultimately, Russia doesn't get to choose its neighbour government, or whether they are allowed an army - especially when it is Russia who goes around invading other countries.
I know it sticks in the liberal craw (and I’m much more liberal than you), but if we want to avoid more butchery…
In the first instance this is a judgment call for Ukraine, but it is NATO’s weaponry and US/EU economic heft that are Ukraine are calling upon here.
If that is the full list, that would suggest to me that Putin may not even be in charge of the main prioritising for the conflict any longer. That's a bit of a claim and may be jumping the gun, but I think there's some possible sign of it there.
Rosie Duffield, meanwhile, becomes leader of the Labour party, much to the delight of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or what's left of them, anyway).
These uppity women going for the top job, eh? Can't have that...
Though there remains the question about the mass murderer in the Kremlin.
It's very posh people with 4 and 5 bedroom houses and multiple cars. I don't think they are brainwashed by crusties for their heavily Tory voting habits.
Yet almost every house has anti-fracking posters.
I'm just hyper sensitive to any excuses or explanations for Putin's actions. Some parts of right wing Twitter were celebrating Putin's threat of nuclear war: "told you we shouldn't have pissed him off!".
At the same time, I'm pretty nervous about us getting a bit too involved in Ukraine and really setting him off. These drone strikes are just devastating the Russian columns and it's utterly humiliating.
Ukraine lays down its weapons. Russia pauses briefly, then reinvades, and is able to visit considerably more butchery due to a lack of Ukrainian defence. We're into ethnic cleansing scenarios.
And then Russia, empowered, moves on to Estonia...
If we had taken a hard line stance over this Russia would have already cultivated alternative capital sources and markets which we would have no control over and no ability to curb.
The whole moaning about the City being hooked on Russian money and Londongrad etc... is a really bad take because allowing it to go through London gives us this power over the Russian and other economies that we wouldn't otherwise have. As Putin has now realised the British government has got it's boot on the neck of the Russian economy. Had we listened to the morons who kept saying we shouldn't allow this business to take place in London we'd simply be hoping that the Singapore government would do it or the Chinese would order the HK executive to block it.
After this, Ukraine ought to be expedited into NATO to prevent a re-run of this ever happening again.
I think they need to get their chequebooks out for storage for next winter. Six months moratorium on Russian gas, then they can take a view on whether to switch supplies back on in the Autumn.
As @rcs1000 says, lucky for us the invasion wasn't earlier. Thank Xi and his Olympics.
I think I might do that daily.
We’re disagreeing about where the line is perhaps.
Should “ethnic cleansing” commence, that is another line.
But these things haven’t happened and Putin is not threatening them.
I’m very very very interested in how to stop the current crisis. If Putin is making an offer here we should focus on whether we can agree a deal.
Job 2: figure out how to stop a re-invasion of Ukraine.
By being the world capital of finance we have their wallets in a vice that we can, when we choose, weaponise and clamp down upon. If we unilaterally abandoned that position, the finance would go elsewhere and the ability to sanction them would too.
There is an excellent piece in the FT today breaking down Russian Central Bank sovereign reserves and how they can be sanctioned. TL;DR summary: the UK and USA combined have a lot of power to weaponise, sanction and disrupt hundreds of billions of Russian state-owned reserves.
"Such deliveries might become targets of hostile military action... we have to ensure the security of Hungary ... that we are not getting involved in that war," Szijjarto said
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1498317093799964674
But I just have dread this morning.
Ukraine's independence needs to be assured. That means they need an independent military. Russia doesn't want that.
(1) Under Putin's definition it would preclude Ukrainian membership of the EU, or an independent Ukrainian foreign policy. It would be effectively vassal state status, but minus Russian military occupation, and,
(2) The whole concept of neutrality as we've understood it is falling apart as a result of this crisis. Switzerland is implementing EU sanctions on Russia. Ireland describes its position as, "neutral, but not neutral". This makes the prospect of Ukraine declaring neutrality a bit meaningless.
If there was any prospect of Ukraine joining NATO we would be a million miles from that
I don't want to sell 44 million people into Russian servitude.
Remember the Holodomor.
From what we've seen, even taking it all with a pinch or two of salt, there's no chance that they will be able to hold any city from the ground if they leave it intact.
I fear for Kharkiv, although we can hope that carpet bombing Russian speakers might turn out to be the last straw in all this.
Yes, Kyiv and Kharkiv have been shelled for the first time since 1941.
Two men gave such an order — Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.
Demilitarisation and denazification could be achieved within hours by Putin. He just needs to order the retreat.
There used to be a lot of longish-distance commuters to Manchester from the Fylde (another place with a definite article) but less so nowadays.
There's a lot of retirement there.
This is a situation where a line has to be drawn, and if we don't draw it here we will be faced with the necessity of drawing it somewhere closer to home later.
There is nothing automatically immoral about anti Semitism beyond that religious morality if a majority of the public become anti Semitic. Indeed in parts of the Arab world today anti Semitism is rife unfortunately, as it is in parts of the far left
It is tempting to write Putin off as mad, or insatiable, or Hitler, but those don’t help the overall analysis of how we should respond to minimise bloodshed.
The Ukraine-Russia peace talks ended with no results, the two sides agreed to meet at the Polish-Belarus border in the upcoming days.
Start slowly and just ramp the demands up month by month, year by year until you've gotten everything...
In the end no extension to the scheme today … Home Office still looking at options
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1498231845401645057
When the Mongols came calling, Kyiv was one of the biggest cities in Europe. Of 50,000 citizens, 48,000 were killed.
Then a long slog of servitude and serfdom to various overlords.
https://twitter.com/FerdiGiugliano/status/1498333860504948736
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1498327915968217104?s=20&t=PDYzCR7keuIbGzT5KwUYUA
It's an account of his two and a half years in an FSB torture camp. I've ordered a copy of the paperback reprint which comes out at the end of this month.
The camp is apparently still in operation.
In my geeky local govt re-org fantasy, I’d provisionally bundled the Fylde (and Poulton-le-Fylde from the Wyre) into a Blackpool metro.
I’m guessing it would cause uproar.
Putin will really hate Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians now because they have made a fool of him. The destruction of Ukrainian cities will be personal.
His demands are a complete non starter though, so right now those talks aren't going to get anywhere - not even to mention the fact he (I think) isn't bringing up Donbass as the Ukrainians will need to negotiate separately with those individuals.
My guess is that if the Ukrainians can hang on for another week, then the exit ramp will be looking very attractive to the Kremlin, "Neutral and no return of Crimea" seems to be the bottom line, but there are still a lot of issues to work through on the Russian side.
BTW if I were Oleksander Lukashenka tonight I would be feeling very nervous indeed.
But its a big one.
Edit: I meant Raab and Johnson. Apparently Hunt was FS for five minutes.