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Punters give LAB a 94% chance of winning Erdington by-election – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    edited March 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    Isn’t this what you were complaining the U.K. government is NOT doing?

    Freezing is not the same as confiscation.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    So Boris the Tribune and Great White Hope of the Ukrainians, is NOT quite measuring up to his own billing?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    Been an American since he was 6.
    But he is ROOOOOSIAN!

    I rather think the Russian government takes a view that born there etc....

    I remember a briefing by an oil company that when travelling to Russia, you needed to be careful of having enough immediate ancestors to claim Russian citizenship.

    Apparently it wasn't unknown for the Russians to say that since you had a couple of Russian grandparents, you are a Russian citizen, have a nice jail cell for invented crimes. And then start asking for a processing fee to get you out.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    Isn’t this what you were complaining the U.K. government is NOT doing?

    Freezing is not the same as confiscation.
    Indeed, freezing and confiscation are completely different!
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191
    Lets hope Boris doesn't stray too far from the brief case which contains the deterence button.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    That's the exception that proves the rule.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    Isn’t this what you were complaining the U.K. government is NOT doing?

    Freezing is not the same as confiscation.
    "Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated"

    Leave it, mate. A bellyflop for the ages, and you know it.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    What are you proposing outside existing law?
    Reverse the burden of proof, limit compensation in case the govt gets it wrong to the return of the actual assets. Which menas we can do things now and not in about the 3rd week of May.
    Immediately? That doesn't give Russian Tory donors much time to liquidate their assets.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    No, because Parliament is sovereign, it could repeal the HRA and in that scenario where a government intending to stop girls' education I'd expect that to happen on day one.
    But stopped by the European court? We haven't lost that protection against government caprice and tyranny with Brexit, have we?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    Have we done this?
    Yet another scandal in the shambles which is "care" for vulnerable children.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/03/excluded-children-funds-bolton-bar-owners-social-life
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,521
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    We do not have a codified constitution. It can all be changed by parliamentary statute.
    What about the ECHR?
    We can be kicked out of it or leave it (I am not advocating that) but again all it would take is an act of Parliament - or the repeal of an act.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    Been an American since he was 6.
    But he is ROOOOOSIAN!

    I rather think the Russian government takes a view that born there etc....

    I remember a briefing by an oil company that when travelling to Russia, you needed to be careful of having enough immediate ancestors to claim Russian citizenship.

    Apparently it wasn't unknown for the Russians to say that since you had a couple of Russian grandparents, you are a Russian citizen, have a nice jail cell for invented crimes. And then start asking for a processing fee to get you out.
    People are making this more complicated than it needs to be. We will surely have intelligence files on most of the sensible targets already. Cross check with US and EU lists. Pick the top 10 or 20 by wealth and closeness of connection to the Kremlin (regardless of nationality). Freeze their UK assets until they satisfy some criteria.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited March 2022

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?
    Isn’t this what you were complaining the U.K. government is NOT doing?

    Freezing is not the same as confiscation.
    Indeed, freezing and confiscation are completely different!
    ...except to the kind of meisterthinker who writes "Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated..."
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    That's the exception that proves the rule.
    I know you are joking, but others might not.

    There are rather a lot of Russians who left Russia because of what has happened there for decades. Many of them were highly educated and formed an dispora, in many ways not dissimilar to the Jews leaving Europe before the war. Mind you, many are Jewish as well.

    Tons of them in IT in the city.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    You are not suggesting the only thing we can infer, Usamov moved quick, all his money is in safe place already?
    If he moved his money to Russia then it is rapidly de-valuing. Elsewhere it is likely to be frozen in due course, although this might take a while. Eventually it might be sequestered for reparations in Ukrane.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    That's the exception that proves the rule.
    What about those Russian firms that invested in Facebook. Another exception?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    edited March 2022
    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    Been an American since he was 6.
    But he is ROOOOOSIAN!

    I rather think the Russian government takes a view that born there etc....

    I remember a briefing by an oil company that when travelling to Russia, you needed to be careful of having enough immediate ancestors to claim Russian citizenship.

    Apparently it wasn't unknown for the Russians to say that since you had a couple of Russian grandparents, you are a Russian citizen, have a nice jail cell for invented crimes. And then start asking for a processing fee to get you out.
    People are making this more complicated than it needs to be. We will surely have intelligence files on most of the sensible targets already. Cross check with US and EU lists. Pick the top 10 or 20 by wealth and closeness of connection to the Kremlin (regardless of nationality). Freeze their UK assets until they satisfy some criteria.
    Absolutely. And while I am at it I will add some names to the end of the list. Wrong 'uns. Eyes a bit close together. You know the types.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Swedish defence minister on main news telling viewers to ignore American “propaganda” (his word) claiming Russia about to attack Finland and Sweden.

    Swedes don’t “do” angry, but if they did, he was there.

    US would be wise to do teamwork a bit better.

    Well, who was right about Russia attacking countries the last time?
    I’m
    TimS said:

    I've been wondering about the Russian government's use of "Nazis" as a term of abuse, and the weird context in which it is being deployed.

    I wonder if "Nazi" means something very different to the average Russian compared to someone in the West.

    When we think of Nazis, the dominant features are the antisemitic underpinnings, Kristallnacht, the holocaust, the brownshirts, the Nuremberg rallies.

    Maybe that stuff is just less in the foreground with Russia. Maybe to them Nazis means militaristic nationalists from the West who want to invade and subjugate us? More how Western Europe viewed the Prussians/Germans before WW1.

    That would explain the rather odd context in which they are talking about neo-Nazis. Either that or they are just going classic Godwin.

    Godwin needs thrown out the window. We must be free to point out nascent fascism.
    Godwin is about stuff like "Greta is a Nazi because I hate her"
    Not things like "The head of the Wagner Group is a Nazi. Because he has actually Nazi tattoos. And espouses Nazi policies."
    You say that, but in actual fact, some dickhead always brings it up, even when the comparison is spot-on.
    I think, although it doesn't expressly say this, it is better construed as applying only to accusations against participants in the conversation: If you think that you are LITERALLY HITLER!
    But again, that is not how Godwin is used, or rather misused.

    IMHO Godwin’s Law is actually assisting the new generation of fascists, because people fear pointing out the flippin obvious.
    How dare people call me a Nazi just because I believe in defending the white race and have ‘humorously’ popped off the odd Hitlergruß; liberals should condemn less and understand more.
    hmmm, steward's enquiry for knowing what it's called and having the Eszett immediately to hand.
    I use the Eszett out of habit when sending papers to German academics - when writing Strasse and so on. Didn't know this was ideologically unsound.
    I have 7 keyboards to hand as I use snippets of various languages quite a lot.

    Currently: Swedish, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Castilian and German. Makes it dead easy to russle up an Eszett eller dylikt.
    Rustle.

    :lol:
    My English gets worse by the day. Occupational hazard of my own personal language shift.

    (I did wonder why the word was rejected by my keyboard dictionary. It’s usually because I use a lot of Scots, which lacks a keyboard.)
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    biggles said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Random snippets on Ukraine:

    - Probably a qtwtain thought, what if Ukraine actively tried to turn the Russian soldiers and assets who are currently deserting. OK, offensive weaponry but the appeal to some of a let's weaken Putin for this is no. zero for some.

    - Putin being mad. As analysis its useless. Why mad, what is eating him, he was always cynically pragmatic in this stuff. Why now? - legacy, fear of death? Kremlinology, it appears, hasn't got easier since the cold war.

    - OK, better analyses. He's surrounded by spooks and public sector kleptocrsts, not really oligarchs any more.

    - Is there are red line for the West inside Ukraine? I accept NATO holding out, but what if Kyiv goes the full Stalingrad - there is a point at which we have to act even under credible nuclear threat?

    - If we do act under nuclear threat. and Russia malke good on their threat, how many nukes will they actually get away once refusal plays it's part? We ridiculed the idea of winning a nuclear war, with good reason, but could we survive and "win" a somewhat partial Armageddon?

    - Western values can hold under lockdown, under martial law - the will to move back is what is needed. Is Boris and his cronyist me morality a good leader for Armageddon?

    I think we would, rationally, have to act in “pre-emptive self defence”. I.e. If tactical nukes were used in Ukraine and we were certain there was a ticking clock to an invasion of the likes of Estonia. But it would require unanimity I think. So a pretty high bar.
    That “first strike” chatter is increasing. We’re all fucked.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    The ones who have not donated to the Tory party can be fast tracked. For the rest the hope is the war will be over before we get around to do anything....
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    rcs1000 said:

    boulay said:

    IanB2 said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Aslan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EU states have seized assets

    The UK has not

    France, a yacht - what else?

    The UK has closed its ports to Russian shipping - has the EU?
    More significantly we've closed our insurance and banking markets to Russian companies. That's much more significant than any individual sanctions.
    Yes, we could have been faster going after oligarchs, but no we shouldn’t throw due process out the window to do so - and this fetishisation of oligarchs is ignoring the more substantive work that has been done. I suspect there is some embarrassment in the EU over their handbrake turn on Russia, but so be it. Unity is more important than nit picking.
    I was the biggest critic of the EU a week ago but they have fully turned around and are now moving faster than the Brits. Boris needs to stop dragging his feet on dodgy foreign money.
    The EU don't have our independent rule of law, or our financial sector.

    Getting this right is more important than getting it rushed, and there's a reason the USA (also with independent rule of law and a key financial sector) is following the same timescale too.

    Easy for the EU to rush ahead, then realise they've gone down a blind alley and retreat. No harm in that, but this isn't as key to them.

    If we start going slower than the USA then that would be bizarre. But we're not, and the UK and USA have move pretty much in lockstep on this sharing intelligence and taking the lead.
    I knew you'd come over in the end. Good old sclerosis, eh?

    This "rule of law" thing that we have and Johnny foreigner doesn't, is a red herring. I can promise you that all UN recognised countries have well defined written legal codes, and adherence to them is not voluntary, at least in first world countries which are not France. So what are you on about? And how does whatever you are on about sit with your defence of this government breaking treaty obligations? does the rule of law not apply there?

    The first test where Indy UK can nimbly beat EU to the draw because of the sovereignty of parliament, and it turns out the EU are displaying the WRONG SORT of nimbleness.
    No the rule of law doesn't apply to international law, which is more as they say guidelines than actual rules. The rule of law applies to domestic law which trumps international law in domestic courts.

    Ask any legal expert on this site, of which there are many, and they've said for years how special the UK's legal system is and how it is so highly regarded. There is a reason contracts all over the globe get signed under the UK's legal system and that's because of the true independence of our judiciary and our respect for the rule of law.

    Not every first world nation has the same respect for law, and Common Law, that England has.

    We should not throw that baby out with the bathwater. Sanctions absolutely, but they must follow the rule of law.

    And Parliament passing primary legislation or abusing its prerogative to target individuals rather than setting a framework through which individuals who fall afoul of the law are targeted, is utterly repugnant and unBritish.
    If you are quoting POTC you are losing.

    I spent ten years as a solicitor conducting litigation about two thirds in London and one third in random overseas jurisdictions. English courts are revered for their impartiality and thoroughness but not for speed of results, which is a factor here, wouldn't you say?

    I don't otherwise understand what you are on about. How is legislation aimed at corrupt foreign citizens "targeting individuals?" Again, if you are talking about my Let's Bankrupt Abramovich Act I was JOKING.
    Because the whole fucking point is that it's the executive telling us these people are corrupt, I don't trust Boris and Priti, why do you?
    Really? It looks to me as if they are protecting them. But anyway the proposed law would define who was fdorrupt and not, and anyone who thought they weren't corrupt could go to court to prove it.
    Legislation should not define who is corrupt. The law should define what is corrupt and the courts should determine if someone meets that standard or not.

    Passing laws to define individual people as guilty in repressive.
    Jesus. Legislation IS the law. Like Judge Dredd. If legislation can define theft and (some forms of) rape and GBH what is the problem with it defining corruption?

    Our problem is we are slow when we need to be fast. So we need to speed things up. So we pass a law saying Sorry, emergency, we can now confiscate stuff from people who seem to us to be relevantly corrupt on immediate notice. Anyone who disagrees about being corrupt can go to court about it, if they are right they get their stuff back but limited costs and no consequential damagews because, like we said, emergency. problem solved. Or, we can give Boris's tennis mate months to offshore his assets. Which is better?

    This sort of stuff happens all the time. look what we did to people and their property in the World Wars, or look at unexplained wealth orders.
    An unexplained wealth order asset seizure is tested in court though, that is the executive accusing someone of being a corrupt arsehole. What you're proposing is the government naming people in law as corrupt arseholes with essentially no right of appeal short of getting the primary legislation repealed.

    What may be legally possible isn't morally correct. I'd rather the government didn't name individuals in primary legislation to strip of their property rights in the UK. You might for expediency but I'd prefer we not go down that route and the government prepare a compelling case within the existing framework to target individuals and not legislate them as corrupt.
    I DID NOT PROPOSE NAMING THEM
    If not, how do you propose confiscating their assets?
    bloody hell

    I can pass a law outlawing rape by defining the act and then going looking for people perpetrating it, no? I don't have to name all the present or future suspects in a schedule, do I? What's different?
    But what exactly would you be outlawing? Being Russian and a billionaire?
    SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!!!

    THIS IS SOMETHING!!!!

    LETS DO IT!!!!!
    All for public consumption. Guilty of being Russian. Why don’t we put all Russians in internment camps while we are at it.
    Just the very rich ones.

    After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google, the IPad, or a cure for cancer, are there? They got their wealth through theft, violence and corruption and are on a par with the worst of the wealthy Africans inside corrupt regimes.
    That’s simply not true. I know two Russian billionaires who made all their money from creating software first then invested globally in other software businesses and property. They are in their late 30’s and will not have any investments in Russia because they do not want to come under the influence of the bad actors there.

    They live in London - do we take their money because they are “Russian”? There are plenty of others like them.

    Plenty, really?

    Forbes estimates 63 billionaires (of all nationalities) living in London, not sure how many are Russian, but there surely can't be plenty without at least past connections to the Kremlin. A handful at most.
    "After all, there aren’t any Russians who got rich by inventing Google..."

    Sergey Mikhailovich Brin. Co-Founder of..... Google.

    Born on August 21, 1973, in Moscow in the Soviet Union.

    Not sure if he a dual national or has renounced Russian citizenship

    Can you renounce Russian citizenship?
    That's the exception that proves the rule.
    I know you are joking, but others might not.

    There are rather a lot of Russians who left Russia because of what has happened there for decades. Many of them were highly educated and formed an dispora, in many ways not dissimilar to the Jews leaving Europe before the war. Mind you, many are Jewish as well.

    Tons of them in IT in the city.
    I am indeed joking: many of the people who pioneered high frequency trading were Russian.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826

    I said at the outset of this thing that the UK ought to have a special visa for highly skilled Russian migrants, especially those with STEM qualifications.

    Brain drain them into oblivion.

    As I mentioned earlier it is already happening. Russians are leaving and unlike Ukrainians they don't want to go back to their home country.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    That was always a key objective for them.
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191

    Why is Truss announcing individual sanctions?

    Don’t these belong to another department, maybe Justice or the Home Office?

    No it belongs to the Foreign Office. See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-sanctions-against-russian-oligarchs-alisher-usmanov-and-igor-shuvalov
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,133
    edited March 2022

    I said at the outset of this thing that the UK ought to have a special visa for highly skilled Russian migrants, especially those with STEM qualifications.

    Brain drain them into oblivion.

    A good idea in the short-term, but if and when Putin falls that kind of outlook could be part of the early 1990's again for Russia, redux. Cue the next cycle of implosion and embittered, autocratic rebuilding.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    edited March 2022
    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Yeah this is where my “principled sovereignty” case for leaving the EU in a hard Brexit whilst supporting open borders and zero trade barriers is open to a tad of criticism. Basically my view is I am more free because a future U.K. Government has the right to trample all over what I think are my rights but no EU law can do so. I appreciate I am open to ridicule.

    Also means I’ve had some very odd fellow travellers.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    edited March 2022

    I said at the outset of this thing that the UK ought to have a special visa for highly skilled Russian migrants, especially those with STEM qualifications.

    Brain drain them into oblivion.

    As I mentioned earlier it is already happening. Russians are leaving and unlike Ukrainians they don't want to go back to their home country.
    Yeah, but I want them to go to the UK, not other countries.

    Give them a modest financial inducement to locate to Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingham and we can tick the levelling up box, too.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    Mykolenko captains Everton tonight.
    Boreham Wood's right-back Kane Smith got a ticket for the away end at Spurs on Monday.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Pensfold said:

    Why is Truss announcing individual sanctions?

    Don’t these belong to another department, maybe Justice or the Home Office?

    No it belongs to the Foreign Office. See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-sanctions-against-russian-oligarchs-alisher-usmanov-and-igor-shuvalov
    Which would be persuasive if it related to another case a couple of years back, but doesn't affect the suggestion that Insta Liz has annexed this ground from a neighbouring department today
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,747
    I spoke to a Moscow based Russian today. He is out of foreign currency. He is also more or less out of roubles. Because his cards don’t work and he can’t draw more without an appointment at the bank, which are hard to come by. And prices are presumably already rising. I expect he is typical. Better placed than most actually given his income level and education. Described it as the darkest days in Russia in his lifetime.

    After Lehman’s collapsed, I recall Robert Peston wetting his pants about the ATMs not working the next day, so the clunking fist printed money to bail out all the banks. What is happening in Russia this week is what happens without a viable route to the bail out. It’s remarkable how little coverage this is getting. Not so good for viewing figures as war porn I suppose.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    They do make a rod for their own back - all the “world leading/beating” bollocks doesn’t really help as everyone knows they are mendacious bullshitters and it just gives easy targets.

    They need to be more submarine and not spout shit, just get on quietly under the surface unleashing sanctions missiles.

    And they need to get over that bollocks about being excited about being surrounded by wealthy people as that’s how they get in this mess. Fund raiser BE (just as a random choice of letters) gets pulled deeper into the super high roller club and loves the lifestyle so overlooks what’s best for the country - if you don’t put the country first then fuck off out of politics and stick to other hobbies.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,148
    MattW said:

    A video from Sub Brief analysing the first stages of the war

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0B47alAkY

    Some stuff we've covered, but some angles I hadn't heard before.

    Just off to watch it, but a small red flag that Aron has admitted his lack of knowledge of a lot of the stuff wrt to Ukraine on previous vids.

    He is quite good at ferreting out and summarising news, though.
    An excellent summary from a good range of sources.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    FA Cup quarters.
    Saints v City
    Boro v Chelsea
    Forest/Huddersfield v Liverpool
    Palace v Everton/B Wood
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874
    moonshine said:

    I spoke to a Moscow based Russian today. He is out of foreign currency. He is also more or less out of roubles. Because his cards don’t work and he can’t draw more without an appointment at the bank, which are hard to come by. And prices are presumably already rising. I expect he is typical. Better placed than most actually given his income level and education. Described it as the darkest days in Russia in his lifetime.

    After Lehman’s collapsed, I recall Robert Peston wetting his pants about the ATMs not working the next day, so the clunking fist printed money to bail out all the banks. What is happening in Russia this week is what happens without a viable route to the bail out. It’s remarkable how little coverage this is getting. Not so good for viewing figures as war porn I suppose.

    It was in fact Northern Rock which brought home how banking failure could lead swiftly to panic and disorder. We were also very close to having the RBS machines shut down as well so there's an acute understanding of how the slightest hint of problems in the financial sector can escalate into full scale disaster.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    That was always a key objective for them.
    Only against the Scots.....
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    moonshine said:

    I spoke to a Moscow based Russian today. He is out of foreign currency. He is also more or less out of roubles. Because his cards don’t work and he can’t draw more without an appointment at the bank, which are hard to come by. And prices are presumably already rising. I expect he is typical. Better placed than most actually given his income level and education. Described it as the darkest days in Russia in his lifetime.

    After Lehman’s collapsed, I recall Robert Peston wetting his pants about the ATMs not working the next day, so the clunking fist printed money to bail out all the banks. What is happening in Russia this week is what happens without a viable route to the bail out. It’s remarkable how little coverage this is getting. Not so good for viewing figures as war porn I suppose.

    Why can't they print roubles?
    Is that a daft question?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Parliament can pass whatever law it likes. If you believe that the law is contrary to the Human Rights Act you can challenge it in court. Some laws have been ruled unlawful on this basis, but generally Parliament can remedy that by passing another law.
    Human Rights protection should be at international level, I'd say, or at least European, otherwise a UK government could repeal it, remote as that might seem as a possibility.

    But, yes, thanks, I get it now. Parliament is like Eddie and the Hot Rods. Does anything it wants to do.
  • NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758
    Does the Russian constitution have a mechanism for replacing a President who is incapacitated or insane?
  • Gary_BurtonGary_Burton Posts: 737
    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822

    Does the Russian constitution have a mechanism for replacing a President who is incapacitated or insane?

    A bullet?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited March 2022

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    "tight" as in somebody might actually have to count them to confirm a big majority rather than just weigh them?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,148
    biggles said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Random snippets on Ukraine:

    - Probably a qtwtain thought, what if Ukraine actively tried to turn the Russian soldiers and assets who are currently deserting. OK, offensive weaponry but the appeal to some of a let's weaken Putin for this is no. zero for some.

    - Putin being mad. As analysis its useless. Why mad, what is eating him, he was always cynically pragmatic in this stuff. Why now? - legacy, fear of death? Kremlinology, it appears, hasn't got easier since the cold war.

    - OK, better analyses. He's surrounded by spooks and public sector kleptocrsts, not really oligarchs any more.

    - Is there are red line for the West inside Ukraine? I accept NATO holding out, but what if Kyiv goes the full Stalingrad - there is a point at which we have to act even under credible nuclear threat?

    - If we do act under nuclear threat. and Russia malke good on their threat, how many nukes will they actually get away once refusal plays it's part? We ridiculed the idea of winning a nuclear war, with good reason, but could we survive and "win" a somewhat partial Armageddon?

    - Western values can hold under lockdown, under martial law - the will to move back is what is needed. Is Boris and his cronyist me morality a good leader for Armageddon?

    I think we would, rationally, have to act in “pre-emptive self defence”. I.e. If tactical nukes were used in Ukraine and we were certain there was a ticking clock to an invasion of the likes of Estonia. But it would require unanimity I think. So a pretty high bar.
    On redlines, perhaps if Putin tried a USSR-style extermination of a proportion of the population.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    We do not have a codified constitution. It can all be changed by parliamentary statute.
    What about the ECHR?
    We can be kicked out of it or leave it (I am not advocating that) but again all it would take is an act of Parliament - or the repeal of an act.
    Just have to trust Parliament and the People to not go off the rails then, I suppose. Fair enough, but I would prefer something over and above to ensure the essentials.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,133
    edited March 2022
    Local ceasefires and humanitarian corridors agreed. if only it was a national ceasefire.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    The great satan:

    image

    Crivvens. A world where I am firmly, nay eagerly in agreement with Iran’s Ahmedinnerjacket

    Topsyturvy times
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
    It would be easier to have faith in democracy if Western countries had not been electing increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic governments over the last two decades. We are also facing massive technological change that may be particularly useful for authoritarian regimes to track and control individuals. Fears are well founded, and those who dismiss them are being naive.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874


    That “first strike” chatter is increasing. We’re all fucked.

    I find it incredible there are individuals actively promoting the idea of going to war with Russia. It may well be the last thing we do and the cost is incalculable.

    So far, Putin has been scrupulously careful to avoid any contact with NATO forces or territory. We have to do the dame - that's the rules of the game.

    Yes, we can and should get angry about the senseless deaths and ruination of the Ukraine but ultimately we cannot and must not actively intervene or be involved. Supplying weapons is as far as we can go. The "we must stand up to the bully" crowd are getting into the same psychosis of 1914 - as somehow, war will solve all our problems.

    Unlike 1914, of course, it would all be over by Christmas if not Easter if not Cheltenham week.

    The economic "campaign" against Russia has been far more united and effective than seemed likely a month ago - credit to the EU for doing their bit as well. The Russians are for now hearing their version of "the truth" and I've seen more than one of the QAnon lunatics who claim Putin's military operation is backed by Trump and aimed at clearing "deep state elements" out of Ukraine (apparently). After that, we are told we must "wake up" (whatever that nonsense means).

    I don't mind people talking pish but how do we de-programme these poor brainwashed souls?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
    It would be easier to have faith in democracy if Western countries had not been electing increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic governments over the last two decades. We are also facing massive technological change that may be particularly useful for authoritarian regimes to track and control individuals. Fears are well founded, and those who dismiss them are being naive.
    But who's to say that the faceless technocrat won't also do the same, at least with politicians we can vote them out.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,383

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    Pure expectation management. Labour will win easily.
  • Gary_BurtonGary_Burton Posts: 737

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    "tight" as in somebody might actually have to count them to confirm a big majority rather than just weigh them?
    I can see an extremely low turnout of around 25% and its possible that Labour does not even manage 10000 votes but I would be surprised if the Labour majority was lower than 10% in the worst case scenario.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
    It would be easier to have faith in democracy if Western countries had not been electing increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic governments over the last two decades. We are also facing massive technological change that may be particularly useful for authoritarian regimes to track and control individuals. Fears are well founded, and those who dismiss them are being naive.
    But who's to say that the faceless technocrat won't also do the same, at least with politicians we can vote them out.
    Dividing power between different branches of government reduces the power of the executive. An all powerful parliament, led by an executive that is not checked by its MPs is not a good system in the long run.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    Can Smithson Jnr or some other financial whizz explain what the practicalities of the Russian position now are. Surely they have to get money out there somehow. Maybe they fear rampant inflation but I can't see removing all the money as being the answer.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
  • As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,383
    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    It’s been going on for weeks. I know someone has been working on them. Long days and weekend working too. As you say they had the intelligence.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    I may have heard this one before.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    If you are right, it was bad luck that they started planning in advance but not far enough in advance, wasn't it? And why did the timescale change from weeks or months this morning to Oh look, we have already done it?

    Your premise is wrong anyway. Unless Putin is an MI5 sleeper we cannot have known the invasion was going to happen, until it did. Nobody did.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,051
    edited March 2022
    stodge said:


    That “first strike” chatter is increasing. We’re all fucked.

    I find it incredible there are individuals actively promoting the idea of going to war with Russia. It may well be the last thing we do and the cost is incalculable.

    So far, Putin has been scrupulously careful to avoid any contact with NATO forces or territory. We have to do the dame - that's the rules of the game.

    Yes, we can and should get angry about the senseless deaths and ruination of the Ukraine but ultimately we cannot and must not actively intervene or be involved. Supplying weapons is as far as we can go. The "we must stand up to the bully" crowd are getting into the same psychosis of 1914 - as somehow, war will solve all our problems.

    Unlike 1914, of course, it would all be over by Christmas if not Easter if not Cheltenham week.

    The economic "campaign" against Russia has been far more united and effective than seemed likely a month ago - credit to the EU for doing their bit as well. The Russians are for now hearing their version of "the truth" and I've seen more than one of the QAnon lunatics who claim Putin's military operation is backed by Trump and aimed at clearing "deep state elements" out of Ukraine (apparently). After that, we are told we must "wake up" (whatever that nonsense means).

    I don't mind people talking pish but how do we de-programme these poor brainwashed souls?
    Don’t put words in my mouth. You’re attacking a straw man. Still, this is the internet - you crack on. I don’t have the energy to call you names.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
    No but your post was one of those diversionary ones you do that moan about the Labour Party.

    I’m just gently pointing out that you somewhat out of date.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    Sam Freedman @Samfr

    If ever there was an example of grade inflation it's Gavin Williamson being given a knighthood.

    It's quite heartening to live in a country people who have the goods on high ups are rewarded with a knighthood not a pair of concrete clogs and a boat ride.
    Though in Williamson’s case….
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802
    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    If you are right, it was bad luck that they started planning in advance but not far enough in advance, wasn't it? And why did the timescale change from weeks or months this morning to Oh look, we have already done it?

    Your premise is wrong anyway. Unless Putin is an MI5 sleeper we cannot have known the invasion was going to happen, until it did. Nobody did.
    In these two cases the work is done, in loads of others it's not. Are you really this dense?
  • As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
    No but your post was one of those diversionary ones you do that moan about the Labour Party.

    I’m just gently pointing out that you somewhat out of date.
    You are trying to dismiss it as a moan about labour
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    It’s been going on for weeks. I know someone has been working on them. Long days and weekend working too. As you say they had the intelligence.
    Course you do. Course you do. Because people who work on this stuff definitely, definitely blab about it to people who blab about the blabbing on the internet because they think it makes them sound cool. Happens all the time. I'm one of Toby Esterhazy's lamplighters myself.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
    No but your post was one of those diversionary ones you do that moan about the Labour Party.

    I’m just gently pointing out that you somewhat out of date.
    You are trying to dismiss it as a moan about labour
    Because it basically is.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    edited March 2022

    biggles said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Random snippets on Ukraine:

    - Probably a qtwtain thought, what if Ukraine actively tried to turn the Russian soldiers and assets who are currently deserting. OK, offensive weaponry but the appeal to some of a let's weaken Putin for this is no. zero for some.

    - Putin being mad. As analysis its useless. Why mad, what is eating him, he was always cynically pragmatic in this stuff. Why now? - legacy, fear of death? Kremlinology, it appears, hasn't got easier since the cold war.

    - OK, better analyses. He's surrounded by spooks and public sector kleptocrsts, not really oligarchs any more.

    - Is there are red line for the West inside Ukraine? I accept NATO holding out, but what if Kyiv goes the full Stalingrad - there is a point at which we have to act even under credible nuclear threat?

    - If we do act under nuclear threat. and Russia malke good on their threat, how many nukes will they actually get away once refusal plays it's part? We ridiculed the idea of winning a nuclear war, with good reason, but could we survive and "win" a somewhat partial Armageddon?

    - Western values can hold under lockdown, under martial law - the will to move back is what is needed. Is Boris and his cronyist me morality a good leader for Armageddon?

    I think we would, rationally, have to act in “pre-emptive self defence”. I.e. If tactical nukes were used in Ukraine and we were certain there was a ticking clock to an invasion of the likes of Estonia. But it would require unanimity I think. So a pretty high bar.
    That “first strike” chatter is increasing. We’re all fucked.
    Except (at least on this side of the new iron curtain) none of the chatterers have a shred of power, thankfully.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    Translation: "it's in the bag", right?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
    It would be easier to have faith in democracy if Western countries had not been electing increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic governments over the last two decades. We are also facing massive technological change that may be particularly useful for authoritarian regimes to track and control individuals. Fears are well founded, and those who dismiss them are being naive.
    But who's to say that the faceless technocrat won't also do the same, at least with politicians we can vote them out.
    Dividing power between different branches of government reduces the power of the executive. An all powerful parliament, led by an executive that is not checked by its MPs is not a good system in the long run.
    But it is checked by voters, in you're scenario what's to stop the technocrats from doing all of these unnamed awful things and how do the people remove their hands from the levers of power?
  • As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
    No but your post was one of those diversionary ones you do that moan about the Labour Party.

    I’m just gently pointing out that you somewhat out of date.
    You are trying to dismiss it as a moan about labour
    Because it basically is.
    There are a number of pro Russia mps sitting on Labour's benches who should have the whip withdrawn if Starmer is not to be compromised
  • NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    Does the Russian constitution have a mechanism for replacing a President who is incapacitated or insane?

    A bullet?
    I saw that bullet coming. But seriously, those that (hopefully) remove Putin could prefer it to look constitutional, he might even fall ill and convalesce somewhere. Of course it could also be a bloody contested putsch.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,383
    edited March 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Taz said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    It’s been going on for weeks. I know someone has been working on them. Long days and weekend working too. As you say they had the intelligence.
    Course you do. Course you do. Because people who work on this stuff definitely, definitely blab about it to people who blab about the blabbing on the internet because they think it makes them sound cool. Happens all the time. I'm one of Toby Esterhazy's lamplighters myself.
    Ha ha, state of this mug. I was addressing Max not you.

    I’ve no need nor reason to lie. It was hardly a secret or broken any NDA’s. Feel free to come back with your usual retarded nonsense. I am going back to ignoring you.

    Chill.

    https://twitter.com/nathanspuns/status/1498871397149519880?s=21
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,660

    As stupid as it is, that was recorded before the war, and before the threatened expulsion.
    And that excuses it ?
    No but your post was one of those diversionary ones you do that moan about the Labour Party.

    I’m just gently pointing out that you somewhat out of date.
    You are trying to dismiss it as a moan about labour
    Because it basically is.
    There are a number of pro Russia mps sitting on Labour's benches who should have the whip withdrawn if Starmer is not to be compromised
    Go on?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    dixiedean said:

    moonshine said:

    I spoke to a Moscow based Russian today. He is out of foreign currency. He is also more or less out of roubles. Because his cards don’t work and he can’t draw more without an appointment at the bank, which are hard to come by. And prices are presumably already rising. I expect he is typical. Better placed than most actually given his income level and education. Described it as the darkest days in Russia in his lifetime.

    After Lehman’s collapsed, I recall Robert Peston wetting his pants about the ATMs not working the next day, so the clunking fist printed money to bail out all the banks. What is happening in Russia this week is what happens without a viable route to the bail out. It’s remarkable how little coverage this is getting. Not so good for viewing figures as war porn I suppose.

    Why can't they print roubles?
    Is that a daft question?
    They can indeed print roubles, which is why although @moonshine is right in his general thrust, I think he's wrong in the specifics.

    Russia should be able to keep its banking system afloat by bathing the system in newly printed roubles.

    But that all that does is shift the problem.

    Because all the roubles in the world can't change the fact that a lot of consumer goods that Russians took for granted will no longer be available in the shops. Sure, there will be domestic food and vodka, but what about imported wine, beer and spirits?

    What about the fact that spare parts for cars will rapidly run out? What about vital components used in manufacturing that need to be imported? Supply chains will be drying up everywhere, and there are very few things in Russia (or anywhere else) that can be be made entirely without some foreign widget.

    And if the factory isn't producing stuff, how does it pay its staff?

    And how will Russians react to empty shelves?

    Inflation will be horrendous.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,956
    edited March 2022
    stodge said:


    That “first strike” chatter is increasing. We’re all fucked.

    I find it incredible there are individuals actively promoting the idea of going to war with Russia. It may well be the last thing we do and the cost is incalculable.

    So far, Putin has been scrupulously careful to avoid any contact with NATO forces or territory. We have to do the dame - that's the rules of the game.

    Yes, we can and should get angry about the senseless deaths and ruination of the Ukraine but ultimately we cannot and must not actively intervene or be involved. Supplying weapons is as far as we can go. The "we must stand up to the bully" crowd are getting into the same psychosis of 1914 - as somehow, war will solve all our problems.

    Unlike 1914, of course, it would all be over by Christmas if not Easter if not Cheltenham week.

    The economic "campaign" against Russia has been far more united and effective than seemed likely a month ago - credit to the EU for doing their bit as well. The Russians are for now hearing their version of "the truth" and I've seen more than one of the QAnon lunatics who claim Putin's military operation is backed by Trump and aimed at clearing "deep state elements" out of Ukraine (apparently). After that, we are told we must "wake up" (whatever that nonsense means).

    I don't mind people talking pish but how do we de-programme these poor brainwashed souls?
    Confiscate their PS5s then (non fatally of course) gut shoot them.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874

    Does the Russian constitution have a mechanism for replacing a President who is incapacitated or insane?

    A bullet?
    I saw that bullet coming. But seriously, those that (hopefully) remove Putin could prefer it to look constitutional, he might even fall ill and convalesce somewhere. Of course it could also be a bloody contested putsch.
    A heart attack is often fatal when caused by a bullet in the right place.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,651
    Sir Gavin Williamson. Wtf
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802

    Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?

    We say "withdraw your forces back to Russia and sign this treaty which says you won't invade". A ceasefire isn't enough.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,383
    Applicant said:

    Sienna Rodgers
    @siennamarla
    ·
    4m
    Labour concernee about low turnout in Birmingham Erdington, already a very low turnout seat but by-election + bad weather doesn’t help. Labour source: “The weather’s absolutely grim and turnout is looking extremely low. It’s going to be really tight.”

    Translation: "it's in the bag", right?
    I would have said so
  • Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?

    Nothing without full withdrawal from Ukraine
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    And this is on top of Covid. And all completely pointless


    ‘LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - JPMorgan said on Thursday it expected Russia's economy to contract 35% in the second quarter and 7% in 2022 with the economy suffering an economic output decline comparable to the 1998 crisis.’

    https://twitter.com/balmforthtom/status/1499471777096998919?s=21

    Many on the thread saying this is way too optimistic for Russia
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,383

    Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?

    Nothing without full withdrawal from Ukraine
    Pre 2014 borders ?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?

    Nothing without full withdrawal from Ukraine
    Yes, that would be my preferred line too... but the consequence is, the killing in Ukraine will go on and we in the West will have to live with that.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    edited March 2022
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    biggles said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    I thought there was a way that the judiciary stops parliament from doing certain things. Eg a law is passed whereby girls no longer go to school. Is there no 'higher' protection against that?

    Not really. We'd need to vote out the government that did it and have the next one repeal it. Of course there's never going to be a majority for anything as stupid as that in the UK. The point being made is that any legislation which names individuals for asset seizures or comes up with some baloney about arbitrary conditions for such would be a poor way to do it as all of us suddenly become less well protected by the law.
    I see. Are you sure? I thought we were signed up to some fundamental human rights that have force over and above an act of parliament. Maybe I'm substituting what I think should be true for what is. Wouldn't be the first time.
    The first line would have to repeal the Human Rights Act but we could do it now outside the EU.
    The courts can take a view on whether law is compatible with other laws (hence the human rights Act) and whether the Government has followed the process it laid out, but they can’t strike down laws.
    Ah so maybe I at long last spot a benefit of Brexit. It's now that little bit easier for the government to enact things which violate fundamental human rights.
    Is your faith in the UK so weak that you need that comfort blanket?
    I think it's good to have some fundamental things that must be respected regardless of what any particular UK government of the moment decides it wants to do. That we did and now don't - if such is the case - is imo a regression.
    It shows your lack of confidence in democracy, IMO, that you would take that lever away from the people and hand it to faceless technocrats.
    It would be easier to have faith in democracy if Western countries had not been electing increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic governments over the last two decades. We are also facing massive technological change that may be particularly useful for authoritarian regimes to track and control individuals. Fears are well founded, and those who dismiss them are being naive.
    But who's to say that the faceless technocrat won't also do the same, at least with politicians we can vote them out.
    Dividing power between different branches of government reduces the power of the executive. An all powerful parliament, led by an executive that is not checked by its MPs is not a good system in the long run.
    But it is checked by voters, in you're scenario what's to stop the technocrats from doing all of these unnamed awful things and how do the people remove their hands from the levers of power?
    AIUI there is nothing to stop a parliament saying the next election is 50 years away, or that we are replacing constituencies with voting 1 representative per council, so it is not properly checked by voters without a written constitution or some enduring bill of rights that is hard for a parliament to remove.

    The courts, or as you prefer to call them for some reason, autocrats, are not able to do take power as they have different and separate powers to the executive and legislature.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    MaxPB said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Which was impossible without months of painstaking research, this morning
    What do you understand by “sanctioned”?

    Assets confiscated/frozen/expropriated

    Or

    Banned from travel to the U.K.?

    Hint.

    One is easy and straightforward, the other not.
    Under the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60611683

    Your point was?

    ETA I like this conversation so much I've saved a copy for future use. Bellyflops like this are a once in a lifetime event.
    Isn't that the point, the government is doing it methodically where they have got a legally watertight case rather than a big broad brush which gets more people but ends up being reversed. This is two clear cut cases and I'm sure the government's legal teams have combed through the consequences and potential legal defence of Usmanov and feel they could win in court. If anything this undermines your point that it's easy to achieve.
    Sure, but it's remarkable how weeks and months has shrunk to inside of a working day.
    But the work going into this didn't just start yesterday. These two are already the culmination of weeks if work to get a legally defensible case together. To get that for the 20-30 we'd probably look to sanction it's going to take a while. I also note that these sanctions are being brought without new primary legislation, again proving my point that it's better to use current legal framework than use executive power and the government majority to target individuals.
    1. The invasion started a week ago. A week. 7 days.

    2. The govt line this morning was weeks or months needed, starting now.
    The invasion may have started 7 days ago, yet the government has had intelligence briefings for a while around it being a certainty. Are you suggesting that the work on sanctions only started on the invasion day?
    If you are right, it was bad luck that they started planning in advance but not far enough in advance, wasn't it? And why did the timescale change from weeks or months this morning to Oh look, we have already done it?

    Your premise is wrong anyway. Unless Putin is an MI5 sleeper we cannot have known the invasion was going to happen, until it did. Nobody did.
    In these two cases the work is done, in loads of others it's not. Are you really this dense?
    Evidently.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    After telling me a few hours ago it was monitoring the situation, Morrisons has now announced it will stop stocking Russian vodka https://twitter.com/sebwhale/status/1499410759520079880 https://twitter.com/e_casalicchio/status/1499479421228666883/photo/1
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,802

    Presumably, at some point Putin is going to say: I'll call a ceasefire if you reverse all the financial sanctions.

    What does the West do then?

    Nothing without full withdrawal from Ukraine
    Yes, that would be my preferred line too... but the consequence is, the killing in Ukraine will go on and we in the West will have to live with that.
    We also keep our boot on the neck of Russia's economy and drain the cash and lifeblood out of it until Putin is unable to turn his back on his enemies for a second for fear of being stabbed in the back.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Leon said:

    And this is on top of Covid. And all completely pointless


    ‘LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - JPMorgan said on Thursday it expected Russia's economy to contract 35% in the second quarter and 7% in 2022 with the economy suffering an economic output decline comparable to the 1998 crisis.’

    https://twitter.com/balmforthtom/status/1499471777096998919?s=21

    Many on the thread saying this is way too optimistic for Russia

    I’m struggling to make sense of those numbers. It’s only just March. Down 35% in the quarter but only 7% for the year?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    Leon said:

    And this is on top of Covid. And all completely pointless


    ‘LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - JPMorgan said on Thursday it expected Russia's economy to contract 35% in the second quarter and 7% in 2022 with the economy suffering an economic output decline comparable to the 1998 crisis.’

    https://twitter.com/balmforthtom/status/1499471777096998919?s=21

    Many on the thread saying this is way too optimistic for Russia

    I’m struggling to make sense of those numbers. It’s only just March. Down 35% in the quarter but only 7% for the year?
    Yes. That basically assumes that Q1, Q3 and Q4 will all be perfectly normal quarters. (35% of 25% = 7-8%).

    So it's a rubbish forecast.
This discussion has been closed.