She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
He’s thinking of the one that cannot he named that is stationed secretly off Scotland in case they declare independence.
Of course if the Scots sink it we will nuke Edinburgh or something before the tanks roll in.
No, we used that one, when the Argentines secretly sank Invincible. We re-named it secretly and secretly resurrected the entire crew. Shhhhhhhh!
We have an HMS Secretly now? And the ship is capable of resurrecting people? BRITISH TECH FTW.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carriers she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
I'm normally on the 'don't pile on to HYUFD' section of this site, but.... wow.
I sincerely hope that you never get anywhere near the levers of power and that we are forever governed by 'wet lettuces'* who refuse to use nuclear weapons against non nuclear-armed states.
*AKA people with some sanity and morality
We have nuclear weapons as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory from invasion if conventional forces are unable to protect them.
The Falkland Islands are British territory. Thatcher also believed that, hence she went to war. Fortunately we won the war with conventional forces.
No doubt we will find out sadly in due course too whether Putin is prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon against non nuclear armed Ukraine if he is unable to defeat it with conventional forces. However that is a war of offence from Russia to invade another's territory, the Falklands War was a war to defend British territory
I doubt more than 10% of the electorate are either sufficiently stupid or sufficiently morally depraved to think that resorting to nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts is something we would contemplate. Which of the two things are you ?
Nuclear weapons are there as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory if conventional forces have been unable to.
Otherwise there is no point having them. If you are too much of a wet lettuce to realise that that is your problem
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
You twit. You are counting a ship that arrived after the war and one that wasn't operational. We had 2. Cut and dry, the ones we sent.
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
I don't get the "it was easy" line. The exclusion zone was not easy. Black Buck and its successors were not easy. And had it been a little later and we had scrapped the V-bombers and sold Invincible as the idiotic Nott / Thatcher plan had it, what then?
Lets not forget - the Nott / Thatcher defence review was the thing that opened the door to Galtieri in the first place...
I must get my copy of Spycatcher out if this is going to continue, but seem to recall that two MP's, Bernard Braine (Con) and Peter Shore (Lab) uncovered the 'back door' negotiations over some form of joint sovereignty which had been going on in 1980/1.
I do wonder if a lot of this comes down to the widely reported confiscation of soldiers' mobiles before the invasion? This is a generation raised with them. Has any training in something as basic as map reading been given? Do they even have maps? No mobile, no map, or the inability to use one, and all road signs altered and you soon get lost.
An oddity about that report is that Ukraine has broadcast intercepted phone conversations between Russian troops and their families, expressing bewilderment and dismay. If they don't have phones, then the conversations are presumably fake? There's plenty of disinformation out there on both sides, and that's pretty normal in a war, though the Ukrainians are definitely better at marshalling global public opinion.
What we don't really know and is obscured by claims and counter-claims is what the current near-pause is about. Russia reeling from military setbacks and about to retreat? Building up for a major offensive and about to advance? Pausing to see if the peace talks succeed? It's a good thing whatever it is, while it lasts, but...?
Lots of stories of Russian troops looting. No reason that mobile phones wouldn't be on their list....
These guys aren't sobbing to mummy, they're boasting to their girlfriends.
Ukraine / Україна @Ukraine These are real intercepted calls: Russian soldiers in Ukraine call their close ones back in Russia to tell how it is going so far. Looting and war crimes included. Please, share! The world must know the truth of what they’re doing to our homes and people. https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1501635351965798402
I listened to it with a native Russian speaker, and the idiom is relaxed and pretty specifically Russian. The big thing that struck him was the whole "we won the lottery just being alive, so let's goooooo!" vibe.
What freaked him out most the gf's "fck them" thing
FWIW he thinks it’s a real call but unlikely the soldiers actually executed the civilians. Rather, they’re acting all gangsta for their girlfriends.
This kind of posing is a HUGE thing among young Russian guys right now, esp “lower class” who end up in armed forces a lot.
Any other Russians in Russia with perspective on the scene for 18-25 year old guys, love to hear it.
Do I take it from the lack of commentry that people have reassessed their optimism about Ukraine?
Obviously I hate to be pessimistic but it looks to me like the Russians are slowly (and clumsily) pounding the country to obliteration whilst arranging for a 'peace' deal that humiliates Ukraine. No NATO. 'Neutralisation'. Loss of parts of the country that have already been invaded by Russia. It is 'finlandisation', but by force and not by consent and mutual respect.
I can't see such an arrangement working out well - not least because many people in Ukraine won't be happy about it. There is the small matter of the 2000 or so Azov fascists, who we have inadvertantly armed, who are likely to turn against the Ukranian government. So the destablisation of Ukraine will continue apace.
Zelensky and co effectively have no choice other than to agree to whatever they are being presented with. Putin can just move his troops up to the border with, Georgia, Finland or whoever is next on his list. The west can go back to its comfortable decadence and denial.
Am I wrong?
Ukraine might well be screwed. But so is Russia.
Is it?
Morally, yes. But is it really screwed or do we just tell ourselves this to make ourselves feel better because we sat on our hands and failed to come to Ukraine's military aid?
Yet again utter nonsense
The UK has been arming Ukraine and training them for years and our arms are being used by a very grateful Ukraine
Indeed their President and Boris are in near daily contact with each other and the goodwill the UK has with Ukrainians is well documented
Until it comes to sheltering refugees!
Our two refugees have been told they will have a visa interview within 10 days and a decision within 12 weeks. Well done, Gove. 👓🍆💦
Bloody hell.
Can't you just nick a plane and smuggle them over?
I reckon I could get them into the UK through a midnight run on the back roads of Leitrim and Fermanagh under the doleful gaze of so many of my ancestors' ghosts. But then what? I've got two undocumented and illegal minors in my house. If they are going to have any sort of life then their status has to be regularised.
Mrs DA has gone to the Netherlands and moved into an apartment with them so at least they are safe and looked after for now. Very few people have the resources to be able to do that so the system is failing a lot of people who desperately need help.
I am full of admiration for your efforts and it is incredibly frustrating how slow we are being. But the Home Office is built on the premise that they want to make asylum as hard and slow as possible and are clearly struggling to change their ways.
My daughter is organising a pick up from a Ukrainian charity of medical and sanitary supplies on Friday. She has received a fair bit of money and is going to be doing a megashop tomorrow, using the money she has been given. People are desperate to help as you and your wife have vividly demonstrated and the government remains behind the curve on this.
Do I take it from the lack of commentry that people have reassessed their optimism about Ukraine?
Obviously I hate to be pessimistic but it looks to me like the Russians are slowly (and clumsily) pounding the country to obliteration whilst arranging for a 'peace' deal that humiliates Ukraine. No NATO. 'Neutralisation'. Loss of parts of the country that have already been invaded by Russia. It is 'finlandisation', but by force and not by consent and mutual respect.
I can't see such an arrangement working out well - not least because many people in Ukraine won't be happy about it. There is the small matter of the 2000 or so Azov fascists, who we have inadvertantly armed, who are likely to turn against the Ukranian government. So the destablisation of Ukraine will continue apace.
Zelensky and co effectively have no choice other than to agree to whatever they are being presented with. Putin can just move his troops up to the border with, Georgia, Finland or whoever is next on his list. The west can go back to its comfortable decadence and denial.
Am I wrong?
Ukraine might well be screwed. But so is Russia.
Is it?
Morally, yes. But is it really screwed or do we just tell ourselves this to make ourselves feel better because we sat on our hands and failed to come to Ukraine's military aid?
Yet again utter nonsense
The UK has been arming Ukraine and training them for years and our arms are being used by a very grateful Ukraine
Indeed their President and Boris are in near daily contact with each other and the goodwill the UK has with Ukrainians is well documented
Until it comes to sheltering refugees!
Our two refugees have been told they will have a visa interview within 10 days and a decision within 12 weeks. Well done, Gove. 👓🍆💦
Bloody hell.
Can't you just nick a plane and smuggle them over?
I reckon I could get them into the UK through a midnight run on the back roads of Leitrim and Fermanagh under the doleful gaze of so many of my ancestors' ghosts. But then what? I've got two undocumented and illegal minors in my house. If they are going to have any sort of life then their status has to be regularised.
Mrs DA has gone to the Netherlands and moved into an apartment with them so at least they are safe and looked after for now. Very few people have the resources to be able to do that so the system is failing a lot of people who desperately need help.
I am full of admiration for your efforts and it is incredibly frustrating how slow we are being. But the Home Office is built on the premise that they want to make asylum as hard and slow as possible and are clearly struggling to change their ways.
My daughter is organising a pick up from a Ukrainian charity of medical and sanitary supplies on Friday. She has received a fair bit of money and is going to be doing a megashop tomorrow, using the money she has been given. People are desperate to help as you and your wife have vividly demonstrated and the government remains behind the curve on this.
Is it just the Home Office though? Surely the UK government has just made a calculation of how many extra school places and doctors appointments they would have to provide for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people and they want other countries to deal with it.
It is the whole Tory government , the Home Office does not call all the shots. Plainly and simply like they do always they will talk it out with great gusto but in the end will take a miserly amount of people and will then trumpet about what a great job they did. We will not see many Ukranians in the UK.
Gove had the gall to say in the Commons that it was a Labour Home Secretary that introduced the "hostile environment" policy.
I think this is what he was referring to
Who introduced hostile environment?
Minister Liam Byrne
In May's own words: "The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants". Whilst the concept of a 'hostile environment' had first been introduced in 2007 by then New Labour Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, 2012 saw the first systemic implementation of this strategy
Byrne, who was, of course, also responsible for the 'No money' joke, referred to 'Illegal' immigrants. Nothing about making it harder for the genuine. Nor did he, as May and her successors have, done apparently, regard all immigrants as illegal unless they're very rich.
It was the Labour Immigration Minister.
"What we are proposing here will, I think, flush illegal migrants out. We are trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally," said Mr Byrne. "We have to make Britain much less of an attractive place if you are going to come here and break the rules."
To be honest I see little difference in his words and Mays intention
The Windrush immigrants weren't here illegally, were they?
I don’t think the Home office cared(s) about peoples legal status. It was just a “kick the fuckers out if at all possible” approach.
What I suspect happened was at some point he filled in an online form and accidentally selected “Uganda” from the dropdown “nationality” field, which put him in the HO’s dragnet.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
I try and stick to the principle that 'if you've got nowt nice to say, don't say owt', so I will keep my views on HYUFD's opinions and analytical skills to myself other than saying I'm surprised he professes to (I think) have a degree in History (which I do too, incidentally).
I find it much better for my blood pressure to just skip his comments. Rather like I refrain from pushing pins into my eyeballs.
Do I take it from the lack of commentry that people have reassessed their optimism about Ukraine?
Obviously I hate to be pessimistic but it looks to me like the Russians are slowly (and clumsily) pounding the country to obliteration whilst arranging for a 'peace' deal that humiliates Ukraine. No NATO. 'Neutralisation'. Loss of parts of the country that have already been invaded by Russia. It is 'finlandisation', but by force and not by consent and mutual respect.
I can't see such an arrangement working out well - not least because many people in Ukraine won't be happy about it. There is the small matter of the 2000 or so Azov fascists, who we have inadvertantly armed, who are likely to turn against the Ukranian government. So the destablisation of Ukraine will continue apace.
Zelensky and co effectively have no choice other than to agree to whatever they are being presented with. Putin can just move his troops up to the border with, Georgia, Finland or whoever is next on his list. The west can go back to its comfortable decadence and denial.
Am I wrong?
Ukraine might well be screwed. But so is Russia.
Is it?
Morally, yes. But is it really screwed or do we just tell ourselves this to make ourselves feel better because we sat on our hands and failed to come to Ukraine's military aid?
Yet again utter nonsense
The UK has been arming Ukraine and training them for years and our arms are being used by a very grateful Ukraine
Indeed their President and Boris are in near daily contact with each other and the goodwill the UK has with Ukrainians is well documented
Until it comes to sheltering refugees!
Our two refugees have been told they will have a visa interview within 10 days and a decision within 12 weeks. Well done, Gove. 👓🍆💦
Bloody hell.
Can't you just nick a plane and smuggle them over?
I reckon I could get them into the UK through a midnight run on the back roads of Leitrim and Fermanagh under the doleful gaze of so many of my ancestors' ghosts. But then what? I've got two undocumented and illegal minors in my house. If they are going to have any sort of life then their status has to be regularised.
Mrs DA has gone to the Netherlands and moved into an apartment with them so at least they are safe and looked after for now. Very few people have the resources to be able to do that so the system is failing a lot of people who desperately need help.
I am full of admiration for your efforts and it is incredibly frustrating how slow we are being. But the Home Office is built on the premise that they want to make asylum as hard and slow as possible and are clearly struggling to change their ways.
My daughter is organising a pick up from a Ukrainian charity of medical and sanitary supplies on Friday. She has received a fair bit of money and is going to be doing a megashop tomorrow, using the money she has been given. People are desperate to help as you and your wife have vividly demonstrated and the government remains behind the curve on this.
Do I take it from the lack of commentry that people have reassessed their optimism about Ukraine?
Obviously I hate to be pessimistic but it looks to me like the Russians are slowly (and clumsily) pounding the country to obliteration whilst arranging for a 'peace' deal that humiliates Ukraine. No NATO. 'Neutralisation'. Loss of parts of the country that have already been invaded by Russia. It is 'finlandisation', but by force and not by consent and mutual respect.
I can't see such an arrangement working out well - not least because many people in Ukraine won't be happy about it. There is the small matter of the 2000 or so Azov fascists, who we have inadvertantly armed, who are likely to turn against the Ukranian government. So the destablisation of Ukraine will continue apace.
Zelensky and co effectively have no choice other than to agree to whatever they are being presented with. Putin can just move his troops up to the border with, Georgia, Finland or whoever is next on his list. The west can go back to its comfortable decadence and denial.
Am I wrong?
Ukraine might well be screwed. But so is Russia.
Is it?
Morally, yes. But is it really screwed or do we just tell ourselves this to make ourselves feel better because we sat on our hands and failed to come to Ukraine's military aid?
Yet again utter nonsense
The UK has been arming Ukraine and training them for years and our arms are being used by a very grateful Ukraine
Indeed their President and Boris are in near daily contact with each other and the goodwill the UK has with Ukrainians is well documented
Until it comes to sheltering refugees!
Our two refugees have been told they will have a visa interview within 10 days and a decision within 12 weeks. Well done, Gove. 👓🍆💦
Bloody hell.
Can't you just nick a plane and smuggle them over?
I reckon I could get them into the UK through a midnight run on the back roads of Leitrim and Fermanagh under the doleful gaze of so many of my ancestors' ghosts. But then what? I've got two undocumented and illegal minors in my house. If they are going to have any sort of life then their status has to be regularised.
Mrs DA has gone to the Netherlands and moved into an apartment with them so at least they are safe and looked after for now. Very few people have the resources to be able to do that so the system is failing a lot of people who desperately need help.
I am full of admiration for your efforts and it is incredibly frustrating how slow we are being. But the Home Office is built on the premise that they want to make asylum as hard and slow as possible and are clearly struggling to change their ways.
My daughter is organising a pick up from a Ukrainian charity of medical and sanitary supplies on Friday. She has received a fair bit of money and is going to be doing a megashop tomorrow, using the money she has been given. People are desperate to help as you and your wife have vividly demonstrated and the government remains behind the curve on this.
Is it just the Home Office though? Surely the UK government has just made a calculation of how many extra school places and doctors appointments they would have to provide for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people and they want other countries to deal with it.
It is the whole Tory government , the Home Office does not call all the shots. Plainly and simply like they do always they will talk it out with great gusto but in the end will take a miserly amount of people and will then trumpet about what a great job they did. We will not see many Ukranians in the UK.
Gove had the gall to say in the Commons that it was a Labour Home Secretary that introduced the "hostile environment" policy.
Did he also have the gall to say that Labour ensured there was no money left?
Liam Byrne - about the only honest Labour politician, so lefties love to just pretend everything he said never happened or was a joke.
Not that there was actually no money left. Nor were we facing bankruptcy Greek-style. But that didn't stop (a) the Tories making the claim and (b) people with more intelligence as to believe the claim deciding to do so for reasons of political expediency.
Have to laugh though. One "funny" note and boom there goes your career. Same with Maudling.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
You twit. You are counting a ship that arrived after the war and one that wasn't operational. We had 2. Cut and dry, the ones we sent.
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
I haven't been following this discussion but did he say that the Falklands was easily won????
Those are the sort of comments which seriously undermine just about everything he says. On anything.
Like having a good discussion on the rights and wrongs of pesticides and the person saying well Xanthe, Angel of the Fields doesn't like them.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
You twit. You are counting a ship that arrived after the war and one that wasn't operational. We had 2. Cut and dry, the ones we sent.
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
Illustrious was effectively ready by the end of the War. Ark Royal was also launched in 1981 and could have been commissioned earlier if needed.
We also had submarines with nuclear missiles as a last resort to defend British territory if conventional forces failed, which fortunately they did not. Argentina, unlike Russia or China, did not have nuclear weapons
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carriers she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
I'm normally on the 'don't pile on to HYUFD' section of this site, but.... wow.
I sincerely hope that you never get anywhere near the levers of power and that we are forever governed by 'wet lettuces'* who refuse to use nuclear weapons against non nuclear-armed states.
*AKA people with some sanity and morality
We have nuclear weapons as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory from invasion if conventional forces are unable to protect them.
The Falkland Islands are British territory. Thatcher also believed that, hence she went to war. Fortunately we won the war with conventional forces.
No doubt we will find out sadly in due course too whether Putin is prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon against non nuclear armed Ukraine if he is unable to defeat it with conventional forces. However that is a war of offence from Russia to invade another's territory, the Falklands War was a war to defend British territory
I doubt more than 10% of the electorate are either sufficiently stupid or sufficiently morally depraved to think that resorting to nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts is something we would contemplate. Which of the two things are you ?
Nuclear weapons are there as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory if conventional forces have been unable to.
Otherwise there is no point having them. If you are too much of a wet lettuce to realise that that is your problem
All getting very macho on here.
You are just wrong, and demonstrably so. Imagine the situation where we had no nuclear weapons but everyone thought we did. On your view, we would be defenceless. To anyone who understands how deterrence actually works, we are just as well off as if we had them.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
Wrong
What aircraft carriers were in the Falklands War?
The Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands came at a time when the Royal Navy was experiencing a reduction in its amphibious capability, but it still possessed the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and Invincible, the landing platform dock (LPD) ships HMS Fearless and Intrepid, and six landing ship logistics (LSL) ships ...
It also had the Illustrious which was ready had the war continued (though we won it anyway with 2 aircraft carriers) and the Ark Royal could have joined soon too
The bit you got right was we won. After that you are rewriting history through the prism of a Murdoch newspaper.
By suggesting the very tight victory was a cake walk you disrespect the brave military personnel who gave their lives to recover the Falkland Islands.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carriers she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
I'm normally on the 'don't pile on to HYUFD' section of this site, but.... wow.
I sincerely hope that you never get anywhere near the levers of power and that we are forever governed by 'wet lettuces'* who refuse to use nuclear weapons against non nuclear-armed states.
*AKA people with some sanity and morality
We have nuclear weapons as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory from invasion if conventional forces are unable to protect them.
The Falkland Islands are British territory. Thatcher also believed that, hence she went to war. Fortunately we won the war with conventional forces.
No doubt we will find out sadly in due course too whether Putin is prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon against non nuclear armed Ukraine if he is unable to defeat it with conventional forces. However that is a war of offence from Russia to invade another's territory, the Falklands War was a war to defend British territory
I doubt more than 10% of the electorate are either sufficiently stupid or sufficiently morally depraved to think that resorting to nuclear weapons in conventional conflicts is something we would contemplate. Which of the two things are you ?
Nuclear weapons are there as a last resort to defend the UK and British territory if conventional forces have been unable to.
Otherwise there is no point having them. If you are too much of a wet lettuce to realise that that is your problem
All getting very macho on here.
You are just wrong, and demonstrably so. Imagine the situation where we had no nuclear weapons but everyone thought we did. On your view, we would be defenceless. To anyone who understands how deterrence actually works, we are just as well off as if we had them.
Hence we must always have nuclear weapons as our defence of last resort and test them from time to time to prove we have them
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
Of all the lame 'woke' stuff people whinge about here, people getting called 'they' as a pronoun is the lamest of them all.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
And you claim to be a Christian.
How bizarre
Read the Old Testament, God was quite prepared to drown the Egyptian army to defend the Jews if needed
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
You're old-fashioned. He and him are not gender neutral, obviously.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
You twit. You are counting a ship that arrived after the war and one that wasn't operational. We had 2. Cut and dry, the ones we sent.
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
Illustrious was effectively ready by the end of the War. Ark Royal was also launched in 1981 and could have been commissioned earlier if needed.
We also had submarines with nuclear missiles as a last resort to defend British territory if conventional forces failed, which fortunately they did not. Argentina, unlike Russia or China, did not have nuclear weapons
Nope
Did the Ark Royal go to the Falklands?
Today's HMS Ark Royal is a member of the 'Invincible' class of support carriers, together with the Falklands veteran HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious. Last of the class to be built, HMS Ark Royal's keel was laid at Swan Hunter's yard in 1978. She was launched in June 1981 and entered service in 1985.
Ark Royal being launched does not include fitting out and sea trails and she came into service in 1985
I do wonder if a lot of this comes down to the widely reported confiscation of soldiers' mobiles before the invasion? This is a generation raised with them. Has any training in something as basic as map reading been given? Do they even have maps? No mobile, no map, or the inability to use one, and all road signs altered and you soon get lost.
An oddity about that report is that Ukraine has broadcast intercepted phone conversations between Russian troops and their families, expressing bewilderment and dismay. If they don't have phones, then the conversations are presumably fake? There's plenty of disinformation out there on both sides, and that's pretty normal in a war, though the Ukrainians are definitely better at marshalling global public opinion.
What we don't really know and is obscured by claims and counter-claims is what the current near-pause is about. Russia reeling from military setbacks and about to retreat? Building up for a major offensive and about to advance? Pausing to see if the peace talks succeed? It's a good thing whatever it is, while it lasts, but...?
I think it is just the poster you are replying to speculating about the absence of mobiles. Yes, there are reports of them being banned for Russian troops, butr they are also illegal in UK prisons. Easy things to hide...
And it isn't the Ukrainians marshalling global public opinion, it's the facts.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
In the Churchillian (I think) sense that 'man' embraces 'woman'?
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
And you claim to be a Christian.
How bizarre
Read the Old Testament, God was quite prepared to drown the Egyptian army to defend the Jews if needed
A *possible* Red Wall by-election in Wakefield coming up - we should all refrain from comment on the case, but the speculation is now in the public domain. Obviously if the MP is acquitted then it won't arise.:
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
And you claim to be a Christian.
How bizarre
Read the Old Testament, God was quite prepared to drown the Egyptian army to defend the Jews if needed
But then God had a mid-life crisis, met a younger woman, had a kid and mellowed considerably.
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
In Devon dialect any animal of either sex is he, or rather 'e.
Bozza *might* have had something to do with her still being in there. (Although TBF, the Iranians were always using her as political leverage, so they were just waiting for something to get irate about.)
A *possible* Red Wall by-election in Wakefield coming up - we should all refrain from comment on the case, but the speculation is now in the public domain. Obviously if the MP is acquitted then it won't arise.:
Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko · 5m Now Lavrov is talking about his “hope of a possible compromise” with Ukraine, wow! I wonder where is that tough son of a bitch from late February talking about “Ukrainian Nazis” and denying Ukraine as a sovereign nation, wow!
Makes you wonder what the Internet reaction would have been when thou art was dying off.
My understanding is that we once had four words for 'you': You/Ye: equivalents of I/me for plural/formal: Thou/Thee: equivalents of I/me for singular/informal
There must have been a time at which using You to mean Ye felt as wrong and clunky as saying 'Me went to the shops'. Using the polite form of you for talking to your friends must also have felt odd, though less clunky.
Trying to speak using the above structure uses quite a bit of thought, unless you do it a Yorkshire accent, and then it is oddly intuitive.
Growing up in Lancashire in the 70's "tha" "thi" and "hast" was widely used by the older generations. It still is intuitive to me, as I spent much of my time cared for by my Great Uncle, a retired Leigh pitman, although it was seen as archaic even then. It carried connotations of the French "Tu".
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
B ) I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
We had 4 aircraft carriers, Hermes, Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious
You twit. You are counting a ship that arrived after the war and one that wasn't operational. We had 2. Cut and dry, the ones we sent.
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
I haven't been following this discussion but did he say that the Falklands was easily won????
Those are the sort of comments which seriously undermine just about everything he says. On anything.
Like having a good discussion on the rights and wrongs of pesticides and the person saying well Xanthe, Angel of the Fields doesn't like them.
A *possible* Red Wall by-election in Wakefield coming up - we should all refrain from comment on the case, but the speculation is now in the public domain. Obviously if the MP is acquitted then it won't arise.:
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
And you claim to be a Christian.
How bizarre
Read the Old Testament, God was quite prepared to drown the Egyptian army to defend the Jews if needed
A Christian lives by the New Testament
No, a Christian lives by both the Old Testament and New Testament, they both form part of the Bible.
A Christian just adds the New Testament too while a Jew only lives by the Old Testament
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
It sounds wrong because "they is" is wrong, we use "they are" even for third person singular.
Here's an example sentence: Every individual is unique. They are a combination of strengths and weaknesses.
Bozza *might* have had something to do with her still being in there. (Although TBF, the Iranians were always using her as political leverage, so they were just waiting for something to get irate about.)
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
To summarise, he will be asking for increased oil production, and will be asked for help with increased security in the Gulf region. UK is increasingly a key broker in the region, after a cooling in their relationship with the US in the past decade under Obama and Trump.
Will help with increased security mean more of this?
For some reason, many Western leftists see the Saudis as the aggressors here, rather than the defenders of the legitimate Yemeni government.
I could go on about this all day, but the long and short of the war in Yemen, is that it’s simply the latest incarnation of the centuries-old battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
If I understand correctly - which I may not - it’s essentially a proxy war between Iran and Saud, with the Yemeni people caught in the middle.
That is somewhat different from the situation in Ukraine, which is a war of conquest launched by a man who has clearly lost his marbles.
Although I can imagine for those actually living there it’s a distinction without a difference.
The war in Ukraine is clearly very different, with Russia simply rolling tanks over the border because Putin felt like it.
The Right will continue to tell themselves things like this but the fact is that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia are involved in very murky dealings.
As I assume you know, Qatar's strong association with the Wahabi sect of Islam is a source of considerable irritation and fury in other parts of the Middle East, hence why Saudi boycotted Qatar and why Qatar airways were blockaded from flying over the UAE.
The geopolitics of the region is dark with many complex strands and multiple human rights abuses.
We will be doing business with more evil. Classic tories.
Diddums that the West is diversifying its hydrocarbon supplies away from your dear leader
If by 'my dear leader' you mean Putin, unlike you I believe we should stand up militarily to Putin.
You are a coward.
We’ve been through this. The wide ranging sanctions and military relief to Ukraine are working.
Are they though? Really?
I see a country getting pulverised and slowly, inexorably, Russian forces creep forward. I don't think Putin will particularly care if this takes 3 months if in the process Ukraine is reduced to rubble.
We tell ourselves that our actions are working because we need to tell ourselves it. We can't stand the idea that Putin has got away with this. But he has, hasn't he?
If we had courage we would stand up to him and do what Zelensky asked: install a No Fly Zone. Yes it might risk all out nuclear war.
So what?
I'm prepared to die for Ukraine and freedom. Aren't you?
No.
Especially not in an "all out nuclear war" who's going to have "freedom" after that? the Ukrainian cockroaches?
Exactly. Assuming humans survive (not a certainty) the world will be ruled by petty warlords and thugs for 100s if not 1000s of years.
@Heathener has definitely lost it. If he/she? is not a Russian troll I hope he/she is getting help.
(PS We could really do with a neutral personal singular pronoun.)
As my eldest is gender neutral I absolutely agree. "They" does not work when describing a single specific person.
At the risk of appearing to trivialise what is clearly a serious matter, surely the collective brains of PB could come up with the answer?
"They" feels wrong but maybe it will stick in time... "I asked my friend, they is quite happy to adopt this pronoun"?
Alternatively, how about some other variant of he/she? Xe? Ze? Se?
Something needs to become the norm, and I expect it will in time.
Call me old fashioned, but we already have singular, gender-neutral pronouns: he and him. The fact that the same words happen to be used as the masculine pronouns is just a quirk of linguistic history.
You're old-fashioned. He and him are not gender neutral, obviously.
If the context of their use is gender neutral then they're gender neutral. In academia the practice is (or was) to use she or her as the gender-neutral pronouns. If you read an article containing, say, 'A 15th century peasant would have seen her life blighted by plague and war.' then you wouldn't think the writer is speaking specifically about women. Context governs the meaning.
A *possible* Red Wall by-election in Wakefield coming up - we should all refrain from comment on the case, but the speculation is now in the public domain. Obviously if the MP is acquitted then it won't arise.:
Ooooh that's interesting. I knew a previously lifelong Labour voter who voted for him because she'd contacted the previous MP's office about something and didn't get a response. But last time I spoke to her she regretted going Tory. I wonder if there's a similar disillusionment amongst the wider electorate.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Bozza *might* have had something to do with her still being in there. (Although TBF, the Iranians were always using her as political leverage, so they were just waiting for something to get irate about.)
I think they were waiting for their tank money tbh.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
Because the Iranians are very rightly under sanctions.
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Including the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, according to your recent posts. You are the same kind of Christian as Putin, apparently.
She was quite prepared to go to war with Argentina over the Falklands as we could easily beat them.
There was nothing easy about it and we very nearly didn't.
Not much more would have had to go wrong for the operation to fail.
Rubbish.
We very easily beat them once we committed to the task force.
The Argentines were poorly trained and full of conscrips even more than the Russians and Thatcher of course sunk the Belgrano without much difficulty
If you speak to anyone who was there then you would know that is rubbish.
We had a more effective army than Argentina and a bigger navy and better trained pilots.
It was not that difficult. Plus of course we had submarines with nuclear missiles and Argentina did not have nuclear weapons.
Russia however does have nuclear weapons
You really do talk nonsense . We lost the Atlantic Conveyor to exocets which was a huge blow. If we had lost an aircraft carrier in the same way there would have been no way of getting troops to the Falklands as we would not have had air cover. That would have been a fatal blow.
It makes not a joy of difference that we had better soldiers, navy and air force if you can't get any of them there.
So what, we still sunk more Argentine ships than they sunk of ours which is the main aim in war.
Thatcher was also not a wet lettuce like you and had the Argentines sunk our aircraft carrier she might even have nuked Buenos Aires who knows. She was not going to lose that war.
However that would have been an absolute last resort to defend the Falklands if we had lost a our aircraft carriers. As we had 4 aircraft carriers at the time even had we lost 1 we would still have had 3 to replace it and could still have continued with the Task Force with them
A) The object of war was not to sink Argentina ships, in fact we made a point of avoiding doing so and could have done so at will, hence the fuss over the Belgrano.The objective was to reclaim the Falklands which we could not have done without the aircraft carriers which were at risk from exocets.
I have never said we should not of reclaimed the Falklands. I just said it wasn't easy like you claim. It was a really big task and not a foregone conclusion or easy like you said.
C) W were never going to launch a nuke on Argentina. You are being ridiculous.
D) And we only had 2 aircraft carriers, Hermes and Invincible not 4.
E) Your comments disrespect the brave men who fought that war and the politicians who made the decisions. It was not easy. It was hard. Many died and it was not a foregone conclusion.
Bulwark was a pile of floating rust by 1982. Completely unusable and decommissioned.
I wonder what was the 4th carrier he is thinking of? Indomitable/Ark Royal was afloat, but commissioned long after the war.
The key thing, as normal, is @hyufd had changed the goal posts. His original claim was that retaking the Falklands was a piece of cake. When challenged on that he moves the goal posts to suggest that because we point out he is wrong we are whimps. On the contrary whimps only take on fights they know they can win. The brave take on fights they might lose. I find @HYUFD comments on the Falklands insulting to those involved.
And where he got 4 aircraft carriers from just shows his ignorance.
Also he seems unaware of the restraint to limit the war to the Falklands in particular not to sink ships outside of the exclusion zone, hence the debate over the Belgrano.
Like most here, but unlike @HYUFD we lived through it and knew people who fought in it. @HYUFD comments are an insult to those brave people.
Absolutely and he needs to show some contrition for his insensitive and frankly misleading and plainly wrong comments
As I said earlier my daughter had her 11th birthday on the day of the attack on Sir Galahad and we were all in tears at the horrific pictures
I am not going to be a wet lettuce no. Thatcher would correctly have done whatever it took to retake British territory no matter what the cost, as would I had I been PM.
War is horrific no doubt with many sacrifices but it was a just war to defend British territory and a people who wished to stay British after Argentine invasion
And you claim to be a Christian.
How bizarre
Read the Old Testament, God was quite prepared to drown the Egyptian army to defend the Jews if needed
A Christian lives by the New Testament
No, a Christian lives by both the Old Testament and New Testament, they both form part of the Bible.
A Christian just adds the New Testament too while a Jew only lives by the Old Testament
I wonder if in the 25th century Christians will also have the book of HYUFD to guide them.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
A failure of the Iranian Government I hope you mean?
I hope you're not blaming the UK Government for foreign nations taking hostages and not having the rule of law?
A failure on the part of Boris johnson for being a fat lazy slob.
Nice bit of jingoism, mind. Are all foreign nations like that?
What an odd thing to say. No not all foreign nations take people hostage and don't have the rule of law, only nations that take people hostage and don't have the rule of law meet that description.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
Because the Iranians are very rightly under sanctions.
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
Where did I say it was acceptable . I was merely asking what many people would want to know re the debt . This debt goes back years across both Labour and Tory governments .
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
Because the Iranians are very rightly under sanctions.
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
There is clearly movement on both sides towards a wider deal, including the nuclear issue. Is that a bad thing ?
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
Iranian behaviour has been hideous and British sanctimonious (at best).
Edit. However, let us see her get off the plane at Heathrow before we count all our chickens.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
Because the Iranians are very rightly under sanctions.
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
There is clearly movement on both sides towards a wider deal, including the nuclear issue. Is that a bad thing ?
In general no, its not a bad thing that movement is happening.
It is a bad thing that Iran has been holding an unrelated person to the dispute hostage and it is a bad thing if the movement is because of the hostage taking. If the movement is eg because of the Russian crisis and Iran deciding to come out of the cold and get its oil flowing etc then that's not a bad thing, but we absolutely should not give in to hostage-taking.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
Iranian behaviour has been hideous and British sanctimonious (at best).
Go on, explain why we've been sanctimonious or worse.
When the dust settles on this awful chapter the real heroes of this story will be revealed - the German company who managed to fleece the Russians for training their military and managing things so the Russians didn’t realise the trainers didn’t have a clue about military tactics.
Interesting article here on what is going wrong with the Russian BTG organisation of the military:
I was thinking about the Russian military in the small hours, as you do, and they are fundamentally screwed for effectiveness by their geography.
It’s such a huge country that borders so many countries with either unfriendly at best or suspicious feelings towards them.
So they have to garrison the most vast area to cover from the arctic circle, Finland, the Baltic, Eastern Europe, the Stans, China, pacific east coast (for them).
So they need huge amounts of men. Soldiers are expensive to train well which drains the budget and expensive to equip. They also require well trained soldiers who know what they are doing to train them.
So you have a situation where you either haemorrhage cash to train enough top professional soldiers to act as main force as well as able to train up recruits so they aren’t shit, haemorrhage cash to provide the up to date kit, feed and house etc or you save cash and give them crap kit and crap training added to crap conditions.
The Russian army is therefore demoralised, under trained and under equipped from day one because you need a million men to cover the expanse but can’t afford to properly.
You can of course train and equip them well but then that strains the other budgets. Russia needs a Baltic/Atlantic fleet, a Black Sea/med fleet and a pacific fleet. Again either expensive or shit. Numbers or ability.
Then Russia has to pay for upkeep of nuclear Arsenal - we know in the UK how much a slice of the defense budget it effectively takes up.
They also want super hi tech kit such as supersonic missiles. Not cheap and drains other areas.
So because of their geography and the fact they spend a fraction in real terms of the US budget they are buggered fundamentally.
They can’t just focus on the west - would be like having an amazing front door alarm system and locks and leaving the back door off it’s hinges. They also have to make sure the automatic fire sprinklers are working in the Chechnya room and former Georgia rooms. But there’s always the Chinese neighbour looking over the fence at the gnomes in the Russian garden it wouldn’t mind having.
We shouldn’t be surprised they haven’t shown themselves to be the military behemoth we thought they were and if they were shorn of their nukes tomorrow they would be purely only considered on the world stage as a country that has lots of raw materials and not a lot else.
Near the start of the invasion someone linked to an article that compared Russia with Prussia - who, after a false start, concentrated on building the best possible land force, rather than trying to have a strong sea force too.
Russia don't need a strong Navy. Certainly they don't need a large ocean-going navy with aircraft carriers. Having one is pure pretension and waste.
Also, if they concentrated on their land forces, and in logistics, then they could defend a long frontier with fewer soldiers because they could rely on rapid redeployment to meet any threat. (Although apparently they do have good rail-borne logistics to redeploy and supply within Russia).
So relieved that Zaghari-Ratcliffe is finally on her way home. What a failure of Government that it took this long.
You can argue that. I think the root cause has always been the debt, and successive governments wriggled out of paying it. I don't condone paying hostage takers, but we should acknowledge that we did owe Iran this money.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
Iranian behaviour has been hideous and British sanctimonious (at best).
Go on, explain why we've been sanctimonious or worse.
We withheld monies which we owed, first because we didn't 'approve' of the Iranian government and then because the Americans told us to.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
Iranian behaviour has been hideous and British sanctimonious (at best).
Edit. However, let us see her get off the plane at Heathrow before we count all our chickens.
The aircraft has not taken off yet so keep everything crossed
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
It doesn't matter what debt was owed: the Iranian behaviour over this has been hideous.
Iranian behaviour has been hideous and British sanctimonious (at best).
Go on, explain why we've been sanctimonious or worse.
We withheld monies which we owed, first because we didn't 'approve' of the Iranian government and then because the Americans told us to.
Withholding money because Iran has sanctioned has absolutely nothing to do with Iran taking people hostage though, doesn't it?
If Iran is taking people hostage, that is blackmail, pure and simple. To equate the two is to justify hostage taking.
Just realised that this is quite an old video. I don't know when it was from, but someone made this video (that I don't understand at all!) about it in January https://youtu.be/4btl1nHpQYY?t=120
Geopolitics really has been stood on its head, hasn't it?
And domestic too. Here's Tulip Siddiq on Liz Truss.
"She told Times Radio: 'I've dealt with 3 PMs & 5 FSs, it's finally when I came to woman who was foreign sec who actually did something' "
It has and I do not think many have realised just by how much
Looking like a big thaw in relations with with Iran is on the cards. They will distance from Russia and step up gas and oil exports. A lot of governments and strategists will be assuming the current conflict isn't just Putin miscalculating but logical outcome of Greater Russian nationalism that runs deep. A military defeat in Ukraine might add fuel for the medium term so we are in for cold war II probably.
What wonderful news out of Iran . Stuart Ratcliffe has shown remarkable resilience and determination but questions need to be asked as to why this legitimate debt wasn’t paid back years ago . Nazanin has been through a nightmare ,we should all be full of joy that she will finally be re-united with her husband and daughter .
Because the Iranians are very rightly under sanctions.
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
There is clearly movement on both sides towards a wider deal, including the nuclear issue. Is that a bad thing ?
In general no, its not a bad thing that movement is happening.
It is a bad thing that Iran has been holding an unrelated person to the dispute hostage and it is a bad thing if the movement is because of the hostage taking. If the movement is eg because of the Russian crisis and Iran deciding to come out of the cold and get its oil flowing etc then that's not a bad thing, but we absolutely should not give in to hostage-taking.
It will never be clear what deal was or wasn't done, as you probably know. And no doubt Boris will deny to his last breath that he gave in to hostage taking. But we do know that talks about resumption of the nuclear deal have been going on behind the scenes for some time now. I don't think any of us have many illusions about the current Iranian regime, but it is a country with which we probably have more in common than Saudi Arabia. A more stable Gulf which is happier to deal with us diplomatically rather than through threats and acts of violence is something to be pursued and welcomed.
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
Do I take it from the lack of commentry that people have reassessed their optimism about Ukraine?
Obviously I hate to be pessimistic but it looks to me like the Russians are slowly (and clumsily) pounding the country to obliteration whilst arranging for a 'peace' deal that humiliates Ukraine. No NATO. 'Neutralisation'. Loss of parts of the country that have already been invaded by Russia. It is 'finlandisation', but by force and not by consent and mutual respect.
I can't see such an arrangement working out well - not least because many people in Ukraine won't be happy about it. There is the small matter of the 2000 or so Azov fascists, who we have inadvertantly armed, who are likely to turn against the Ukranian government. So the destablisation of Ukraine will continue apace.
Zelensky and co effectively have no choice other than to agree to whatever they are being presented with. Putin can just move his troops up to the border with, Georgia, Finland or whoever is next on his list. The west can go back to its comfortable decadence and denial.
Am I wrong?
Ukraine might well be screwed. But so is Russia.
Is it?
Morally, yes. But is it really screwed or do we just tell ourselves this to make ourselves feel better because we sat on our hands and failed to come to Ukraine's military aid?
Yet again utter nonsense
The UK has been arming Ukraine and training them for years and our arms are being used by a very grateful Ukraine
Indeed their President and Boris are in near daily contact with each other and the goodwill the UK has with Ukrainians is well documented
Until it comes to sheltering refugees!
Our two refugees have been told they will have a visa interview within 10 days and a decision within 12 weeks. Well done, Gove. 👓🍆💦
Bloody hell.
Can't you just nick a plane and smuggle them over?
As I posted last night, it’s down to us everyday people in each country to keep pressure on our own governments if we feel it isn’t going well enough. If other posters wish to talk up how generous our offer and it’s going well and quick enough, they are at liberty to do so.
Sure all political parties spin, use good days to bury bad news, give wonderful broad brush news in statements where there devil is in both the detail and wether their walk is as good as the talk. My particular hobby horse is I get cross seeing people posting that UK have sanctioned Roman Abramovich, which we haven’t - the key lesson from how previous sanctions down the years being merely cosmetic is where 1 named person had measures on them, but best buddies or family members had not. If any anyone wishes to post Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned well by UK government, I’ll post back you have been conned. 😕
Oliver Carroll @olliecarroll · 43m Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk escaped house arrest and has been on the run since war started 24 February. A special group is looking for him.
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
I suspect Labour would win Wakefield on current polling - and this will be a good indication that the Red Wall is returning to type.
I would agree Wakefield if there is a by election should go back to Labour. The last time the Tories won Wakefield before 2019 was 1931.
However Wakefield is only the 38th Labour target seat, Labour could win Wakefield and the Tories still win a small overall majority. The key thing will therefore be the size of the swing, not just whether Labour take it
Just out of interest @hyufd if the Falklands war was such a piece of cake why are you arguing for these 2 additional aircraft carriers and threatening nukes on Argentina?
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
I never once said it was a piece of cake.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
Yes you did. You said it was easy. It is that point we all objected to. Nothing else. You then moved the goal posts.
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
Well compared to defeating China alone over Hong Kong (hence the 1997 handover went ahead) or defeating Russia over Ukraine, then defeating Argentina, which had less effectively trained troops or pilots than ours, a smaller navy and did not have nuclear weapons unlike us was not that difficult yes.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
Especially when the EU develops its own version of NATO's Article 5 commitment to support any member invaded.....
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?
Comments
You also failed to address any other points and the fact that you have moved the goal posts when claiming the war was easy. An utterly disgraceful and inaccurate comment which is all I referred to. It wasn't and the people involved were very brave. We lost a lot of brave men and ship and in a controlled action. We made no attempt to overthrow Argentina directly, only to reclaim the Falklands.
Ukraine / Україна
@Ukraine
These are real intercepted calls: Russian soldiers in Ukraine call their close ones back in Russia to tell how it is going so far. Looting and war crimes included. Please, share! The world must know the truth of what they’re doing to our homes and people.
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1501635351965798402
In the replies there's this..
🇺🇦 The Monarch Diaries
@monarchdiaries
I listened to it with a native Russian speaker, and the idiom is relaxed and pretty specifically Russian. The big thing that struck him was the whole "we won the lottery just being alive, so let's goooooo!" vibe.
What freaked him out most the gf's "fck them" thing
FWIW he thinks it’s a real call but unlikely the soldiers actually executed the civilians. Rather, they’re acting all gangsta for their girlfriends.
This kind of posing is a HUGE thing among young Russian guys right now, esp “lower class” who end up in armed forces a lot.
Any other Russians in Russia with perspective on the scene for 18-25 year old guys, love to hear it.
https://twitter.com/monarchdiaries/status/1502131243915304984
Cf;
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/british-man-who-never-even-12465021.amp
What I suspect happened was at some point he filled in an online form and accidentally selected “Uganda” from the dropdown “nationality” field, which put him in the HO’s dragnet.
Completely fucking outrageous.
I find it much better for my blood pressure to just skip his comments. Rather like I refrain from pushing pins into my eyeballs.
Have to laugh though. One "funny" note and boom there goes your career. Same with Maudling.
Those are the sort of comments which seriously undermine just about everything he says. On anything.
Like having a good discussion on the rights and wrongs of pesticides and the person saying well Xanthe, Angel of the Fields doesn't like them.
We also had submarines with nuclear missiles as a last resort to defend British territory if conventional forces failed, which fortunately they did not. Argentina, unlike Russia or China, did not have nuclear weapons
How bizarre
You are just wrong, and demonstrably so. Imagine the situation where we had no nuclear weapons but everyone thought we did. On your view, we would be defenceless. To anyone who understands how deterrence actually works, we are just as well off as if we had them.
By suggesting the very tight victory was a cake walk you disrespect the brave military personnel who gave their lives to recover the Falkland Islands.
'They' is a perfectly acceptable singular person pronoun to use and it has been for centuries already, it is not just a plural pronoun, in the same way as 'you' is both a singular and plural pronoun.
They gets used as a singular person pronoun all the time in everyday life already, it is not some made up word.
https://twitter.com/TulipSiddiq/status/1504037872206241795
Did the Ark Royal go to the Falklands?
Today's HMS Ark Royal is a member of the 'Invincible' class of support carriers, together with the Falklands veteran HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious. Last of the class to be built, HMS Ark Royal's keel was laid at Swan Hunter's yard in 1978. She was launched in June 1981 and entered service in 1985.
Ark Royal being launched does not include fitting out and sea trails and she came into service in 1985
Time to admit you haven't a clue
And it isn't the Ukrainians marshalling global public opinion, it's the facts.
I also hope we've not paid blackmail to let her go free.
And if we had lost an aircraft carrier would that also come under the heading of 'easy'.
And do you think the sailors of Sheffield, Argent, Atlantic Conveyor or the soldiers at Goose Green thought it easy? To name just a few.
Your comments are a disgrace, fighting wars from your armchair.
https://labourlist.org/2022/03/labour-candidates-prepare-for-suspected-by-election-in-wakefield-after-mp-trial/
It carried connotations of the French "Tu".
A Christian just adds the New Testament too while a Jew only lives by the Old Testament
Here's an example sentence: Every individual is unique. They are a combination of strengths and weaknesses.
I said Thatcher would have done anything to win the war as would I.
I hope you're not blaming the UK Government for foreign nations taking hostages and not having the rule of law?
I certainly hope so.
PS 'we could easily beat them '
Do you think its remotely acceptable for the Iranians to take people hostage in order to get sanctions broken? What a disgusting attitude if so.
Being as how there hasn't even been a trial yet.
You are the same kind of Christian as Putin, apparently.
Nice bit of jingoism, mind. Are all foreign nations like that?
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
Which implies the Ukraine official estimates are not quite as overoptimistic as suggested.
And domestic too. Here's Tulip Siddiq on Liz Truss.
"She told Times Radio: 'I've dealt with 3 PMs & 5 FSs, it's finally when I came to woman who was foreign sec who actually did something' "
Edit. However, let us see her get off the plane at Heathrow before we count all our chickens.
'It was not that difficult' and 'we could easily beat them'
Are you denying that @HYUFD ?
Those comments are either ignorant or a disgrace to the members of the forces involved.
It is a bad thing that Iran has been holding an unrelated person to the dispute hostage and it is a bad thing if the movement is because of the hostage taking. If the movement is eg because of the Russian crisis and Iran deciding to come out of the cold and get its oil flowing etc then that's not a bad thing, but we absolutely should not give in to hostage-taking.
Anri Tina
@Anri__Tina
У Скабеевой обсуждают план захвата Европы
Translated from Russian by Google
Skabeeva is discussing a plan to capture Europe
https://twitter.com/Anri__Tina/status/1503797246910877697
Russia don't need a strong Navy. Certainly they don't need a large ocean-going navy with aircraft carriers. Having one is pure pretension and waste.
Also, if they concentrated on their land forces, and in logistics, then they could defend a long frontier with fewer soldiers because they could rely on rapid redeployment to meet any threat. (Although apparently they do have good rail-borne logistics to redeploy and supply within Russia).
If Iran is taking people hostage, that is blackmail, pure and simple. To equate the two is to justify hostage taking.
https://youtu.be/4btl1nHpQYY?t=120
But we do know that talks about resumption of the nuclear deal have been going on behind the scenes for some time now.
I don't think any of us have many illusions about the current Iranian regime, but it is a country with which we probably have more in common than Saudi Arabia. A more stable Gulf which is happier to deal with us diplomatically rather than through threats and acts of violence is something to be pursued and welcomed.
We could defend the Falklands then and would defend them again today
Sure all political parties spin, use good days to bury bad news, give wonderful broad brush news in statements where there devil is in both the detail and wether their walk is as good as the talk. My particular hobby horse is I get cross seeing people posting that UK have sanctioned Roman Abramovich, which we haven’t - the key lesson from how previous sanctions down the years being merely cosmetic is where 1 named person had measures on them, but best buddies or family members had not. If any anyone wishes to post Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned well by UK government, I’ll post back you have been conned. 😕
@olliecarroll
·
43m
Putin’s closest ally in Ukraine Viktor Medvedchuk escaped house arrest and has been on the run since war started 24 February. A special group is looking for him.
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1504037031743270915
@visegrad24
·
46s
BREAKING:
The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.
That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?
I do. They’re literally prepping for the Endtimes. Quite disconcerting. Especially as it’s the 2nd time in 3 years
However Wakefield is only the 38th Labour target seat, Labour could win Wakefield and the Tories still win a small overall majority. The key thing will therefore be the size of the swing, not just whether Labour take it
Do we sense a photo op before long… 😉
What is slightly strange is that they don't present the location and other data...
Plus "their own army" means "can we have our tanks back, please?"
Plus - what is this Swedish neutrality model when they join NATO?