BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
A key part of our reputation over the last month has been to galvanise western unity. The two are effectively one and the same ; damaging the function, through undermining of the reputation.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
To some degree, but that was just from idiots on twitter, I don't recall Macron or Scholz saying anything about it. If idiots in twitter we're making the comparison then who gives a fuck right? This is the PM of the UK, that still means something despite how much Boris has debased the office.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
Synthetic because it was an irrelevant metric and mainly served as a distraction from the EU's weaker position on energy.
Russia's financial conditions are easing and the bite of our sanctions is fading, because Russia's energy exports are constantly generating hard currency inflows, so - even though we blocked FX reserves - Russia is generating new ones. A Russian energy boycott would stop this...
Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine. That campaign has culminated. Russian forces continue to make limited advances in some parts of the theater but are very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives in this way. The doctrinally sound Russian response to this situation would be to end this campaign, accept a possibly lengthy operational pause, develop the plan for a new campaign, build up resources for that new campaign, and launch it when the resources and other conditions are ready.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
A lot of that was down to the UK having already sanctioned a lot of the list the EU agreed. You can't sanction people twice so there was a big element of catch up. I think the larger point is that even that rubbish was twitter nonsense, this is the PM which makes it substantive.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
Strange that tonight you have been quoting all those who have never come to terms with Brexit
Boris was silly but all these posts are doing is helping Putin by sowing division
The PM sowed division by likening the EU to Putin and by implication calling Remain voters traitors. He is utterly lacking in class and a disgrace to this country. Anyone who defends him is swimming in the same sewer.
You need to listen to the whole speech
I really don't. The man is a fucking embarassment. You're a Tory member, just get rid of him already, I'm so tired of his shit.
I am not a conservative member nor have been for six months
The matter of Boris's future rests with his mps and unless they act he could be fighting an election as late as January 2025
January 2025??
It was established earlier that the changes to the FTPA requires an election by mid January 2025 at the latest
Really oh I thought it had to be December 2024 at the latest.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
Read the fucking news for once. We had to tread carefully because of prior court cases. In the end British sanctions on Russia have proved the most significant in the world, alongside those of the USA
That is partly because so much Russian cash was parked in London - private and state - and that may be intrinsically regrettable (or not) but that is an entirely different argument. The fact is the sanctions bile aimed at Britain was indeed "synthetic". As MaxPB says
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
A lot of that was down to the UK having already sanctioned a lot of the list the EU agreed. You can't sanction people twice so there was a big element of catch up. I think the larger point is that even that rubbish was twitter nonsense, this is the PM which makes it substantive.
I actually think the government were trying to figure out how to sanction lawfully.
We can see with Chelsea it’s not a switch you can just flick.
The problem is they communicated very poorly; claimed we were “world leading”; accused critics of Russophobia etc. The usual crap. Coupled with their known fondness for Russian money, they looked like they were foot dragging.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
Synthetic because it was an irrelevant metric and mainly served as a distraction from the EU's weaker position on energy.
Russia's financial conditions are easing and the bite of our sanctions is fading, because Russia's energy exports are constantly generating hard currency inflows, so - even though we blocked FX reserves - Russia is generating new ones. A Russian energy boycott would stop this...
Yes, this is one of the major problems. As long as we're happy buying Russian oil and gas at full price it means Putin can keep his army paid and fed. The EU absolutely needs to step up and so does the UK with ending imports of Russian oil and gas by the end of April.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
Similar in the way that an exasperated tut and sigh at your spouse is equivalent to brutally dismembering their entire family.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
Do you - like Black Lace having to sing Agadoo for the gazillionth time - ever get tired of repeating the same confected bollocks?
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
It's clear the Russians are in a position where they'll need to pause. The question is whether Ukraine can exploit this? The losses on their own side is one of the big unknowns in the war.
It's clear the Russians are in a position where they'll need to pause. The question is whether Ukraine can exploit this? The losses on their own side is one of the big unknowns in the war.
There's people like NPXMP who want to give Russia territorial rewards for a pause. It's brainless.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
Do you - like Black Lace having to sing Agadoo for the gazillionth time - ever get tired of repeating the same confected bollocks?
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
In the first days of the invasion, Western countries were racing with each other to apply the most punitive sanctions so division can be healthy if there is a common goal. Remember the synthetic sneering about the UK not sanctioning as many entities as the EU.
What was synthetic about it? The UK foot dragged. Or at least, gave the strong impression of food dragging.
A lot of that was down to the UK having already sanctioned a lot of the list the EU agreed. You can't sanction people twice so there was a big element of catch up. I think the larger point is that even that rubbish was twitter nonsense, this is the PM which makes it substantive.
I actually think the government were trying to figure out how to sanction lawfully.
We can see with Chelsea it’s not a switch you can just flick.
The problem is they communicated very poorly; claimed we were “world leading”; accused critics of Russophobia etc. The usual crap. Coupled with their known fondness for Russian money, they looked like they were foot dragging.
Yes an element of that too, however, some of the list from the EU were already sanctioned by the UK. Overall the UK had something like 300 separate individuals and entities sanctioned at the time but lots of it was post Crimea, post Salisbury, post Navalny. During the latter two UK and EU sanctions weren't aligned and the UK went it alone, especially after Salisbury, for a lot of people associated to Putin and the FSB and GRU.
For those who have asked: If you want specifically to aid Ukrainian refugees now in Poland, this is an excellent, well-established Polish charity with 30 years experience and a website in English: Polska Akcja Humanitarna @PAH_org https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1505144773971267589
I would just comment that we all know Boris misspeaks and on Brexit it causes meltdown with those EU devotees
I would just say this will not be the last, and he may pay the price but caution maybe prudent when it comes to the unique politician, that is Boris Johnson
And with that I say goodnight on the day my son had his first 'shout ' and he and two colleagues rescued a young lady from the sea in the early hours of this morning and who apparently did not want rescuing
There is good in the world
Good night folks
Who's going to rescue you from the metaphorical sea, G?
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
Do you - like Black Lace having to sing Agadoo for the gazillionth time - ever get tired of repeating the same confected bollocks?
I suspect he prefers "Gangbang".
I had to look that one up. Then delete my browser cache.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
I would just comment that we all know Boris misspeaks and on Brexit it causes meltdown with those EU devotees
I would just say this will not be the last, and he may pay the price but caution maybe prudent when it comes to the unique politician, that is Boris Johnson
And with that I say goodnight on the day my son had his first 'shout ' and he and two colleagues rescued a young lady from the sea in the early hours of this morning and who apparently did not want rescuing
There is good in the world
Good night folks
Who's going to rescue you from the metaphorical sea, G?
He apparently doesn’t want rescuing.
He doesn't like the taste of salt, but he's always bobbing around in the bay. Strange.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all, beyond tory conferences, and day-to-day polling . He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
He just doesn't have the breadth of vision to be Prime Minister, even when it looks like he's showing some signs of it.
Boris is right. Ukraine, in a way, IS like Brexit
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
You're rambling. Drunkenly. Again.
I might be rambling, but I am horribly sober
England's dismal performance restricted me to two small glasses of uncelebratory white wine, and a discussion of what happens the moment people actually die (one of the people at our table recently lost her mum)
It was, to be fair, jolly interesting - what DOES happen at the actual quietus? - but along with Eddie Jones's team trotting out another plucky defeat it definitely made for undrunkenness
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories, and as mentioned previously. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
I would just comment that we all know Boris misspeaks and on Brexit it causes meltdown with those EU devotees
I would just say this will not be the last, and he may pay the price but caution maybe prudent when it comes to the unique politician, that is Boris Johnson
And with that I say goodnight on the day my son had his first 'shout ' and he and two colleagues rescued a young lady from the sea in the early hours of this morning and who apparently did not want rescuing
There is good in the world
Good night folks
Who's going to rescue you from the metaphorical sea, G?
He apparently doesn’t want rescuing.
Do you realise just how disgusting that is when the young woman's life was saved even though she did not want to be
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
Agreed. I can see why Boris is doing this Brexit Redux stuff. It REALLY angers exactly the right people, the wanky anti-democrat Remoaners who tried to destroy democracy, see the Guardian's risible reportage, quoting Heseltine and the rest. An octogenarian traitor who tried to annul the people. Fuck him. It just makes me want to vote for Boris and Brexit all over again, because I despise the Remoaners so much. They need to go to jail
BUT this is nowhere near enough to win an election, because few people are as angry as me (and I am genuinely angry at what nearly happened to us)
Boris needs to find a Coalition much wider than this. The Culture Wars will help, but only go so far
So that's about 30% of the population (adding in perpetual habitual Tories). Where do the rest come from? He needs another 10%
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
You're rambling. Drunkenly. Again.
He (she? ) has mixed you up with Rochdale I think.
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
I dunno, I think I'd prefer to hear what Michael Heseltine has to say than someone like Darren Grimes.
You're a humourless lefty moron who moans about the lack of friendly migration policies after you literally moved to the Whitest Place in the UK
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
You're rambling. Drunkenly. Again.
He (she? ) has mixed you up with Rochdale I think.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine. That campaign has culminated. Russian forces continue to make limited advances in some parts of the theater but are very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives in this way. The doctrinally sound Russian response to this situation would be to end this campaign, accept a possibly lengthy operational pause, develop the plan for a new campaign, build up resources for that new campaign, and launch it when the resources and other conditions are ready.
The question is if the West is stupid enough to give the Russians room to do this.
Quite possibly. So far they've actually been smarter than usual and acted both quickly and seriously, so I'm worried they may have used up their good sense.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
Agreed. I can see why Boris is doing this Brexit Redux stuff. It REALLY angers exactly the right people, the wanky anti-democrat Remoaners who tried to destroy democracy, see the Guardian's risible reportage, quoting Heseltine and the rest. An octogenarian traitor who tried to annul the people. Fuck him. It just makes me want to vote for Boris and Brexit all over again, because I despise the Remoaners so much. They need to go to jail
BUT this is nowhere near enough to win an election, because few people are as angry as me (and I am genuinely angry at what nearly happened to us)
Boris needs to find a Coalition much wider than this. The Culture Wars will help, but only go so far
So that's about 30% of the population (adding in perpetual habitual Tories). Where do the rest come from? He needs another 10%
Not sure where they are
The Tories can lose a few from not doing this shit, but gain many more from not doing it I suspect.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
In the same way that being stuck on the borderland between western and eastern spheres of influence, leading to the destruction of half your country by a mad dictator, is the same as some people in Britain wanting to return to pre-1974 trading arrangements with Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of a former empire.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
If anything immigration will increase aggregate demand and result in more short term inflation. Increasing local production capability would require a subsidy fund of ~£20-40bn and even that might not really result in any successes because we have no pre-existing expertise left and ASML are out of capacity for EUV lithography machines until late 2023 aiui.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
Quite a few Brexiteers in my Twitter feed (which is extremely plural, and ranges from Marxist anti Semites to Putinite Fascists, and everywhere in between (I love the diversity, it is also good for the brain, like a varied diet)) have rallied to the Leave flag and are defending Boris and Brexit Britain. And these are people who have been dissing him recently
I reckon this was the aim. This does not mean the comments were objectively well judged or timely or whatever. Personally I found them silly and somewhat distasteful. Tho no more than that, and certainly not worth the hysterical over-reaction
But that's what he wanted. The hysterical over-reaction, from certain quarters, bringing the backlash to the backlash
Is my guess. But of course it might not work and will tank his polling. That I cannot predict
Quite a few Brexiteers in my Twitter feed (which is extremely plural, and ranges from Marxist anti Semites to Putinite Fascists, and everywhere in between (I love the diversity, it is also good for the brain, like a varied diet)) have rallied to the Leave flag and are defending Boris and Brexit Britain. And these are people who have been dissing him recently
I reckon this was the aim. This does not mean the comments were objectively well judged or timely or whatever. Personally I found them silly and somewhat distasteful. Tho no more than that, and certainly not worth the hysterical over-reaction
But that's what he wanted. The hysterical over-reaction, from certain quarters, bringing the backlash to the backlash
Is my guess. But of course it might not work and will tank his polling. That I cannot predict
Whilst he has had many political successes I don't know that he looks that far ahead in his planning.
I think some defences of what he said have been preposterous, but I think it is becoming clear that the criticism has been made, and harping on about it will only cause his camp to rally round, unfortunately.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
I disagree. And I DESPISE what Putin has done
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
If anything immigration will increase aggregate demand and result in more short term inflation. Increasing local production capability would require a subsidy fund of ~£20-40bn and even that might not really result in any successes because we have no pre-existing expertise left and ASML are out of capacity for EUV lithography machines until late 2023 aiui.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
I don’t agree.
The whole economy needs an injection of liberalisation support to counterbalance the increased cost of energy and silicon chips etc.
For example, we could temporarily allow companies generating a certain profit level (or some other qualifying metric) to grant automatic work visa to prospective immigrants from certain countries (certainly including Russia).
The alternative is just to ratchet up interest rates and “wait”.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
Russian nationalists were enraged by the prospect of the EU customs border regime applying between what they saw as the Russian cities of Kharkiv and Belgorod. There is a remarkable parallel with the issues raised by the Northern Ireland backstop. This is not a justification of Russian agression, but it's necessary to understand the background.
It's clear the Russians are in a position where they'll need to pause. The question is whether Ukraine can exploit this? The losses on their own side is one of the big unknowns in the war.
The ratio of material losses has moved to over 4.1:1 according to
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
If anything immigration will increase aggregate demand and result in more short term inflation. Increasing local production capability would require a subsidy fund of ~£20-40bn and even that might not really result in any successes because we have no pre-existing expertise left and ASML are out of capacity for EUV lithography machines until late 2023 aiui.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
I don’t agree.
The whole economy needs an injection of liberalisation support to counterbalance the increased cost of energy and silicon chips etc.
For example, we could temporarily allow companies generating a certain profit level (or some other qualifying metric) to grant automatic work visa to prospective immigrants from certain countries (certainly including Russia).
The alternative is just to ratchet up interest rates and “wait”.
But what would that specifically do to bring inflation down? I'm not really seeing what you're trying to achieve with it other than maybe depress wage inflation in some industries a few years down the line.
I think realistically we need a huge round of tax cuts on earned income and tax rises on wealth and unearned income, but get that through the Tory party.
Scottish parents completing census forms are being advised they can assign the sex of their children, including toddlers, according to “what describes them better”.
Completely insane. Sex is intrinsic. It's the kind of shit that makes me want to run to be an MP and win power rather than wait for the silent majority to tell them to get fucked at an election.
I didn't record the exact wording of the questions when I answered the census, but there are separate questions for sex and trans status, which I've just checked by looking at the legislation.
I would just comment that we all know Boris misspeaks and on Brexit it causes meltdown with those EU devotees
I would just say this will not be the last, and he may pay the price but caution maybe prudent when it comes to the unique politician, that is Boris Johnson
And with that I say goodnight on the day my son had his first 'shout ' and he and two colleagues rescued a young lady from the sea in the early hours of this morning and who apparently did not want rescuing
There is good in the world
Good night folks
Who's going to rescue you from the metaphorical sea, G?
He apparently doesn’t want rescuing.
He doesn't like the taste of salt, but he's always bobbing around in the bay. Strange.
The siren song of the blubbery, straw haired merman
BBC have finally reported Johnson's remarks. Apparently it's offended Ed Davey, Gavin Barwell and Donald Tusk . And that is a bad thing how?
Also Guy Verhoefwhatsit
And Michael Heseltine
The Guardian just can't help themselves. These are the people they quote
Boris' remarks were clumsy and ugly, but I can now see a logic. Get the stupid Remoaners to over-react and condemn Brexit outright, then kick off the Brexit Culture Wars all over again, and reunite the Leavery tribe, as they remember how the Remoaners really did try to torpedo democracy, so their lofty outrage is absurd and rancid
Will it work? Dunno. But it's not necessarily THAT stupid. It was an NLAW of crassness aimed at the lumbering battletank of Remoaner hypocrisy
The problem is the utter narrowness and short-sightedness of it all. He had helped to restore some of Britain's reputation internationally over the last month, and reverse some of his own damage to it, and this just helps to drag us all back down with him.
It's not that, it's causing division within the western alliance at a time we need absolute unity. Completely undermines everything we're trying to achieve to bring Putin down or at least force a withdrawal from Ukraine. Our reputation globally isn't really going to change either way with this, it's the actual issue of causing unnecessary division.
To come back to this before I wrap up for now, the two are very much the same. Britain's reputation around Europe has changed over the last month ; engaged, concerned about the security of our whole continent rather than just our corner, appearing to stand up for something beyond the narrowest self-interest.
Britain has served an important function during that time, by having an entirely different profile around Europe from the one it has had for the entire last six years. The loss of one simply causes damage to the effectiveness of the other ; Western unity.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
I disagree. And I DESPISE what Putin has done
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
Are other countries allowed a say in whether they want to be in Russia's 'sphere of influence' ?
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
If anything immigration will increase aggregate demand and result in more short term inflation. Increasing local production capability would require a subsidy fund of ~£20-40bn and even that might not really result in any successes because we have no pre-existing expertise left and ASML are out of capacity for EUV lithography machines until late 2023 aiui.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
I don’t agree.
The whole economy needs an injection of liberalisation support to counterbalance the increased cost of energy and silicon chips etc.
For example, we could temporarily allow companies generating a certain profit level (or some other qualifying metric) to grant automatic work visa to prospective immigrants from certain countries (certainly including Russia).
The alternative is just to ratchet up interest rates and “wait”.
But what would that specifically do to bring inflation down? I'm not really seeing what you're trying to achieve with it other than maybe depress wage inflation in some industries a few years down the line.
I think realistically we need a huge round of tax cuts on earned income and tax rises on wealth and unearned income, but get that through the Tory party.
The aim is to lower the cost of production generally, or maybe in key sectors like transport and construction, and secondly to improve consumer power in oligopolistic industries (house building, utilities).
Although I obvious agree about taxing wealth over income, I don’t think that bears on inflation. Better to scrap the corporate tax hikes perhaps (or countervail them with even more aggressive incentives for capital expenditure).
Gotta go. Daughter keeps singing about Bruno instead of getting to bed.
In 2019, the salience of Brexit (72%) was its highest since 1972. In February it was 13%, its lowest since December 2015. It will be very difficult to fight the next election as if its 2016-19
(Tweet includes chart)
Wont stop Johnson trying. Starmer needs a plan.
The Tories will fail if they just try to make it about Brexit. They need it to be forward looking, like Starmer bringing back free movement or Starmer opening up to arranged brides again.
But there's a problem with the free movement issue now, for the Tories. It's directed against Eastern Europeans.
The other issue is that when you have a global supply shock looking likely to cause stagflation, the last thing you wanna do is clamp down on immigration.
I'm not sure how immigration to the UK is going to help get more silicon wafers and chips made in Asia. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
If anything immigration will increase aggregate demand and result in more short term inflation. Increasing local production capability would require a subsidy fund of ~£20-40bn and even that might not really result in any successes because we have no pre-existing expertise left and ASML are out of capacity for EUV lithography machines until late 2023 aiui.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
I don’t agree.
The whole economy needs an injection of liberalisation support to counterbalance the increased cost of energy and silicon chips etc.
For example, we could temporarily allow companies generating a certain profit level (or some other qualifying metric) to grant automatic work visa to prospective immigrants from certain countries (certainly including Russia).
The alternative is just to ratchet up interest rates and “wait”.
But what would that specifically do to bring inflation down? I'm not really seeing what you're trying to achieve with it other than maybe depress wage inflation in some industries a few years down the line.
I think realistically we need a huge round of tax cuts on earned income and tax rises on wealth and unearned income, but get that through the Tory party.
The aim is to lower the cost of production generally, or maybe in key sectors like transport and construction, and secondly to improve consumer power in oligopolistic industries (house building, utilities).
Although I obvious agree about taxing wealth over income, I don’t think that bears on inflation. Better to scrap the corporate tax hikes perhaps (or countervail them with even more aggressive incentives for capital expenditure).
Gotta go. Daughter keeps singing about Bruno instead of getting to bed.
Which would make sense if our inflation was primarily domestically generated, it isn't. I really struggle to see how anything you're saying will bring inflation down. Essentially it seems like you're saying we should pursue a round of onshoring and domestic substitution for internationally sourced products, fine but who's to say we'd make silicon wafers and chips any cheaper than Taiwan or in any kind of timely manner?
Anyway, have a good evening, I'm off to Mercado 20th Novembre for dinner!
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
I disagree. And I DESPISE what Putin has done
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
Are other countries allowed a say in whether they want to be in Russia's 'sphere of influence' ?
Of course, but the fact is realpolitik is "real" and these things exist. Great powers have a sense of themselves and act accordingly
It's one reason why Britain Brexited. We are an ancient, powerful, insular, quite self confident nation (despite our neuroses) and many people thought: We have been independent and ourselves for 1500 years, we can be independent again, why exactly are we governed from Brussels?
One might disagree with this self-diagnosis but it is a thing, and is a primary reason we voted Leave when most EU countries would be too timid
Russia sees itself as RUSSIA. A great nation and a great culture. Not to be messed with. The nation that, in truth, REALLY defeated Hitler and Nazism in WW2
And all of that is quite valid, historically. After the end of communism Russia was utterly humiliated by the end of the USSR, and I fear that we added to that by advancing NATO and the EU to the very borders of actual Russia
We are not to blame for Putin, and we are certainly not to blame for this grotesque and Fascist Invasion of Ukraine. But did we play a role in the rise of Putinist Fascism? Almost certainly. And could we have done better? Yes, I think we could
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
I disagree. And I DESPISE what Putin has done
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
Are other countries allowed a say in whether they want to be in Russia's 'sphere of influence' ?
Of course, but the fact is realpolitik is "real" and these things exist. Great powers have a sense of themselves and act accordingly
It's one reason why Britain Brexited. We are an ancient, powerful, insular, quite self confident nation (despite our neuroses) and many people thought: We have been independent and ourselves for 1500 years, we can be independent again, why exactly are we governed from Brussels?
One might disagree with this self-diagnosis but it is a thing, and is a primary reason we voted Leave when most EU countries would be too timid
Russia sees itself as RUSSIA. A great nation and a great culture. Not to be messed with. The nation that, in truth, REALLY defeated Hitler and Nazism in WW2
And all of that is quite valid, historically. After the end of communism Russia was utterly humiliated by the end of the USSR, and I fear that we added to that by advancing NATO and the EU to the very borders of actual Russia
We are not to blame for Putin, and we are certainly not to blame for this grotesque and Fascist Invasion of Ukraine. But did we play a role in the rise of Putinist Fascism? Almost certainly. And could we have done better? Yes, I think we could
That's all
Russia ruined itself after 1991 with its overlaying of a pseudo Dallas perversion of capitalism on top of keeping its Soviet military/security state.
After that is it any wonder that the EU and NATO became more attractive alternatives for Eastern Europe ?
Scottish parents completing census forms are being advised they can assign the sex of their children, including toddlers, according to “what describes them better”.
A cynic without a Times subscription would wonder if toddlers are only mentioned to provoke a backlash. Surely it is much older children for whom questions of gender identity might be an issue?
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
I disagree. And I DESPISE what Putin has done
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
Are other countries allowed a say in whether they want to be in Russia's 'sphere of influence' ?
Of course, but the fact is realpolitik is "real" and these things exist. Great powers have a sense of themselves and act accordingly
It's one reason why Britain Brexited. We are an ancient, powerful, insular, quite self confident nation (despite our neuroses) and many people thought: We have been independent and ourselves for 1500 years, we can be independent again, why exactly are we governed from Brussels?
One might disagree with this self-diagnosis but it is a thing, and is a primary reason we voted Leave when most EU countries would be too timid
Russia sees itself as RUSSIA. A great nation and a great culture. Not to be messed with. The nation that, in truth, REALLY defeated Hitler and Nazism in WW2
And all of that is quite valid, historically. After the end of communism Russia was utterly humiliated by the end of the USSR, and I fear that we added to that by advancing NATO and the EU to the very borders of actual Russia
We are not to blame for Putin, and we are certainly not to blame for this grotesque and Fascist Invasion of Ukraine. But did we play a role in the rise of Putinist Fascism? Almost certainly. And could we have done better? Yes, I think we could
That's all
Russia ruined itself after 1991 with its overlaying of a pseudo Dallas perversion of capitalism on top of keeping its Soviet military/security state.
After that is it any wonder that the EU and NATO became more attractive alternatives for Eastern Europe ?
Wars are so important in the self-cognisance of nations
Look at the few major western countries in "Europe" which are not in the EU
The UK, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway
Three out of four were never occupied or turned into protectorates by Hitler, as happened to almost every other big European country (except Russia!)
Which is why Putin's invasion of Ukraine is so insane. By making war, he has done the one thing guaranteed to turn Ukraine into a nation with a sense of itself. I do not see how he can reverse this, unless he actually depopulates the country
And sadly, that was Germany's attitude at the start of the war (albeit one that assumed that Putin's aims were much more limited than they actually were).
Fortunately (and belatedly), Germany (and the EU) changed their spots. Irrespective of how the war plays out, Russia will be a much poorer country.
So, remember the Hunter Biden laptop story everyone? Well, even the New York Times is admitting it is true (check out the second link if you don't want to wade through the Times' story before they actually admit the laptop story was true):
Now, in an ideal world, all those on here who rushed to claim that it was a desperate smear and attacked anyone who asked if it could be true as a conspiracy theorist would apologise for just getting it so wrong. However, there is no way on Earth that will happen, the emotional involvement / TDS factors are just too strong to let facts get in the way.
However, the more interesting part is why the NYT has suddenly decided to go with this story. It's not as though they have become sudden converts to Trump and the Republicans and it was a story that had been somewhat forgotten about, especially with the events of the past few weeks.
Therefore, I do wonder whether this story is being primed to lever Sleepy Joe out of the White House, given his ratings and if the Democrats get hammered in November. At the heart of the Hunter Biden story is the allegation that Biden was taking big kickbacks from the likes of the Chinese. Imagine if the NYT suddenly decided to focus on that angle. How much pressure would there be on Biden to step down, with ill health the obvious useful excuse? And he is famously protective of his son.
Now, that would bring in Harris who is in an even worse poll positioning. However, it could be argued that Biden stepping down gives her two years as President to hopefully turn things around. What may be even more critical though is that it would mean she would have to appoint a VP who would automatically be seen as the Democratic nominee favourite if Harris was to decide to exit the stage.
Keep an eye on how the NYT reporting of this story develops.
So, remember the Hunter Biden laptop story everyone? Well, even the New York Times is admitting it is true (check out the second link if you don't want to wade through the Times' story before they actually admit the laptop story was true):
Now, in an ideal world, all those on here who rushed to claim that it was a desperate smear and attacked anyone who asked if it could be true as a conspiracy theorist would apologise for just getting it so wrong. However, there is no way on Earth that will happen, the emotional involvement / TDS factors are just too strong to let facts get in the way.
However, the more interesting part is why the NYT has suddenly decided to go with this story. It's not as though they have become sudden converts to Trump and the Republicans and it was a story that had been somewhat forgotten about, especially with the events of the past few weeks.
Therefore, I do wonder whether this story is being primed to lever Sleepy Joe out of the White House, given his ratings and if the Democrats get hammered in November. At the heart of the Hunter Biden story is the allegation that Biden was taking big kickbacks from the likes of the Chinese. Imagine if the NYT suddenly decided to focus on that angle. How much pressure would there be on Biden to step down, with ill health the obvious useful excuse? And he is famously protective of his son.
Now, that would bring in Harris who is in an even worse poll positioning. However, it could be argued that Biden stepping down gives her two years as President to hopefully turn things around. What may be even more critical though is that it would mean she would have to appoint a VP who would automatically be seen as the Democratic nominee favourite if Harris was to decide to exit the stage.
Keep an eye on how the NYT reporting of this story develops.
I think the timing is for a different reason.
The NYT new that is was real, and new that by continuing to deny it was was looking increasingly untenably so better to admit it now while all/most attention in on Ukraine, and do it in the 23 paragraph of an article.
Strange that tonight you have been quoting all those who have never come to terms with Brexit
Boris was silly but all these posts are doing is helping Putin by sowing division
The PM sowed division by likening the EU to Putin and by implication calling Remain voters traitors. He is utterly lacking in class and a disgrace to this country. Anyone who defends him is swimming in the same sewer.
You need to listen to the whole speech
The BBC have an edit with the EU bit removed. This edit of the speech (a speech presumably written by someone sensible with the contentious off the cuff riffing added by Johnson) is quite good. The Boris Today BBC seem to have given up on the speech completely at 11.00 on News 24.
We all know Johnson likes to showboat, but this wasn't in the best possible taste.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
Russian nationalists were enraged by the prospect of the EU customs border regime applying between what they saw as the Russian cities of Kharkiv and Belgorod. There is a remarkable parallel with the issues raised by the Northern Ireland backstop. This is not a justification of Russian agression, but it's necessary to understand the background.
Yes, I'm aware of the excuses that some Russians have given, but it's a little like a man murdering his ex because she went on a date with someone else. You would never suggest that the date was a root cause because all that does is raise the awkward question of why 99.99% of similar dates don't result in the same response. Also, if it hadn't been this "provocation" it would have been another. The Russian narrative of the causes of the war relies on an already absurd and broken conception of who is allowed to do what, to the extent that it carried zero explanatory weight.
Another angle to Johnson's Brexit comments is that the EU is quite likely to disappoint Ukraine regarding how willing it will be to conduct a fast accession process. It's also not absurd to argue that being caught in a tug of war between two competing customs unions was one of the root causes of the conflict, and Brexit gives the UK the opportunity to stand for a different model.
I'm sorry, but it definitely is absurd to suggest that competing customs unions was the cause of the conflict. The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power. There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
Russian nationalists were enraged by the prospect of the EU customs border regime applying between what they saw as the Russian cities of Kharkiv and Belgorod. There is a remarkable parallel with the issues raised by the Northern Ireland backstop. This is not a justification of Russian agression, but it's necessary to understand the background.
Yes, I'm aware of the excuses that some Russians have given, but it's a little like a man murdering his ex because she went on a date with someone else. You would never suggest that the date was a root cause because all that does is raise the awkward question of why 99.99% of similar dates don't result in the same response. Also, if it hadn't been this "provocation" it would have been another. The Russian narrative of the causes of the war relies on an already absurd and broken conception of who is allowed to do what, to the extent that it carried zero explanatory weight.
They didn't invade to stop Ukraine joining the EU, they influenced the pro-Russian President Yanukovich to scrap the idea and introduce a programme of closer ties with Russia instead. Then the Maidan protests happened in response, and a pro-Western Government was installed.
Comments
Putin is trying to destroy democracy. How is that different from what the Remoaners did with their 2nd referendum shit? Remoaners ARE c*nts, just like Putin
Boris should double down and say Jacob Rees Mogg is the Azov Battalion of eurosceptics, being targeted by the Wagner group of Anna Soubry
https://twitter.com/RobinBrooksIIF/status/1505169457198604290
Russia's financial conditions are easing and the bite of our sanctions is fading, because Russia's energy exports are constantly generating hard currency inflows, so - even though we blocked FX reserves - Russia is generating new ones. A Russian energy boycott would stop this...
https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-19
The question is if the West is stupid enough to give the Russians room to do this.
That is partly because so much Russian cash was parked in London - private and state - and that may be intrinsically regrettable (or not) but that is an entirely different argument. The fact is the sanctions bile aimed at Britain was indeed "synthetic". As MaxPB says
We can see with Chelsea it’s not a switch you can just flick.
The problem is they communicated very poorly; claimed we were “world leading”; accused critics of Russophobia etc. The usual crap. Coupled with their known fondness for Russian money, they looked like they were foot dragging.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-physics-and-hype-of-hypersonic-weapons/
It is perhaps time to for you to press the pause button on your discourse of hypocrisy and stupidity, and given that every single thing you say is either hypocritical or stupid, this means you have to shut the fuck up entirely, for about two years. Soz
Polska Akcja Humanitarna
@PAH_org
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1505144773971267589
Then delete my browser cache.
England's dismal performance restricted me to two small glasses of uncelebratory white wine, and a discussion of what happens the moment people actually die (one of the people at our table recently lost her mum)
It was, to be fair, jolly interesting - what DOES happen at the actual quietus? - but along with Eddie Jones's team trotting out another plucky defeat it definitely made for undrunkenness
https://twitter.com/ntsafos/status/1505248550975938560
Shame on you
.
But in an ideal world we would be going hard liberalising local production capability to counter-balance where possible.
BUT this is nowhere near enough to win an election, because few people are as angry as me (and I am genuinely angry at what nearly happened to us)
Boris needs to find a Coalition much wider than this. The Culture Wars will help, but only go so far
So that's about 30% of the population (adding in perpetual habitual Tories). Where do the rest come from? He needs another 10%
Not sure where they are
https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-19
The question is if the West is stupid enough to give the Russians room to do this.
Quite possibly. So far they've actually been smarter than usual and acted both quickly and seriously, so I'm worried they may have used up their good sense.
The man is a loose cannon.
That's just for silicon chips, I also don't see how increasing immigration will magic up more oil or gas or really any of the imports for which we are seeing prices surge.
Immigration will primarily act as an inflator of demand, further pushing up inflation. I really don't see any reason to think why immigration will bring inflation down in the short term, it may do in the medium term by depressing wages in some service industries but that's at least a few years off for the effect to feed in.
The cause of the conflict was entirely in the fascist fever dream of a small number of people at the heart of the Russian state, and the despotic and violent power structures that preserve them in power.
There is no sense in which Ukraine, the EU, the UK, the USA, or anyone outside the Kremlin is in any meaningful way a cause, even a minor one.
It's rarely as simple as this in international politics, but this time it is.
Quite a few Brexiteers in my Twitter feed (which is extremely plural, and ranges from Marxist anti Semites to Putinite Fascists, and everywhere in between (I love the diversity, it is also good for the brain, like a varied diet)) have rallied to the Leave flag and are defending Boris and Brexit Britain. And these are people who have been dissing him recently
I reckon this was the aim. This does not mean the comments were objectively well judged or timely or whatever. Personally I found them silly and somewhat distasteful. Tho no more than that, and certainly not worth the hysterical over-reaction
But that's what he wanted. The hysterical over-reaction, from certain quarters, bringing the backlash to the backlash
Is my guess. But of course it might not work and will tank his polling. That I cannot predict
Also:
"Down with hysterical over-reaction!"
night night
I think some defences of what he said have been preposterous, but I think it is becoming clear that the criticism has been made, and harping on about it will only cause his camp to rally round, unfortunately.
NATO and the EU over-reached, and we were insensitive to Russian feelings, and its sense of itself as a Great Power with a sphere of influence
This does not justify the horrors Putin has unleased. It is more like noting that the clumsy Versailles Treaty eventually led, with its overdone punishments, to the rise of Hitler
Hitler was a unique evil. But did the victorious WW1 allies have a role in his rise? Sadly, yes
The whole economy needs an injection of liberalisation support to counterbalance the increased cost of energy and silicon chips etc.
For example, we could temporarily allow companies generating a certain profit level (or some other qualifying metric) to grant automatic work visa to prospective immigrants from certain countries (certainly including Russia).
The alternative is just to ratchet up interest rates and “wait”.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
If that website is correct then Russia must have suffered huge human casualties.
I think realistically we need a huge round of tax cuts on earned income and tax rises on wealth and unearned income, but get that through the Tory party.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2020/76/schedule/2/made
I think the question on sex was a straight question about sex assigned at birth, but can't be absolutely certain.
Britain has served an important function during that time, by having an entirely different profile around Europe from the one it has had for the entire last six years. The loss of one simply causes damage to the effectiveness of the other ; Western unity.
And with that, I bid you 'Night all !
Although I obvious agree about taxing wealth over income, I don’t think that bears on inflation. Better to scrap the corporate tax hikes perhaps (or countervail them with even more aggressive incentives for capital expenditure).
Gotta go.
Daughter keeps singing about Bruno instead of getting to bed.
Anyway, have a good evening, I'm off to Mercado 20th Novembre for dinner!
It's one reason why Britain Brexited. We are an ancient, powerful, insular, quite self confident nation (despite our neuroses) and many people thought: We have been independent and ourselves for 1500 years, we can be independent again, why exactly are we governed from Brussels?
One might disagree with this self-diagnosis but it is a thing, and is a primary reason we voted Leave when most EU countries would be too timid
Russia sees itself as RUSSIA. A great nation and a great culture. Not to be messed with. The nation that, in truth, REALLY defeated Hitler and Nazism in WW2
And all of that is quite valid, historically. After the end of communism Russia was utterly humiliated by the end of the USSR, and I fear that we added to that by advancing NATO and the EU to the very borders of actual Russia
We are not to blame for Putin, and we are certainly not to blame for this grotesque and Fascist Invasion of Ukraine. But did we play a role in the rise of Putinist Fascism? Almost certainly. And could we have done better? Yes, I think we could
That's all
After that is it any wonder that the EU and NATO became more attractive alternatives for Eastern Europe ?
Look at the few major western countries in "Europe" which are not in the EU
The UK, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway
Three out of four were never occupied or turned into protectorates by Hitler, as happened to almost every other big European country (except Russia!)
Which is why Putin's invasion of Ukraine is so insane. By making war, he has done the one thing guaranteed to turn Ukraine into a nation with a sense of itself. I do not see how he can reverse this, unless he actually depopulates the country
Whitehall officials tried to justify P&O Ferries’ sacking of 800 workers by telling ministers it would “ensure that they remain a key player in the UK market for years to come through restructuring”, a leaked memo shows.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/officials-failed-to-challenge-p-amp-o-firings-mv06ldsv9 (£££)
If only ministers could think for themselves.
"He smiled &answered: My dear, let's be honest, why should we help you if all will end in 48h at most &new reality sets in"
It is now rumored that this was Ambassador Andriy Melnyk and the country was Germany
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1505351987508002819
And sadly, that was Germany's attitude at the start of the war (albeit one that assumed that Putin's aims were much more limited than they actually were).
Fortunately (and belatedly), Germany (and the EU) changed their spots. Irrespective of how the war plays out, Russia will be a much poorer country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html
https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/the-new-york-times-hates-to-say-the-post-told-you-so/
Now, in an ideal world, all those on here who rushed to claim that it was a desperate smear and attacked anyone who asked if it could be true as a conspiracy theorist would apologise for just getting it so wrong. However, there is no way on Earth that will happen, the emotional involvement / TDS factors are just too strong to let facts get in the way.
However, the more interesting part is why the NYT has suddenly decided to go with this story. It's not as though they have become sudden converts to Trump and the Republicans and it was a story that had been somewhat forgotten about, especially with the events of the past few weeks.
Therefore, I do wonder whether this story is being primed to lever Sleepy Joe out of the White House, given his ratings and if the Democrats get hammered in November. At the heart of the Hunter Biden story is the allegation that Biden was taking big kickbacks from the likes of the Chinese. Imagine if the NYT suddenly decided to focus on that angle. How much pressure would there be on Biden to step down, with ill health the obvious useful excuse? And he is famously protective of his son.
Now, that would bring in Harris who is in an even worse poll positioning. However, it could be argued that Biden stepping down gives her two years as President to hopefully turn things around. What may be even more critical though is that it would mean she would have to appoint a VP who would automatically be seen as the Democratic nominee favourite if Harris was to decide to exit the stage.
Keep an eye on how the NYT reporting of this story develops.
The NYT new that is was real, and new that by continuing to deny it was was looking increasingly untenably so better to admit it now while all/most attention in on Ukraine, and do it in the 23 paragraph of an article.