Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
It's stating a truth - the only thing that keeps war from devolving like this is strong rule following by both sides. One one side "defects", the other does so quite quickly.
I see we're in the new phase of this war: try to brand Remainers as more pro-Putin then Leavers. It's an interesting shift from 6 years of mocking those on the Remain side who warned of Russian interference, but I'm actually a big fan of creative adaptability, so crack on.
There are some on here who are totally aligned with Putin on Woke, gender perceptions, JK Rowling, Brexit and disregard for Western liberal democracy etc. They only disagree with him about invading other countries.
Crushing victory for the SPD in Saarland with about 43% and 27.5% for the CDU. Linke vote below 3%. AfD and Greens appear to have scraped in with 5.5% but unclear for the FDP who are teetering on 5%.
if FDP does not clear that herdable, I think from the numbers that SPD could govern without a partner, which I think is unusual in Germany.
Doesn't happen very often (at least not nowadays) although the CDU won a majority in Saarland in 2004 during their early 2000s high watermark (plus the CSU obviously used to achieve that regularly). The last time SPD won a majority was in Hamburg in 2011 under Scholz and Rhineland-Palatinate before that in 2006.
Strengthens their presence in the Bundesrat. Where the Opposition wields a majority.
Used to be a Linke stronghold (relatively - 21%) because it's the home of ex-Finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, who defected from the SPD. However, he's been at loggerheads with the local leadership (not sure what about) and resigned spectaculartly a few days before the election. The SPD will have benefited. Meanwhile, the CDU have been quarrelling nationally too, enabling Scholz to be the Landesvater above such things in difficult times.
Looked it up - quite interesting. As I underatand it he condemned Putin's "brutal invasion" but opposed sanctions because they'd affect ordinary people: the party leadership was elitist in favouring them, he said. Irritated, the party didn't select him as a candidate, and he walked out. I know there are people who think the left is secretly pro-Putin ('cos he's Russian, so sort of like the Soviets?) but the vast majority even on the far left see the invasion as revolting and sanctions entirely justified.
In a curious way, Putin has managed to narrow the gap between the mainstream and most of the far left - which is perhaps a small side-bonus for democracy.
Pro putinism is weird. I know a few who are at least sympathetic. One is quite far left. The other is an old Russophile brexiteer. Hard right?
The third is a remainery lib dem!
You get three groups.
1. On the hard left, people who take the view that my enemy's enemy is my friend. The Great Satan is the USA, and anyone who opposes the USA and NATO, must have some good about them.
2. On the hard right, people who think Putin is defending white Christian civilisation against homosexuals, transexuals, and immigrants.
3. The "realists" who can't see any reason not to allow Russia to exercise de facto sovereignty of the former USSR.
I see a fair bit of (3) amongst centrist Remainer friends of mine.
Essentially, their argument is similar to Chamberlain's.
I've encountered a few of those.
I caused a moment on the weekend, when the discussion among a couple of people turned to what the end of the war should lookalike. They were all about the compromises that Ukraine should make.
I suggested that I would be OK with whatever version of the China/Ukraine border Zelensky was OK with.
They start from the fact they don't want us to get involved and work back from that.
Sometimes they marry this with a bit of "independent mindedness" as well - that they don't go along with the reflexive anti-Russian stereotypes, as they see it, in Western culture in things like James Bond etc. and can see their point of view too.
It's really a rather naïve attempt at intellectual snobbery.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
33% for SF is just 1% more than Corbyn Labour got in 2019 and 7% less than Corbyn Labour got here in 2017 for perspective.
Do not forget either the combined score for the FF and FG government is 35% ie 2% more than SF. Ireland is also STV PR not FPTP
I'm not ruling out the possibility of FF+FG scraping a majority and somehow locking SF put of power but they would surely need to at least be at 40% combined to achieve that. SF as largest party is probably inevitable. A combined FF+FG vote of 35% must be a record low?
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF. Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
I see we're in the new phase of this war: try to brand Remainers as more pro-Putin then Leavers. It's an interesting shift from 6 years of mocking those on the Remain side who warned of Russian interference, but I'm actually a big fan of creative adaptability, so crack on.
There's actually a strange range of people wanting the war to end now and Ukraine accepting a loss.
- The humanitarian argument. Combined with a pragmatism that Ukraine must accept losing territory, so that Putin has a way out. That covers the people I was talking to on the weekend.
- The Negative Western Nationalists. Since Ukraine is "on the side of the West" they are the Bad Guys and should lose.
- The Trumpist Putin Fan Club. Not actually encountered any of these first hand in the UK. Seem to be a few online.
General Practice is a mess. Patients are unhappy with phone consultations and rightly so. Some hospital specialities are as bad for telephone outpatients. It simply isn't good medical care.
I'm on my fourth different antidepressant since September. Was prescribed the first following in person GP appointments in Ireland. The subsequent three changes of medication all following phone consultations with various doctors (four different doctors, I think, I don't even remember any of their names) at my GP practice in Scotland. No-one in the NHS has seen me in person even once.
Most of my prior contact with GPs with respect to previous episodes of depression has been lacklustre at best, so I've not considered it much loss, and fortunately I can afford to pay for private psychotherapy, but it's not much good really is it?
Lots of people at risk of falling through the gaps.
For some people, some of the time, phone/internet access to the go services is great. For most things I need it works. I also know the best approaches for things out of the mundane, such as getting a nurses appoinntment being easier than a gp, but when you are in the surgery, if you need the gp, you will get one. But for many, many people it doesn’t work. A lot of people would prefer the deli counter approach - turn up, take a number, get in line. I assume there are reasons why this is not an option in most surgeries. A lot of people hate having to tell receptionists what the issue is, my mother in law included. They feel it’s none of their business. There are a lot of issues. Pharmacies will be doing more in future. You can expect to get some prescription only meds from the pharmacy without the need for a gp. But we probably need a really big think about how to make general practice work.
With GPs I find that you go through all the online portal and answer a million questions where you provide as much detail on the specifics of your issue as you can, and at the end of it the online form says "nah, can't help you, just phone the GP anyway".
Of course when you phone them the first question is "did you go through the online portal for help" to which the answer is yes, it told me to phone you...
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
You still haven't learned that there's a difference between pretendy democracy and, well, democracy
One of the hints is when the state murders journalists and poisons opposition politicians, you're probably looking at a nativity play version, not the actual Son of God.
77% of Russians voted for Putin's party, the Communist Party and Zhrinovosky's Nationalist party at the 2021 Russian legislative election. Russian history is dominated by Tsarist authoritarian absolutism, Nationalism or Communism.
The idea most Russians are social liberals also desperate for free market Capitalism and not suspicious of the West is ludicrous
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
The worst thing is, it's so unnecessary. If you want to hurt your prisoners, just put them in a theatre and write "CHILDREN" outside. Then their own people will rain missiles down on them and their useful idiots in the west will sit and stroke their metaphorical goatees and ponder "but I wonder if anybody was really hurt after all?"
Given that so far there are zero confirmed deaths or indeed injuries, and it was over 10 days ago, I think most of the POWs would have preferred to take their chances in the theatre.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
It's sweet you think Russia is a democracy.
Russia isn't a democracy and hasn't been in any real sense for some time. Nevertheless there are many Russians willing to participate in this war crime against Ukraine, beyond Putin
I see we're in the new phase of this war: try to brand Remainers as more pro-Putin then Leavers. It's an interesting shift from 6 years of mocking those on the Remain side who warned of Russian interference, but I'm actually a big fan of creative adaptability, so crack on.
There are some on here who are totally aligned with Putin on Woke, gender perceptions, JK Rowling, Brexit and disregard for Western liberal democracy etc. They only disagree with him about invading other countries.
And there are some on here who I think are possibly not overly bright gammons who were wrongfooted by about 10-15 years over gay rights, and were still having a laff at the Bertie Woofters well into the 2000s, who now overcompensate by going Yay!! Trans people!!! on every possible occasion, and score the twofer of feeling really right-on about something, and having a smack at an over-successful woman tiresomely asserting women's rights, hur hur.
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
It's stating a truth - the only thing that keeps war from devolving like this is strong rule following by both sides. One one side "defects", the other does so quite quickly.
Yes of course - they were lovely lentil eating Nazi paramilitaries till the Russians started being horrid to them.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
The worst thing is, it's so unnecessary. If you want to hurt your prisoners, just put them in a theatre and write "CHILDREN" outside. Then their own people will rain missiles down on them and their useful idiots in the west will sit and stroke their metaphorical goatees and ponder "but I wonder if anybody was really hurt after all?"
Given that so far there are zero confirmed deaths or indeed injuries, and it was over 10 days ago, I think most of the POWs would have preferred to take their chances in the theatre.
And it's @Heathener who gets called a Russian troll.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
The future is hybrid. Don't waste time and money heading into an office every day, do it when there is a purpose.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
I see we're in the new phase of this war: try to brand Remainers as more pro-Putin then Leavers. It's an interesting shift from 6 years of mocking those on the Remain side who warned of Russian interference, but I'm actually a big fan of creative adaptability, so crack on.
There's actually a strange range of people wanting the war to end now and Ukraine accepting a loss.
- The humanitarian argument. Combined with a pragmatism that Ukraine must accept losing territory, so that Putin has a way out. That covers the people I was talking to on the weekend.
- The Negative Western Nationalists. Since Ukraine is "on the side of the West" they are the Bad Guys and should lose.
- The Trumpist Putin Fan Club. Not actually encountered any of these first hand in the UK. Seem to be a few online.
So what is the alternative? you may not want it to end with Ukraine accepting a loss, but Zelenskyy sems to disagree with you. The alternatives to a negotiated settlement are Russia destroys Ukraine, or Ukraine destroys Russia, and only one of those outcomes is ever realistically going to happen.
So what outcome are you looking for which is better than the war to end now and Ukraine accepting a loss?
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
I am critical of just about everything Biden has done for the last 50 years in Washington, but these comments, as you say, could tern out for the best. even if they may have been accidental.
Not sure allowing the Russians to think that the US may attack them is making the world safer.Biden was an idiot for making the remarks he did
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
You still haven't learned that there's a difference between pretendy democracy and, well, democracy
One of the hints is when the state murders journalists and poisons opposition politicians, you're probably looking at a nativity play version, not the actual Son of God.
77% of Russians voted for Putin's party, the Communist Party and Zhrinovosky's Nationalist party at the 2021 Russian legislative election. Russian history is dominated by Tsarist authoritarian absolutism, Nationalism or Communism.
The idea most Russians are social liberals also desperate for free market Capitalism and not suspicious of the West is ludicrous
Like prior elections in Russia, the election was not free and fair.[2][15][16] Multiple episodes of ballot-stuffing, forced voting, and other irregularities were recorded.[17][2][15][16][18] Putin's administration and the ruling United Russia party used a managed democracy approach to keep an appearance of political pluralism.[19][20] The election was marred by nation's most prominent opposition leaders (particularly those associated with jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny) and figures being excluded from ballot, imprisoned or exiled in months coming before the election.[21][22] Authorities also designated various independent media outlets and non-governmental organisations as "foreign agents", including the independent election monitor Golos.[21][23][24] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also said that it would not send observers for the first time since 1993 due to "major limitations" imposed by Russian authorities.[25]
It's a facade. The only people who would describe this as actually democracy are the intensely gullible.
Try the independent Lord Ashcroft poll of Russians then. 76% of Russians supported Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 79% see the expansion of NATO as a threat to Russia
General Practice is a mess. Patients are unhappy with phone consultations and rightly so. Some hospital specialities are as bad for telephone outpatients. It simply isn't good medical care.
I'm on my fourth different antidepressant since September. Was prescribed the first following in person GP appointments in Ireland. The subsequent three changes of medication all following phone consultations with various doctors (four different doctors, I think, I don't even remember any of their names) at my GP practice in Scotland. No-one in the NHS has seen me in person even once.
Most of my prior contact with GPs with respect to previous episodes of depression has been lacklustre at best, so I've not considered it much loss, and fortunately I can afford to pay for private psychotherapy, but it's not much good really is it?
Lots of people at risk of falling through the gaps.
For some people, some of the time, phone/internet access to the go services is great. For most things I need it works. I also know the best approaches for things out of the mundane, such as getting a nurses appoinntment being easier than a gp, but when you are in the surgery, if you need the gp, you will get one. But for many, many people it doesn’t work. A lot of people would prefer the deli counter approach - turn up, take a number, get in line. I assume there are reasons why this is not an option in most surgeries. A lot of people hate having to tell receptionists what the issue is, my mother in law included. They feel it’s none of their business. There are a lot of issues. Pharmacies will be doing more in future. You can expect to get some prescription only meds from the pharmacy without the need for a gp. But we probably need a really big think about how to make general practice work.
The first GP I ever saw about depression was firmly in the "it's all in your head, just pull yourself together" camp. I had a GP for a long time who suggested church attendance as a remedy.
There are too many GPs who are crap with mental illness and shouldn't have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is similar with many other specialisms.
It makes me think that we should reduce GPs to triage/signposting for specialist services and put the funding into the specialist services instead. Why would you use GPs to manage the treatment of depression?
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
It's not even that WFH is bad in of itself - it offers flexibility, it offers opportunities to work for companies that might otherwise be too far away to commute to every day, it can reduce time wasted through commuting, it's good for getting your head down to concentrate on something without too many distractions.
But to me the problem is when you take it too far you just replace the office cube farm with a hundred, or a thousand or more individual, isolated cube farms, and essentially the cohesiveness of your team and ultimately your entire organisation just begins to melt and warp.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
The future is hybrid. Don't waste time and money heading into an office every day, do it when there is a purpose.
I don't disagree, but it seems hardest to implement (or perhaps my work are just one of the ones trying and painfully failing to make hybrid work).
Weirdly I also think there's a lot of people out there who say what they want in an ideal world is "hybrid" but when it actually comes to it just want to sit at home and do it there. Like, nice to have the option but just rarely make use of it, for whatever reason.
I see we're in the new phase of this war: try to brand Remainers as more pro-Putin then Leavers. It's an interesting shift from 6 years of mocking those on the Remain side who warned of Russian interference, but I'm actually a big fan of creative adaptability, so crack on.
There are some on here who are totally aligned with Putin on Woke, gender perceptions, JK Rowling, Brexit and disregard for Western liberal democracy etc. They only disagree with him about invading other countries.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
Democracy is not merely a matter of elections, it is the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and a free press.
Russia has none of those things. It is in no meaningful way a democracy.
But you wouldn't understand that because you aspire to an authoritarian Tory government in the UK. You'd just love to see the jackboot come down on those you disagree with, because you don't have a democratic bone in your body.
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
The worst thing is, it's so unnecessary. If you want to hurt your prisoners, just put them in a theatre and write "CHILDREN" outside. Then their own people will rain missiles down on them and their useful idiots in the west will sit and stroke their metaphorical goatees and ponder "but I wonder if anybody was really hurt after all?"
Given that so far there are zero confirmed deaths or indeed injuries, and it was over 10 days ago, I think most of the POWs would have preferred to take their chances in the theatre.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
Working from home exclusively is not good, but I think the benefits of the changes in the last two years outweigh the downsides.
The worse moments of my working life have happened in the office. Having physical distance from colleagues means takes the edge off the bad times.
General Practice is a mess. Patients are unhappy with phone consultations and rightly so. Some hospital specialities are as bad for telephone outpatients. It simply isn't good medical care.
I'm on my fourth different antidepressant since September. Was prescribed the first following in person GP appointments in Ireland. The subsequent three changes of medication all following phone consultations with various doctors (four different doctors, I think, I don't even remember any of their names) at my GP practice in Scotland. No-one in the NHS has seen me in person even once.
Most of my prior contact with GPs with respect to previous episodes of depression has been lacklustre at best, so I've not considered it much loss, and fortunately I can afford to pay for private psychotherapy, but it's not much good really is it?
Lots of people at risk of falling through the gaps.
For some people, some of the time, phone/internet access to the go services is great. For most things I need it works. I also know the best approaches for things out of the mundane, such as getting a nurses appoinntment being easier than a gp, but when you are in the surgery, if you need the gp, you will get one. But for many, many people it doesn’t work. A lot of people would prefer the deli counter approach - turn up, take a number, get in line. I assume there are reasons why this is not an option in most surgeries. A lot of people hate having to tell receptionists what the issue is, my mother in law included. They feel it’s none of their business. There are a lot of issues. Pharmacies will be doing more in future. You can expect to get some prescription only meds from the pharmacy without the need for a gp. But we probably need a really big think about how to make general practice work.
The first GP I ever saw about depression was firmly in the "it's all in your head, just pull yourself together" camp. I had a GP for a long time who suggested church attendance as a remedy.
There are too many GPs who are crap with mental illness and shouldn't have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is similar with many other specialisms.
It makes me think that we should reduce GPs to triage/signposting for specialist services and put the funding into the specialist services instead. Why would you use GPs to manage the treatment of depression?
GPs are pretty much gatekeepers for secondary care (hospital). 99% of patients don’t have cancer, but the skill is referring the ones that do. You will always encounter variations in approach and mental health will be no different. I suspect some older GPS may be less good on this, but that’s a suspicion only. Sometimes you need to keep badgering to get results.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
“Austria is a “veritable aircraft carrier” of covert Russian activity…Its BVT intel agency is regarded as being so compromised that for a time it was cut out of much … intelligence sharing…[its] defence ministry is “practically a department of the GRU”
Interesting similarity between Putinist contamination/hampering of security services in Austria & UK? Under auspices of Putinists at highest levels of goverment?
Austria has always been an issue post-WW2 because of the way it was set up - zones of influence, posts split between political parties etc. In the 20s and 30s, there was also a strong, and muscular, Communist / left movement
Was thinking of much more recent times, specifically rise of Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and it's entry into federal government coalitions staring in 2000. Including for year & half (2018-17) where they controlled defense, foreign affairs and interior ministries.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
You still haven't learned that there's a difference between pretendy democracy and, well, democracy
One of the hints is when the state murders journalists and poisons opposition politicians, you're probably looking at a nativity play version, not the actual Son of God.
77% of Russians voted for Putin's party, the Communist Party and Zhrinovosky's Nationalist party at the 2021 Russian legislative election. Russian history is dominated by Tsarist authoritarian absolutism, Nationalism or Communism.
The idea most Russians are social liberals also desperate for free market Capitalism and not suspicious of the West is ludicrous
Like prior elections in Russia, the election was not free and fair.[2][15][16] Multiple episodes of ballot-stuffing, forced voting, and other irregularities were recorded.[17][2][15][16][18] Putin's administration and the ruling United Russia party used a managed democracy approach to keep an appearance of political pluralism.[19][20] The election was marred by nation's most prominent opposition leaders (particularly those associated with jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny) and figures being excluded from ballot, imprisoned or exiled in months coming before the election.[21][22] Authorities also designated various independent media outlets and non-governmental organisations as "foreign agents", including the independent election monitor Golos.[21][23][24] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also said that it would not send observers for the first time since 1993 due to "major limitations" imposed by Russian authorities.[25]
It's a facade. The only people who would describe this as actually democracy are the intensely gullible.
Try the independent Lord Ashcroft poll of Russians then. 76% of Russians supported Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 79% see the expansion of NATO as a threat to Russia
Because they are being fed propaganda from a dictator. And anyway what has that got to do with the evidence just given to you that the election wasn't fair?
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
33% for SF is just 1% more than Corbyn Labour got in 2019 and 7% less than Corbyn Labour got here in 2017 for perspective.
Do not forget either the combined score for the FF and FG government is 35% ie 2% more than SF. Ireland is also STV PR not FPTP
I'm not ruling out the possibility of FF+FG scraping a majority and somehow locking SF put of power but they would surely need to at least be at 40% combined to achieve that. SF as largest party is probably inevitable. A combined FF+FG vote of 35% must be a record low?
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF. Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
The large number of independent TDs currently being elected makes it difficult to shut SF out. SF only received 24.5% of the vote last time, would have won more TDs if they'd stood more candidates, and FF and FG had to call on the Greens to keep SF out.
If SF really do poll above 30% then it will almost certainly be impossible to keep them out of government.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
Working from home exclusively is not good, but I think the benefits of the changes in the last two years outweigh the downsides.
The worse moments of my working life have happened in the office. Having physical distance from colleagues means takes the edge off the bad times.
People mistake "working in isolation during a pandemic" for "flexible working without being tied to the office" (commonly known as working from home).
We moved to the latter for several years pre-lockdown. It took us about 2 years to learn to do it well - and were still learning when lockdown hit. It has been terrific.
The pandemic has been a miserable experience by comparison.
Things for which we only developed a solution during lockdown included how to onboard and manage summer interns.
The only thing for which we still don't have a solution: work experience kids. (We used to enjoy hosting them when we had an office.)
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Were you knocked back by Paddy McGinty’s goat at some point?
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
The single best moment of my current job was being able to work from a sunny Streatham Common and be paid overtime for it.
That was a while ago now, so it involved a Skype for Business call (shudder) as well as the actual work I did.
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
You what? I said I am ‘sure’ it’s a technically a war crime, if there is a hint of doubt it’s because we don’t know the full context, nor the veracity of the video
Shooting captured soldiers in legs. Yes. Bad
Is it as bad as bombing children to bits bad? Leveling entirely cities bad? Shooting at nuclear reactors bad?
ie is it Putin bad? No no and again no
It’s a brutal war. There will be cruelties and horrors on both sides. But, so far, the Russians are way way further down the path of war crimes. And they started it. And still they shell and bomb the children
If I was one of those Ukrainian soldiers I’d likely have obeyed if my officer commanded me to shoot the prisoners dead. As has happened a trillion times in war. Why burden your own side with enemy mouths to feed, especially in a siege? Just don’t film it
if they did do a small boat landing in this area, it might have had the benefit of tactical surprise and the advantage of advancing from a direction the enemy was not expecting. On the other hand it might just be the 'Advance' arrow is in slightly the wrong place, and therefor nothing of the sort.
I would have thought that a small boat operation gaining tactical surprise would be the sort of thing the normally slick Ukrainian social media operation would have a video of and boast about subsequent to the operation's completion. So much more likely to be a misplaced arrow on the map.
Did see a claim that the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border after taking Trostyanets.
These sorts of advances will become more difficult, because the remaining Russian forces will have had time to dig in and fortify their positions. I think this is why the emphasis on Zelensky's requests for weaponry has shifted to include Tanks as well as aircraft. They'll need tanks to break through Russian fortified positions, but they feel as though they are in a position where that is a relevant concern.
Anyone seen a TB2 video recently? I realised I didn't remember seeing one when I saw a video from a drone dropping munitions on a tank in a more improvised manner. Possible that they've all been shot down now.
On the other hand, the Russians will likely end up being short of food, ammunition, and fuel. The desire to defend until the death diminishes with discomfort and an inability to shoot back.
To an extent that argument can be overdone. If western estimates of Russian losses are at all accurate then a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to fight and die (or be seriously wounded). Fixed positions should also be easier to supply than mobile columns.
And fewer will be prepared to surrender as today's video of Russian PoWs being shot in the legs is circulated.
Firstly, that video needs to be investigated. It looks like it’s an Azov unit responsible so there is a good chance it’s real but it needs to be confirmed.
Re the a lot of Russian soldiers have been prepared to die argument, I’m not sure how right that is. Obviously, lots have died but it is also clear from multiple sources and the visuals that the morale isn’t high. There is only so much of that you can take.
I’d be amazed if far worse atrocities aren’t happening right across Ukraine
Imagine you’re fighting against the Russians in Mariupol. The Russians have invaded your country, they are indiscriminately slaughtering your women and children. They are using notoriously cruel Chechen mercenaries to go from house to house (known to torture and behead their enemies). The Russians are shelling schools and dropping white phosphorus on civilians. Everyone is starving and dogs are literally eating the corpses of your grandparents in the street (these are all verified neutral eye witness reports)
Then you capture some Russian soldiers. Alive. What do they expect to happen?
I’m sure it’s technically a ‘war crime’ but getting deliberately shot in the leg seems relatively trivial
If I was a Ukrainian fighter in Mariupol I’d be imagining much worse things I might do, given the chance
I think you know you're on a sticky wicket argument-wise when you shit this out - 'sure it's techinically a 'war crime''.
The worst thing is, it's so unnecessary. If you want to hurt your prisoners, just put them in a theatre and write "CHILDREN" outside. Then their own people will rain missiles down on them and their useful idiots in the west will sit and stroke their metaphorical goatees and ponder "but I wonder if anybody was really hurt after all?"
Given that so far there are zero confirmed deaths or indeed injuries, and it was over 10 days ago, I think most of the POWs would have preferred to take their chances in the theatre.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Were you knocked back by Paddy McGinty’s goat at some point?
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
Working from home exclusively is not good, but I think the benefits of the changes in the last two years outweigh the downsides.
The worse moments of my working life have happened in the office. Having physical distance from colleagues means takes the edge off the bad times.
It does depend a lot on the combination of individual tempraments and types of work. Some people have keenly missed the ability to press the flesh with colleagues on an hourly basis, and some jobs depend on it. Others, a lot less.
However, the bottom line is the bottom line. Employers won't pay for office space if they no longer have to, employees can save a lot of money and time by not commuting and Britain will function better if the good jobs don't require people to live within daily commuting distance of London. Widespread WFH in well-paid jobs has massive potential to level places up.
There's a lot we still have to work out as a society about this new world. How do we build teams, who gets the savings, how do we ensure people have access to decent workspaces in or near their homes? How do we help those struggling extroverts? Hybird working in 2022 won't look like Covid enforced WFH, and it will look different (and better) again in 2027. But if it fails to happen, it's because of a shocking failure of collective imagination.
(And as a counterexample to "the best moments happen collectively"... the best moment of my time as a proper scientist was solving an obscure puzzle in a very minor bit of physics. Nobody else had done it, largely because hardly anyone else had cared. But my tiny, pure, Eureka moment. In the middle of a park, actually. I accept that I'm strange, but it can happen like that.)
General Practice is a mess. Patients are unhappy with phone consultations and rightly so. Some hospital specialities are as bad for telephone outpatients. It simply isn't good medical care.
I'm on my fourth different antidepressant since September. Was prescribed the first following in person GP appointments in Ireland. The subsequent three changes of medication all following phone consultations with various doctors (four different doctors, I think, I don't even remember any of their names) at my GP practice in Scotland. No-one in the NHS has seen me in person even once.
Most of my prior contact with GPs with respect to previous episodes of depression has been lacklustre at best, so I've not considered it much loss, and fortunately I can afford to pay for private psychotherapy, but it's not much good really is it?
Lots of people at risk of falling through the gaps.
For some people, some of the time, phone/internet access to the go services is great. For most things I need it works. I also know the best approaches for things out of the mundane, such as getting a nurses appoinntment being easier than a gp, but when you are in the surgery, if you need the gp, you will get one. But for many, many people it doesn’t work. A lot of people would prefer the deli counter approach - turn up, take a number, get in line. I assume there are reasons why this is not an option in most surgeries. A lot of people hate having to tell receptionists what the issue is, my mother in law included. They feel it’s none of their business. There are a lot of issues. Pharmacies will be doing more in future. You can expect to get some prescription only meds from the pharmacy without the need for a gp. But we probably need a really big think about how to make general practice work.
The first GP I ever saw about depression was firmly in the "it's all in your head, just pull yourself together" camp. I had a GP for a long time who suggested church attendance as a remedy.
There are too many GPs who are crap with mental illness and shouldn't have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is similar with many other specialisms.
It makes me think that we should reduce GPs to triage/signposting for specialist services and put the funding into the specialist services instead. Why would you use GPs to manage the treatment of depression?
GPs are pretty much gatekeepers for secondary care (hospital). 99% of patients don’t have cancer, but the skill is referring the ones that do. You will always encounter variations in approach and mental health will be no different. I suspect some older GPS may be less good on this, but that’s a suspicion only. Sometimes you need to keep badgering to get results.
Pharmacies are great. Like a GP, but without the silly phone system.
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
I’m struggling to see the moral dilemma, although I can see a possible legal one.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
For some reason this reminded me of this (which won't make much sense unless you have played Mass Effect).
General Practice is a mess. Patients are unhappy with phone consultations and rightly so. Some hospital specialities are as bad for telephone outpatients. It simply isn't good medical care.
I'm on my fourth different antidepressant since September. Was prescribed the first following in person GP appointments in Ireland. The subsequent three changes of medication all following phone consultations with various doctors (four different doctors, I think, I don't even remember any of their names) at my GP practice in Scotland. No-one in the NHS has seen me in person even once.
Most of my prior contact with GPs with respect to previous episodes of depression has been lacklustre at best, so I've not considered it much loss, and fortunately I can afford to pay for private psychotherapy, but it's not much good really is it?
Lots of people at risk of falling through the gaps.
For some people, some of the time, phone/internet access to the go services is great. For most things I need it works. I also know the best approaches for things out of the mundane, such as getting a nurses appoinntment being easier than a gp, but when you are in the surgery, if you need the gp, you will get one. But for many, many people it doesn’t work. A lot of people would prefer the deli counter approach - turn up, take a number, get in line. I assume there are reasons why this is not an option in most surgeries. A lot of people hate having to tell receptionists what the issue is, my mother in law included. They feel it’s none of their business. There are a lot of issues. Pharmacies will be doing more in future. You can expect to get some prescription only meds from the pharmacy without the need for a gp. But we probably need a really big think about how to make general practice work.
The first GP I ever saw about depression was firmly in the "it's all in your head, just pull yourself together" camp. I had a GP for a long time who suggested church attendance as a remedy.
There are too many GPs who are crap with mental illness and shouldn't have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is similar with many other specialisms.
It makes me think that we should reduce GPs to triage/signposting for specialist services and put the funding into the specialist services instead. Why would you use GPs to manage the treatment of depression?
GPs are pretty much gatekeepers for secondary care (hospital). 99% of patients don’t have cancer, but the skill is referring the ones that do. You will always encounter variations in approach and mental health will be no different. I suspect some older GPS may be less good on this, but that’s a suspicion only. Sometimes you need to keep badgering to get results.
Pharmacies are great. Like a GP, but without the silly phone system.
Yes, and are in the process of getting better too.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
We’ve discussed the 3 groups of Putin apologists (I agree with the general gist). Now the 3 groups of anti-Putinists in the Anglo Saxon world:
1. Liberal idealists: Blairites, Clintonite-Democrats, Paddy Ashdown tendency Lib Dems, and the Rory Tories- defenders of the “international rules based system”.
2. Classic neo-cons and the Republican / Tory establishment cold warriors. Pax Americana and sticking it to the Ruskies.
3. Internationalist lefties and greens who don’t buy the whole “my enemy’s enemy” stuff, can’t bear all the macho, anti-woke homophobic nonsense and see in Putin the same imperialist mindset as those people in group 2.
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Uh, no. I'm not saying murder is wrong because it's illegal, I'm saying it's just wrong. I didn't think that was controversial.
Well, it rather boringly, is. Assassinating Hitler would have been murder, at any time and in any country. You got a problem with it?
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
You've just outlined a list of the reasons so many want to vote Sinn Fein.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
33% for SF is just 1% more than Corbyn Labour got in 2019 and 7% less than Corbyn Labour got here in 2017 for perspective.
Do not forget either the combined score for the FF and FG government is 35% ie 2% more than SF. Ireland is also STV PR not FPTP
I'm not ruling out the possibility of FF+FG scraping a majority and somehow locking SF put of power but they would surely need to at least be at 40% combined to achieve that. SF as largest party is probably inevitable. A combined FF+FG vote of 35% must be a record low?
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF. Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
The large number of independent TDs currently being elected makes it difficult to shut SF out. SF only received 24.5% of the vote last time, would have won more TDs if they'd stood more candidates, and FF and FG had to call on the Greens to keep SF out.
If SF really do poll above 30% then it will almost certainly be impossible to keep them out of government.
My experience of WFH was that it was great for doing a job you already knew how to do, with an established team you worked well with.
For learning to do new things, or building rapport with new people, it was utterly hopeless.
This is great for people who are happy with their jobs and know what they're doing, but for those looking to learn and get ahead (i.e. most people at the start of their careers) or onboard into a new job/team/culture (will happen to all of us at some point), it is less than optimal, to put it mildly.
I wouldn't place any weight in polling from Russia...I have been watching these vox pop videos, where they are asking lots of questions about Ukraine, Zelensky, Putin etc of Russians. It is really interesting what they don't say or the around about ways many are signal displeasure while not saying so or even saying they are happy with things...
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Uh, no. I'm not saying murder is wrong because it's illegal, I'm saying it's just wrong. I didn't think that was controversial.
Isn’t looting commonly a capital offense in and around war zones? Often with shoot-on-sight ordinances
So the guy that shot the man robbing the soldiers’ corpses might not even have broken the law
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
33% for SF is just 1% more than Corbyn Labour got in 2019 and 7% less than Corbyn Labour got here in 2017 for perspective.
Do not forget either the combined score for the FF and FG government is 35% ie 2% more than SF. Ireland is also STV PR not FPTP
I'm not ruling out the possibility of FF+FG scraping a majority and somehow locking SF put of power but they would surely need to at least be at 40% combined to achieve that. SF as largest party is probably inevitable. A combined FF+FG vote of 35% must be a record low?
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF. Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
The large number of independent TDs currently being elected makes it difficult to shut SF out. SF only received 24.5% of the vote last time, would have won more TDs if they'd stood more candidates, and FF and FG had to call on the Greens to keep SF out.
If SF really do poll above 30% then it will almost certainly be impossible to keep them out of government.
My experience of WFH was that it was great for doing a job you already knew how to do, with an established team you worked well with.
For learning to do new things, or building rapport with new people, it was utterly hopeless.
This is great for people who are happy with their jobs and know what they're doing, but for those looking to learn and get ahead (i.e. most people at the start of their careers) or onboard into a new job/team/culture (will happen to all of us at some point), it is less than optimal, to put it mildly.
It is also rubbish for any job which involve dealing with people, like teaching or medicine.
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
"Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?" - Score 0/4
"Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?" - Score 0/4
"Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies?" - Score 0/4
And so on...
Russians still elect their President and Parliament in multi party elections.
Russians are also not liberal, even if Russia had freerer and fairer elections than Sweden, Nationalists and Communists would still likely win most seats
That's a stunning win for the SPD in Saarland. It is common when Parties hover around the 5% in polls for voters to lend them their votes. Instead the Greens and FDP have underperformed.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
Vietnam definitely had the best RnR. If you were lucky you got a couple of weeks in Tokyo, Bangkok or Hongers
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
We’ve discussed the 3 groups of Putin apologists (I agree with the general gist). Now the 3 groups of anti-Putinists in the Anglo Saxon world:
1. Liberal idealists: Blairites, Clintonite-Democrats, Paddy Ashdown tendency Lib Dems, and the Rory Tories- defenders of the “international rules based system”.
2. Classic neo-cons and the Republican / Tory establishment cold warriors. Pax Americana and sticking it to the Ruskies.
3. Internationalist lefties and greens who don’t buy the whole “my enemy’s enemy” stuff, can’t bear all the macho, anti-woke homophobic nonsense and see in Putin the same imperialist mindset as those people in group 2.
The problem with this is it implies an equivalence. As if you need an underlying political philosophy to pick a side.
1) "Normal people who liked it when there wasn't a war on".
@hyufd I hope you are watching the Falklands documentary and are suitably embarrassed by your comments of a week or so ago.
The Argentine soldiers might not have been up to much but their pilots were very skilled and brave.
Hopefully you now realise it was no walkover.
I was watching Peaky Blinders but will watch it now.
Barely any wars are walkovers but we still won.
Militarily we were also stronger than Argentina then and even more so now. Militarily we would always have won, the question was only whether we would have had to use arguably immoral means to do so had the conventional war gone less well
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Russia has democracy, just most Russians vote for Putin's Nationalist United Russia or the Communists.
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
There are few reasons to be hopeful for Russia.
1) If they're all so happy with Putinite absolute rule why does he need such a huge internal security force and restrictive laws to control the people?
2) The special military operation NOT a war. If Russians are so keen on Tsarism and empire building why not be straightforwardly honest about it rather than the denazification and genocide drivel?
3) Putin has presented himself as the antidote to the chaos of the nineties but the act is starting to wear a little thin particularly with the mess they've made of covid and economic problems. The younger generation don't seem persuaded.
4) His aggression in Ukraine could be read as a preemptive move He lacks faith in his own people's desire for a 'strong' leader and if Ukraine were to become an open democracy Russia (aka him) could be the next domino to fall.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
More Frenchmen fought for Axis countries than for the Allies.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
33% for SF is just 1% more than Corbyn Labour got in 2019 and 7% less than Corbyn Labour got here in 2017 for perspective.
Do not forget either the combined score for the FF and FG government is 35% ie 2% more than SF. Ireland is also STV PR not FPTP
I'm not ruling out the possibility of FF+FG scraping a majority and somehow locking SF put of power but they would surely need to at least be at 40% combined to achieve that. SF as largest party is probably inevitable. A combined FF+FG vote of 35% must be a record low?
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF. Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
The large number of independent TDs currently being elected makes it difficult to shut SF out. SF only received 24.5% of the vote last time, would have won more TDs if they'd stood more candidates, and FF and FG had to call on the Greens to keep SF out.
If SF really do poll above 30% then it will almost certainly be impossible to keep them out of government.
My experience of WFH was that it was great for doing a job you already knew how to do, with an established team you worked well with.
For learning to do new things, or building rapport with new people, it was utterly hopeless.
This is great for people who are happy with their jobs and know what they're doing, but for those looking to learn and get ahead (i.e. most people at the start of their careers) or onboard into a new job/team/culture (will happen to all of us at some point), it is less than optimal, to put it mildly.
It is also rubbish for any job which involve dealing with people, like teaching or medicine.
Part of my job involves advising colleagues on best ways to get the data they need, and it works best as a drop in to the office set up. That’s what I missed most when wfh.
@hyufd I hope you are watching the Falklands documentary and are suitably embarrassed by your comments of a week or so ago.
The Argentine soldiers might not have been up to much but their pilots were very skilled and brave.
Hopefully you now realise it was no walkover.
I was watching Peaky Blinders but will watch it now.
Barely any wars are walkovers but we still won.
Militarily we were also stronger than Argentina then and even more so now. Militarily we would always have won, the question was only whether we would have had to use arguably immoral means to do so had the conventional war gone less well
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
Vietnam definitely had the best RnR. If you were lucky you got a couple of weeks in Tokyo, Bangkok or Hongers
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
Slightly off topic but I’m starting to think that Biden’s comments about the need for regime change in Russia, while unscripted, may turn out to be a work of unintentional genius. For several weeks, we’ve worried about what Putin may or may not do, and the risk of nuclear war etc. I suspect now, with these remarks, the shoe is on the other foot ie the Russians might be concerned about how far the US will go and / or whether Biden is nuts enough to go full on.
Wrong but ultimately right, I think. Biden's remarks are unhelpful because (a) no-one is quite clear what he means in a situation where absolute clarity is required; (b) it makes the argument about who is the Russian president rather than the unacceptable actions of the Russian state.
He is ultimately right because Russia must be defeated, and Russians must believe they are defeated, to draw a line on unprovoked aggression against neighbouring countries and on systematic war crimes. In effect Russia cannot be defeated while Putin stays in power.
Russia doesn't need to be defeated. It just needs democracy.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
Point of order: is it possible to be neutral against something?
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
And from a selfish perspective, I’m glad there is a neutral non-NATO country on our doorstep in the event of a Nuclear war.
The best way to avoid being killed if the mushrooms start sprouting is to get away. No amount of duck and cover or lead-lined bomb shelters is a patch on safe passage to a non-target country.
Violence is more likely if Boris does not trigger Art 16 now.
Most Unionists of course oppose the NIP
So the logic is that Unionists already pissed off by lack of Article 16 will be even aggravated by the increase in support for Sinn Féin. So better trigger A16 to hopefully reduce the chances of them being violent?
The EU were warned if they focused solely on avoiding a hard border in Ireland to avoid a return to violence by the IRA they risked a return to violence by loyalist paramilitaries like the UVF if they insisted on demanding a border in the Irish Sea for a UK and EU trade deal rather than finding a technical solution as the UK government wanted.
The EU and Dublin ploughed on regardless and the UVF bomb threat last week is the result.
There is of course NO increase in support for SF, latest Stormont poll has SF on 23%, down on the 27% they got in 2017
Before @HYFUD gets jumped on for his comment, he has a point. The talks around the risks to the Good Friday agreement on the border talks all came from one direction ie the worry that the IRA would start off again. Very few mentioned the opposite side of the coin ie what would the Unionists do. You might find one or two articles on it but the vast majority of opinion - mainly pushed by people who didn’t want Brexit - was the risk of what the Republicans would do.
Which is true, but that is why it was so damn stupid of Johnson to plonk the border in the Irish Sea as the EU wanted rather than keep the whole UK in the single market until a solution was found.
Which would likely have seen the Brexit Party get 15 to 20% of the vote in 2019, no Brexit still and no Tory majority.
What Boris proposed instead was a technical solution
What Johnson proposed was giving in to all the EU's demands and hoping something would turn up later.
It hasn't, and that's now a problem without an obvious solution.
Which is why the EU's idea was such a stupid idea, and Johnson was stupider still to accept it.
The solution is likely either a technical solution following Boris triggering Article 16 or closer alignment to the SM and CU under a PM Starmer.
I've exported and imported. I'm guessing you haven't. How would this technical solution work? I don't mean the details just the basics.
The basic principle is trusted trader.
Someone who is approved to ship goods into NI from the UK without checks
Products have a sticker on them “not for resale in RoI”
Spot checks exist to ensure compliance
You accept that there may be a small percentage of smuggling and use intelligence led policing to try and catch it
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Uh, no. I'm not saying murder is wrong because it's illegal, I'm saying it's just wrong. I didn't think that was controversial.
Well, it rather boringly, is. Assassinating Hitler would have been murder, at any time and in any country. You got a problem with it?
Barry Pepper in 'Saving Private Ryan': "Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen."
Brigadier Tony Wilson (handily deceased) getting it in the neck.
I have to say I have learnt a lot that I wasn't aware of, in particular how detached the SAS were. They seem to have invited themselves to the war. As you say Tony Wilson seems to have been hopeless and responsible for the deaths at Bluff Cove. His whole involvement seems pointless.
Also interesting (for @hyufd) how close the aircraft carriers were close to having to leave for logistics reasons.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
Vietnam definitely had the best RnR. If you were lucky you got a couple of weeks in Tokyo, Bangkok or Hongers
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
You weren’t there, man.
My first trip to Thailand was the mid 80s, and you could still ‘sense’ the war. Especially in the north - Chiangmai. There were bars which still played the cartridges and cassettes of 60s and 70s rock music left by the Americans. Indeed there were still Americans, soldiers and journalists who experienced the war and somehow never went home. Drinking hard liquor in the night market, or in Patpong, endlessly reminiscing
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
And from a selfish perspective, I’m glad there is a neutral non-NATO country on our doorstep in the event of a Nuclear war.
The best way to avoid being killed if the mushrooms start sprouting is to get away. No amount of duck and cover or lead-lined bomb shelters is a patch on safe passage to a non-target country.
So long as the winds are westerly at the time.
Surely given Ireland's aggressive criticism of Putin's invasion he knows he could nuke Dublin without response as it has no nukes and is not in NATO if we get to WW3.
We on the other hand are at least in NATO and he knows if he nukes London we would in turn nuke Moscow.
If we are destroyed New Zealand or South Africa might be a safe haven, I doubt Ireland would
Theresa May’s solution for the Irish border was for the UK to stay in the customs union until a technical solution could be found.
That was destroyed, essentially by the Brexit hard gang, egged on by then king over the water, Boris Johnson.
Boris and the ERGers own the Irish problem, just as they do the decline of UK export performance.
(All of this was predicted by Remainers).
Of course if PM Starmer wins the next general election he will likely just reheat May's Deal, to go full back into the EEA plus free movement risks him losing the redwall and he obviously thinks Boris' deal is too hard Brexit.
So May might have the last laugh yet
No. Dynamic alignment to the SM, particularly on food and agriculture gets rid of most of the hassle on the Irish Sea border and for that matter the Dover one. Not even 10% of Leavers would be bothered by that. Not least because EU regulations are by and large very good.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
Vietnam definitely had the best RnR. If you were lucky you got a couple of weeks in Tokyo, Bangkok or Hongers
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
You weren’t there, man.
My first trip to Thailand was the mid 80s, and you could still ‘sense’ the war. Especially in the north - Chiangmai. There were bars which still played the cartridges and cassettes of 60s and 70s rock music left by the Americans. Indeed there were still Americans, soldiers and journalists who experienced the war and somehow never went home. Drinking hard liquor in the night market, or in Patpong, endlessly reminiscing
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Uh, no. I'm not saying murder is wrong because it's illegal, I'm saying it's just wrong. I didn't think that was controversial.
Well, it rather boringly, is. Assassinating Hitler would have been murder, at any time and in any country. You got a problem with it?
No, I don't. But I have a sounds basis for thinking so. you operate within the law when the law is available as a practical remedy. When it comes to a genocidal maniac who is the head of a legion fascist fuckheads, then murder is the only practical response. The only other realistic alternative is letting him live, and that's worse.
Contrast that with someone robbing corpses. A nasty business, very unpleasant. But is the world a better place for appointing yourself Judge Judy and executioner, and upon witnessing it dispensing the ultimate punishment? I think no, the world is better served not killing people for such actions. If your only choice is between a corpse robber going free or me becoming a murderer, I choose the corpse robber's freedom. I would kill, but it would need to be for something MUCH worse than seeing some stealing from a dead guy.
Whatever
had you prosecuted the guy before an English jury/military court you wouldn't in a trn years have got a conviction, would you? The guy would 've said I thought he'd looted a gun, and was going for it. So it wouldn't actually have been mureder anyway, what with verdicts being conclusive.
Those who think WFH is the future and nothing wrong with it should challenge themselves to thinking of the 10 best moments in their career and I bet none of them featured being sat at home tapping at a laptop or meeting somebody virtually in a Teams meeting
Working from home exclusively is not good, but I think the benefits of the changes in the last two years outweigh the downsides.
The worse moments of my working life have happened in the office. Having physical distance from colleagues means takes the edge off the bad times.
It does depend a lot on the combination of individual tempraments and types of work. Some people have keenly missed the ability to press the flesh with colleagues on an hourly basis, and some jobs depend on it. Others, a lot less.
However, the bottom line is the bottom line. Employers won't pay for office space if they no longer have to, employees can save a lot of money and time by not commuting and Britain will function better if the good jobs don't require people to live within daily commuting distance of London. Widespread WFH in well-paid jobs has massive potential to level places up.
There's a lot we still have to work out as a society about this new world. How do we build teams, who gets the savings, how do we ensure people have access to decent workspaces in or near their homes? How do we help those struggling extroverts? Hybird working in 2022 won't look like Covid enforced WFH, and it will look different (and better) again in 2027. But if it fails to happen, it's because of a shocking failure of collective imagination.
(And as a counterexample to "the best moments happen collectively"... the best moment of my time as a proper scientist was solving an obscure puzzle in a very minor bit of physics. Nobody else had done it, largely because hardly anyone else had cared. But my tiny, pure, Eureka moment. In the middle of a park, actually. I accept that I'm strange, but it can happen like that.)
Mind me asking what physics puzzle you solved? I'm prepared for the risk of the answer to be deeply technical.
A pleasure!
X-ray diffraction; you shine X-rays at things, you get a spotty pattern which is related to the atomic arrangement of the thing. It's what Crick and Watson used to work out the structure of DNA.
There was this mineral I was studying, where the diffraction pattern had some out-of-pattern spots, which went blurry and got weaker when you heated the mineral up. There had been a number of attempts to explain these (I wasn't quite the only one who had cared about it), but they didn't quite explain everything convincingly.
My Eureka was to guess that a different process was involved- roughly that the X-rays were making the structure shake, and that's what we were seeing. That can happen with other diffraction experiments, but X-rays don't normally do it well.
And it worked. It meant calling in a few favours to get it checked out, but it all fell into place really prettily. More importantly (becuase it isn't really at all important), I had the thrill of knowing "I'm the only person who has ever worked this out, ever". I imagine authors feel the same when their story falls into place.
Latest RofIreland poll from @REDCResearch for the @businessposthq - Sinn Fein still way ahead: Sinn Féin 33 Fine Gael 19 (-1 in four weeks) Fianna Fáil 16 (-1) Green Party 5 Social Democrats 5 (+1) Labour 5 (+1) PBP-Solidarity 3 Aontú 2 Independents 11 (Poll: March 18-23)
Sinn Fein now extremely consistent at 33% in the RoI polls now and this should easily get them 60+ seats in 2025.
Fine Gael also now dropping below 20% for the first time since 2005.
Better poll for the smaller parties than the Behaviour and attitudes poll due to a possibly different methodology.
The most interesting thing is the relative resilience of the Irish Greens despite the collapse of FF and FG. I don't know how this plays out seatswise though in the greater Dublin area.
A Sinn Fein government chills my blood but it looks like it could well happen.
Goodness knows why. It seems to be an Irish version of Corbynism except it's got even more traction.
Ireland seems to have shifted very heavily left for some reason. Overall, the left wing vote is 51% in that poll, to 37% for the right.
I don't think it's that surprising TBH - there has been a consistent opening for the centre left in Ireland for a while but the Irish Labour Party has always gone into coalition with FG and got destroyed up to now. The opposition had to go somewhere and SF is effectively a bog standard centre left party now in RoI at least and is merely just being somewhat populist in opposition with FF and FG not delivering for younger voters.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
I don't see why anyone is surprised Ireland is amoral enough to elect a Sinn Fein government. This is the country that shelters under others' defence umbrella, leeches off others' tax base, let women die from lack of abortion access and were neutral against the Nazis.
Spain was neutral against the Nazis (volunteer "Blue Division" notwithstanding) Portugal was neutral against the Nazis Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
And from a selfish perspective, I’m glad there is a neutral non-NATO country on our doorstep in the event of a Nuclear war.
The best way to avoid being killed if the mushrooms start sprouting is to get away. No amount of duck and cover or lead-lined bomb shelters is a patch on safe passage to a non-target country.
So long as the winds are westerly at the time.
Surely given Ireland's aggressive criticism of Putin's invasion he knows he could nuke Dublin without response as it has no nukes and is not in NATO if we get to WW3.
We on the other hand are at least in NATO and he knows if he nukes London we would in turn nuke Moscow.
If we are destroyed New Zealand or South Africa might be a safe haven, I doubt Ireland would
There
I very much doubt Ireland is on Putin’s hitlist.
Though Morocco remains my no.1 option. Cheaper too.
We’ve discussed the 3 groups of Putin apologists (I agree with the general gist). Now the 3 groups of anti-Putinists in the Anglo Saxon world:
1. Liberal idealists: Blairites, Clintonite-Democrats, Paddy Ashdown tendency Lib Dems, and the Rory Tories- defenders of the “international rules based system”.
2. Classic neo-cons and the Republican / Tory establishment cold warriors. Pax Americana and sticking it to the Ruskies.
3. Internationalist lefties and greens who don’t buy the whole “my enemy’s enemy” stuff, can’t bear all the macho, anti-woke homophobic nonsense and see in Putin the same imperialist mindset as those people in group 2.
A good list, but I would add a fourth: those who are not highly engaged in politics but can see the level of human suffering in Europe for no easily understood reason. In the UK many will remember other Russian crimes on our soil and will be quick to believe Putin is the sole culprit.
Theresa May’s solution for the Irish border was for the UK to stay in the customs union until a technical solution could be found.
That was destroyed, essentially by the Brexit hard gang, egged on by then king over the water, Boris Johnson.
Boris and the ERGers own the Irish problem, just as they do the decline of UK export performance.
(All of this was predicted by Remainers).
Of course if PM Starmer wins the next general election he will likely just reheat May's Deal, to go full back into the EEA plus free movement risks him losing the redwall and he obviously thinks Boris' deal is too hard Brexit.
So May might have the last laugh yet
No. Dynamic alignment to the SM, particularly on food and agriculture gets rid of most of the hassle on the Irish Sea border and for that matter the Dover one. Not even 10% of Leavers would be bothered by that. Not least because EU regulations are by and large very good.
So would equivalence.
The EU should indeed offer equivalence on food and ag.
Although it’s not a full excuse, it’s possible they have been put off by noises within the Tory party for a reduction in food standards to better attract a US trade deal.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
Vietnam definitely had the best RnR. If you were lucky you got a couple of weeks in Tokyo, Bangkok or Hongers
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
You weren’t there, man.
My first trip to Thailand was the mid 80s, and you could still ‘sense’ the war. Especially in the north - Chiangmai. There were bars which still played the cartridges and cassettes of 60s and 70s rock music left by the Americans. Indeed there were still Americans, soldiers and journalists who experienced the war and somehow never went home. Drinking hard liquor in the night market, or in Patpong, endlessly reminiscing
All gone now
There was still a bit of Taipei in 1993, called The Combat Zone. One of the premier R 'n' R destinations. Ditto. Sounds the same.
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
John Amos in 'Die Hard 2': "Grenada. Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing!"
I read a memoire by someone who was an officer in WW11, I can't recall the book - I think it is well known. In it he describes an incident in France where after heavy fighting he is with a trusted NCO who has been through a lot of action and they come across a Frenchman robbing the corpses of British soldiers. The NCO empties his gun into the robber. I asked myself in all honesty what I would have done as the officer in those circumstances and the answer is nothing.
I think murder is worse than robbing corpses. i personally strive to do neither.
That isn't a comment on the moral dilemma of the officer.
Ideally he should have arrested the the murderer, if circumstances allowed it to be done relatively safely. There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Just as under the relevant national law, anyone who knew where Anne Frank was, 1942-44, was under a duty to report the fact to the authorities.
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
Uh, no. I'm not saying murder is wrong because it's illegal, I'm saying it's just wrong. I didn't think that was controversial.
Well, it rather boringly, is. Assassinating Hitler would have been murder, at any time and in any country. You got a problem with it?
No, I don't. But I have a sounds basis for thinking so. you operate within the law when the law is available as a practical remedy. When it comes to a genocidal maniac who is the head of a legion fascist fuckheads, then murder is the only practical response. The only other realistic alternative is letting him live, and that's worse.
Contrast that with someone robbing corpses. A nasty business, very unpleasant. But is the world a better place for appointing yourself Judge Judy and executioner, and upon witnessing it dispensing the ultimate punishment? I think no, the world is better served not killing people for such actions. If your only choice is between a corpse robber going free or me becoming a murderer, I choose the corpse robber's freedom. I would kill, but it would need to be for something MUCH worse than seeing some stealing from a dead guy.
All very A Level Philosophy, well done, B-, the more interesting question is: would you, the officer, arrest the NCO who shot the corpse-robber? Given what the NCO had been through, I doubt I would. I’d probably have tutted, and moved on
C4 documentary on the Falklands seems quite decent. Not many words being minced, particularly not by Michael Rose the SAS commander. Inter service contempt alive and well evidently.
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Are there any good parts?
Less shite is an option.
Vietnam was a fun place to have a war. Lots of drugs, good music, nice weather, beaches, beautiful people, booze, mountains. Sexy helicopter rides, excellent food (in the cities)
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
You either fight, or you surf.
John Amos in 'Die Hard 2': "Grenada. Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing!"
Comments
There are barely any liberals in Russia outside a few wealthy and highly educated people in Moscow and St Petersburg
Sometimes they marry this with a bit of "independent mindedness" as well - that they don't go along with the reflexive anti-Russian stereotypes, as they see it, in Western culture in things like James Bond etc. and can see their point of view too.
It's really a rather naïve attempt at intellectual snobbery.
Slide in the FG vote is interesting as I thought they would be holding up a lot better than FF.
Varadakar's appeals to Dublin Metro voters aren't working.
I think a SF-FF majority is possiblyan undervalued prospect TBH and SF will be surpringly centrist if they do get into gvt as they already have the young vote in the bag.
If SF gets more than 35%, they could really take off in seats though as remember FG got 76 seats on 36% in 2011 even accounting for SF being marginally less transfer friendly.
- The humanitarian argument. Combined with a pragmatism that Ukraine must accept losing territory, so that Putin has a way out. That covers the people I was talking to on the weekend.
- The Negative Western Nationalists. Since Ukraine is "on the side of the West" they are the Bad Guys and should lose.
- The Trumpist Putin Fan Club. Not actually encountered any of these first hand in the UK. Seem to be a few online.
Of course when you phone them the first question is "did you go through the online portal for help" to which the answer is yes, it told me to phone you...
The idea most Russians are social liberals also desperate for free market Capitalism and not suspicious of the West is ludicrous
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Russian_legislative_election
A reminder also of what a bloody bleak part of the world it was to fight a war in.
Remarkable
So what outcome are you looking for which is better than the war to end now and Ukraine accepting a loss?
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2022/03/for-now-russia-backs-putin-and-the-invasion-but-younger-people-are-sceptical-of-the-kremlin-line/
There are too many GPs who are crap with mental illness and shouldn't have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is similar with many other specialisms.
It makes me think that we should reduce GPs to triage/signposting for specialist services and put the funding into the specialist services instead. Why would you use GPs to manage the treatment of depression?
But to me the problem is when you take it too far you just replace the office cube farm with a hundred, or a thousand or more individual, isolated cube farms, and essentially the cohesiveness of your team and ultimately your entire organisation just begins to melt and warp. I don't disagree, but it seems hardest to implement (or perhaps my work are just one of the ones trying and painfully failing to make hybrid work).
Weirdly I also think there's a lot of people out there who say what they want in an ideal world is "hybrid" but when it actually comes to it just want to sit at home and do it there. Like, nice to have the option but just rarely make use of it, for whatever reason.
Russia has none of those things. It is in no meaningful way a democracy.
But you wouldn't understand that because you aspire to an authoritarian Tory government in the UK. You'd just love to see the jackboot come down on those you disagree with, because you don't have a democratic bone in your body.
I think the next election will be different as FF at least will not be able to completely rule out cooperation with Sinn Fein.
The worse moments of my working life have happened in the office. Having physical distance from colleagues means takes the edge off the bad times.
Sometimes you need to keep badgering to get results.
If SF really do poll above 30% then it will almost certainly be impossible to keep them out of government.
We moved to the latter for several years pre-lockdown. It took us about 2 years to learn to do it well - and were still learning when lockdown hit. It has been terrific.
The pandemic has been a miserable experience by comparison.
Things for which we only developed a solution during lockdown included how to onboard and manage summer interns.
The only thing for which we still don't have a solution: work experience kids. (We used to enjoy hosting them when we had an office.)
That was a while ago now, so it involved a Skype for Business call (shudder) as well as the actual work I did.
Shooting captured soldiers in legs. Yes. Bad
Is it as bad as bombing children to bits bad? Leveling entirely cities bad? Shooting at nuclear reactors bad?
ie is it Putin bad? No no and again no
It’s a brutal war. There will be cruelties and horrors on both sides. But, so far, the Russians are way way further down the path of war crimes. And they started it. And still they shell and bomb the children
If I was one of those Ukrainian soldiers I’d likely have obeyed if my officer commanded me to shoot the prisoners dead. As has happened a trillion times in war. Why burden your own side with enemy mouths to feed, especially in a siege? Just don’t film it
There but for the grace of God, &c
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60873435
Probably the “nicest” war, in that respect
There's no moral dilemma at all, only a practical one.
The Argentine soldiers might not have been up to much but their pilots were very skilled and brave.
Hopefully you now realise it was no walkover.
However, the bottom line is the bottom line. Employers won't pay for office space if they no longer have to, employees can save a lot of money and time by not commuting and Britain will function better if the good jobs don't require people to live within daily commuting distance of London. Widespread WFH in well-paid jobs has massive potential to level places up.
There's a lot we still have to work out as a society about this new world. How do we build teams, who gets the savings, how do we ensure people have access to decent workspaces in or near their homes? How do we help those struggling extroverts? Hybird working in 2022 won't look like Covid enforced WFH, and it will look different (and better) again in 2027. But if it fails to happen, it's because of a shocking failure of collective imagination.
(And as a counterexample to "the best moments happen collectively"... the best moment of my time as a proper scientist was solving an obscure puzzle in a very minor bit of physics. Nobody else had done it, largely because hardly anyone else had cared. But my tiny, pure, Eureka moment. In the middle of a park, actually. I accept that I'm strange, but it can happen like that.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pibyTJECI
https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2022
"Was the current head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?" - Score 0/4
"Were the current national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?" - Score 0/4
"Are the electoral laws and framework fair, and are they implemented impartially by the relevant election management bodies?" - Score 0/4
And so on...
1. Liberal idealists: Blairites, Clintonite-Democrats, Paddy Ashdown tendency Lib Dems, and the Rory Tories- defenders of the “international rules based system”.
2. Classic neo-cons and the Republican / Tory establishment cold warriors. Pax Americana and sticking it to the Ruskies.
3. Internationalist lefties and greens who don’t buy the whole “my enemy’s enemy” stuff, can’t bear all the macho, anti-woke homophobic nonsense and see in Putin the same imperialist mindset as those people in group 2.
For learning to do new things, or building rapport with new people, it was utterly hopeless.
This is great for people who are happy with their jobs and know what they're doing, but for those looking to learn and get ahead (i.e. most people at the start of their careers) or onboard into a new job/team/culture (will happen to all of us at some point), it is less than optimal, to put it mildly.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl4R4M9YVfYjjPmILU2Ie1A
Portugal was neutral against the Nazis
Switzerland was neutral against the Nazis
Sweden was neutral against the Nazis
So the guy that shot the man robbing the soldiers’ corpses might not even have broken the law
Russians are also not liberal, even if Russia had freerer and fairer elections than Sweden, Nationalists and Communists would still likely win most seats
It is common when Parties hover around the 5% in polls for voters to lend them their votes.
Instead the Greens and FDP have underperformed.
At worst, Danang beach, which was quite the party town
1) "Normal people who liked it when there wasn't a war on".
That's it.
Barely any wars are walkovers but we still won.
Militarily we were also stronger than Argentina then and even more so now.
Militarily we would always have won, the question was only whether we would have had to use arguably immoral means to do so had the conventional war gone less well
1) If they're all so happy with Putinite absolute rule why does he need such a huge internal security force and restrictive laws to control the people?
2) The special military operation NOT a war. If Russians are so keen on Tsarism and empire building why not be straightforwardly honest about it rather than the denazification and genocide drivel?
3) Putin has presented himself as the antidote to the chaos of the nineties but the act is starting to wear a little thin particularly with the mess they've made of covid and economic problems. The younger generation don't seem persuaded.
4) His aggression in Ukraine could be read as a preemptive move He lacks faith in his own people's desire for a 'strong' leader and if Ukraine were to become an open democracy Russia (aka him) could be the next domino to fall.
https://meduza.io/feature/2022/03/27/eto-ne-prosto-voyna-vse-gorazdo-huzhe?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=live&utm_campaign=live
Nuking Buenos Aires?
Russia is classed as Not Free, with a freedom score of only 19/100.
The best way to avoid being killed if the mushrooms start sprouting is to get away. No amount of duck and cover or lead-lined bomb shelters is a patch on safe passage to a non-target country.
So long as the winds are westerly at the time.
For any economy trying to solve a productivity puzzle, it’s the last thing we need.
Someone who is approved to ship goods into NI from the UK without checks
Products have a sticker on them “not for resale in RoI”
Spot checks exist to ensure compliance
You accept that there may be a small percentage of smuggling and use intelligence led policing to try and catch it
"Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen."
Also interesting (for @hyufd) how close the aircraft carriers were close to having to leave for logistics reasons.
All gone now
We on the other hand are at least in NATO and he knows if he nukes London we would in turn nuke Moscow.
If we are destroyed New Zealand or South Africa might be a safe haven, I doubt Ireland would
had you prosecuted the guy before an English jury/military court you wouldn't in a trn years have got a conviction, would you? The guy would 've said I thought he'd looted a gun, and was going for it. So it wouldn't actually have been mureder anyway, what with verdicts being conclusive.
X-ray diffraction; you shine X-rays at things, you get a spotty pattern which is related to the atomic arrangement of the thing. It's what Crick and Watson used to work out the structure of DNA.
There was this mineral I was studying, where the diffraction pattern had some out-of-pattern spots, which went blurry and got weaker when you heated the mineral up. There had been a number of attempts to explain these (I wasn't quite the only one who had cared about it), but they didn't quite explain everything convincingly.
My Eureka was to guess that a different process was involved- roughly that the X-rays were making the structure shake, and that's what we were seeing. That can happen with other diffraction experiments, but X-rays don't normally do it well.
And it worked. It meant calling in a few favours to get it checked out, but it all fell into place really prettily. More importantly (becuase it isn't really at all important), I had the thrill of knowing "I'm the only person who has ever worked this out, ever". I imagine authors feel the same when their story falls into place.
Though Morocco remains my no.1 option. Cheaper too.
Although it’s not a full excuse, it’s possible they have been put off by noises within the Tory party for a reduction in food standards to better attract a US trade deal.
Ditto. Sounds the same.
"Grenada. Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing!"