Leon - On your choice between Melenchon and Le Pen: I'd do what I did in the 2016 and 2020 American presidential elections: write in the name of a candidate I thought fit for the office. (Mitt Romney, for the curious.) That was easy for me each year, because I knew that the Democratic candidate would carry my home state of Washington.
Suppose I knew, magically, that my vote might make a difference, however improbable? Then I would have to research which candidate would do the least damage, allowing for the likely results of the legislative elections. (As of now, I haven't a clue.)
(I assume writing in a name would result in a spoiled ballot, rather than being counted, which is unfortunate. I rather like our write-in option, even though I have had to grit my teeth when I have used it.)
I love the way the Write-in option got Lisa Murkowski elected from Alaska to the US Senate, but I think that is pretty uncommon.
Yes, it does seem strange, I'm guessing its Putin Reminding his puppet, that he his subordinate by saying I what to see you but you need to come to where ever I happen to be to see me.
If Le Pen does 'win' in the next few hours, then My plan is to wait 24 hours for the odds to shift then pile in on Macron,
Le Pen winning, would be the best possible incentive for broadly moderate but apathetic voters to get out and vote Macron in the second round and for people who voted for other candies to 'hold there nose' and also vote Macron in the second round.
Sigh.
I’ll be polite and gentle with you BigRich. But where is he getting those extra moderate votes from an electorate and votes cast in round one that is anti Macron? The problem with PB on this election for months now is it’s easily the electable face of moderate versus beyond the pale extremists, summed up beautifully today by HY equating Macron to Nick Clegg, not Rishi Sunak trying to impose Thatcherism without a hint of compromise.
From todays BBC
The old tribal tradition of voting either for the left or right has gone. One market trader in Paris said he was yet to decide whether to vote for Marine Le Pen, 53, or 70-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After voting at a Paris polling station, Chloé told the BBC the candidates had spent too much time focusing on international affairs, but now was not the time: "They're not talking about the biggest subjects for us and our everyday lives." Malika said she was voting for Eric Zemmour on the far right because "I want to vote for France, not party politics".
For many voters, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right. Philippe Bridou, a former Socialist voter in south-western city of Perpignan, told the BBC he had switched to the far right because "security is important, immigration is important too because it's a subject now - and the left wing doesn't discuss it".
Well I'm pretty much with Big Rich on this one. I have six figure green on Le Pen, mostly backed at quite long odds, and I certainly don't expect to have that in two weeks time, but I am being quite greedy on when I cash in, bearing in mind that the betting markets often favour the right.
Six figures?! Wow!
I got up to £6k green on Le Pen (have now cashed a bit in at 3.95) and I felt pretty good about that!
Interesting material from national archives about whether Gorbachev was offered assurances that NATO would not expand (from George Washington University):
Pretty unambiguously "yes", with a few private reservations not expressed to the Russians. Some here (and elsewhere) have suggested that the assurances were never firm and basically that Gorbachev heard what he wanted to hear, but the reality does seem to be that we promised not to do it, and pretty swiftly reversed it when it suited us. We are not as scrupulous in international affairs as we like to pretend.
The brutality and the death roll of the invasion makes it quite difficult to make this point, since very few people in the West would argue that being let down about the assurances justifies a war. But - like the tacit support for Yeltsin's bombardment of Parliament and the toleration of neo-Nazism in Ukraine - it should be possible to acknowledge that there were genuine Russian concerns, without remotely arguing that an appropriate response was military aggression.
Why does it matter now? Because if we don't understand what motivates other countries, we will make choices on a false basis. Assume the invasion is defeated and Putin is forced out. Any successor to Putin will have the same history in mind, even if we're lucky enough to get a successor uninterested in expressing that by warfare. We need to avoid burning every possible bridge to that successor - which is why no Western leader is pursuing a no-fly zone or other direct intervention on the ground.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: TURNOUT 65.0% AT 1700 CET (2017: 69.4%) #Presidentielle2022 #Election2022 #France
When does the poll close
7pm our time.
Results very quickly as I recall.
Is that results or reliable projections?
The latter, but I seem to recall they count very quickly too so within a couple of hours we knew the projections were about right or had been able to make any adjustments.
Yes, it does seem strange, I'm guessing its Putin Reminding his puppet, that he his subordinate by saying I what to see you but you need to come to where ever I happen to be to see me.
Vosnotchy is c.6,500 km from Moscow. Lukachenko has a ten-hour flight to meet Putin. We sometimes forget the scale of Russia.
If Le Pen does 'win' in the next few hours, then My plan is to wait 24 hours for the odds to shift then pile in on Macron,
Le Pen winning, would be the best possible incentive for broadly moderate but apathetic voters to get out and vote Macron in the second round and for people who voted for other candies to 'hold there nose' and also vote Macron in the second round.
Sigh.
I’ll be polite and gentle with you BigRich. But where is he getting those extra moderate votes from an electorate and votes cast in round one that is anti Macron? The problem with PB on this election for months now is it’s easily the electable face of moderate versus beyond the pale extremists, summed up beautifully today by HY equating Macron to Nick Clegg, not Rishi Sunak trying to impose Thatcherism without a hint of compromise.
From todays BBC
The old tribal tradition of voting either for the left or right has gone. One market trader in Paris said he was yet to decide whether to vote for Marine Le Pen, 53, or 70-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After voting at a Paris polling station, Chloé told the BBC the candidates had spent too much time focusing on international affairs, but now was not the time: "They're not talking about the biggest subjects for us and our everyday lives." Malika said she was voting for Eric Zemmour on the far right because "I want to vote for France, not party politics".
For many voters, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right. Philippe Bridou, a former Socialist voter in south-western city of Perpignan, told the BBC he had switched to the far right because "security is important, immigration is important too because it's a subject now - and the left wing doesn't discuss it".
Where are the extra votes going to come form? well for a start there is the 5% is of the electrat that voted last time but does not seem to have trend up this time.
You don't have to agree, but that's my betting plan, and ultimately you can only make bets if some people bet the other way so feel free to do that. so far Le Pen has not had a lead in any 2 way poles I'm aware off with macron. and last election in the second round Macron significantly overperformed compared to his opinion pole position. his biggest thet this time IMO is his supporters being complaisant, while his opponents are revved up. A Le Pen win in R1 would IMO change that.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
Yes, it does seem strange, I'm guessing its Putin Reminding his puppet, that he his subordinate by saying I what to see you but you need to come to where ever I happen to be to see me.
Vosnotchy is c.6,500 km from Moscow. Lukachenko has a ten-hour flight to meet Putin. We sometimes forget the scale of Russia.
If Le Pen does 'win' in the next few hours, then My plan is to wait 24 hours for the odds to shift then pile in on Macron,
Le Pen winning, would be the best possible incentive for broadly moderate but apathetic voters to get out and vote Macron in the second round and for people who voted for other candies to 'hold there nose' and also vote Macron in the second round.
Sigh.
I’ll be polite and gentle with you BigRich. But where is he getting those extra moderate votes from an electorate and votes cast in round one that is anti Macron? The problem with PB on this election for months now is it’s easily the electable face of moderate versus beyond the pale extremists, summed up beautifully today by HY equating Macron to Nick Clegg, not Rishi Sunak trying to impose Thatcherism without a hint of compromise.
From todays BBC
The old tribal tradition of voting either for the left or right has gone. One market trader in Paris said he was yet to decide whether to vote for Marine Le Pen, 53, or 70-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After voting at a Paris polling station, Chloé told the BBC the candidates had spent too much time focusing on international affairs, but now was not the time: "They're not talking about the biggest subjects for us and our everyday lives." Malika said she was voting for Eric Zemmour on the far right because "I want to vote for France, not party politics".
For many voters, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right. Philippe Bridou, a former Socialist voter in south-western city of Perpignan, told the BBC he had switched to the far right because "security is important, immigration is important too because it's a subject now - and the left wing doesn't discuss it".
Where are the extra votes going to come form? well for a start there is the 5% is of the electrat that voted last time but does not seem to have trend up this time.
You don't have to agree, but that's my betting plan, and ultimately you can only make bets if some people bet the other way so feel free to do that. so far Le Pen has not had a lead in any 2 way poles I'm aware off with macron. and last election in the second round Macron significantly overperformed compared to his opinion pole position. his biggest thet this time IMO is his supporters being complaisant, while his opponents are revved up. A Le Pen win in R1 would IMO change that.
That's broadly my view. Macron is widely disliked, and many would rather not vote for him.
But if the choice is between Le Pen and Macron, and it looks very close, then many of those who don't like him, will trudge to the polls and (reluctantly) cast a vote in his favour.
Yes, it does seem strange, I'm guessing its Putin Reminding his puppet, that he his subordinate by saying I what to see you but you need to come to where ever I happen to be to see me.
Vosnotchy is c.6,500 km from Moscow. Lukachenko has a ten-hour flight to meet Putin. We sometimes forget the scale of Russia.
It's shiny, new and a the space program is a symbol of Russian power. Putin craves being remembered as the renewer of Russian power - so building the new space launch facility is one of his totem projects.
Like all things Putin related, it has been fucked by his corruption and that of his pet, Rogozin. Vastly over budget and long delayed.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
Rather ridiculous given Tugendhat is a Remainer unlike Sunak and not even in the Cabinet.
Wallace should be in the top 3 to succeed Boris alongside Truss and Sunak, not Tugendhat
Is the Leaver/Remainer thing still a dynamic though? I get the impression that the Tories are now seeing Brexit as something of an embarrassment best forgotten about. (The last strained attempt to make a virtue out of it was the stuff with Rees-Mogg and The Sun but I doubt there'll be any repetition of that - just too silly.)
Of course it is, given the vast majority of Tory voters let alone Tory members are still strongly pro Brexit and the Brexit deal we have. That will continue to be the case for at least a generation
You live in a world of make believe
I am in favour of brexit but want a deal that draws the UK - EU closer together especially on trade
You are a Remain voter who voted for Blair and has never been a great fan of Boris.
That rather proves my point, you are hardly typical of most current Tory voters and Tory members
Mate, you are a fan of Franco. I think G is more in tune with Conservative voters than you are.
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
I never said I was a fan of his anyway, just he did keep Spain together
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
No. Just no.
He makes the most extraordinary comments with absolutely no evidence
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
Is it really appropriate to meet him in person given the current situation?
Austria, not being a NATO member, is presumably trying to be some sort of rational mediator, good luck, but I dont think it will work, at least not at this point.
Talking of which, we spend a lot of time talking about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but never discuses Austria joining, presumably that's because of constiuatale reasons Austria can not join? but do we know if there is any public support for joining NATO?
If Le Pen does 'win' in the next few hours, then My plan is to wait 24 hours for the odds to shift then pile in on Macron,
Le Pen winning, would be the best possible incentive for broadly moderate but apathetic voters to get out and vote Macron in the second round and for people who voted for other candies to 'hold there nose' and also vote Macron in the second round.
Sigh.
I’ll be polite and gentle with you BigRich. But where is he getting those extra moderate votes from an electorate and votes cast in round one that is anti Macron? The problem with PB on this election for months now is it’s easily the electable face of moderate versus beyond the pale extremists, summed up beautifully today by HY equating Macron to Nick Clegg, not Rishi Sunak trying to impose Thatcherism without a hint of compromise.
From todays BBC
The old tribal tradition of voting either for the left or right has gone. One market trader in Paris said he was yet to decide whether to vote for Marine Le Pen, 53, or 70-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After voting at a Paris polling station, Chloé told the BBC the candidates had spent too much time focusing on international affairs, but now was not the time: "They're not talking about the biggest subjects for us and our everyday lives." Malika said she was voting for Eric Zemmour on the far right because "I want to vote for France, not party politics".
For many voters, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right. Philippe Bridou, a former Socialist voter in south-western city of Perpignan, told the BBC he had switched to the far right because "security is important, immigration is important too because it's a subject now - and the left wing doesn't discuss it".
Where are the extra votes going to come form? well for a start there is the 5% is of the electrat that voted last time but does not seem to have trend up this time.
You don't have to agree, but that's my betting plan, and ultimately you can only make bets if some people bet the other way so feel free to do that. so far Le Pen has not had a lead in any 2 way poles I'm aware off with macron. and last election in the second round Macron significantly overperformed compared to his opinion pole position. his biggest thet this time IMO is his supporters being complaisant, while his opponents are revved up. A Le Pen win in R1 would IMO change that.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly how it plays out, though a Le Pen win is entirely possible. For the record there has been one poll showing a Le Pen run-off lead though - from a less notable pollster AtlasIntel a few days ago.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Btw, as we await the French results, can I recommend Edward Stourton’s recent podcast on French/Algerian political history “The Shadow of Algiers” - it really is worth 45 mins of anyones time;
Another “exit poll” reported by La Libre has Macron 1.2 points ahead of Le Pen.
If Le Pen does come 1-2% behind in the first round then it won't be apocalypse for Macron but the truth is it will show the polls to be very good. And they've been showing a tight race with Le Pen gaining.
FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: TURNOUT 65.0% AT 1700 CET (2017: 69.4%) #Presidentielle2022 #Election2022 #France
When does the poll close
7pm our time.
Results very quickly as I recall.
Yeah, last time it was all done within minutes.
We'll get a very good indication within minutes, but the final result is likely to differ by 0.3-0.5% from the initial read. So, if it's 24.5/24.0, we might not know for sure who leads until late this evening, or early tomorrow.
On the other hand, if it's 27/23, then we know the order and who's in the final two, and we can go to bed. (Although if Le Pen is leading, I suspect that the discussion will go on well into the night )
I’ve found a problem with the east coast in the spring. It’s really hard to find somewhere sunny in the evening for a beer, and it gets bloody chilly in the shade. I’ve managed to find a place on the edge of the town square where I’ve got the last glimmer of sunshine coming down the street. When that goes I’ll need my coat and scarf on!
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
As far as I can tell, looking at the La Libre site, they are reporting raw data being leaked to them from the centre where the “official” vote estimation is being put together. It’s a rolling process, so the nearer to the polls closing numbers come out the more accurate they are likely to be.
Looks like Macron is under-performing his polling slightly and Le Pen is over-performing a little more than slightly.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Rather ridiculous given Tugendhat is a Remainer unlike Sunak and not even in the Cabinet.
Wallace should be in the top 3 to succeed Boris alongside Truss and Sunak, not Tugendhat
Is the Leaver/Remainer thing still a dynamic though? I get the impression that the Tories are now seeing Brexit as something of an embarrassment best forgotten about. (The last strained attempt to make a virtue out of it was the stuff with Rees-Mogg and The Sun but I doubt there'll be any repetition of that - just too silly.)
Of course it is, given the vast majority of Tory voters let alone Tory members are still strongly pro Brexit and the Brexit deal we have. That will continue to be the case for at least a generation
You live in a world of make believe
I am in favour of brexit but want a deal that draws the UK - EU closer together especially on trade
You are a Remain voter who voted for Blair and has never been a great fan of Boris.
That rather proves my point, you are hardly typical of most current Tory voters and Tory members
Mate, you are a fan of Franco. I think G is more in tune with Conservative voters than you are.
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
I never said I was a fan of his anyway, just he did keep Spain together
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
No. Just no.
He makes the most extraordinary comments with absolutely no evidence
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
He was a semi-demi-Fascist* dictator, who overthrew the democratically elected government of Spain in a violent coup, initiating a horrible civil war that kills thousands. He caused thousands more to be murdered - including, some say, his rivals on his own side.
He allied with Germany, who created the following piece of art -
He ran Spain with an iron grip until his death. All opposition was banned and many, many were imprisoned for not being in the Franco fan club.
He was an utter thunderknut. He improved the world by dying.
*He tried to distinguish himself and Francoism from the hard core Fascists (see the Blue Legion), but took many of their policies and mixed them up with hard core reactionary social policies. Forward to the 18th Century, pretty much.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
He stayed out of WWII mostly because he was a snob and looked down on Corporal Hitler from a great height (in his own mind).
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
He also forget Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Mark Zuckerberg and Chairman Mao.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
As far as I can tell, looking at the La Libre site, they are reporting raw data being leaked to them from the centre where the “official” vote estimation is being put together. It’s a rolling process, so the nearer to the polls closing numbers come out the more accurate they are likely to be.
Looks like Macron is under-performing his polling slightly and Le Pen is over-performing a little more than slightly.
If it's a live leak I'd expect Macron to improve a touch in the final hour as the big cities are open till 8 whereas elsewhere has shut.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
Is it really appropriate to meet him in person given the current situation?
Austria, not being a NATO member, is presumably trying to be some sort of rational mediator, good luck, but I dont think it will work, at least not at this point.
Talking of which, we spend a lot of time talking about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but never discuses Austria joining, presumably that's because of constiuatale reasons Austria can not join? but do we know if there is any public support for joining NATO?
I think there was something formal, as a condition for Russia withdrawing from its sector of occupation of Austria and allowing the country to transition to a post-occupation state. Ah yes, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Neutrality
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
doesnt upset me in the least, I simply refer to the league of butchers and who sits where, At a time when the russians are once again trashing the Ukraine its worth noting Stalin murdered more Ukranians than Hitler.
If Le Pen does 'win' in the next few hours, then My plan is to wait 24 hours for the odds to shift then pile in on Macron,
Le Pen winning, would be the best possible incentive for broadly moderate but apathetic voters to get out and vote Macron in the second round and for people who voted for other candies to 'hold there nose' and also vote Macron in the second round.
Sigh.
I’ll be polite and gentle with you BigRich. But where is he getting those extra moderate votes from an electorate and votes cast in round one that is anti Macron? The problem with PB on this election for months now is it’s easily the electable face of moderate versus beyond the pale extremists, summed up beautifully today by HY equating Macron to Nick Clegg, not Rishi Sunak trying to impose Thatcherism without a hint of compromise.
From todays BBC
The old tribal tradition of voting either for the left or right has gone. One market trader in Paris said he was yet to decide whether to vote for Marine Le Pen, 53, or 70-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
After voting at a Paris polling station, Chloé told the BBC the candidates had spent too much time focusing on international affairs, but now was not the time: "They're not talking about the biggest subjects for us and our everyday lives." Malika said she was voting for Eric Zemmour on the far right because "I want to vote for France, not party politics".
For many voters, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right. Philippe Bridou, a former Socialist voter in south-western city of Perpignan, told the BBC he had switched to the far right because "security is important, immigration is important too because it's a subject now - and the left wing doesn't discuss it".
Well I'm pretty much with Big Rich on this one. I have six figure green on Le Pen, mostly backed at quite long odds, and I certainly don't expect to have that in two weeks time, but I am being quite greedy on when I cash in, bearing in mind that the betting markets often favour the right.
Six figures?! Wow!
I got up to £6k green on Le Pen (have now cashed a bit in at 3.95) and I felt pretty good about that!
This just shows how much of a rank amateur I am.
Even on my best markets I'm just playing with a few hundred in the green.
Looks like little doubt as to who will be going through to the final round of the French election. An interesting couple of weeks ahead given how tight things are.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
I'm not sure that comparisons with Japan are faire, for 3 reasons.
1) this a Europe war, with Ukraine punished for wanting to be a nonreal European nation, but Japan is not in Europe
2) The constitution of Japan demands neutrality, preventing it doing much.
3) Japan did do what it could very early, i.e. give helmets body armour, and lots of other stuff.
Personally I'm dissipated in the response of the other big 4 European nations Germany, France, Italy and Spain. (also disputed in Hungary)
East Europe has been amazing, phatically Poland and Estonia,
The Small European nations, including Sweden, The neverlands, Luxemburg, Greece, and others have given lots of help proportional to there size.
The UK, clearly has given lots of help, Equipment, intelligence, training and more.
Japan, South Korea Australia, and New Zealand, have all been generate considering this is not in their neighbourhood.
Canada and the US could also fit in to the latter category, but they have both made a commitment to Europe though NATO so that enplanes there even more generous support.
As for France what exactly has it done, with great fanfare it was announced by Macron that Ukraine could by French weapons on a buy now pay latter policy, and he got a lot of praise for it, but to me that sounds more like 'boneshaking' a desperate customer than generous help.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
I think that's fair. He demonstrated a certain political savviness later - as a 1930s fascist he should have gone the way of the Dodo decades earlier.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Hmmm.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
His attempts at reaching out to Putin come from a long tradition, in France's post WWII policy, of trying to reach out to Russia and be a mediator when things get dicey, incidentally.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Now Macron on 25.2 and Le Pen on 24, according to La Libre.
Last time the first round vote was 24.0 to Macron, 21.3 to Le Pen. Macron then won 66 to 34 in the second round. Clearly won't be that scale this time.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
I love the way you almost always start your second or third paragraphs with "Now".
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
Macron is not pushing the feet draggers and thats his job in Europe, if leadership hurts he shouldnt take the job .. Macron was also happy to take the PR by sitting with Putin for the PR when it looks good.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
I'm not sure that comparisons with Japan are faire, for 3 reasons.
1) this a Europe war, with Ukraine punished for wanting to be a nonreal European nation, but Japan is not in Europe
2) The constitution of Japan demands neutrality, preventing it doing much.
3) Japan did do what it could very early, i.e. give helmets body armour, and lots of other stuff.
Personally I'm dissipated in the response of the other big 4 European nations Germany, France, Italy and Spain. (also disputed in Hungary)
East Europe has been amazing, phatically Poland and Estonia,
The Small European nations, including Sweden, The neverlands, Luxemburg, Greece, and others have given lots of help proportional to there size.
The UK, clearly has given lots of help, Equipment, intelligence, training and more.
Japan, South Korea Australia, and New Zealand, have all been generate considering this is not in their neighbourhood.
Canada and the US could also fit in to the latter category, but they have both made a commitment to Europe though NATO so that enplanes there even more generous support.
As for France what exactly has it done, with great fanfare it was announced by Macron that Ukraine could by French weapons on a buy now pay latter policy, and he got a lot of praise for it, but to me that sounds more like 'boneshaking' a desperate customer than generous help.
Japan has continued to buy Russian gas from Sakhalin, and has taken extra Russian LNG cargoes that others were turning away. That was my compare.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Though of course this discussion is also a perfect excuse for this sketch again.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
I dunno, Mao must be up there. And as a percentage of own population killed or starved, Pol Pot must be in the top two or three.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
I love the way you almost always start your second or third paragraphs with "Now".
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
I love the way you almost always start your second or third paragraphs with "Now".
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
I dunno, Mao must be up there. And as a percentage of own population killed or starved, Pol Pot must be in the top two or three.
And the connection between them all is that they were all communists and the left don't seem to like mentioning them.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Hmmm.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
I did go to Spain when Franco was in power, but was still in nappies at the time, so have an excuse. I greatly enjoyed the 2018 World Cup and am keen to see more of Russia. It has long been on my list to do the Trans-Siberian, but that have to put that off for a few years.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
Is it really appropriate to meet him in person given the current situation?
Austria, not being a NATO member, is presumably trying to be some sort of rational mediator, good luck, but I dont think it will work, at least not at this point.
Talking of which, we spend a lot of time talking about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but never discuses Austria joining, presumably that's because of constiuatale reasons Austria can not join? but do we know if there is any public support for joining NATO?
I think there was something formal, as a condition for Russia withdrawing from its sector of occupation of Austria and allowing the country to transition to a post-occupation state. Ah yes, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Neutrality
Thanks for sharing that link
yes it seems to have a strong constitutional block on joining any military alliance. presumably as a soverin nation Austria could, if the parliament wanted to vote to change this. but that's probably a moot point if only 18% of the population what to join NATO, its no worth spending to much time thinking about.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
I dunno, Mao must be up there. And as a percentage of own population killed or starved, Pol Pot must be in the top two or three.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
Macron is not pushing the feet draggers and thats his job in Europe, if leadership hurts he shouldnt take the job .. Macron was also happy to take the PR by sitting with Putin for the PR when it looks good.
Nah I think you are wrong on this. I think Macron has done a bloody good job so far regarding Ukraine. Certainly far better than many others in the EU and easily on a par with Johnson and Biden. Not much to choose between all three of them in terms of the way they have stepped up to the mark.
I said it a few weeks ago, I think Macron deserves to win this election simply on the strength of his leadership in the Ukraine crisis and for being willing to put up with listening to Putin ranting away day after day.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Hmmm.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
I did go to Spain when Franco was in power, but was still in nappies at the time, so have an excuse. I greatly enjoyed the 2018 World Cup and am keen to see more of Russia. It has long been on my list to do the Trans-Siberian, but that have to put that off for a few years.
Wife and I were last year planning the Trans-Siberian for next summer. Obviously not now, and not while Putin is alive.
Maybe Lviv this summer instead. Ukraine needs the foreign money.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
Macron is not pushing the feet draggers and thats his job in Europe, if leadership hurts he shouldnt take the job .. Macron was also happy to take the PR by sitting with Putin for the PR when it looks good.
Nah I think you are wrong on this. I think Macron has done a bloody good job so far regarding Ukraine. Certainly far better than many others in the EU and easily on a par with Johnson and Biden. Not much to choose between all three of them in terms of the way they have stepped up to the mark.
I said it a few weeks ago, I think Macron deserves to win this election simply on the strength of his leadership in the Ukraine crisis and for being willing to put up with listening to Putin ranting away day after day.
He was, in the run up to the start of the war, trying to make Ukraine accept Minsk II. Which is why the Ukrainians were/are a bit wary of the his position.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
I'm not sure that comparisons with Japan are faire, for 3 reasons.
1) this a Europe war, with Ukraine punished for wanting to be a nonreal European nation, but Japan is not in Europe
2) The constitution of Japan demands neutrality, preventing it doing much.
3) Japan did do what it could very early, i.e. give helmets body armour, and lots of other stuff.
Personally I'm dissipated in the response of the other big 4 European nations Germany, France, Italy and Spain. (also disputed in Hungary)
East Europe has been amazing, phatically Poland and Estonia,
The Small European nations, including Sweden, The neverlands, Luxemburg, Greece, and others have given lots of help proportional to there size.
The UK, clearly has given lots of help, Equipment, intelligence, training and more.
Japan, South Korea Australia, and New Zealand, have all been generate considering this is not in their neighbourhood.
Canada and the US could also fit in to the latter category, but they have both made a commitment to Europe though NATO so that enplanes there even more generous support.
As for France what exactly has it done, with great fanfare it was announced by Macron that Ukraine could by French weapons on a buy now pay latter policy, and he got a lot of praise for it, but to me that sounds more like 'boneshaking' a desperate customer than generous help.
Japan has continued to buy Russian gas from Sakhalin, and has taken extra Russian LNG cargoes that others were turning away. That was my compare.
I did not know that about the LNG, so I will wind in some of my thoughts.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Why are you all silent on Emperor Hirohito's forces massacring 14 million people in China and Asia more widely. I've always suspected this place to be a hotbed of Sinophobic fascists, and I guess that's now confirmed.
They are struggling for supreme control with the Whataboutists.
Dunno who the ultimate winner will be, but I do know I am a loser.
If Macron gets to 24% it means he has under-performed all the polling. Given how tight the R2 polling is between him and MLP that is very worrying for those of us who would prefer not to have a Putin apologist with access to all NATO’s military secrets living next door
you mean another apologist
Macron already is one
He's not been as resolute as Johnson has, but he has been better than the leaders of Italy, Germany, Japan, or a host of other countries. He has shipped weapons to Ukraine. And he has backed sanctions.
Now, could he have done more, such as getting Total to fully withdraw from Russia, and pressuring other state owned businesses such as Renault to pull out? Could he have backed a full ban on all energy imports from Russia? Sure he could. There's lots more he could have done.
But to claim that Macron and Le Pen are on the same page as far as Putinphilia is patently ridiculous.
Its a slow Sunday and its PB, we have to have a bit of excitement or else its Citys disallowed goal.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
Wow. That's a spectacularly piece of "whataboutery".
I didnt say it Macron did, so much for solidarite commune in a time of crisis/
It is ridiculous whataboutery, and you know it.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
Macron might not like Putin but he does still want his business and would happily sell the easten Europeans to get it.
And yet France has never been the block behind any of the EU sanctions - that would be Italy, Hungary and Germany. Nor have they been backward in sending arms.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
Macron is not pushing the feet draggers and thats his job in Europe, if leadership hurts he shouldnt take the job .. Macron was also happy to take the PR by sitting with Putin for the PR when it looks good.
Nah I think you are wrong on this. I think Macron has done a bloody good job so far regarding Ukraine. Certainly far better than many others in the EU and easily on a par with Johnson and Biden. Not much to choose between all three of them in terms of the way they have stepped up to the mark.
I said it a few weeks ago, I think Macron deserves to win this election simply on the strength of his leadership in the Ukraine crisis and for being willing to put up with listening to Putin ranting away day after day.
He was, in the run up to the start of the war, trying to make Ukraine accept Minsk II. Which is why the Ukrainians were/are a bit wary of the his position.
Yes. If he’d been an independent communications line fielding negotiations between the two sides, rather than simply delivering Putin’s demands to Kiev, then there might be more respect for him in Ukraine.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
Is it really appropriate to meet him in person given the current situation?
Austria, not being a NATO member, is presumably trying to be some sort of rational mediator, good luck, but I dont think it will work, at least not at this point.
Talking of which, we spend a lot of time talking about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but never discuses Austria joining, presumably that's because of constiuatale reasons Austria can not join? but do we know if there is any public support for joining NATO?
I think there was something formal, as a condition for Russia withdrawing from its sector of occupation of Austria and allowing the country to transition to a post-occupation state. Ah yes, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Neutrality
Thanks for sharing that link
yes it seems to have a strong constitutional block on joining any military alliance. presumably as a soverin nation Austria could, if the parliament wanted to vote to change this. but that's probably a moot point if only 18% of the population what to join NATO, its no worth spending to much time thinking about.
Austria is in the currently privileged position of being landlocked and sharing land borders only with NATO countries, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. If Austria has to start to worry about joining NATO then things have gone south very rapidly. Sweden and Finland are a bit more exposed.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Hmmm.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
I did go to Spain when Franco was in power, but was still in nappies at the time, so have an excuse. I greatly enjoyed the 2018 World Cup and am keen to see more of Russia. It has long been on my list to do the Trans-Siberian, but that have to put that off for a few years.
Wife and I were last year planning the Trans-Siberian for next summer. Obviously not now, and not while Putin is alive.
Maybe Lviv this summer instead. Ukraine needs the foreign money.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Why are you all silent on Emperor Hirohito's forces massacring 14 million people in China and Asia more widely. I've always suspected this place to be a hotbed of Sinophobic fascists, and I guess that's now confirmed.
Because compared to Stalin and Mao he's an amateur.
Admit it, you just can't stand seeing those left wing icons being compared to the fascists.
Rather ridiculous given Tugendhat is a Remainer unlike Sunak and not even in the Cabinet.
Wallace should be in the top 3 to succeed Boris alongside Truss and Sunak, not Tugendhat
Is the Leaver/Remainer thing still a dynamic though? I get the impression that the Tories are now seeing Brexit as something of an embarrassment best forgotten about. (The last strained attempt to make a virtue out of it was the stuff with Rees-Mogg and The Sun but I doubt there'll be any repetition of that - just too silly.)
Of course it is, given the vast majority of Tory voters let alone Tory members are still strongly pro Brexit and the Brexit deal we have. That will continue to be the case for at least a generation
You live in a world of make believe
I am in favour of brexit but want a deal that draws the UK - EU closer together especially on trade
You are a Remain voter who voted for Blair and has never been a great fan of Boris.
That rather proves my point, you are hardly typical of most current Tory voters and Tory members
Mate, you are a fan of Franco. I think G is more in tune with Conservative voters than you are.
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
I never said I was a fan of his anyway, just he did keep Spain together
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
No. Just no.
He makes the most extraordinary comments with absolutely no evidence
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
I'd stick him on your list of people to read about. I make him one of the last 3 Dictators in Western Europe - Greece, Portugal, Spain all went in the mid-1970s.. I've left out Albania.
Won a bloody civil war in the late 1930s, with a leftist volunteer International Brigade opposition forces with many feel was heroic. 50k volunteers. 15k died. Echoes of Ukraine in some respects.
To approach the Spanish Civil War, I don't know who to advise you to read - except to approach it perhaps look out some of the reporting from Martha Gellhorn (I have no idea where to find it - New Yorker archives?) or read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway.
Others will know far more than me on that, and I would welcome recommendations myself.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Why are you all silent on Emperor Hirohito's forces massacring 14 million people in China and Asia more widely. I've always suspected this place to be a hotbed of Sinophobic fascists, and I guess that's now confirmed.
Hirohito and the boys were slackers - the War of the Triple Alliance is believed to have killed 80%+of the male 16+ population of Paraguay. And half the women.
I have always suspected PB of being a hotbed of Brazilian Imperialism....
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Hmmm.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
I did go to Spain when Franco was in power, but was still in nappies at the time, so have an excuse. I greatly enjoyed the 2018 World Cup and am keen to see more of Russia. It has long been on my list to do the Trans-Siberian, but that have to put that off for a few years.
Wife and I were last year planning the Trans-Siberian for next summer. Obviously not now, and not while Putin is alive.
Maybe Lviv this summer instead. Ukraine needs the foreign money.
I wanted to go to St Petersburg
hats probably out for some time.
That was on the list too, probably for the recently-announced F1 race there.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Why are you all silent on Emperor Hirohito's forces massacring 14 million people in China and Asia more widely. I've always suspected this place to be a hotbed of Sinophobic fascists, and I guess that's now confirmed.
Because compared to Stalin and Mao he's an amateur.
Admit it, you just can't stand seeing those left wing icons being compared to the fascists.
(That last is slightly tongue in cheek)
Did Hirohito actually have much influence? Or was he just a mascot. I don't know, and have never read about his personal life and views.
I know the story of him stopping it at the end, and that he was in a military-nationalistic bubble. But not very much more.
Yes, it does seem strange, I'm guessing its Putin Reminding his puppet, that he his subordinate by saying I what to see you but you need to come to where ever I happen to be to see me.
Vosnotchy is c.6,500 km from Moscow. Lukachenko has a ten-hour flight to meet Putin. We sometimes forget the scale of Russia.
The same ratio to a normal state trip as Putin's table to a normal dining table. Also, I wonder if his plane will successfully make the return journey?
So much for the LIbre leaks - looks pretty safe for Macron unless something goes horribly wrong in the next two weeks. Melanchon's result is above expectations - he got most of the left in the end.
Rather ridiculous given Tugendhat is a Remainer unlike Sunak and not even in the Cabinet.
Wallace should be in the top 3 to succeed Boris alongside Truss and Sunak, not Tugendhat
Is the Leaver/Remainer thing still a dynamic though? I get the impression that the Tories are now seeing Brexit as something of an embarrassment best forgotten about. (The last strained attempt to make a virtue out of it was the stuff with Rees-Mogg and The Sun but I doubt there'll be any repetition of that - just too silly.)
Of course it is, given the vast majority of Tory voters let alone Tory members are still strongly pro Brexit and the Brexit deal we have. That will continue to be the case for at least a generation
You live in a world of make believe
I am in favour of brexit but want a deal that draws the UK - EU closer together especially on trade
You are a Remain voter who voted for Blair and has never been a great fan of Boris.
That rather proves my point, you are hardly typical of most current Tory voters and Tory members
Mate, you are a fan of Franco. I think G is more in tune with Conservative voters than you are.
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
I never said I was a fan of his anyway, just he did keep Spain together
The average Tory member is probably more a fan of Franco than the EU now.
No. Just no.
He makes the most extraordinary comments with absolutely no evidence
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
I'd stick him on your list of people to read about. I make him one of the last 3 Dictators in Western Europe - Greece, Portugal, Spain all went in the mid-1970s.. I've left out Albania.
Won a bloody civil war in the late 1930s, with a leftist volunteer International Brigade opposition forces with many feel was heroic. 50k volunteers. 15k died. Echoes of Ukraine in some respects.
To approach the Spanish Civil War, I don't know who to advise you to read - except to approach it perhaps look out some of the reporting from Martha Gellhorn (I have no idea where to find it - New Yorker archives?) or read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway.
Others will know far more than me on that, and I would welcome recommendations myself.
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell is very good. The infighting between Republican factions shows why they failed. It is also key to understanding how Orwells views of Stalin evolved.
Nobody should admire Franco for any reason. Of course HYUFD talks again of stuff he didn't live thru' (unlike many of us who were around when he was in power and visited Spain), although a quick look at Wikipedia answers the question as to whether he should be admired for anything.
I know nothing about Franco except a vague sense that he was not a good guy based on the fact he was close to Mussolini and Peron. Is that unfair, or can I stick him on my list of shit I don’t to know about?
Franco was a butcher who overthrew a democratic government and slaughtered his opponents wholesale. One can make two mitigating claims for him. He stayed out of WW2, to the disappointment of Hitler, which enabled us to maintain Gibaltar. And in his later years, he largely stopped murdering people and it became possible to expressed mild dissent at an individual level without getting arrested.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
Somehow Stalin never gets a look in.
Please, everyone, stop talking about how bad fascists are, it seems to upset Alanbrooke because reasons.
Alanbrooke makes a perfectly reasonable point. In the great league table of fucking rabid genocidal nutters Stalin wins hands down against all comers. Yet there is a faction of the left that seems to hate having this pointed out. Your reaction would seem to indicate you are part of this faction.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
Why are you all silent on Emperor Hirohito's forces massacring 14 million people in China and Asia more widely. I've always suspected this place to be a hotbed of Sinophobic fascists, and I guess that's now confirmed.
Because compared to Stalin and Mao he's an amateur.
Admit it, you just can't stand seeing those left wing icons being compared to the fascists.
(That last is slightly tongue in cheek)
No, to turn serious for a moment, I'm all in favour of repeating the truth about Stalin's crimes. Not a few months ago I was recommending a film ("Mr Jones") about the holodomor. But it's a bit silly to essentially accuse people of ignoring Stalin's crimes when it does get talked about. It's not like the tenor of the conversation had been about listing all the shitbags and unaccountably Stalin was missing. Then, Alanbrooke's contribution would have been necessary instead of silly. It was a brief comparison of a few fascist and subfascists of 20th century Europe. It was absolutely ok that we didn't digress into a global survey of genocidal maniacs.
Comments
I got up to £6k green on Le Pen (have now cashed a bit in at 3.95) and I felt pretty good about that!
The brutality and the death roll of the invasion makes it quite difficult to make this point, since very few people in the West would argue that being let down about the assurances justifies a war. But - like the tacit support for Yeltsin's bombardment of Parliament and the toleration of neo-Nazism in Ukraine - it should be possible to acknowledge that there were genuine Russian concerns, without remotely arguing that an appropriate response was military aggression.
Why does it matter now? Because if we don't understand what motivates other countries, we will make choices on a false basis. Assume the invasion is defeated and Putin is forced out. Any successor to Putin will have the same history in mind, even if we're lucky enough to get a successor uninterested in expressing that by warfare. We need to avoid burning every possible bridge to that successor - which is why no Western leader is pursuing a no-fly zone or other direct intervention on the ground.
"Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer will travel to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin, an Austrian government spokesperson has said according to Reuters."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/apr/10/russia-ukraine-war-latest-zelenskiy-pushes-for-oil-embargo-to-curb-russias-sense-of-impunity-uk-pledges-to-send-more-arms-live#top-of-blog
Starters were HAIRY and MOUSE
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
Done very few of these. Now for the daily.
You don't have to agree, but that's my betting plan, and ultimately you can only make bets if some people bet the other way so feel free to do that. so far Le Pen has not had a lead in any 2 way poles I'm aware off with macron. and last election in the second round Macron significantly overperformed compared to his opinion pole position. his biggest thet this time IMO is his supporters being complaisant, while his opponents are revved up. A Le Pen win in R1 would IMO change that.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
https://news.sky.com/story/emmanuel-macron-calls-polish-pm-mateusz-morawiecki-far-right-anti-semite-after-criticism-of-his-putin-calls-12585999
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/10/speed-camera-app-developers-face-abuse-from-uk-drivers
But if the choice is between Le Pen and Macron, and it looks very close, then many of those who don't like him, will trudge to the polls and (reluctantly) cast a vote in his favour.
Like all things Putin related, it has been fucked by his corruption and that of his pet, Rogozin. Vastly over budget and long delayed.
https://www.france.tv/france-2/direct.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Nwo-ypKtM
(results map) https://www.afpforum.com/AFPForum/Search/ViewMedia.aspx?mui=5&hid=A847EA86513C8383102C503A2C98E5AFFA9594711BA77C7E54B55B481CF45CA4&cck=a1aff2
If anyone finds a better live results map (by department) please post!
Many thanks,
DC
Talking of which, we spend a lot of time talking about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but never discuses Austria joining, presumably that's because of constiuatale reasons Austria can not join? but do we know if there is any public support for joining NATO?
On the other hand, if it's 27/23, then we know the order and who's in the final two, and we can go to bed. (Although if Le Pen is leading, I suspect that the discussion will go on well into the night
Looks like Macron is under-performing his polling slightly and Le Pen is over-performing a little more than slightly.
All things are relative. He was arguably marginally less bad than Mussolini, and certainly less bad than Hitler.
He allied with Germany, who created the following piece of art -
He ran Spain with an iron grip until his death. All opposition was banned and many, many were imprisoned for not being in the Franco fan club.
He was an utter thunderknut. He improved the world by dying.
*He tried to distinguish himself and Francoism from the hard core Fascists (see the Blue Legion), but took many of their policies and mixed them up with hard core reactionary social policies. Forward to the 18th Century, pretty much.
Because the discussion wasn't about whether Macron is a cock, or whether he insulted the Polish PM, or whatever. It is about an equivalence in Putinaphilia between Le Pen and Macron.
And there is no equivalence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmvPyI6kCAc
Even on my best markets I'm just playing with a few hundred in the green.
So basically, it's an assertion without any actual evidence.
France is suffering - like the rest of the world - with a cost of living crisis. Macron is in a tight election. He could easily have sold out the Ukrainians for cheaper petrol at the pump. He did not.
Now, am I claiming he's somehow a paragon of virtue? Nope. He's got his eyes very firmly fixed on French national interest. And he's also anglophobe whose statements on AZ were beyond irresponsible.
But he has not sold out the Eastern Europeans. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But you don't know. And your attempts to claim that he is somehow equivalent with a woman who plastered Putin over her campaign literature really tells us more about you than anything else.
But lets be clear hes currently not just President of France, he's le grand fromage of Europe and so far he's done very little but do Maria Zakharovas job for her.
I'm not sure that comparisons with Japan are faire, for 3 reasons.
1) this a Europe war, with Ukraine punished for wanting to be a nonreal European nation, but Japan is not in Europe
2) The constitution of Japan demands neutrality, preventing it doing much.
3) Japan did do what it could very early, i.e. give helmets body armour, and lots of other stuff.
Personally I'm dissipated in the response of the other big 4 European nations Germany, France, Italy and Spain. (also disputed in Hungary)
East Europe has been amazing, phatically Poland and Estonia,
The Small European nations, including Sweden, The neverlands, Luxemburg, Greece, and others have given lots of help proportional to there size.
The UK, clearly has given lots of help, Equipment, intelligence, training and more.
Japan, South Korea Australia, and New Zealand, have all been generate considering this is not in their neighbourhood.
Canada and the US could also fit in to the latter category, but they have both made a commitment to Europe though NATO so that enplanes there even more generous support.
As for France what exactly has it done, with great fanfare it was announced by Macron that Ukraine could by French weapons on a buy now pay latter policy, and he got a lot of praise for it, but to me that sounds more like 'boneshaking' a desperate customer than generous help.
How many of us were happy going to Spain on holiday whilst it was run by Franco? How many of us would be happy going to Russia now? Should it matter?
I'm, as Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have said to the end of her days, too young to have had the option.
Of course that doesn't for a second excuse the right wing fucking rabid genocidal nutters but we still live in a world where it is acceptable to display the Hammer and Sickle but not the Swastika when both should be equally offensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU
yes it seems to have a strong constitutional block on joining any military alliance. presumably as a soverin nation Austria could, if the parliament wanted to vote to change this. but that's probably a moot point if only 18% of the population what to join NATO, its no worth spending to much time thinking about.
I said it a few weeks ago, I think Macron deserves to win this election simply on the strength of his leadership in the Ukraine crisis and for being willing to put up with listening to Putin ranting away day after day.
Maybe Lviv this summer instead. Ukraine needs the foreign money.
Dunno who the ultimate winner will be, but I do know I am a loser.
hats probably out for some time.
Admit it, you just can't stand seeing those left wing icons being compared to the fascists.
(That last is slightly tongue in cheek)
Won a bloody civil war in the late 1930s, with a leftist volunteer International Brigade opposition forces with many feel was heroic. 50k volunteers. 15k died. Echoes of Ukraine in some respects.
To approach the Spanish Civil War, I don't know who to advise you to read - except to approach it perhaps look out some of the reporting from Martha Gellhorn (I have no idea where to find it - New Yorker archives?) or read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway.
Others will know far more than me on that, and I would welcome recommendations myself.
I have always suspected PB of being a hotbed of Brazilian Imperialism....
That’s not to be, either.
I know the story of him stopping it at the end, and that he was in a military-nationalistic bubble. But not very much more.
28.1 vs 23.3.
Macron: 28.5%
Le Pen: 24.2%
Melenchon: 20.2%
Zemmour: 7.1%
Pecresse: 5.1%
https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/presidentielle-2022/084/001/001009.html
Largely as final polls predicted Macron and Le Pen head to the runoff, maybe a little higher for Melenchon and a little lower for Pecresse
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1513215861716398086?s=20&t=xwJkkIQdxvukYmwClxDJOA