On topic, it is increasingly difficult to say what this chaotic government will do while they flail about seeking to divert attention from the overflowing too hard tray but this would be particularly stupid.
Yes, the ECtHR can be annoying at times, yes there is an argument that they have extended HR law far beyond what the Convention originally intended, yes the decision on the Rwanda flight was, well, a bit weird, but jeez. If we replace it with a new Convention with different wording we will then spend another decade trying to work out the finer details that has been largely ironed out on the current Convention.
The Rwanda judgement was outrageous interference. For that alone, we must leave
This is why Brexit
Also, for those low-watt slow learners who think the European Court of Human Rights has “nothing to do with the EU” here’s the courtroom:
I don't mean to be all pedantic, but technically that flag is that of The Council of Europe dating back to 1949, of which we are a member.
The EU stole it.
They stole it very consciously - as a way of blurring the boundaries between the ECHR and the EU, thereby giving the EU a foundational constitutional document without ever asking the European people if they wanted this
That’s how the EU has nearly always accrued power and personality (so much so it is now close to nationhood) by stealth, and on the quiet.
The few times it has gone to various peoples and asked for permission, in referendums, it has often been knocked back. Hence the need for subterfuge. Cf the Lisbon Treaty
I love it when you go all democracy and referendums.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
I agree.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.
Having elections every 3 years like they do in Australia would be a good start in my opinion.
Crimes no, five is bad enough for short termism, and the inability to do long, hard projects.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
I'd bring it wholesale into British law and then make British courts the arbiters of it.
I agree.
But with one caveat.
Political systems are supposed to contain checks and balances. The US has its Executive, Legislature and Judicial system, all below the Constitution. And the constitution sets out basic rights that cannot - without a supermajority - be overridden.
It's not perfect, but it makes a situation where one branch goes mad and (say) strips the Jews of all property rights less likely. Because the President can veto it, and the Courts can say that it is not compatible with the Constitution.
In the UK, the Executive and the Legislature are one and the same. And they appoint all judges, and can pass whatever laws they like.
There used to be more checks and balances in the UK. We used to have a second Chamber with at least some power to resist the Commons. But between the Parliament Act and Tony Blair that power was dramatically reduced. The Lords has relatively little power to resist the Commons these days, and if the Government wished they could force any legislation through in 24 hours, by dint of the Lords being only able to reject legislation twice.
I don't think there's another political system in the world so lacking in checks and balances: in most places, the Executive and the Legislature are separate. And in most places there is a constitution.
So, I say, let's lose the ECHR. But not because we want to hand more power to politicians to restrict the rights of individuals. But because we want less. We want to bind the hands of those who seek to govern us, and let's do that by explicitly limiting their power.
Having elections every 3 years like they do in Australia would be a good start in my opinion.
As a gambler, I concur... but I think four is a sensible compromise. The problem with three is that you don't really have time to do the unpopular but necessary things at the beginning of your term.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
Since it's the right answer, all power to their elbow
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
Also seems to vary round Europe, so I don’t think it is uniformly seem as a human right.
Which does rather beg the question - why was it held to be one?
I mean, a convict in prison forfeits the right to personal Liberty and nobody seems to be arguing that is a breach of their rights, despite it being a far older and more important right than the franchise.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
Also seems to vary round Europe, so I don’t think it is uniformly seem as a human right.
Which does rather beg the question - why was it held to be one?
I mean, a convict in prison forfeits the right to personal Liberty and nobody seems to be arguing that is a breach of their rights, despite it being a far older and more important right than the franchise.
Well quite. @Cyclefree implied she thought it was, but I might be over interpreting her words.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 4h But it isn't a stalemate. Now that the Russians' Phase 2 offensive has stalled they are being pushed back in a wide range of places.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
Also seems to vary round Europe, so I don’t think it is uniformly seem as a human right.
Which does rather beg the question - why was it held to be one?
I mean, a convict in prison forfeits the right to personal Liberty and nobody seems to be arguing that is a breach of their rights, despite it being a far older and more important right than the franchise.
Personally I'd have an issue with those convicted of crimes not being able to vote once they leave prison, but have no issue with the right being suspended during their period of incarceration. As you note other rights are not being permitted in that period, a temporary cessation of voting rights seems a reasonable one to add to the pile.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
Fear not.
Russia has taken terrible losses, possibly as much as 1/4 of its forces, and has gained little and is going nowhere at moment in the key Donbas.
The point is this: the Ukrainians have the option of withdrawing from their current positions to consolidate their lines; trading land for time as the Russians have done on several occasions in the past. They are choosing not to, and are making the Russians pay for every square meter they take.
That has been Ukraine's choice, and I reckon it is a calculated one, and not one of outright desperation. The Ukrainians need both time and support; time for the support to get there. Every day that this goes on, Russia weakens militarily, economically and morally.
Also, whilst the figures are tragic, they need context. Russia has a limited number of troops it can use unless it goes for full mobilisation. Ukraine has said it will have up to a million troops. If the losses are 200 a day (and I doubt either side can keep up that sort of tempo) then we are talking of 73,000 casualties in a year. Add in injured, and we will be looking at 200,000 casualties.
Horrific numbers; but with a million troops it may be able to cope.
Russia, on the other hand, as attackers, will be getting the worst of it - especially if the west supply good artillery and other support.
If Russia goes for full mobilisation it is a different story: but not necessarily a better one for either Ukraine or Russia.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In response to your question, yes, that rate of attrition may be sustainable, so long as it doesn't get significantly worse.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
It is also more or less what @Dura_Ace predicted two months ago - that Russia would go for blanket artillery fire and the conquest of the East while the West would gradually lose interest and stop supplying weapons in the amounts needed.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The logic of this point doesn't work for me. We could just as easily say that such a government - one bent on utter tyranny - wouldn't be constrained by domestic judges either. Does this mean domestic judges, right now, don't offer any protection against human rights being violated in some way by the government? That we therefore don't need them? Course not.
My fairly confident conclusion is the real objection is to the "foreign" element not the "judges" element. To something over and above "our" nation state being able to prevent "our" government doing something. Whereas for me this is a good thing. It's something to be welcomed. It's no guarantee against mischief and overreach, I agree with that, but it's a bit of extra comfort.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
It is also more or less what @Dura_Ace predicted two months ago - that Russia would go for blanket artillery fire and the conquest of the East while the West would gradually lose interest and stop supplying weapons in the amounts needed.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
That's not how I remember it. The problem was he likes to act like everyone who doesn't take the most pessimistic view possible (and I agreed at the time that scenario was a worrying possibility) is just being naiive and swallows every piece of optimistic propaganda without question, while others paint him as a some kind of international war campaign prophet when he himself sensibly does not even claim that.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In response to your question, yes, that rate of attrition may be sustainable, so long as it doesn't get significantly worse.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
Illuminating
However there are big differences. One of them is the huge wave of people fleeing Ukraine - several millions (and still they come). That is a colossal blow. Will they ever return? Perhaps not
Britain did not see a tenth of its population disappear in WW2. That might have made things quite different
Also, there are now reports of large scale desertions in the Ukrainian army. Even the MoD mentioned it today. A rare negative statement
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
You get over it by requiring all FoM migrants to purchase health insurance. That effectively acts as a barrier to lower skilled migrants.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The logic of this point doesn't work for me. We could just as easily say that such a government - one bent on utter tyranny - wouldn't be constrained by domestic judges either. Does this mean domestic judges, right now, don't offer any protection against human rights being violated in some way by the government? That we therefore don't need them? Course not.
My fairly confident conclusion is the real objection is to the "foreign" element not the "judges" element. To something over and above "our" nation state being able to prevent "our" government doing something. Whereas for me this is a good thing. It's something to be welcomed. It's no guarantee against mischief and overreach, I agree with that, but it's a bit of extra comfort.
The foreign element is part of it, but it clearly isnt the whole of it since the government has repeatedly floated the idea or has acted to restrict domestic constraint. See how key supporters reacted immediately to the prorogation case by floating the idea of politically appointed justices, and whilst they didn't go that far they added to the manifesto to review the relationship between the courts and government etc.
The driver of concern is specific cases the government doesn't like, be they supreme court or ECHR, and if things quiet down they don't necessarily act further but that's clearly what prompts them to desire action.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
You get over it by requiring all FoM migrants to purchase health insurance. That effectively acts as a barrier to lower skilled migrants.
Anyone suggesting that, in the Labour party, would risk deselection/expulsion.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
You get over it by requiring all FoM migrants to purchase health insurance. That effectively acts as a barrier to lower skilled migrants.
Anyone suggesting that, in the Labour party, would risk deselection/expulsion.
Also I’m not sure it would be legal under European Law (and we would again be subject to European law if we went back into the SM)
Requiring EU citizens to purchase insurance would likely be seen as discriminatory?
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In response to your question, yes, that rate of attrition may be sustainable, so long as it doesn't get significantly worse.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
Illuminating
However there are big differences. One of them is the huge wave of people fleeing Ukraine - several millions (and still they come). That is a colossal blow. Will they ever return? Perhaps not
Britain did not see a tenth of its population disappear in WW2. That might have made things quite different
Also, there are now reports of large scale desertions in the Ukrainian army. Even the MoD mentioned it today. A rare negative statement
Not good
Yes, I noticed the desertion point in a BBC report and hadn't seen such before. Heroism has limits of course.
Whilst the most dismal pessimists were wrong at the start about how Russia would just steamroll over Ukraine, everyone also acknowledged the disparity in forces and thus the difficulty of the challenge for Ukraine. Hopefully progress can still come, as external support long term is surely crucial.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
Fear not.
Russia has taken terrible losses, possibly as much as 1/4 of its forces, and has gained little and is going nowhere at moment in the key Donbas.
I hope you’re right, but reading around I don’t see that this optimism is widely shared…
Take a step back. Russia has concentrated its forces in the east to try and take the entire Donbass. They are not making a lot of progress. They are having to use older and older equipment. Meanwhile Ukraine is slowly starting to get better more accurate artillery from the west. There is already evidence of them destroying Russian arms depots. If the losses were really that bad for Ukraine I find it odd that they haven't retreated beyond the river on to the higher ground. Overall I remain bullish about their chances in this war.
Feels like you have descended into one of your bouts of pessimism like you did when the omicron variant emerged and you sold all your shares.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
It is also more or less what @Dura_Ace predicted two months ago - that Russia would go for blanket artillery fire and the conquest of the East while the West would gradually lose interest and stop supplying weapons in the amounts needed.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
I didn't argue with him then. The pessimism was a little over done but it was fairly obvious that Russia would start playing to their advantage and Ukriane's disadvantage. As I say, the Ukranians themselves saw it and asked and asked for heavy weapons to deal with it. The Germans in particular promised some but have not delivered. The US has given some as have we but not nearly enough.
And do we think that is the end of Morgan's time as a player of right in this ODI team? 6 ball duck.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In WW1 the UK, a country 10-15% smaller in population smaller than Ukr is now, withstood an average of approx 600+ a day military being killed.
So yes - they probably can withstand 15-20% of those casualties.
France was at more like 1300-1400 a day. On a population of 40 million in 1914.
But no one would wish it in any situation. We know what the consequences of a prolonged war on that scale were. I lost one or two men in my family from that generation, one of whom came back and later committed suicide. And I had a grandad I never met who was never the same, and was violent within his marriage to the extent that (reportedly) a place for my dad a boarding school was organised by well-connected local worthies in the Methodist Church.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
With respect, you are missing the point. We have had British governments which have on various occasions breached the human rights of groups in this country and been taken to task for this. So it is possible to have democratically elected governments which are a long way short of the full totalitarian horror story but which still breach human rights.
The difference is that they did take account of the courts and understood the need for a check by an external body.
What we appear to have now is a government (and its credulous little helpers) which does not want to take account of the courts, is busy planning to reduce their power and sees no need for any sort of external check.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”
With respect I think you are missing @Sean_F's point. We don't have and never have had a government who wanted to behave like that. If we did the ECHR would not be an impediment to them. It is a pretence that this is a slope. It is a series of cliffs. We either jump off or we don't. The Convention is an illusion at worst or an alarm bell at best, no more.
But my point is that we have had democratically elected governments which wanted to do things which were in breach of human rights. They were stopped because they respected the idea of human rights and the need for a check.
The current government does not do either IMO and it is slowly taking steps to make sure that it can do what it likes with no checks.
We need to ask why it is doing this and what a more malign government would and could do with such powers. I am asking these questions. But far too many are just putting their fingers in their ears or saying that because this hasn't happened in the past it won't happen in the future.
As in many areas of life people believe what they would like to be true.
Which things did they want to do that were in breach of human rights and were stopped? Voting rights for prisoners does not strike me as a fundamental human right, no does nor having a full life sentence available. Is there an accepted, defined list of human rights? Principles for sure, but it’s the edge cases that are harder, as always.
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
Also seems to vary round Europe, so I don’t think it is uniformly seem as a human right.
Which does rather beg the question - why was it held to be one?
I mean, a convict in prison forfeits the right to personal Liberty and nobody seems to be arguing that is a breach of their rights, despite it being a far older and more important right than the franchise.
Personally I'd have an issue with those convicted of crimes not being able to vote once they leave prison, but have no issue with the right being suspended during their period of incarceration. As you note other rights are not being permitted in that period, a temporary cessation of voting rights seems a reasonable one to add to the pile.
Which was the situation before the prisoners voting thing became an issue.
What happened was a classic of the genre of discovering rights in existing law.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
Fear not.
Russia has taken terrible losses, possibly as much as 1/4 of its forces, and has gained little and is going nowhere at moment in the key Donbas.
I hope you’re right, but reading around I don’t see that this optimism is widely shared…
Take a step back. Russia has concentrated its forces in the east to try and take the entire Donbass. They are not making a lot of progress. They are having to use older and older equipment. Meanwhile Ukraine is slowly starting to get better more accurate artillery from the west. There is already evidence of them destroying Russian arms depots. If the losses were really that bad for Ukraine I find it odd that they haven't retreated beyond the river on to the higher ground. Overall I remain bullish about their chances in this war.
Feels like you have descended into one of your bouts of pessimism like you did when the omicron variant emerged and you sold all your shares.
But I sold my shares at roughly the top of the market. So it was a pretty good decision
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The logic of this point doesn't work for me. We could just as easily say that such a government - one bent on utter tyranny - wouldn't be constrained by domestic judges either. Does this mean domestic judges, right now, don't offer any protection against human rights being violated in some way by the government? That we therefore don't need them? Course not.
My fairly confident conclusion is the real objection is to the "foreign" element not the "judges" element. To something over and above "our" nation state being able to prevent "our" government doing something. Whereas for me this is a good thing. It's something to be welcomed. It's no guarantee against mischief and overreach, I agree with that, but it's a bit of extra comfort.
The foreign element is part of it, but it clearly isnt the whole of it since the government has repeatedly floated the idea or has acted to restrict domestic constraint. See how key supporters reacted immediately to the prorogation case by floating the idea of politically appointed justices, and whilst they didn't go that far they added to the manifesto to review the relationship between the courts and government etc.
The driver of concern is specific cases the government doesn't like, be they supreme court or ECHR, and if things quiet down they don't necessarily act further but that's clearly what prompts them to desire action.
Yes, the general "pinko lawyers frustrating what ordinary people want to see" line - there are some who buy into that. Then the "foreign" aspect adds further fuel to the fire.
Lord Sumption in today's Sunday Times says we could leave the ECHR without any problems as far as are our commitment to human rights is concerned.
Obviously absurd. The ECHR is the origin of all our human rights. Those other English-speaking Parliamentary democracies Australia, New Zealand and Canada aren't in the ECHR and they are notorious totalitarian tyrannies, as we were before 1950.
You'd have a fair point but we have Johnson as PM and I don't trust him
That's OK, the ECHR does/did such a great job at restraining leaders you can't trust. Look at what a job they've done restraining Putin and Orban.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
It is also more or less what @Dura_Ace predicted two months ago - that Russia would go for blanket artillery fire and the conquest of the East while the West would gradually lose interest and stop supplying weapons in the amounts needed.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
I didn't argue with him then. The pessimism was a little over done but it was fairly obvious that Russia would start playing to their advantage and Ukriane's disadvantage. As I say, the Ukranians themselves saw it and asked and asked for heavy weapons to deal with it. The Germans in particular promised some but have not delivered. The US has given some as have we but not nearly enough.
And do we think that is the end of Morgan's time as a player of right in this ODI team? 6 ball duck.
Well I'm afraid you've illustrated the exact point being fretted about there, David. The diminishing interest in Ukraine.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In WW1 the UK, a country 10-15% smaller in population smaller than Ukr is now, withstood an average of approx 600+ a day military being killed.
So yes - they probably can withstand 15-20% of those casualties.
France was at more like 1300-1400 a day. On a population of 40 million in 1914.
But no one would wish it in any situation. We know what the consequences of a prolonged war on that scale were. I lost one or two men in my family from that generation, one of whom came back and later committed suicide. And I had a grandad I never met who was never the same, and was violent within his marriage to the extent that (reportedly) a place for my dad a boarding school was organised by well-connected local worthies in the Methodist Church.
But again, look at the refugee figures
An astonishing 7.7m Ukrainians have left the country (and 8m are internally displaced)
7.7m people did not flee France in 1914. If they had done, France might have crumbled very fast
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
I'm sure that's right: India-EU negotiations have restarted after a long gap, and I'm sure our negotiations have encouraged them to move more quickly.
That said, the EU will likely conclude both Australia and Indonesian FTAs before the UK.
While we'll be probably be first with NZ and India.
All those governments have overseen their central banks print crazy amounts of money over the past 10+ years. The chief advisor to Biden actually said last year the west had solved inflation, no more boom and bust re inflation, so loads more printing was fine.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
You get over it by requiring all FoM migrants to purchase health insurance. That effectively acts as a barrier to lower skilled migrants.
Anyone suggesting that, in the Labour party, would risk deselection/expulsion.
That is - more or less - what is done in Switzerland.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
This is exactly what I was saying a week or two ago. It's telling that there are no longer any stories of great successes from the front; what we see instead is position after position being reduced to rubble and death by a massive advantage in artillery power. It's slow and is no doubt challenging the Russian logistics but it is relentless. I am not sure how much more of this Ukraine can take. They have been screaming for artillery and heavy weapons for over a month and we are seeing a trickle compared to the need.
It is also more or less what @Dura_Ace predicted two months ago - that Russia would go for blanket artillery fire and the conquest of the East while the West would gradually lose interest and stop supplying weapons in the amounts needed.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
I didn't argue with him then. The pessimism was a little over done but it was fairly obvious that Russia would start playing to their advantage and Ukriane's disadvantage. As I say, the Ukranians themselves saw it and asked and asked for heavy weapons to deal with it. The Germans in particular promised some but have not delivered. The US has given some as have we but not nearly enough.
And do we think that is the end of Morgan's time as a player of right in this ODI team? 6 ball duck.
Currently Isn’t there as much donated British heavy artillery and as many tanks, MRLs & warplanes in Ukraine as there is German, ie zero?
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In WW1 the UK, a country 10-15% smaller in population smaller than Ukr is now, withstood an average of approx 600+ a day military being killed.
So yes - they probably can withstand 15-20% of those casualties.
France was at more like 1300-1400 a day. On a population of 40 million in 1914.
But no one would wish it in any situation. We know what the consequences of a prolonged war on that scale were. I lost one or two men in my family from that generation, one of whom came back and later committed suicide. And I had a grandad I never met who was never the same, and was violent within his marriage to the extent that (reportedly) a place for my dad a boarding school was organised by well-connected local worthies in the Methodist Church.
But again, look at the refugee figures
An astonishing 7.7m Ukrainians have left the country (and 8m are internally displaced)
7.7m people did not flee France in 1914. If they had done, France might have crumbled very fast
It almost did. The government fled Paris, for example, and it was rather lucky that Moltke messed up so much that there was time for the BEF to reinforce the French.
In 1940 they did of course collapse very fast indeed, as around 20-25% of the population fled. More, in some areas. Chartres went from 23,000 inhabitants to just 800.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
I do think that the type of government that would pass a law expelling Jews from the country would not really be concerned what either the ECHR, or any domestic court thought about it. In fact, I suspect that this country would have become a dystopia, if such a government took power.
Russia is nominally still subject to the ECHR but its rulers have been carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents and (in some parts) homosexuals for years. To take another example, the Nazis never formally repealed the rights granted in the Weimar constitution. They either ignored or subverted them as required.
The logic of this point doesn't work for me. We could just as easily say that such a government - one bent on utter tyranny - wouldn't be constrained by domestic judges either. Does this mean domestic judges, right now, don't offer any protection against human rights being violated in some way by the government? That we therefore don't need them? Course not.
My fairly confident conclusion is the real objection is to the "foreign" element not the "judges" element. To something over and above "our" nation state being able to prevent "our" government doing something. Whereas for me this is a good thing. It's something to be welcomed. It's no guarantee against mischief and overreach, I agree with that, but it's a bit of extra comfort.
The foreign element is part of it, but it clearly isnt the whole of it since the government has repeatedly floated the idea or has acted to restrict domestic constraint. See how key supporters reacted immediately to the prorogation case by floating the idea of politically appointed justices, and whilst they didn't go that far they added to the manifesto to review the relationship between the courts and government etc.
The driver of concern is specific cases the government doesn't like, be they supreme court or ECHR, and if things quiet down they don't necessarily act further but that's clearly what prompts them to desire action.
Yes, the general "pinko lawyers frustrating what ordinary people want to see" line - there are some who buy into that. Then the "foreign" aspect adds further fuel to the fire.
Important questions.
I'd say there's a major category difference between Judges and Activist Lawyers trying to use the courts to promote their politics.
The existence of activist lawyers, and their use of their positions / skills differentially to emphasise their particular desires more than other things they could alternatively be promoting, is self-evident, and not really open to question imo. I watched a magistrate trying to argue that such do not exist on Lib Dem Voice of all places, and she was shredded even there.
Bias in Judges is more interesting. In theory it should not exist; however Judges do cross into political questions from time to time, and it is correct for Parliament to set the boundaries of that.
Plus systemic, and perhaps unintended, biases can develop. I recall, for example, the blogger Heresy Corner arguing that at the time of the super-injunction mess by pointing out the very narrow background of most of the Judges making the decisions, and the undue numbers from a small section of the legal profession.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In response to your question, yes, that rate of attrition may be sustainable, so long as it doesn't get significantly worse.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
Illuminating
However there are big differences. One of them is the huge wave of people fleeing Ukraine - several millions (and still they come). That is a colossal blow. Will they ever return? Perhaps not
Britain did not see a tenth of its population disappear in WW2. That might have made things quite different
Also, there are now reports of large scale desertions in the Ukrainian army. Even the MoD mentioned it today. A rare negative statement
Not good
The refugee Ukrainians are mostly women and children. Because they are being looked after abroad and Ukraine itself therefore doesn't have to do so, their emigration is probably helpful. I'd imagine that most of them will eventually head back home when it is safe to do so, unless Ukraine is conquered which looks unlikely at this stage.
The MoD has started to speculate about Ukrainian defections. What they have also been telling us for many weeks, however, is that Russia is suffering from large scale defections or refusals by soldiers to fight, disputes between officers and their men, and very low morale. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions about the viability of Ukrainian resistance based on that.
One other key thing to remember: quite apart from the fact that Russia's pace of advance is glacial, and that they're losing troops the whole time, they need to be able to mass a lot of their forces along a single front to make progress, and they also need to be able to hold on to all their conquered territory once taken. Therefore, the more they try to bite off, the more stretched they become. They're having to work very hard indeed to over-run Sievierodonetsk; once they finally get it, all that means is that they'll next need to capture Lysychansk (which AIUI is on the other side of a major river and occupies high ground, which will make it even harder to break down,) and all the while Russia is doing this it's leaving itself potentially vulnerable to counterattack elsewhere. Indeed, Ukraine has been claiming advances in the direction of Kherson and Melitopol in recent days.
As I said below, Ukraine seems more likely to be let down by the actions of outsiders than through the failings of its own efforts. The biggest problems coming down the line could be European states breaking ranks as their populations fall under the influence of Kremlin propaganda and/or grow desperate through energy shortages; and the likely outcome of the US mid-terms. People who understand US politics better than me will have a more informed opinion, but one assumes that there is a realistic prospect of the Republicans gaining control of one or both houses, many of them are in thrall to Trump or otherwise hold similar isolationist views, and Congress controls budgets.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
It's uncharacteristically silly of @Cyclefree and actually makes me less convinced by her argument, not more.
The representation of the people acts, that established full voting equality over consecutive decades, and the Race Relations Acts that established racial equality, had nothing to do with the ECHR. Neither have recent domestic initiatives on same sex marriage.
As Lord Sumption said in The Times yesterday withdrawing from the convention or modifying its operation here does not mean abrogating human rights. We can have all or any of the rights in the convention under ordinary domestic legislation and protected by our own courts without submitting to the expansive edicts taken by the ECtHR that, at times, struggles to recognise the strong democratic push for illegal immigration control and can work against it.
If we did withdraw here, which I currently don't support but I could if these sort of arguments continue, it would not represent Ermächtigungsgesetz.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
I do love those who claim that we should leave the ECHR because British judges can enforce those rights.
Well, yes, they could. Indeed, bringing the Convention home was exactly the point of the Human Rights Act, an Act which the Tories opposed at the time and which they have repeatedly said they want to abolish or water down. So colour me sceptical about this claim that this is all about wanting to give British judges the power.
Bollocks it is. This is just the first step in eliminating or watering down those rights, first from some groups or only some rights, step by step until eventually the executive will be able to do whatever it wants without any restraint or control or scrutiny by anyone.
Then there is the second group who claim that Britain has had all these rights for 1300 years and so doesn't need the Convention. Which would be lovely if true.
But it isn't: for pretty much all that time most people in Britain did not have any or all of these rights. The right to vote, to free expression, to hold property, not to be discriminated against and so on were denied to the vast majority of the population for most of that time. It is hard to avoid the impression sometimes that a significant set of Tory voters would quite like to go back to those times when they did not have to worry about women or ethnic minorities or other minorities or the poor demanding to be treated equally and as human beings worthy of respect and dignity. If a majority vote to be nasty and horrible to people and deprive them of their rights, that's all right because democracy. It's as if they've not noticed the 20th century and what happened in Europe during it.
So some questions:-
1. If a government passed a law expelling all British Jews from the country, is that ok because it is as a result of democratic vote? 2. If not, why not? 3. If British courts stopped it because of the prohibition against it in the ECHR, would that be ok? 4. And if the British government then passed a law disapplying the Convention and any other laws protecting Jews so that the expulsion goes ahead, is that OK? 5. If not, why not?
You can substitute your own minority or group of choice for Jews in these examples.
Oh god what a load of arse-ache
Nah - they were questions in both my Politics degree and in my Constitutional law exams.
They are questions which political and legal theorists and philosophers and others, far cleverer than you or me, have thought about and opined on for a very long time. They require a modicum of effort and thought. And there aren't easy answers.
Still "what a load of arse-ache" is the Tory response to any difficult issue. So you are certainly channelling Boris's political philosophy very accurately.
Well done for that. An F for fail on the questions, mind.
Fair enough, but a brilliant intellectual answer to a philosophical question in a law exam to get a mark of distinction does not a coherent policy position in the real-world make.
I don't know why you're being so hyperbolic when you've made far more interesting suggestions merely days ago, such as modifying the refugee conventions.
Someone else (and they are rare) who equalled your intelligence and skill in advocacy could easily twist that position to make a similar point about Jewish refugees and a descent into an authoritarian nightmare. But both that and withdrawing from the ECtHR - and putting those rights into domestic law - could be solutions to the issue that are worthy of at least some level of measured debate.
It would appear that the SNP interpretation of zero tolerance can change from day to day depending on the circumstances... Interesting to note that this email was also quickly leaked to the media, all is not well in the Westminter SNP group.
Twitter Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h 🔺EXCL: SNP MPs have been threatened with criminal action by their chief whip over a leaked recording of a meeting at which senior figures backed Patrick Grady over his sexual misconduct scandal. https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1538517865514643456
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Replying to @KieranPAndrews In a late night letter following @johnestevens scoop, Owen Thompson said recording an leaking a group meeting was “beyond the pale”, adding: “This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Thompson said there were “serious questions to be answered on the legality of sharing a recording without consent under terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” and has raised the leak with Westminster’s security team
Kieran Andrews @KieranPAndrews·3h The SNP staffer, targeted by Grady when he was 19, said: "It is disappointing to see that the SNP would rather take strong action against the leaker than the perpetrator." Grady has been given a two-day suspension from the party.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
The EU also concluded negotiations with a whole bunch of West African countries in 2021, and are just waiting for ratification to come into effect. When that comes in, it'll add quite a few to that list.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In response to your question, yes, that rate of attrition may be sustainable, so long as it doesn't get significantly worse.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
Illuminating
However there are big differences. One of them is the huge wave of people fleeing Ukraine - several millions (and still they come). That is a colossal blow. Will they ever return? Perhaps not
Britain did not see a tenth of its population disappear in WW2. That might have made things quite different
Also, there are now reports of large scale desertions in the Ukrainian army. Even the MoD mentioned it today. A rare negative statement
Not good
The refugee Ukrainians are mostly women and children. Because they are being looked after abroad and Ukraine itself therefore doesn't have to do so, their emigration is probably helpful. I'd imagine that most of them will eventually head back home when it is safe to do so, unless Ukraine is conquered which looks unlikely at this stage.
The MoD has started to speculate about Ukrainian defections. What they have also been telling us for many weeks, however, is that Russia is suffering from large scale defections or refusals by soldiers to fight, disputes between officers and their men, and very low morale. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions about the viability of Ukrainian resistance based on that.
One other key thing to remember: quite apart from the fact that Russia's pace of advance is glacial, and that they're losing troops the whole time, they need to be able to mass a lot of their forces along a single front to make progress, and they also need to be able to hold on to all their conquered territory once taken. Therefore, the more they try to bite off, the more stretched they become. They're having to work very hard indeed to over-run Sievierodonetsk; once they finally get it, all that means is that they'll next need to capture Lysychansk (which AIUI is on the other side of a major river and occupies high ground, which will make it even harder to break down,) and all the while Russia is doing this it's leaving itself potentially vulnerable to counterattack elsewhere. Indeed, Ukraine has been claiming advances in the direction of Kherson and Melitopol in recent days.
As I said below, Ukraine seems more likely to be let down by the actions of outsiders than through the failings of its own efforts. The biggest problems coming down the line could be European states breaking ranks as their populations fall under the influence of Kremlin propaganda and/or grow desperate through energy shortages; and the likely outcome of the US mid-terms. People who understand US politics better than me will have a more informed opinion, but one assumes that there is a realistic prospect of the Republicans gaining control of one or both houses, many of them are in thrall to Trump or otherwise hold similar isolationist views, and Congress controls budgets.
Sadly, this is spot on.
But I would note that there should be a natural tendency in the energy rich states of the US to back Ukraine. Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, etc. all benefit from high energy prices - so a Russian win probably wouldn't benefit them in the medium term.
“No one in the parliamentary Labour party is advocating a policy of rejoining the EU. But there are those who would like to see closer involvement with the single market under a Labour government, and a return to EU free-movement rules, particularly as evidence grows that Brexit is harming trade, and contributing to rising prices”
Which from the beginning was always the sensible and optimal answer - as a fair few leavers conceded during the referendum campaign, although amnesia has set in since.
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
I wouldn’t necessarily differ
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
I think the answer is that you don't talk about FoM now; leave that until the generation who grew up with FoM (and miss it a bit) are the ones in power. The nostaligia factor that led to the 2016 decision works both ways. And the 2024 settlement won't stick any more than 2020, 1992, 1973 or the foundation of EFTA in 1960.
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can envisage us rejoining some form of the single market, perhaps. But I still struggle to see how you get over the FoM thing
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
We'll see. It will take 10 years to know.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
"later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU"
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
We'll see.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
It would appear that the SNP interpretation of zero tolerance can change from day to day depending on the circumstances... Interesting to note that this email was also quickly leaked to the media, all is not well in the Westminter SNP group.
Twitter Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h 🔺EXCL: SNP MPs have been threatened with criminal action by their chief whip over a leaked recording of a meeting at which senior figures backed Patrick Grady over his sexual misconduct scandal. https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1538517865514643456
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Replying to @KieranPAndrews In a late night letter following @johnestevens scoop, Owen Thompson said recording an leaking a group meeting was “beyond the pale”, adding: “This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Thompson said there were “serious questions to be answered on the legality of sharing a recording without consent under terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” and has raised the leak with Westminster’s security team
Kieran Andrews @KieranPAndrews·3h The SNP staffer, targeted by Grady when he was 19, said: "It is disappointing to see that the SNP would rather take strong action against the leaker than the perpetrator." Grady has been given a two-day suspension from the party.
Pretty standard behaviour when something is leaked, frankly. Examples of focusing on the method of information getting out than what it was are rife no doubt.
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
In WW1 the UK, a country 10-15% smaller in population smaller than Ukr is now, withstood an average of approx 600+ a day military being killed.
So yes - they probably can withstand 15-20% of those casualties.
France was at more like 1300-1400 a day. On a population of 40 million in 1914.
But no one would wish it in any situation. We know what the consequences of a prolonged war on that scale were. I lost one or two men in my family from that generation, one of whom came back and later committed suicide. And I had a grandad I never met who was never the same, and was violent within his marriage to the extent that (reportedly) a place for my dad a boarding school was organised by well-connected local worthies in the Methodist Church.
But again, look at the refugee figures
An astonishing 7.7m Ukrainians have left the country (and 8m are internally displaced)
7.7m people did not flee France in 1914. If they had done, France might have crumbled very fast
It almost did. The government fled Paris, for example, and it was rather lucky that Moltke messed up so much that there was time for the BEF to reinforce the French.
In 1940 they did of course collapse very fast indeed, as around 20-25% of the population fled. More, in some areas. Chartres went from 23,000 inhabitants to just 800.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
They thought that of Poland in 1920.
Poland won.
But I do agree it's very hard to see a 'win' for Ukraine from here without direct military help from another country. It wouldn't come from the West and it seems unlikely China will intervene.
It would appear that the SNP interpretation of zero tolerance can change from day to day depending on the circumstances... Interesting to note that this email was also quickly leaked to the media, all is not well in the Westminter SNP group.
Twitter Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h 🔺EXCL: SNP MPs have been threatened with criminal action by their chief whip over a leaked recording of a meeting at which senior figures backed Patrick Grady over his sexual misconduct scandal. https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1538517865514643456
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Replying to @KieranPAndrews In a late night letter following @johnestevens scoop, Owen Thompson said recording an leaking a group meeting was “beyond the pale”, adding: “This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Thompson said there were “serious questions to be answered on the legality of sharing a recording without consent under terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” and has raised the leak with Westminster’s security team
Kieran Andrews @KieranPAndrews·3h The SNP staffer, targeted by Grady when he was 19, said: "It is disappointing to see that the SNP would rather take strong action against the leaker than the perpetrator." Grady has been given a two-day suspension from the party.
Pretty standard behaviour when something is leaked, frankly. Examples of focusing on the method of information getting out than what it was are rife no doubt.
The optics of this leaked email are as bad as the leaked audio from that Westminster SNP group meeting..
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
Fear not.
Russia has taken terrible losses, possibly as much as 1/4 of its forces, and has gained little and is going nowhere at moment in the key Donbas.
I hope you’re right, but reading around I don’t see that this optimism is widely shared…
Take a step back. Russia has concentrated its forces in the east to try and take the entire Donbass. They are not making a lot of progress. They are having to use older and older equipment. Meanwhile Ukraine is slowly starting to get better more accurate artillery from the west. There is already evidence of them destroying Russian arms depots. If the losses were really that bad for Ukraine I find it odd that they haven't retreated beyond the river on to the higher ground. Overall I remain bullish about their chances in this war.
Feels like you have descended into one of your bouts of pessimism like you did when the omicron variant emerged and you sold all your shares.
But I sold my shares at roughly the top of the market. So it was a pretty good decision
That rather depends on where you put the money insteead.
AIUI the theory is that the current burst of inflation is primarily exogenous, i.e. it's caused by a product of supply-chain disruption resulting from Covid (goods become harder to source so prices rise,) exacerbated by the Chinese Communist Party and its crackpot zero Covid drive, and massively compounded by the effects of the invasion of Ukraine (precipitating simultaneous food and energy crises.)
The actions of Government may, however, be making both inflation and its effects worse. In the UK, for example, economists blame our especially high inflation rates partly on the effects of further trade barriers caused by Brexit (much is made of the fact that Northern Ireland is the only region outside London to be exhibiting economic growth,) and we have a terrible and long standing problem with house price inflation (which, especially since the GFC, has seen the ratio of average house prices to average earned incomes climb to increasingly stratospheric multiples.) This adds enormously to the notional stockpile of wealth being sat on by homeowners, but also makes mortgages and especially rents much more expensive than they need to be, leaving less room in the household budgets of most people who don't own outright to cope with unwelcome shocks.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
But my anecdote suggests that Russians do have the will. As they now perceive the war as quasi-existential for Russia (even Russians that hate Putin, like my new friends). So Russia has to win
And you have to define what winning means for Ukraine. Taking back Donbas and Luhansk and crimea? I just can’t see it happening sadly, unless, as I say, it happens over years and decades and Russia gets tired and bored and Putin dies
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
"The Wanting Seed (1962) A dystopian future Britain in which the cities cover all the land and the human race is oppressed by overpopulation, state-sanctioned cannibalism, and a phony war. Tristram Foxe, a history teacher, has to navigate this world with his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, who has become pregnant without the permission of the state."
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
A very insightful post.
Where are the examples of aggressive invasions that succeeded in the long-term?
If we exclude colonisation of less developed countries by those with clear technological superiority, successful invasions are very rare indeed.
England was on the receiving end of one in 1066; beyond that, not many spring to mind.
My French is poor but I think Le Soir is predicting Ensemble to win only between 208-48, the Left 163-203, Le Pen 67-90 and the Republicans 30-50. Form a government from that!!
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
A very insightful post.
Where are the examples of aggressive invasions that succeeded in the long-term?
If we exclude colonisation of less developed countries by those with clear technological superiority, successful invasions are very rare indeed.
England was on the receiving end of one in 1066; beyond that, not many spring to mind.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
A very insightful post.
Where are the examples of aggressive invasions that succeeded in the long-term?
If we exclude colonisation of less developed countries by those with clear technological superiority, successful invasions are very rare indeed.
England was on the receiving end of one in 1066; beyond that, not many spring to mind.
What?? There are lots of successful invasions. History is full of them. Lands are conquered, empires are built
And yes, usually the militarily superior side wins. That’s how it works
It would appear that the SNP interpretation of zero tolerance can change from day to day depending on the circumstances... Interesting to note that this email was also quickly leaked to the media, all is not well in the Westminter SNP group.
Twitter Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h 🔺EXCL: SNP MPs have been threatened with criminal action by their chief whip over a leaked recording of a meeting at which senior figures backed Patrick Grady over his sexual misconduct scandal. https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1538517865514643456
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Replying to @KieranPAndrews In a late night letter following @johnestevens scoop, Owen Thompson said recording an leaking a group meeting was “beyond the pale”, adding: “This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h Thompson said there were “serious questions to be answered on the legality of sharing a recording without consent under terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” and has raised the leak with Westminster’s security team
Kieran Andrews @KieranPAndrews·3h The SNP staffer, targeted by Grady when he was 19, said: "It is disappointing to see that the SNP would rather take strong action against the leaker than the perpetrator." Grady has been given a two-day suspension from the party.
Pretty standard behaviour when something is leaked, frankly. Examples of focusing on the method of information getting out than what it was are rife no doubt.
The optics of this leaked email are as bad as the leaked audio from that Westminster SNP group meeting..
Comments
The only question is whether the damage that our current flawed and foolish Brexit is doing will push the Tories towards a more pragmatic resolution - pace Ellwood - or whether it will take a change of government to accept the inevitable.
But persuading the British people to accept free movement once again is a very tall order. How do you do that? Can’t see it
Moreover, this gives the lie to the idea that it’s the Tories who are “always banging on about Brexit”
There are many millions of Remainers who also want to talk about it, they are particularly prevalent on the left, and they will - as I predicted on here weeks ago - pressure Starmer towards the Single Market. As we now see
The British government was found guilty of using degrading and inhuman treatment in Northern Ireland in 1978 - a breach of article 3.
Then there was the case brought by various companies nationalised by the Labour government in the 1970's without adequate compensation (a manifesto promise) - a breach of the right to peaceful enjoyment of one's property.
The right to vote is generally seen in democracies as pretty fundamental.
The attached provides a useful guide to all the cases that have gone to the ECHR - https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8049/CBP-8049.pdf
Contrary to what the government would have us believe, it wins a significant number of them.
Australia if you are serving a sentence of more than five or three years, depending on the type of election.
Japan.
That's without doing more than a very cursory search.
There is some documentation here but I haven't read it in detail.
https://cdn.penalreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/The-right-of-prisoners-to-vote_March-2016.pdf
“And while the country has been successful in repelling Russian forces, it is now suffering some of its heaviest losses since the start of the war as the battle for the east of the country enters its decisive stages. Between 100 and 200 Ukrainians are believed to be dying every day as the fighting turns into a prolonged war of attrition with no end in sight.
“Many are fighting with practically no military training against a Russian army that, while stuttering, still outguns its opponent by as many as 10 to one”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/ukraine-mourns-our-golden-generation-killed-on-frontlines
Meanwhile NATO is talking about this war lasting “years”
Can Ukraine really sustain 100-200 dead Ukrainians every day - for several years?!
I fear Zelensky will soon be seeking a terrible peace
I mean, a convict in prison forfeits the right to personal Liberty and nobody seems to be arguing that is a breach of their rights, despite it being a far older and more important right than the franchise.
Russia has taken terrible losses, possibly as much as 1/4 of its forces, and has gained little and is going nowhere at moment in the key Donbas.
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
·
4h
But it isn't a stalemate. Now that the Russians' Phase 2 offensive has stalled they are being pushed back in a wide range of places.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1538491356368216065
In the meantime, there are a lot of ways of lubricating the UK-EU border that pragmatists would surely be fine with. You have to be pretty hardcore to want different veterniary / agricultural / chemical standards. I'm sure there are ways that UK businesses could benefit from the freedoms, but I'm also confident that they aren't worth the ballsache of the resulting border controls.
And then... one thing Johnson was right about was that our neighbouring continent does exert a hefty gravitational pull on the UK. Where I disagree with him is his belief that a massive effort could pull us decisively free from that, and mentally put is in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Panama canal, or somewhere between Singapore and Australia. Gravity doesn't work like that- ask the comets in the Oort cloud.
Permanent Brexit only really worked if others followed us out of the door. And, for various reasons, countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands decided not to.
I can’t see us ever rejoining the political Union
That has been Ukraine's choice, and I reckon it is a calculated one, and not one of outright desperation. The Ukrainians need both time and support; time for the support to get there. Every day that this goes on, Russia weakens militarily, economically and morally.
Also, whilst the figures are tragic, they need context. Russia has a limited number of troops it can use unless it goes for full mobilisation. Ukraine has said it will have up to a million troops. If the losses are 200 a day (and I doubt either side can keep up that sort of tempo) then we are talking of 73,000 casualties in a year. Add in injured, and we will be looking at 200,000 casualties.
Horrific numbers; but with a million troops it may be able to cope.
Russia, on the other hand, as attackers, will be getting the worst of it - especially if the west supply good artillery and other support.
If Russia goes for full mobilisation it is a different story: but not necessarily a better one for either Ukraine or Russia.
Our own experience bears this out. 384,000 British soldiers died in combat in the Second World War, the war lasted about 5 3/4 years, which works out as a mean of about 180 dead service personnel per day for that entire period. The population of the UK at the 1951 census was just over 50 million, so the total during the war period wouldn't have been that much greater than the 44 million estimate for Ukraine in 2020, i.e. the per capita rate of attrition was also, therefore, comparable.
The Ukrainians are fighting a war of national survival against a despised aggressor. Consequently, there's no particular reason to suppose that population fatigue will be the determining factor in Ukraine's likelihood of throwing the Russians out, or at least fighting them to a stalemate along lines similar to those that prevailed prior to this February. The cohesion of the alliance ranged against Russia, its willingness to keep supplying military and economic assistance (because Ukraine is going to need a lot of loans and gifts to keep going,) and its level of population fatigue with the war, are probably more crucial.
And I would point out, was not popular for saying it.
My fairly confident conclusion is the real objection is to the "foreign" element not the "judges" element. To something over and above "our" nation state being able to prevent "our" government doing something. Whereas for me this is a good thing. It's something to be welcomed. It's no guarantee against mischief and overreach, I agree with that, but it's a bit of extra comfort.
That so many prominent remainer commentators online are willing simply to lie / distort suggests that they are not confident.
One indicative tipping point will be later this year when we have a larger network of trade agreements than we did in the EU, which will be achieved without CBTPP, though it will take further time for new patterns to set in. When that is added in, and good relations with the many blocks / countries with whom Brussels have managed to create essentially frozen trade negotiations, who knows?
However there are big differences. One of them is the huge wave of people fleeing Ukraine - several millions (and still they come). That is a colossal blow. Will they ever return? Perhaps not
Britain did not see a tenth of its population disappear in WW2. That might have made things quite different
Also, there are now reports of large scale desertions in the Ukrainian army. Even the MoD mentioned it today. A rare negative statement
Not good
The driver of concern is specific cases the government doesn't like, be they supreme court or ECHR, and if things quiet down they don't necessarily act further but that's clearly what prompts them to desire action.
I'd have to find other ways to discourage it.
Requiring EU citizens to purchase insurance would likely be seen as discriminatory?
Whilst the most dismal pessimists were wrong at the start about how Russia would just steamroll over Ukraine, everyone also acknowledged the disparity in forces and thus the difficulty of the challenge for Ukraine. Hopefully progress can still come, as external support long term is surely crucial.
Feels like you have descended into one of your bouts of pessimism like you did when the omicron variant emerged and you sold all your shares.
And do we think that is the end of Morgan's time as a player of right in this ODI team? 6 ball duck.
So yes - they probably can withstand 15-20% of those casualties.
France was at more like 1300-1400 a day. On a population of 40 million in 1914.
But no one would wish it in any situation. We know what the consequences of a prolonged war on that scale were. I lost one or two men in my family from that generation, one of whom came back and later committed suicide. And I had a grandad I never met who was never the same, and was violent within his marriage to the extent that (reportedly) a place for my dad a boarding school was organised by well-connected local worthies in the Methodist Church.
What happened was a classic of the genre of discovering rights in existing law.
The EU is also adding FTAs, though. Do you really think we'll have more FTAs than the EU by the end of this year?
Because they're also adding FTAs at a reasonable pace.
If we join the TPP, then we'll leapfrog them, obviously, but otherwise it looks like much of a muchness, with them leading in some negotiations, and us in others.
Within a decade? I'd say 60/40 to No.
I haven't gone to the extent of combing through the entire lists, and surveying all the EU docs as to why so many have been in the doldrums for so long. That may be an exercise worth a Saturday morning when the weather gets cold and foggy.
According to wiki, Brussels has added 4 countries since 2017. Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and us.
I suspect that the rate of UK adding them has perhaps been a kick in the butt.
Yes, I think Morgan could be for the chop.
us: left govt, high inflation
uk: right govt, high inflation
germany: centrist govt, high inflation
italy: everyone in govt, high inflation
wild guess it’s not the govt
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1538531190247923713?cxt=HHwWgoCx6en9-tkqAAAA
An astonishing 7.7m Ukrainians have left the country (and 8m are internally displaced)
7.7m people did not flee France in 1914. If they had done, France might have crumbled very fast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ukrainian_refugee_crisis
That said, the EU will likely conclude both Australia and Indonesian FTAs before the UK.
While we'll be probably be first with NZ and India.
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
In 1940 they did of course collapse very fast indeed, as around 20-25% of the population fled. More, in some areas. Chartres went from 23,000 inhabitants to just 800.
https://webdoc.france24.com/exodus-france-german-invasion-war-1940/
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
But its still better than Budweiser at least.
I'd say there's a major category difference between Judges and Activist Lawyers trying to use the courts to promote their politics.
The existence of activist lawyers, and their use of their positions / skills differentially to emphasise their particular desires more than other things they could alternatively be promoting, is self-evident, and not really open to question imo. I watched a magistrate trying to argue that such do not exist on Lib Dem Voice of all places, and she was shredded even there.
Bias in Judges is more interesting. In theory it should not exist; however Judges do cross into political questions from time to time, and it is correct for Parliament to set the boundaries of that.
Plus systemic, and perhaps unintended, biases can develop. I recall, for example, the blogger Heresy Corner arguing that at the time of the super-injunction mess by pointing out the very narrow background of most of the Judges making the decisions, and the undue numbers from a small section of the legal profession.
The MoD has started to speculate about Ukrainian defections. What they have also been telling us for many weeks, however, is that Russia is suffering from large scale defections or refusals by soldiers to fight, disputes between officers and their men, and very low morale. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions about the viability of Ukrainian resistance based on that.
One other key thing to remember: quite apart from the fact that Russia's pace of advance is glacial, and that they're losing troops the whole time, they need to be able to mass a lot of their forces along a single front to make progress, and they also need to be able to hold on to all their conquered territory once taken. Therefore, the more they try to bite off, the more stretched they become. They're having to work very hard indeed to over-run Sievierodonetsk; once they finally get it, all that means is that they'll next need to capture Lysychansk (which AIUI is on the other side of a major river and occupies high ground, which will make it even harder to break down,) and all the while Russia is doing this it's leaving itself potentially vulnerable to counterattack elsewhere. Indeed, Ukraine has been claiming advances in the direction of Kherson and Melitopol in recent days.
As I said below, Ukraine seems more likely to be let down by the actions of outsiders than through the failings of its own efforts. The biggest problems coming down the line could be European states breaking ranks as their populations fall under the influence of Kremlin propaganda and/or grow desperate through energy shortages; and the likely outcome of the US mid-terms. People who understand US politics better than me will have a more informed opinion, but one assumes that there is a realistic prospect of the Republicans gaining control of one or both houses, many of them are in thrall to Trump or otherwise hold similar isolationist views, and Congress controls budgets.
The representation of the people acts, that established full voting equality over consecutive decades, and the Race Relations Acts that established racial equality, had nothing to do with the ECHR. Neither have recent domestic initiatives on same sex marriage.
As Lord Sumption said in The Times yesterday withdrawing from the convention or modifying its operation here does not mean abrogating human rights. We can have all or any of the rights in the convention under ordinary domestic legislation and protected by our own courts without submitting to the expansive edicts taken by the ECtHR that, at times, struggles to recognise the strong democratic push for illegal immigration control and can work against it.
If we did withdraw here, which I currently don't support but I could if these sort of arguments continue, it would not represent Ermächtigungsgesetz.
We have Panama and Kenya, which they don't have.
They have more Africa/Asia FTAs than we do (Azerbaijan/Algeria, etc.)
Is Cohabitation with the Far Left coming down the road for Mons. Macaron?
I don't know why you're being so hyperbolic when you've made far more interesting suggestions merely days ago, such as modifying the refugee conventions.
Someone else (and they are rare) who equalled your intelligence and skill in advocacy could easily twist that position to make a similar point about Jewish refugees and a descent into an authoritarian nightmare. But both that and withdrawing from the ECtHR - and putting those rights into domestic law - could be solutions to the issue that are worthy of at least some level of measured debate.
Twitter
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h
🔺EXCL: SNP MPs have been threatened with criminal action by their chief whip over a leaked recording of a meeting at which senior figures backed Patrick Grady over his sexual misconduct scandal.
https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1538517865514643456
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h
Replying to
@KieranPAndrews
In a late night letter following @johnestevens
scoop, Owen Thompson said recording an leaking a group meeting was “beyond the pale”, adding: “This behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Kieran Andrews@KieranPAndrews·3h
Thompson said there were “serious questions to be answered on the legality of sharing a recording without consent under terms of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” and has raised the leak with Westminster’s security team
Kieran Andrews
@KieranPAndrews·3h
The SNP staffer, targeted by Grady when he was 19, said: "It is disappointing to see that the SNP would rather take strong action against the leaker than the perpetrator." Grady has been given a two-day suspension from the party.
The EU also concluded negotiations with a whole bunch of West African countries in 2021, and are just waiting for ratification to come into effect. When that comes in, it'll add quite a few to that list.
Of course, they'll all be tiny relative to India
Active today?
But I would note that there should be a natural tendency in the energy rich states of the US to back Ukraine. Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, etc. all benefit from high energy prices - so a Russian win probably wouldn't benefit them in the medium term.
A majority is on a knife edge. But he'll not need the Left.
Turnout estimated at 46%.
25% for 18-24.
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
Poland won.
But I do agree it's very hard to see a 'win' for Ukraine from here without direct military help from another country. It wouldn't come from the West and it seems unlikely China will intervene.
Twitter
Tom Gordon@HTScotPol·1h
Patrick Grady sex row: SNP chief whip tells MPs there will be no tolerance for leakers
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1538555114461478912
The actions of Government may, however, be making both inflation and its effects worse. In the UK, for example, economists blame our especially high inflation rates partly on the effects of further trade barriers caused by Brexit (much is made of the fact that Northern Ireland is the only region outside London to be exhibiting economic growth,) and we have a terrible and long standing problem with house price inflation (which, especially since the GFC, has seen the ratio of average house prices to average earned incomes climb to increasingly stratospheric multiples.) This adds enormously to the notional stockpile of wealth being sat on by homeowners, but also makes mortgages and especially rents much more expensive than they need to be, leaving less room in the household budgets of most people who don't own outright to cope with unwelcome shocks.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
And you have to define what winning means for Ukraine. Taking back Donbas and Luhansk and crimea? I just can’t see it happening sadly, unless, as I say, it happens over years and decades and Russia gets tired and bored and Putin dies
Cut & paste from https://www.anthonyburgess.org/anthony-burgess-bibliography/
"The Wanting Seed (1962)
A dystopian future Britain in which the cities cover all the land and the human race is oppressed by overpopulation, state-sanctioned cannibalism, and a phony war. Tristram Foxe, a history teacher, has to navigate this world with his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, who has become pregnant without the permission of the state."
Where are the examples of aggressive invasions that succeeded in the long-term?
If we exclude colonisation of less developed countries by those with clear technological superiority, successful invasions are very rare indeed.
England was on the receiving end of one in 1066; beyond that, not many spring to mind.
And yes, usually the militarily superior side wins. That’s how it works