What’s the reason pb isn’t just one long perma thread? All this chopping and changing, comments lost upon a new thread (like this one in a minute) seems silly.
How would we keep on the topic of the thread header if it was all one thread?
Mike could just have posted a header in 2004 about how wonderful Jim Wallace’s and Jack McConnell’s Lib-Lab coalition government was, and we could just have merrily chatted away for 18 years.
The Fresh Talent initiative, public smoking ban, bid for Euro 2008 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) bill. Never any need for Off Topic comments…
TBF they did get rid of feudal law.
Absolutely! They weren’t too bad in some respects. Largely due to having the SLDs in there.
The tragedy is the decline in radical liberalism since then. They are just pale copies of their red and blue Unionist colleagues.
Hard to remember that it was Michael Forsyth and the SLabbers that drove through pro-Gaelic legislation. The BritNats are nowadays vociferously anti-Gaelic.
We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
S-300V and S-400 effectively denies all airspace above ~100m over Donbas and Kherson and neither side has any SEAD/DEAD worth speaking about.
What the Ukranians really need is something to compete with the Su-30SM/Adder combo before they can effectively contest the air domain. The Ukranian MiG-29/Su-27/Alamo leaves them out-ranged and out-gunned.
Talking of finite resource allocation issues, the expected price rises now add up to an additional cost for the country for its energy needs of £100bn a year.
It's an absolutely colossal sum of money, more than half of the peak public sector deficit following the Financial Crash.
What Labour have failed to do is to pin the blame on the government for this monumental failure of energy policy. After the Financial Crash Osborne and Cameron were very successful in pinning the blame for the deficit, and the austerity that followed, on to Brown and Labour. They didn't let the argument that it, "started in America," go unchallenged.
Labour's response to the crisis has been to criticise the government's immediate response, but this means they've implicitly accepted the government's argument that the crisis, "started in the Kremlin," and so they are failing to reap the political benefits.
The political challenge for Labour is to drive home the message that the energy crisis is due to the failure of the Tories to invest in renewable energy, that they have been too slow to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel imports, and that is why we are experiencing a large loss in national wealth and are all poorer. Instead Labour are pretending that the loss of £100bn a year can be wished away.
If Labour don't win the next election, this will be why.
The global financial crisis was only marginally Labour's fault and the global energy crisis is only marginally the Tories' fault. In both cases the blame on local politicians lies chiefly in leaving us more exposed, but it is a matter of degree rather than absolutes, and that's a complex message to communicate if you want to do it honestly. Of course the Tories had no scruples about communicating a far less complex and fundamentally dishonest message back in 2010. Maybe Labour should do that too, but I think lying just comes less naturally to them. I suppose that's a good thing, but I am fed up with losing elections.
Where :Labour could blame the Tories effectively is on the energy cap level. Other countries such as France have interviewed to keep fuel bills low. Labour could easily push the line of the Tories siding with the energy companies over consumers *
* In reality, the best option now is for the cap to be lowered and the Government to directly subsidise the energy companies for any losses.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
Which is true but (1) in February, there was winter coming into spring, rather than we are approaching 5+ months of winter (2) the Ukrainians will need to show something in order to offset the likely squealing of European consumers on energy bills / Russian cuts and (3) it's slightly harder to go on the attack from a morale / motivational standpoint if your troops are primarily concerned with keeping themselves warm. There is also the issue of energy supplies within Ukraine itself.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
Talking of finite resource allocation issues, the expected price rises now add up to an additional cost for the country for its energy needs of £100bn a year.
It's an absolutely colossal sum of money, more than half of the peak public sector deficit following the Financial Crash.
What Labour have failed to do is to pin the blame on the government for this monumental failure of energy policy. After the Financial Crash Osborne and Cameron were very successful in pinning the blame for the deficit, and the austerity that followed, on to Brown and Labour. They didn't let the argument that it, "started in America," go unchallenged.
Labour's response to the crisis has been to criticise the government's immediate response, but this means they've implicitly accepted the government's argument that the crisis, "started in the Kremlin," and so they are failing to reap the political benefits.
The political challenge for Labour is to drive home the message that the energy crisis is due to the failure of the Tories to invest in renewable energy, that they have been too slow to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel imports, and that is why we are experiencing a large loss in national wealth and are all poorer. Instead Labour are pretending that the loss of £100bn a year can be wished away.
If Labour don't win the next election, this will be why.
The global financial crisis was only marginally Labour's fault and the global energy crisis is only marginally the Tories' fault. In both cases the blame on local politicians lies chiefly in leaving us more exposed, but it is a matter of degree rather than absolutes, and that's a complex message to communicate if you want to do it honestly. Of course the Tories had no scruples about communicating a far less complex and fundamentally dishonest message back in 2010. Maybe Labour should do that too, but I think lying just comes less naturally to them. I suppose that's a good thing, but I am fed up with losing elections.
I wouldn't see these costs are only marginally the Tories' fault. Look at the pattern of Tory energy policy over 40 years, to the lack of storage to aid profits, to the ridiculous role of OfGem. Look at France's energy price rises this year compared to ours.
A large part is global, but a very large part is also a total failure of domestic politics. In particular the kind of bluntly ideological, intellectually shallow and glib politics Truss represents.
3 more MRLS, plus ammunition, from the UK announced today.
The more the merrier! Game-changing weapon, as the war moves from defence to offence.
Just a reminder that's it's about a quarter of a century old, and the Russians apparently have no way of stopping it.
Yep. The Russians appear to have little in the armoury that’s sized between a big gun and a big rocket. The big guns are very inaccurate at range, and the big rockets are overkill for all but the most strategic of targets, and supplies of them are limited.
So the Western MRLS turn up, small guided rockets, very accurate and vehicle-mounted, so it can ‘shoot and scoot’ - and the enemy doesn’t have any response to it. Rule #2 of a land war (after logistics, of course), is to make sure you have the advantage of range. That advantage is very much with the Ukranian defenders thanks to these weapons, even if the West considers them to be older technology these days.
We're nationalising Bulb essentially, let's do the same with other companies taking the consumer for a ride.
Bulb and suppliers like them simply aren't an example of a company "taking the consumer for a ride", and "nationalising" those sorts of company does nothing for the consumer.
They are simply passing on huge wholesale price increases, and it's not clear what else companies like that can do to avoid insolvency (indeed, in Bulb's case, they haven't). The people who have had a massive windfall are oil and gas companies who are sat on the actual commodity.
Please tell me the government did not cut the MHRA two years into a global pandemic.
This clown show needs to be ended but sadly we have two more years of piss poor and ideology-driven administration.
As I've posted above (below) this story is likely utter nonsense, and not linked to government. I'm working on a grant application on a very, very quiet Uni campus today. I know its quiet because I don't have to queue for a coffee. Its August. People take holidays. Like Starmer. And Johnson.
We have boosters that are effective against omicron (latest data is striking showing those who had a spring booster with significantly higher nAB than those who didn't). The newer variant vaccines may be a bit better, but its unlikely they will be a game changer - they are unlikely to stop spread that much better than the previous versions.
Plus most people (i.e. over 50%) have now had omicron which is why the prevalence is now falling like a stone, as despite alarmists trying to suggest otherwise, having omicron DOES generate anitbodies and protection against omicron.
I share your frustration with the current government. It is time for a change, but the story above is bogus.
There seems to be ongoing debate about both what and when in terms of boosters.
Do you know anything about nasally administered vaccines in development (potentially a step up in terms of providing immunity, but also potential side effects not seen with other routes of administration) ?
No - I've not seen anything other than there are a lot of trials going on.
I'm not convinced of the general need for boosters outside of the usual at risk categories. I think the shrill 'we're all going to get covid every 6 weeks' has died down a bit now. Its far to easy for people to take a post on twitter from someone who may have had two bouts of covid in a short time (but may not) to mean we are all going to have the same experience and that covid infection is a Russian Roulette for long covid, which is not likely. I saw an interesting pre-print yesterday looking at biological markers for long covid, and it showed a high correlation with reduced cortisol, something also suggested in ME/CFS. An interesting part of an emerging story.
Yes, I have no great insight to offer, but I got the impression that long Covid risk has more to do with the particular details of an individual's immune system than any particular set of Covid infections ?
I think that's very likely, in the way that some people are more prone to CFS etc.
In essence Avanti West Coast have taken an axe to services because they do not have sufficient drivers. Back when Virgin ran the operation they had good relations with the unions and found the happy medium between numbers of permanent staff and number of rest days they need staff to volunteer for to meet their obligations.
Avanti have let the headcount slip, the balance doesn't work, and now there aren't enough drivers. The company - and the government - are blaming the unions and "industrial relations". But there is no strike - they simply do not have enough bodies to provide their contractual service obligation.
As unions are the current bogeyman the Tories are attacking drivers. For not striking. When so many other franchises have no such problems as they have sufficient staff.
Why don't they have enough drivers? Is part of it because of union action?
Drivers cost money. Cheaper to have fewer drivers and pay overtime. Remember that *the union* wants more drivers employed on contracts that don't mandate overtime. We have not just evidence of this from loads of other franchises, we have in writing from them.
So why are you saying the opposite?
I'm not saying the opposite. Of course the union want more people employed - that's what unions almost always want. That doesn't mean that it's the best, or cheapest, way of providing those services.
rest-day working has been used for decades. Drivers cannot be trained up overnight, and it is unreasonable to expect them to be so. Unless there is evidence that the companies could not provide the services adequately without this action, then any delays and reduced services are down to the union, not the company.
Unions are not generally interested in efficiency or the public. As an example, railway unions kept secondman working on until ?1994? for 'safety' reasons. It was insane.
You didn't read my original post. Rest day working was an old practice. BR and before. Since privatisation the franchises have the power to negotiate their own arrangements with the unions, and the unions want more contracted hours and less forced overtime.
You say "drivers can't be trained up overnight" - Virgin West Coast had both enough drivers and the right balance between driver numbers and a bit of overtime when it got really busy. Avanti only took over the franchise a few years ago, decided to run down driver numbers and operate on more overtime for greater profit.
On your "evidence" point, you referred to it yourself. It was used for decades. You either employ enough drivers to cover without forced overtime, or you rely on Drivers who refuse to work enough overtime means not enough to run the trains.
What makes you think I didn't read your original post?
How is rdw 'forced' overtime?
Because the franchise does not employ enough drivers to fulfil its contractual service obligations. Either the drivers volunteer to work rest days, or services are cancelled.
Again, the previous franchisee prior to December 19 DID empliy enough drivers. The Avanti business model is less staff working more overtime. And the staff won't. So they can't provide their services.
Shapps should be penalising them for breaking their contract. But instead is siding with the employer and blaming the union for being "on strike" when they are not.
But AIUI that was the case back into BR days.
A question: how many fewer drivers do Avanti employ than the previous franchisee?
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
I think he thought they would be in Moscow in a few weeks...
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
What they’re planning to do with it, is to gently persuade the Russians to F off back to Russia.
Yes but up to now, America has vetoed attacks on Russia itself, which from the Russian point of view will include Crimea. So the question remains.
The US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine & it's not included in the veto on attacks on Russia.
I've got a list of the countries who DO recognise Crimea as Russian territory - at least as of 2014.
Cuba Venezuela Nicaragua Bolivia Zimbabwe Sudan Kyrgyzstan Syria North Korea Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
I think he thought they would be in Moscow in a few weeks...
As Putin thought he’d be parading in Kiev on 1st March.
But Bozo, Kahn and the Elizabeth Line delays really didn't help.
PS where is the evidence that Railway unions have told workers not to work on rest days?
Surely the 'historic' (*) stuff matters.? TfL has been facing a series of problems before Covid; then Covid came along and made things much worse. But the question is how much of the issue coms down to TfL's tactics, their long-term strategy, mistakes by central government and changing transport usage patterns.
In these days of 'levelling up', it's hard to see a massive bail-out for Londoners being popular.
(*) It's hardly 'historic' if it is five or ten years ago...
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
I think he thought they would be in Moscow in a few weeks...
AH was planninng a New Year ball in Leningrad's Hotel Astoria in 1941. Swastika shaped balloons and everything.
We're nationalising Bulb essentially, let's do the same with other companies taking the consumer for a ride.
Bulb and suppliers like them simply aren't an example of a company "taking the consumer for a ride", and "nationalising" those sorts of company does nothing for the consumer.
They are simply passing on huge wholesale price increases, and it's not clear what else companies like that can do to avoid insolvency (indeed, in Bulb's case, they haven't). The people who have had a massive windfall are oil and gas companies who are sat on the actual commodity.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
As an older reader, I'm liking the Dick Emery tribute.
On the substance, some of us leftists do indeed like Ange while at the same time thinking she's wholly unsuited to being leader. See also John Prescott.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
Easy mistake when you set off on about midsummer's day. One we are making too, we are saying winter is coming and we are gonna want the heating on, but not really believing it yet
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Plenty of barristers have made effective politicians though.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
Yes - called Rasputitsa. And autumn rains before everything freezes. Perhaps less of a problem now as I imagine there are a lot more metalled roads. Certainly in the more urban areas, maybe not out in the sticks though?
The accounts you read of the suffering of the German troops in that winter of 41/42 are truly harrowing. Of course they were the attackers, but still... I don't think it was something the Germans ever really got to grips with. They had campaigns in Germany collecting furs and warm clothing to send to the front. Must've been quite a sight to have a fur stole-clad Landser advancing towards you.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
I can't believe such a contract would be legally enforceable. Nothing surprises me anymore but I just wonder if Gordon Brown has been fed a pup so that when the real resignations honours emerge it won't seem like such a big deal.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
Remarkable. I don't know if it's only me, but I'm suffering from boiling frog syndrome - I've become so used to this sort of thing that I can't summon up much outrage, whereas if it had been done on day 1 of the Johnson administration I'd have been really shocked.
3 more MRLS, plus ammunition, from the UK announced today.
The more the merrier! Game-changing weapon, as the war moves from defence to offence.
Just a reminder that's it's about a quarter of a century old, and the Russians apparently have no way of stopping it.
Yep. The Russians appear to have little in the armoury that’s sized between a big gun and a big rocket. The big guns are very inaccurate at range, and the big rockets are overkill for all but the most strategic of targets, and supplies of them are limited.
So the Western MRLS turn up, small guided rockets, very accurate and vehicle-mounted, so it can ‘shoot and scoot’ - and the enemy doesn’t have any response to it. Rule #2 of a land war (after logistics, of course), is to make sure you have the advantage of range. That advantage is very much with the Ukranian defenders thanks to these weapons, even if the West considers them to be older technology these days.
Isn't rule #1 'never get involved in a land war in Asia'?
Your rules #1 and #2 might be correct for land wars in Europe...
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
I can't believe such a contract would be legally enforceable....
No, but it would be embarrassing if published. And hence the carrots, aka bribes, presumably.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
No. They're all ripe. There's three plants; one red, one orange, one yellow. Some of the orange ones are actually overripe yellow ones. A couple of them had split.
Lol, complete with Yakety Sax and canned laughter. You’ve got to hand it to the Ukranian social media team.
1,846 Russian tanks down, 1,454 still to go.
A tiny anecdote:
During the building of the new A50 dual carriageway from Etwall 30 or so years ago, the 'old' road suffered many traffic lights and delays where the new crossed the old. Once the main body of the road had been constructed, many workmen would drive along the unfinished dual carrigeway to avoid the queues.
This was frowned upon by the management.
It stopped totally one dark winter's evening, when a workman was speeding home along the newly-laid blacktop only to find a large trench had been dug across the embankment.
Result: one totalled car and several injured workmen.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
Remarkable. I don't know if it's only me, but I'm suffering from boiling frog syndrome - I've become so used to this sort of thing that I can't summon up much outrage, whereas if it had been done on day 1 of the Johnson administration I'd have been really shocked.
Bit like the US media and Trump. They now give equal or greater weight to his nonsensical pronouncements compared to verifiable facts.
No need for outrage; just a determination to kick them and their enablers out of office.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
I think he thought they would be in Moscow in a few weeks...
AH was planninng a New Year ball in Leningrad's Hotel Astoria in 1941. Swastika shaped balloons and everything.
I’ve dined in that very restaurant in the Hotel Astoria in St Petersburg (try the borscht). I was served by a waiter who was the great great grandson of a waiter who, in the same restaurant, once served Rasputin
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
Remarkable. I don't know if it's only me, but I'm suffering from boiling frog syndrome - I've become so used to this sort of thing that I can't summon up much outrage, whereas if it had been done on day 1 of the Johnson administration I'd have been really shocked.
Perhaps I am crediting Johnson with too much acumen but he's probably going to do this to give his successor a Beaufort Scale 12 shit storm to deal with on day one.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
Remarkable. I don't know if it's only me, but I'm suffering from boiling frog syndrome - I've become so used to this sort of thing that I can't summon up much outrage, whereas if it had been done on day 1 of the Johnson administration I'd have been really shocked.
Perhaps I am crediting Johnson with too much acumen but he's probably going to do this to give his successor a Beaufort Scale 12 shit storm to deal with on day one.
Maybe they thought it was the only way to stop being a target? Clearly they were under drone corrected artillery fire. Dump the tank in a pond and suddenly you are no longer worth wasting ammo on.
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
The casualty levels are only surprising because we're comparing them to asymmetric conflicts, where casualties are primarily from guerrilla attacks that necessarily have a lower intensity than war between two near-peer military powers.
If you compare to the casualty figures for the Iraq-Iran War then they're not so surprising.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Not disagreeing.
Nor i with you as it goes! Something is certainly rotten in the state of Starmer. Not coming home from holiday to slot in the open goal of 'government on holiday' (even if its manufactured and a bit bull) is somewhat tin eared
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Who remembers John Moore these days? He was once The Coming Messiah of Conservatism.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
Yes - called Rasputitsa. And autumn rains before everything freezes. Perhaps less of a problem now as I imagine there are a lot more metalled roads. Certainly in the more urban areas, maybe not out in the sticks though?
The accounts you read of the suffering of the German troops in that winter of 41/42 are truly harrowing. Of course they were the attackers, but still... I don't think it was something the Germans ever really got to grips with. They had campaigns in Germany collecting furs and warm clothing to send to the front. Must've been quite a sight to have a fur stole-clad Landser advancing towards you.
I expect the fighting could continue over the Winter.
The Red Army fought continuously from August 1943 to March 1944, driving the Germans out of Ukraine.
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
Yes, it’s totally insane. Land wars are often horrific in terms of casualties, and this war has seen a lot of close-quarters fighting between the sides.
Not to mention the thousands of casualties among the defenders and Ukranian civilians.
Ukranian numbers for Russian casualties are:
Killed ~43.000 Wounded ~129.000 Prisoner of war ~1.000
That’s around 173,000 in total, nearly 20% of the entire Russian army. Now, some of the wounded might be okay and return at some point, but many of them will have suffered life-changing injuries. There’s plenty of evidence, that replacements from the Russian reserve forces are not well trained or equipped, and that battalions are having to merge together as their numbers dwindle.
Ukraine is thought to be losing 100 men per day on average, so close to 20,000 Ukranian soldiers so far.
5000 price cap ? The current energy pricing and regulatory system, and likely our entire private energy model, is heading for the rocks. Brown is very likely right.
The Government needs to get a grip NOW.
Set a maximum cap of £2,000pa for domestic users. Come up with a similar pro rata arrangement for business.
Yes it will be expensive but the associated benefit of slashing inflation will mean that the cost of uprating pensions and benefits for inflation will be massively reduced to offset this.
We need this, not NI cuts.
Even abolishing all NI in its entirety wouldn't cover this horrific uplift for average full-time earners.
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
The casualty levels are only surprising because we're comparing them to asymmetric conflicts, where casualties are primarily from guerrilla attacks that necessarily have a lower intensity than war between two near-peer military powers.
If you compare to the casualty figures for the Iraq-Iran War then they're not so surprising.
Note that the US probably killed over 10% of Vietnam's population. It's not really a comparison from which to take much pride.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
What they’re planning to do with it, is to gently persuade the Russians to F off back to Russia.
Yes but up to now, America has vetoed attacks on Russia itself, which from the Russian point of view will include Crimea. So the question remains.
The US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine & it's not included in the veto on attacks on Russia.
I've got a list of the countries who DO recognise Crimea as Russian territory - at least as of 2014.
Cuba Venezuela Nicaragua Bolivia Zimbabwe Sudan Kyrgyzstan Syria North Korea Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
Yes, I think that's right. In general, one has to take the view of current residents into account even if the reason they're there is controversial. To take a currently less hot controversy, even though I was a member of Labour Friends of Palestine (and on the executive of Labour Friends of Israel - neither group saw any contradiction in wishing them both well) I've never thought that the argument that Israel was only predominantly Jewish because Arabs had been forced out (and thus that Israel wasn't legitimate) was valid. As the years pass, people grow old and die, new people are born, people arrive and leave, and one needs to look at what the people living in an area now actually think. Where a border was drawn 50 or 100 years ago by a long-dead leader is not decisive.
I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not. Local plebiscites conducted fairly are the only long-term solution (as in Schleswig-Holstein, or indeed Scotland) that doesn't lead to permanent unrest. Zelensky shouldn't overplay his hand - I suspect that a lot of governments in the west would deprioritise sending arms if it turned into a long regional war involving (re)conquest of Crimea. If the war ever ends (and wars generally do), it needs to reflect what people in each area actually want. I suspect Ukraine would get back most of Donbas on that basis, but maybe not Crimea.
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
Yes, it’s totally insane. Land wars are often horrific in terms of casualties, and this war has seen a lot of close-quarters fighting between the sides.
Not to mention the thousands of casualties among the defenders and Ukranian civilians.
Ukranian numbers for Russian casualties are:
Killed ~43.000 Wounded ~129.000 Prisoner of war ~1.000
That’s around 173,000 in total, nearly 20% of the entire Russian army. Now, some of the wounded might be okay and return at some point, but many of them will have suffered life-changing injuries. There’s plenty of evidence, that replacements from the Russian reserve forces are not well trained or equipped, and that battalions are having to merge together as their numbers dwindle.
Ukraine is thought to be losing 100 men per day on average, so close to 20,000 Ukranian soldiers so far.
In the UK we seem to think that WW2 was less bloody than WW1, but in reality we only undertook serious operations in Europe from June 1944 to May 1945, and the attrition rate then was pretty similar to WW1 figures. Its only because we avoided confronting Hitlers armies on land for so long (minor skirmishing in Africa and italy aside) that we lost so 'few'. The bombing campaign of course was hideous in its attrition rate.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
Strategic initiative, at a guess. Plus, if the Ukrainians are looking to re-take Kherson imminently, they probably want the Russians to be worried about more than just the defence of that city - if the Russians need to tie up extra reserves garrisoning the Crimea, that's less bodies to throw at what is likely to be a real meatgrinder of a battle.
Even if Russia had been pushed out of Kherson, their expectation would be that they could make it uninhabitable - by launching destructive attacks from Crimea.
Now, not so much. Ukraine will soon have the ability to make Sevastopol uninhabitable.
Quite honestly, I'd expect Kherson to be more or less uninhabitable after the Russians have been pushed out anyway, at least until the post-war reconstruction.
If we're being optimistic, though, the action in Crimea might suggest that the Ukrainian High Command (and their western advisors...) are now pretty convinced that the Russians have fully drawn down their operational strategic reserves, and are forcing the Russians to play a game of (increasingly) finite resource allocation.
One of the most surprising aspects of the war to me was that it didn't start with a two-week air and missile campaign by Russia to degrade Ukrainian air defenses and to gain air superiority. Trying to conduct a combined arms offensive without air superiority is likely to be challenging.
So I see the Ukrainian attack on the Crimean airbase as a natural progression from attacking Russian logistics and air defence assets. They are preparing the ground for an offensive by reducing Russia's means to contest it. There have been earlier attacks on other airbases, such as at Melitopol.
This also follows the strategy the Ukrainians employed to force the Russians off Snake Island. The destruction of the Moskva reduced Russia's air defence over the Western Black Sea, and enabled Ukrainian drone and air attacks on Snake Island that made continued occupation untenable.
I see no reason not to expect a continued campaign against Russian air defence and air force assets in the South to prepare the way for the Southern Offensive. We'll know this phase of the campaign has completed when we start to see more strikes from Ukrainian drones and jets against Russian defensive positions.
Any action is going to have to start soon before Winter steps in which both locks both sides into defensive positions and also increases Russia's leverage on the energy front. So I would expect things to kick off seriously within the next 7-10 days on the Kherson front combined with continued strikes on the Crimea / Melitopol / Mariupol areas to tie the Russians up, and partisan activity massively ramped up.
I know that, traditionally, underestimating an Eastern European winter has presaged embarrassing defeat, but the war started in Winter, on February 24th, and the Ukrainians were able to conduct a very successful mobile defence in the north of the country.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
My boyhood memories of reading about the Barbarossa Campaign tell me that it is springtime thaw and mud which is the enemy of ground warfare (or was). Winter is actually easier as the ground is firm and frozen
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
Godwin! Let's go.
Barbarossa was doomed from the start because Hitler hadn't fully mobilised a war economy with the resources, mechanisation and strength-in-depth for protracted conflict. He was gambling on a quick victory: that if he kicked the door in, the whole rotten lot would come tumbling down.
The early victories were flattering because Stalin had eviscerated his officer corps. After that the Germans could only really delay the inevitable - they might have been able to delay indefinitely and force a ceasefire with a new Treaty of Brest-Litovsk line had the UK/US not been involved, so Russia had fewer supplies, and made allies of Ukraine/Poland and the Baltics rather than shooting them all.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Who remembers John Moore these days? He was once The Coming Messiah of Conservatism.
I'm still awaiting the Jon Cruddas Labour Leadership, his third place in the 2008 deputy leadership was a seminal moment. Apparently he is now a Nandyite
… snip … Soldiers will have been in theatre for months with no respite, and will be tired and demoralised. 40,000 of them won’t be going home. Give it another month and the weather will start to change, with more mud everywhere and winter fast approaching.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but let’s hope my optimism pays off. Keep the weapons coming, Western governments.
Incredible. Not yet 6 months of special military operations and Russian k.i.a. approx two thirds the American losses in Vietnam over more than a dozen years.
The casualty levels are only surprising because we're comparing them to asymmetric conflicts, where casualties are primarily from guerrilla attacks that necessarily have a lower intensity than war between two near-peer military powers.
If you compare to the casualty figures for the Iraq-Iran War then they're not so surprising.
Note that the US probably killed over 10% of Vietnam's population. It's not really a comparison from which to take much pride.
Note that the US probably killed over 10% of Vietnam's population. It's not really a comparison from which to take much pride.
The other striking Vietnam parallel is that the Soviets were very wary about how much technical and training support they gave to the DRV. At any given time they were trying to help them just enough so they didn't lose in order to prolong the conflict and maximise US losses.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we? Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried. May as well get on with it.
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
I'm sure I read somewhere that that is actually illegal, consequent upon Lloyd George's shenanigans in the 20s. Simply requesting the written undertaking is an offence.
Pretty horrific. Strongly linked to hospitals trying to get on top of other backlogs I suspect. recovery from covid is going to take a long time for the NHS.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Who remembers John Moore these days? He was once The Coming Messiah of Conservatism.
I'm still awaiting the Jon Cruddas Labour Leadership, his third place in the 2008 deputy leadership was a seminal moment. Apparently he is now a Nandyite
She’s pretty rubbish too. And that Angela Rayner! What a lightweight.
Do Labour have anyone half-decent on their frontbench?
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Who remembers John Moore these days? He was once The Coming Messiah of Conservatism.
I'm still awaiting the Jon Cruddas Labour Leadership, his third place in the 2008 deputy leadership was a seminal moment. Apparently he is now a Nandyite
An article by Gordon Brown that's actually readable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
Remarkable. I don't know if it's only me, but I'm suffering from boiling frog syndrome - I've become so used to this sort of thing that I can't summon up much outrage, whereas if it had been done on day 1 of the Johnson administration I'd have been really shocked.
One probably strengthens the case for elected Lords but, given they'll also be subject to a party whip and such lists could include plenty of has-beens, also-rans and rejects too, I think its more about standards and ethics in public life.
We're going to finish up with the energy providers de facto nationalised, aren't we? Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried. May as well get on with it.
I don't think that needs to happen but realistically the price cap can't hit £4-5k pa levels, it will have to be lower and the energy firms compensated for that difference by the government. Heavy subsidisation rather than nationalisation seems to make more sense for what is hopefully a couple of years blip rather than a generational problem.
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
What they’re planning to do with it, is to gently persuade the Russians to F off back to Russia.
Yes but up to now, America has vetoed attacks on Russia itself, which from the Russian point of view will include Crimea. So the question remains.
The US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine & it's not included in the veto on attacks on Russia.
I've got a list of the countries who DO recognise Crimea as Russian territory - at least as of 2014.
Cuba Venezuela Nicaragua Bolivia Zimbabwe Sudan Kyrgyzstan Syria North Korea Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
Yes, I think that's right. In general, one has to take the view of current residents into account even if the reason they're there is controversial. To take a currently less hot controversy, even though I was a member of Labour Friends of Palestine (and on the executive of Labour Friends of Israel - neither group saw any contradiction in wishing them both well) I've never thought that the argument that Israel was only predominantly Jewish because Arabs had been forced out (and thus that Israel wasn't legitimate) was valid. As the years pass, people grow old and die, new people are born, people arrive and leave, and one needs to look at what the people living in an area now actually think. Where a border was drawn 50 or 100 years ago by a long-dead leader is not decisive.
I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not. Local plebiscites conducted fairly are the only long-term solution (as in Schleswig-Holstein, or indeed Scotland) that doesn't lead to permanent unrest. Zelensky shouldn't overplay his hand - I suspect that a lot of governments in the west would deprioritise sending arms if it turned into a long regional war involving (re)conquest of Crimea. If the war ever ends (and wars generally do), it needs to reflect what people in each area actually want. I suspect Ukraine would get back most of Donbas on that basis, but maybe not Crimea.
I'm slightly of the opposite view, that Zelensky is taking the view that he would see a Crimea for the Luhansk / Donetsk regions as a possible swap.
I realise it sounds nuts but:
- The recent attacks by Ukraine have highlighted that, even in current positions, the Crimea is going to be very hand to defend against attacks and will only get harder. Naval support in any conflict would be very hard for Russia. That is before we get to the issue of the water supply. - Related to that, as the pictures have shown, a lot of the local pro-Russian population will now be thinking that the Crimea is incredibly unsafe and may look to move back - The West is making it clear the recapture of Crimea is seen as an acceptable aim for Crimea - It is obviously far easier for Russia to supply / defend Luhansk and Donetsk given their positions and, as you say, the population has been bolstered by Russians coming in (although many men have presumably perished due to the call up efforts there).
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
What they’re planning to do with it, is to gently persuade the Russians to F off back to Russia.
Yes but up to now, America has vetoed attacks on Russia itself, which from the Russian point of view will include Crimea. So the question remains.
The US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine & it's not included in the veto on attacks on Russia.
I've got a list of the countries who DO recognise Crimea as Russian territory - at least as of 2014.
Cuba Venezuela Nicaragua Bolivia Zimbabwe Sudan Kyrgyzstan Syria North Korea Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
Yes, I think that's right. In general, one has to take the view of current residents into account even if the reason they're there is controversial. To take a currently less hot controversy, even though I was a member of Labour Friends of Palestine (and on the executive of Labour Friends of Israel - neither group saw any contradiction in wishing them both well) I've never thought that the argument that Israel was only predominantly Jewish because Arabs had been forced out (and thus that Israel wasn't legitimate) was valid. As the years pass, people grow old and die, new people are born, people arrive and leave, and one needs to look at what the people living in an area now actually think. Where a border was drawn 50 or 100 years ago by a long-dead leader is not decisive.
I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not. Local plebiscites conducted fairly are the only long-term solution (as in Schleswig-Holstein, or indeed Scotland) that doesn't lead to permanent unrest. Zelensky shouldn't overplay his hand - I suspect that a lot of governments in the west would deprioritise sending arms if it turned into a long regional war involving (re)conquest of Crimea. If the war ever ends (and wars generally do), it needs to reflect what people in each area actually want. I suspect Ukraine would get back most of Donbas on that basis, but maybe not Crimea.
"I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not."
Wow. That's quite a claim. Russia tool Crimea by force just eight years ago, after which there was some (ahem) ethnic cleansing (*). Now you're saying that Ukraine cannot take it back by force?
We are going to be fucking tortured on the day he discovers Telegram.
You are, all of you, utterly pathetic in the way you let me derail debate after debate, into whatever discussion I fancy
I could arrive here at 10am and say “Look, I’m really fucked off with sheep pretending to be circus clowns” and by 7pm you’d still be discussing the whole sheep as clowns thing. And then a few of you would quietly moan about it like tired wives, then back to the latest sheep-clown scandal
I can’t help being Dom. It’s not my fault if you’re all subs
I've noticed, and for the most part ignore your narratives on aliens or sexual encounters, or the photographs of your lunch, Regents Park, the recipe for tonight's dinner and the third bottle of English wine you are about to consume.
I suspect by engaging with you and entering your tangential world, posters are just being polite. It is very rude and disingenuous of you to throw their kindness back in their faces. For shame!
Am I the only person now wondering what's changed in the last few days that Zelensky is suddenly talking about liberating Crimea having in the past indicated it might be possible to accept at least de facto Russian sovereignty?
And then there are a series of explosions which the Ukrainians officially deny responsibility for?
Plus this openly threatening video?
What have they now got that they didn't have before, and what are they planning to do with it?
What they’re planning to do with it, is to gently persuade the Russians to F off back to Russia.
Yes but up to now, America has vetoed attacks on Russia itself, which from the Russian point of view will include Crimea. So the question remains.
The US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine & it's not included in the veto on attacks on Russia.
I've got a list of the countries who DO recognise Crimea as Russian territory - at least as of 2014.
Cuba Venezuela Nicaragua Bolivia Zimbabwe Sudan Kyrgyzstan Syria North Korea Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
Yes, I think that's right. In general, one has to take the view of current residents into account even if the reason they're there is controversial. To take a currently less hot controversy, even though I was a member of Labour Friends of Palestine (and on the executive of Labour Friends of Israel - neither group saw any contradiction in wishing them both well) I've never thought that the argument that Israel was only predominantly Jewish because Arabs had been forced out (and thus that Israel wasn't legitimate) was valid. As the years pass, people grow old and die, new people are born, people arrive and leave, and one needs to look at what the people living in an area now actually think. Where a border was drawn 50 or 100 years ago by a long-dead leader is not decisive.
I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not. Local plebiscites conducted fairly are the only long-term solution (as in Schleswig-Holstein, or indeed Scotland) that doesn't lead to permanent unrest. Zelensky shouldn't overplay his hand - I suspect that a lot of governments in the west would deprioritise sending arms if it turned into a long regional war involving (re)conquest of Crimea. If the war ever ends (and wars generally do), it needs to reflect what people in each area actually want. I suspect Ukraine would get back most of Donbas on that basis, but maybe not Crimea.
You are right. Wars end, and as our most disliked troll @Dynamo pointed out they generally don't end when every last soldier on the opposing side has been killed.
The tragedy would be for this to become a BAU war, must as exist in many distant lands and with which we can't be bothered.
It is not my, nor indeed anyone outside Ukraine's job to determine when the point of negotiation should come but it will come at some point. Or BAU it is and this is the new normal.
It seems that neither the PB Tories nor the PB Labourites are representative of the party memberships when it comes to leadership elections.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
I thought that plenty of leftist PBers think Ange is awful but they like her.
Not just leftists
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
Theres also the non zero chance hes just a rubbish politician, a dud. Parties have a history of deciding on 'the coming man (or sex of equivalent value)' and they turn out to be craptacular - Sunak, David Miliband, Menzies Campbell, Boris etc etc SKS might just be shit because hes shit
Who remembers John Moore these days? He was once The Coming Messiah of Conservatism.
I'm still awaiting the Jon Cruddas Labour Leadership, his third place in the 2008 deputy leadership was a seminal moment. Apparently he is now a Nandyite
What’s the reason pb isn’t just one long perma thread? All this chopping and changing, comments lost upon a new thread (like this one in a minute) seems silly.
How would we keep on the topic of the thread header if it was all one thread?
Mike could just have posted a header in 2004 about how wonderful Jim Wallace’s and Jack McConnell’s Lib-Lab coalition government was, and we could just have merrily chatted away for 18 years.
The Fresh Talent initiative, public smoking ban, bid for Euro 2008 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) bill. Never any need for Off Topic comments…
TBF they did get rid of feudal law.
Absolutely! They weren’t too bad in some respects. Largely due to having the SLDs in there.
The tragedy is the decline in radical liberalism since then. They are just pale copies of their red and blue Unionist colleagues.
Hard to remember that it was Michael Forsyth and the SLabbers that drove through pro-Gaelic legislation. The BritNats are nowadays vociferously anti-Gaelic.
Indeed. Some take the support for Gaelic as a personal insult, though not all. Nobody on PB moaned about Sunil's discovery of railway station names in the Gaelic, which I think a pleasant cultural enrichment of a train ride, and he does too I think!
Comments
The tragedy is the decline in radical liberalism since then. They are just pale copies of their red and blue Unionist colleagues.
Hard to remember that it was Michael Forsyth and the SLabbers that drove through pro-Gaelic legislation. The BritNats are nowadays vociferously anti-Gaelic.
What the Ukranians really need is something to compete with the Su-30SM/Adder combo before they can effectively contest the air domain. The Ukranian MiG-29/Su-27/Alamo leaves them out-ranged and out-gunned.
* In reality, the best option now is for the cap to be lowered and the Government to directly subsidise the energy companies for any losses.
I'm sure that winter will make war-fighting more difficult, but I think the extent to which it will freeze the conflict is being overestimated.
If the franchise was restricted to PBers, PM Sunak would be facing up to LotO Nandy in September.
What you DO need to do is make sure your troops have proper clothing to withstand -20C. Which Hitler forgot
A large part is global, but a very large part is also a total failure of domestic politics. In particular the kind of bluntly ideological, intellectually shallow and glib politics Truss represents.
So the Western MRLS turn up, small guided rockets, very accurate and vehicle-mounted, so it can ‘shoot and scoot’ - and the enemy doesn’t have any response to it. Rule #2 of a land war (after logistics, of course), is to make sure you have the advantage of range. That advantage is very much with the Ukranian defenders thanks to these weapons, even if the West considers them to be older technology these days.
They are simply passing on huge wholesale price increases, and it's not clear what else companies like that can do to avoid insolvency (indeed, in Bulb's case, they haven't). The people who have had a massive windfall are oil and gas companies who are sat on the actual commodity.
A question: how many fewer drivers do Avanti employ than the previous franchisee?
Cuba
Venezuela
Nicaragua
Bolivia
Zimbabwe
Sudan
Kyrgyzstan
Syria
North Korea
Armenia
Now you might say that those are the countries that are bold enough to stand up to the west.
There was no great rejoin Russia movement prior to 2014. Yanukovych actually got a lower percentage of the vote there in 2010 than he did in parts of the Donbass. Whatever weaknesses Ukraine had it was a functioning democracy. The only problem now is that we are where we are. I've seen suggestions that Russia have imported a million new citizens. Military targets are obviously fair game. However you wouldn't want a Balkans style conflict there which Russia would be only too willing to encourage I suspect.
In these days of 'levelling up', it's hard to see a massive bail-out for Londoners being popular.
(*) It's hardly 'historic' if it is five or ten years ago...
On the substance, some of us leftists do indeed like Ange while at the same time thinking she's wholly unsuited to being leader. See also John Prescott.
Here's a theory: sks is so useless at attack lines exactly because he is a prosecutor. UK prosecutors are hampered by rules which prevent them from saying 90% of the reasons why they know the defendant dunnit. Because it would be "unfairly prejudicial." For example the chavs who murdered a PC while stealing a quad bike a few years back, one of whom had been stopped for a driving offence a couple of weeks before and said that any cop who interfered with his driving would regret it. Jury not allowed to know. SKS is so useless I suspect there's a judge in his head censoring most of what he should be saying.
https://mobile.twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1557660617300910080
Perhaps not the best tank driver in the Russian Army was captured on camera by the Ukrainian 53rd Brigade.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/boris-johnson-lords-cronies-legitimising-bribery
A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the influential lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document proposes that Johnson ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to disown the international treaty it has itself signed over Northern Ireland.
This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an extraordinary requirement that each new peer sign away their right to make their own judgment on legislation that comes before them. They have to give, the paper says, a written undertaking to attend and vote with the government...
With additional carrots promised for compliance.
Under cover of 'delivering Brexit'.
The accounts you read of the suffering of the German troops in that winter of 41/42 are truly harrowing. Of course they were the attackers, but still... I don't think it was something the Germans ever really got to grips with. They had campaigns in Germany collecting furs and warm clothing to send to the front. Must've been quite a sight to have a fur stole-clad Landser advancing towards you.
1,846 Russian tanks down, 1,454 still to go.
Your rules #1 and #2 might be correct for land wars in Europe...
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1557662615475724289?s=20&t=imylsdoMwjHwrXXIiAB5NA
SKS might just be shit because hes shit
During the building of the new A50 dual carriageway from Etwall 30 or so years ago, the 'old' road suffered many traffic lights and delays where the new crossed the old. Once the main body of the road had been constructed, many workmen would drive along the unfinished dual carrigeway to avoid the queues.
This was frowned upon by the management.
It stopped totally one dark winter's evening, when a workman was speeding home along the newly-laid blacktop only to find a large trench had been dug across the embankment.
Result: one totalled car and several injured workmen.
They now give equal or greater weight to his nonsensical pronouncements compared to verifiable facts.
No need for outrage; just a determination to kick them and their enablers out of office.
True story (or so he told me)
Most likely just panic, of course.
Ottolenghi does a summer salad with multi coloured tomatoes, croutons, anchovies, herbs, it’s sensational
If you compare to the casualty figures for the Iraq-Iran War then they're not so surprising.
https://insidecroydon.com/2019/05/24/former-mp-john-moore-the-icarus-of-thatcherism-has-died/
The Red Army fought continuously from August 1943 to March 1944, driving the Germans out of Ukraine.
Not to mention the thousands of casualties among the defenders and Ukranian civilians.
Ukranian numbers for Russian casualties are:
Killed ~43.000
Wounded ~129.000
Prisoner of war ~1.000
That’s around 173,000 in total, nearly 20% of the entire Russian army. Now, some of the wounded might be okay and return at some point, but many of them will have suffered life-changing injuries. There’s plenty of evidence, that replacements from the Russian reserve forces are not well trained or equipped, and that battalions are having to merge together as their numbers dwindle.
Ukraine is thought to be losing 100 men per day on average, so close to 20,000 Ukranian soldiers so far.
It's not really a comparison from which to take much pride.
He's certainly not pulling any punches.
https://mobile.twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1557548683616559105
I've no idea what the current balance of feeling in Crimea is, but a military solution to that is no more acceptable than the Russian attempt to "prove" by force that Ukrainians in general want to be governed by Moscow when they obviously do not. Local plebiscites conducted fairly are the only long-term solution (as in Schleswig-Holstein, or indeed Scotland) that doesn't lead to permanent unrest. Zelensky shouldn't overplay his hand - I suspect that a lot of governments in the west would deprioritise sending arms if it turned into a long regional war involving (re)conquest of Crimea. If the war ever ends (and wars generally do), it needs to reflect what people in each area actually want. I suspect Ukraine would get back most of Donbas on that basis, but maybe not Crimea.
Barbarossa was doomed from the start because Hitler hadn't fully mobilised a war economy with the resources, mechanisation and strength-in-depth for protracted conflict. He was gambling on a quick victory: that if he kicked the door in, the whole rotten lot would come tumbling down.
The early victories were flattering because Stalin had eviscerated his officer corps. After that the Germans could only really delay the inevitable - they might have been able to delay indefinitely and force a ceasefire with a new Treaty of Brest-Litovsk line had the UK/US not been involved, so Russia had fewer supplies, and made allies of Ukraine/Poland and the Baltics rather than shooting them all.
But, then, that wouldn't have been Hitler.
Apparently he is now a Nandyite
Just a question of how long it takes for all other options to be tried.
May as well get on with it.
Do Labour have anyone half-decent on their frontbench?
New Thread
https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/jon-cruddas-rainham-dagenham-mp-stepping-down-9181860
I realise it sounds nuts but:
- The recent attacks by Ukraine have highlighted that, even in current positions, the Crimea is going to be very hand to defend against attacks and will only get harder. Naval support in any conflict would be very hard for Russia. That is before we get to the issue of the water supply.
- Related to that, as the pictures have shown, a lot of the local pro-Russian population will now be thinking that the Crimea is incredibly unsafe and may look to move back
- The West is making it clear the recapture of Crimea is seen as an acceptable aim for Crimea
- It is obviously far easier for Russia to supply / defend Luhansk and Donetsk given their positions and, as you say, the population has been bolstered by Russians coming in (although many men have presumably perished due to the call up efforts there).
Wow. That's quite a claim. Russia tool Crimea by force just eight years ago, after which there was some (ahem) ethnic cleansing (*). Now you're saying that Ukraine cannot take it back by force?
Why does Russia get to rule the roost?
And would you say the same about the Donbass?
(*) https://www.thetrumpet.com/21099-silent-ethnic-cleansing-underway-in-crimea
The tragedy would be for this to become a BAU war, must as exist in many distant lands and with which we can't be bothered.
It is not my, nor indeed anyone outside Ukraine's job to determine when the point of negotiation should come but it will come at some point. Or BAU it is and this is the new normal.