"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
She needs an election then, so we can all have our say as to whether she has the mandate to take the sort of decisions she is taken
I’d agree with you had we’d just come out of a general election and she had won a stonking majority. She may be acting like it..
She has just won the leadership election and so now commands a stonking majority of the Commons. She has 2 years to put what just won the election into practice.
If any Tory MPs don't want to follow the Tory whip, they're perfectly entitled to cross the floor. If enough MPs do that, her Government falls.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
She needs an election then, so we can all have our say as to whether she has the mandate to take the sort of decisions she is taken
I’d agree with you had we’d just come out of a general election and she had won a stonking majority. She may be acting like it..
To be fair to May she did ask for just that and held a (poor as it turned out) General Election. One of the reasons I voted for her in that one was I thought coming out and asking for a mandate, putting it to the British people to bolster her negotiating position was (abstractly) the right thing to do.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
Wait until she dismantles that bed of commie socialism.... the NHS!!
That would save £150bn a year and fund all her tax cuts so we could take out more efficient health insurance plans just like the USA
@thehistoryguy That was the worst provincial campaign of any of our leaders since autumn 1216 when King John marched about dealing with a rebellion & two invasions, caught dysentery in Norfolk, lost the Crown Jewels in The Wash and died in Nottinghamshire
There is a chorus from Westminster journalists and Twitter nonentities how 'car crash' Truss's interviews this morning have been, but the lack of any 'gotcha' clips of stumbles or forced errors doing the rounds is telling. Truss has come on, stuck to her interview schedule, defended her Government's policies, and I can't help thinking if this were Boris, he'd be nowhere to be seen.
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Some of it is self inflicted but the covid recession and the war have been extreme head winds that would have been challenging for any government.
You don't need to use the subjunctive. The Covid recession and the war *is* challenging for many governments. Most have not reacted in a way that deliberately shafts the finances of their country though.
Other Government's equally haven't doubled down on policies (low Corporation tax) that have already been shown to not be working.......
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
She wants a country of low paid workers who have no choice but to work all hours....
Destroying pensions is one way of keeping people working...
How long can we go politically feather bedding pensioner incomes at a time when the working population is seeing their incomes crushed & many of them are falling into poverty?
The triple lock was a mistake: Pensions should have been tied to UK wages so that pensioners got a fair shake out of UK output, not given this promise that meant they never lost out regardless of what happened to everyone else.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
If she loses enough support among the MPs she will go, the details of rules won't matter.
OK - so we are back to a Johnson-era speculation that the 1922 will change the rules on a sitting leader. Possible I grant you but I can't see it myself.
Johnson went before the 12-month period was up and the 1922 didn't change the rules. Obviously it requires support for Truss to fall to very low levels, but if it does then she's done.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
These were the people who didn’t notice that the previous incumbent was lazy and dishonest and entirely without principle, policy or scruple….
Not quite. They DID notice, they just did not care.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
MIRAS would be just another tax cut which are what got us in this mess.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The membership polls had Truss top or thereabout for a long period but what is unclear is how much the anti-Sunak sentiment was a factor. He did better than expected but there was undoubtedly an "anyone but Sunak" faction. The reason for this seemed to be that they disliked his fiscal profligacy ......
Let's be honest, though. No doubt a fair few disliked the colour of his skin. I was assured by a Tory-inclined acquaintance that he was just "too dark".
I am not sure that was the main reason. The fact is that the Tory leadership campaign was the most racially diverse political contest the UK has ever seen and minority candidates like Badenoch seem to have polled well with Tory members. We should all welcome and acknowledge that. There is I imagine a small racist tendency still but the days when I would have thought those kind of views were widespread in the Tory grassroots are I am sure over. There may have been something slightly more subtle at work though - I think the non dom and US green card revelations created a sense that he wasn't fully committed to the UK, and people were perhaps more willing to believe that because of his background. Perhaps some also felt resentment about his wealth that they wouldn't have done if he was a white guy from old money. In general I think the days of overt discrimination are largely over but I do also think that certain people are less likely to get away with things than others are. In other words, perhaps race becomes an aggregating factor in people's views once they have other, legitimate, reasons to dislike people. We are perhaps seeing a bit of this at work with Kwarteng too.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
So I only just had it this summer after 3 jabs - the illness itself was a bad flu, I was bedbound for a few days with a high temp, and didn't actually have much in the way of bad lung stuff.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
It’s about using conscripts without having to change laws etc.
Declare that the fighting is in Russia. Then all the 60 year olds with rusty AKs aren't being sent abroad…
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Some of it is self inflicted but the covid recession and the war have been extreme head winds that would have been challenging for any government.
You don't need to use the subjunctive. The Covid recession and the war *is* challenging for many governments. Most have not reacted in a way that deliberately shafts the finances of their country though.
How exactly has Truss "deliberately shafted" the finances of the country.
The UK spent hundreds of billions on Covid. A hundred and fifty billion was pencilled in for Energy Price Support without a murmur of dissent, and asked for by the Opposition. Thirty eight billion of tax cuts were already known about by the markets from her leadership election winning platform.
The "surprise" in the 45p announcement was a £2 billion tax cut.
Now I know as Reagan said, a billion here and a billion there and soon we're talking about real money, and I wouldn't sniff at the significance of that, but to suggest that has destroyed the finances of the country is being a tad extreme.
The markets have belatedly reacted to the debt the UK is dealing with, which is predominantly the hundreds of billions from locking down for Covid and for supporting energy prices, not a two billion pound tax cut.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
Better hope the US is hiding a few wunderwaffe under its hat.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
The problem is this though - "unpopular decisions" normally raise revenue. They've taken unpopular decisions that will cut revenue. Which means they're still going to have to make even more unpopular decisions to raise the revenue they just lost through their initial unpopular decisions...
Yes, how do you manage to spend £45bn on a huge giveaway budget and not gain at least some temporary superficial popularity as a result. People like tax cuts.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
If she loses enough support among the MPs she will go, the details of rules won't matter.
OK - so we are back to a Johnson-era speculation that the 1922 will change the rules on a sitting leader. Possible I grant you but I can't see it myself.
Johnson went before the 12-month period was up and the 1922 didn't change the rules. Obviously it requires support for Truss to fall to very low levels, but if it does then she's done.
Because he resigned! I said down-thread that a Truss resignation is possible - at least more possible than a VONC through the 1922 changing the rules on a sitting leader.
It is extraordinary how quickly things can change in a single week.
Just in time, Starmer has succeeded in shafting the 'racists who can't do Maths' faction of the Labour party (helped immeasurably by Rupa Huq, whose public and swift defenestration is an ideal contrast to equivalent incidents under Corbyn). Every time Owen and Femi issue him an ultimatum on Twitter, his standing increases.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have scuppered their (hitherto) single biggest long-term advantage over Labour - the perception of economic competence.
If the economy goes into complete meltdown, Starmer will be bequeathed a miserable situation but can very credibly blame the Conservatives. If Truss/Kwarteng do somehow manage to cultivate an economic recovery, they will be remembered slightly better in the history books but the recovery will be inherited by Starmer. Either way, Labour almost certainly wins.
There is no point for the Conservatives in changing leader before the election; the damage is done, so the best they can hope for is some kind of economic recovery that they bequeath to the opposition. I would suggest the Conservatives pick either Badenoch or Sunak for next leader after the next election, but I have no say in the matter.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
IMHO we are not likely to see an immediate nuclear escalation by Putin. We are more likely to enter a period of nervous ambiguity whilst Russia works out if the conventional mobilisation is working or not, and the West works out it’s response.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
So I only just had it this summer after 3 jabs - the illness itself was a bad flu, I was bedbound for a few days with a high temp, and didn't actually have much in the way of bad lung stuff.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
I'm sorry you're not feeling good, and hope you're feeling better soon.
Please take what follows as honest discord and not a belittlement of how you're feeling, but with all respect I'm sorry to say that shit happens, viruses exist, and we need to get used to it.
If the healthcare system is crippled, then people will die. If people die, then they come off waiting lists and stop needing pensions, or care, or ... eventually a new equilibrium is found.
Its horrible, and its unpleasant, but its also true. What is the alternative? How do we prevent a rampant virus from spreading? The virus can not be contained or controlled, its hubris to suggest it can be, unless we lockdown for about six months to remove and permanently seal up the borders, permanently prevent international trade and permanently prevent international travel.
Realistically, post-vaccines is as good as it gets.
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Some of it is self inflicted but the covid recession and the war have been extreme head winds that would have been challenging for any government.
You don't need to use the subjunctive. The Covid recession and the war *is* challenging for many governments. Most have not reacted in a way that deliberately shafts the finances of their country though.
How exactly has Truss "deliberately shafted" the finances of the country.
The UK spent hundreds of billions on Covid. A hundred and fifty billion was pencilled in for Energy Price Support without a murmur of dissent, and asked for by the Opposition. Thirty eight billion of tax cuts were already known about by the markets from her leadership election winning platform.
The "surprise" in the 45p announcement was a £2 billion tax cut.
Now I know as Reagan said, a billion here and a billion there and soon we're talking about real money, and I wouldn't sniff at the significance of that, but to suggest that has destroyed the finances of the country is being a tad extreme.
The markets have belatedly reacted to the debt the UK is dealing with, which is predominantly the hundreds of billions from locking down for Covid and for supporting energy prices, not a two billion pound tax cut.
I think it is mainly a reaction to the BOE selling its UK bonds. They are right to want to have less UK debt on the balance sheet, but to suddenly start selling it off under the present circumstances doesn't exactly make it an attractive prospect for anyone to buy it. Just another example of central banks inflating the bubble during the good times, and then pulling the rug away when times get bad. And it's quite clearly being pinned on HMG as a way of taming the Government, with a deafening chorus of idiots demanding some sort of capitulation, even if it's just a purely symbolical one that will have zero actual impact.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
Putin taking into Mother Russia that which is day after day being prised away from Mother Russia is interesting timing.
If the million-man conscript army with sticks for rifles can't force them out, it does look to be a self-defeating move.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
Russia is weirdly legalistic. Or at least likes to give that appearance. Hence all the semantic faff about “special military operation” - it has legal consequences
Russian nuclear doctrine does not obviously allow Putin to use nukes at the moment. Russia is not being existentially threatened or invaded. By tomorrow that will change
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
Wait until she dismantles that bed of commie socialism.... the NHS!!
That would save £150bn a year and fund all her tax cuts so we could take out more efficient health insurance plans just like the USA
We spend 3 billion a week on the NHS. Let's fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.
@thehistoryguy That was the worst provincial campaign of any of our leaders since autumn 1216 when King John marched about dealing with a rebellion & two invasions, caught dysentery in Norfolk, lost the Crown Jewels in The Wash and died in Nottinghamshire
There is a chorus from Westminster journalists and Twitter nonentities how 'car crash' Truss's interviews this morning have been, but the lack of any 'gotcha' clips of stumbles or forced errors doing the rounds is telling. Truss has come on, stuck to her interview schedule, defended her Government's policies, and I can't help thinking if this were Boris, he'd be nowhere to be seen.
From what I heard her answers were adequate but there were awkward gaps and her delivery was very poor. The problem really is that she and Kwazi have been in hiding for 5 days so they haven't been able to get their messages out on 'the real reasons' for the market turmoil. It goes back to this being a problem entirely of their own making.
I guess the 1922 will have to change their rules if they want to save their seats.
Catch-22.
They cannot change the rules unless they are sure the letters will be there. No one will put a letter in unless the rules are changed.
To alter the rules in order to enable a contest would smack of the ultimate in disloyalty and spark off an internal war.
You can put a letter in in advance of the deadline.
Fairly easy rule change - for the following twelve months the threshold isn't 15% it's 40%. That would mean there would only be another vote if it was pretty certain the leader would be removed.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
So I only just had it this summer after 3 jabs - the illness itself was a bad flu, I was bedbound for a few days with a high temp, and didn't actually have much in the way of bad lung stuff.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
The number of long term sick is up by over half a million in the last couple of years. That's probably not unconnected.
Viruses cause problems. Epstein Barr - MS, and just recently identified, enterovirus- Type 1 diabetes.
O/T for Dura Ace - my sister just sent me this that they drove past. Almost as expensive a crash as Liz has caused.
It's probably not totalled. Enzos go for millions now so it would be worth repairing in just about any condition. It'll certainly have to go back to Ferrari at Maranello though so that it is one expensive claim.
Drove an SF90 at the weekend. That thing fucks. Not many cars can take my 997 Turbo to Gapplebees but the SF90 monstered it in a 10-100mph roll race.
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
Wait until she dismantles that bed of commie socialism.... the NHS!!
That would save £150bn a year and fund all her tax cuts so we could take out more efficient health insurance plans just like the USA
We spend 3 billion a week on the NHS. Let's fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.
And the stupidty of the reduction to 40% is that it only raises 2 billion and frankly a daft policy to die on
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
IMHO we are not likely to see an immediate nuclear escalation by Putin. We are more likely to enter a period of nervous ambiguity whilst Russia works out if the conventional mobilisation is working or not, and the West works out it’s response.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
Yes, he will probably offer peace “on his terms”. Cede these annexed regions of Ukraine to Russia (while muttering quietly about nukes)
That might work. But probably not. Ukraine won’t give up all that territory. Ukraine will fight on - with or without NATO
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The 1922 Committee encouraged members to vote early, possibly because they feared a postal strike, and also because they offered members the facility to change their votes online (an offer later withdrawn).
So a lot of votes would have been cast before members had a chance to watch the hustings, even if they'd been so inclined.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
The problem is this though - "unpopular decisions" normally raise revenue. They've taken unpopular decisions that will cut revenue. Which means they're still going to have to make even more unpopular decisions to raise the revenue they just lost through their initial unpopular decisions...
Yes, how do you manage to spend £45bn on a huge giveaway budget and not gain at least some temporary superficial popularity as a result. People like tax cuts.
They like a roof over their head more. Mortgage rates were always going to rise because interest rates were damagingly low. The key is the adage "the poison is in the dosage". A rapid high rise will be catastrophic and a political disaster for the party in power.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
So I only just had it this summer after 3 jabs - the illness itself was a bad flu, I was bedbound for a few days with a high temp, and didn't actually have much in the way of bad lung stuff.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
You'll get there but you just have to give it time. I'm 36. I was in the first round for long Covid before long Covid was even a thing. It was terrifying because no-one knew at all how this weird disease was going to play out. I was researching the SARS virus and survivors and it really shook me up. I thought I was done.
I believe long Covid is to do with the immune system being in overdrive. You've got to calm it all down and it takes time. Increasing your stress and anxiety only makes it worse.
Eat well, sleep plenty, meditate, try cold showers and incrementally up the exercise. Give yourself a mental break to convalesce, take time doing things you enjoy and you'll be OK. Eventually your life might have more meaning because you will appreciate your health so much more.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
IMHO we are not likely to see an immediate nuclear escalation by Putin. We are more likely to enter a period of nervous ambiguity whilst Russia works out if the conventional mobilisation is working or not, and the West works out it’s response.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
Yes it will be tit for tat escalation not straight into nukes
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
IMHO we are not likely to see an immediate nuclear escalation by Putin. We are more likely to enter a period of nervous ambiguity whilst Russia works out if the conventional mobilisation is working or not, and the West works out it’s response.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
Yes, he will probably offer peace “on his terms”. Cede these annexed regions of Ukraine to Russia (while muttering quietly about nukes)
That might work. But probably not. Ukraine won’t give up all that territory. Ukraine will fight on - with or without NATO
And that’s when it gets truly dangerous
Yes, ukraine are talking about winning, they arent going to cede territory. Would be like Britain telling Hitler he could have Wessex towards the end of the BoB. And having declared the regions Russian any negotiation by Putin will not include giving them back. He will have to be beaten now.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
Good analysis. And of course attritional Russian losses are also hugely more likely than a whirlwind rout (although the Ukrainians might well cut off Kherson in the next few weeks).
Listened to Truss on BBC Kent earlier. V.impressive. Empathetic, commanding, inspiring.
She has my vote and should have yours too and I urge you to tell your favoured opinion pollster of that fact, preferably before midnight tomorrow. And insist they publish their findings immediately.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Ken Clarke is saying they have to makes some sort of statement in the next few days to calm the markets, and it can't wait until November, according to the jazzman.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
Naturally excepting the discerning and rapidly shrinking band (almost to the point of oblivion) of card-carrying pbTory members. From memory, MarqueeM, HYUFD, Casino, TSE and yours truly all voted for Rishi. Possibly forgotten others. Mortimer may have voted for Truss but I think the only one.
I'm keeping my head down, down, down. At least I'm not up for re-election until 2025 (but still likely to lose).
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
Any defeat is the end of Putin. Even more so now he has incorporated half of Ukraine into Russia. If he loses now he is losing a large chunk of Russia. That is intolerable. Not just for him but maybe for any future leader
This annexation makes serious escalation all-but-inevitable. And it is designed that way
Timing could hardly be worse either after that truly damning BBC documentary.
I'm also wondering if the timing is still optimistic. I'm no expert but one thing that struck me about Glen Sannox when they were filming it was the continuing buckling of plates on its side, which doesn't look like a well-designed and robust ship.
If there are structural weaknesses, after all this time, there must be a non-trivial chance they never actually do enter service.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
That tweet is not just misleading it is actively wrong.
The average mortgage is not up £5k a year. The average mortgage is a fixed rate with an increasingly long duration over the last few years.
If you are in the unfortunate position of having to remortgage today then your rates will be higher.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The 1922 Committee encouraged members to vote early, possibly because they feared a postal strike, and also because they offered members the facility to change their votes online (an offer later withdrawn).
So a lot of votes would have been cast before members had a chance to watch the hustings, even if they'd been so inclined.
That does not explain her 12 years on complete non-achievement and frequent gaffes before she put herself up for leadership. Enough of us here commented on it. If we could see the problems, MPs and members should have been even more aware of it. After all, the MPs had met her at work. How long does it take you to determine that someone is utterly stupid?
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
Er, my literal reaction was Fuck it. Dark laughter and a glass of noontime Glenlivet
I’m so over Covid. Unfortunately, we have vastly bigger problems
Many people were over covid by summer 2020...unfortunately the hypochondriacs didnt give us a choice in the matter
Ken Clarke is saying they have to makes some sort of statement in the next few days to calm the markets, and it can't wait until November, according to the jazzman.
Didn't the BoE do that just yesterday?
Not sure what kind of statement you expect them to make. Reversing on the mini budget won't calm the market since the market has woken up to the energy market money being the issue, not the two billion disputed politically in the news, and reversing that energy support isn't viable.
There's no point acting like headless chickens now, keep calm and carry on. And the BoE buying gilts rather than selling them should calm the markets down.
@thehistoryguy That was the worst provincial campaign of any of our leaders since autumn 1216 when King John marched about dealing with a rebellion & two invasions, caught dysentery in Norfolk, lost the Crown Jewels in The Wash and died in Nottinghamshire
There is a chorus from Westminster journalists and Twitter nonentities how 'car crash' Truss's interviews this morning have been, but the lack of any 'gotcha' clips of stumbles or forced errors doing the rounds is telling. Truss has come on, stuck to her interview schedule, defended her Government's policies, and I can't help thinking if this were Boris, he'd be nowhere to be seen.
From what I heard her answers were adequate but there were awkward gaps and her delivery was very poor. The problem really is that she and Kwazi have been in hiding for 5 days so they haven't been able to get their messages out on 'the real reasons' for the market turmoil. It goes back to this being a problem entirely of their own making.
I think it is a miscalculation to think that the lack of "gotchas" in the interviews means they weren't a big deal (and a huge negative).
What happened this morning was that the Prime Minister intruded on an awful lot of voters' favourite local morning shows. They know the presenters well, and think of them in much the same way as "friends and family". And those presenters (who don't depend on the PM's patronage for their career) calmly questioned her, and allowed her to flounder. That will be a thousand times more damning than any number of Westminster-centric journo "gotchas".
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
Wait until she dismantles that bed of commie socialism.... the NHS!!
That would save £150bn a year and fund all her tax cuts so we could take out more efficient health insurance plans just like the USA
We spend 3 billion a week on the NHS. Let's fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.
What worries me is that might be exactly what they are thinking
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
The declaration of war, or not, is nearly irrelevant at this point
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
IMHO we are not likely to see an immediate nuclear escalation by Putin. We are more likely to enter a period of nervous ambiguity whilst Russia works out if the conventional mobilisation is working or not, and the West works out it’s response.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
Yes, he will probably offer peace “on his terms”. Cede these annexed regions of Ukraine to Russia (while muttering quietly about nukes)
That might work. But probably not. Ukraine won’t give up all that territory. Ukraine will fight on - with or without NATO
And that’s when it gets truly dangerous
It wouldn't work. Just demonstrates that nuclear blackmail works and guarantees round 3 at some point.
And as you say, Ukraine will say fuck off anyway. So pour yourself a stiff G&T.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The 1922 Committee encouraged members to vote early, possibly because they feared a postal strike, and also because they offered members the facility to change their votes online (an offer later withdrawn).
So a lot of votes would have been cast before members had a chance to watch the hustings, even if they'd been so inclined.
That does not explain her 12 years on complete non-achievement and frequent gaffes before she put herself up for leadership. Enough of us here commented on it. If we could see the problems, MPs and members should have been even more aware of it. After all, the MPs had met her at work. How long does it take you to determine that someone is utterly stupid?
Also after this disaster i think the conservatives will regret boasting how diverse their cabinet is
Re: Russian “annexation”. They’re going to look pretty darn stupid if after claiming 98% support, Ukraine liberate, say, Kherson and are greeted by cheering crowds everywhere. Also most of the frontlines are now within what they claim is Russian territory. Which means “tactical nukes” on the frontlines is actually launching nuclear weapons against themselves.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
That's not a helpful or informative tweet, especially from a journalist.
No info on how many were admitted to hospital with or because of Covid. No info on who is vaccinated or the demographics of people admitted. Crucially, no info on what the actual numbers were before and after.
The dashboard shows admissions/people in hospital is just off a 3 month low.
Not saying there's no reason to be concerned, but that tweet seems deliberately vague to try and get the iSAGE lot to start calling for masks and lockdowns.
The next wave has been coming for a few weeks. Its driven by some new variants, some waning immunity (get boosted if offered) more indoor mixing (its colder than it was), schools are back, uni's too now.
The key thing is the current government's plan is rely on vaccines. Hopefully this wave won't be too damaging.
And yes - lots of those admitted will be with covid, but not because of covid - however it still puts strain on hospitals caring for them.
O/T for Dura Ace - my sister just sent me this that they drove past. Almost as expensive a crash as Liz has caused.
Ummph. Looks messy. Do you know roughly where it was? Can see what looks like a largeish bay in the background.
I know exactly where it is - it’s where a dual carriageway ends in a filter in turn so guessing either the Honda Jazz (likely their fault as Honda Jazz drivers are evil) has misjudged their filtering and caught the back of the Ferrari or the Ferrari driver has tried to jump ahead of the jazz, rather than die of old age driving behind it, and got clipped.
Re: Russian “annexation”. They’re going to look pretty darn stupid if after claiming 98% support, Ukraine liberate, say, Kherson and are greeted by cheering crowds everywhere. Also most of the frontlines are now within what they claim is Russian territory. Which means “tactical nukes” on the frontlines is actually launching nuclear weapons against themselves.
They wouldn’t drop the first on the frontlines
The first would be a demonstration. Maybe an island in the Black Sea. Maybe the ocean. Maybe On a tiny village in Moldova “by mistake”
If that doesn’t work he will then escalate
It’s what Putin has done at every single stage of this insane war: he’s escalated. He’s doubled down. And each time we’ve had tiresomely “wise” commenters on PB saying “oh he’s not mad, he won’t do that”. Then he goes and does it
O/T for Dura Ace - my sister just sent me this that they drove past. Almost as expensive a crash as Liz has caused.
Ummph. Looks messy. Do you know roughly where it was? Can see what looks like a largeish bay in the background.
I know exactly where it is - it’s where a dual carriageway ends in a filter in turn so guessing either the Honda Jazz (likely their fault as Honda Jazz drivers are evil) has misjudged their filtering and caught the back of the Ferrari or the Ferrari driver has tried to jump ahead of the jazz, rather than die of old age driving behind it, and got clipped.
It has become an article of faith among the MAGA crowd that Biden destroyed the pipeline.
Just want to make sure everyone understands that Republicans are now *trying to start WWIII* to own the libs, falsely accusing their own country of terrorism to try to justify a Russian attack on America, NATO, or Ukraine’s nuclear facilities whose fallout could trigger Article 5 https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1575282878560276480
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
Any defeat is the end of Putin. Even more so now he has incorporated half of Ukraine into Russia. If he loses now he is losing a large chunk of Russia. That is intolerable. Not just for him but maybe for any future leader
This annexation makes serious escalation all-but-inevitable. And it is designed that way
It is designed for the next move which is “these people wanted to be Russian, this is what I need to keep Russia safe, let’s negotiate over an agreement by Ukraine to cede this territory and I promise I won’t go any further”.
A Munich for the 21st century, essentially.
Putin is playing with fire, absolutely, but his calculation all along has been that the West does not want this conflict to go nuclear. He calculates this because NATO have not been involved on the ground. He is therefore gambling that in the face of these threats NATO will ask Ukraine to call it off, or will remove their support for Ukrainian offensives in the annexed territories.
I can still see a situation where he gets this agreement, unfortunately. Quite possibly for an agreement that Rump Ukraine is free to join NATO if it wishes but cannot have WMD on its territory.
Unfortunately what this does is make it more likely that he or the next Russian leader tries this all again in 15 years time, but only this time directly against NATO.
The motivation might be different, but the effect is the same. The falling pound makes British assets cheaper for Americans to take over. Then any profits will be remitted back across the Atlantic, our deficit will get worse, and our economy will shrink.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
She needs an election then, so we can all have our say as to whether she has the mandate to take the sort of decisions she is taken
I’d agree with you had we’d just come out of a general election and she had won a stonking majority. She may be acting like it..
To be fair to May she did ask for just that and held a (poor as it turned out) General Election. One of the reasons I voted for her in that one was I thought coming out and asking for a mandate, putting it to the British people to bolster her negotiating position was (abstractly) the right thing to do.
To be "fair" to May, she was 20%+ ahead in the polls when she called the election, and was looking at a pretty much guaranteed mandate, a big majority and a couple of extra years till the next election.
She wasn't wrong either, as the local elections a couple of weeks into the campaign had the Tories 11% ahead of Labour. I suspect no-one around her thought she had even the slightest chance of losing when they called the election.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Putin can't win though.
He can kill 500k of his own citizens, mostly drafted from ethnic minorities he's happy to cleanse, but what is he going to arm them with?
Without logistics, he can't win, and his logistics are f***ed while Ukraine has NATO's behind him.
Soldiers win battles, but logistics win wars.
Surely if he uses nukes in the occupied territories he'll be nuking his own citizens. I realise of course that probably wouldn't worry him! One way and another the world has suddenly gone terrifying, including in the UK!
O/T for Dura Ace - my sister just sent me this that they drove past. Almost as expensive a crash as Liz has caused.
Ummph. Looks messy. Do you know roughly where it was? Can see what looks like a largeish bay in the background.
I know exactly where it is - it’s where a dual carriageway ends in a filter in turn so guessing either the Honda Jazz (likely their fault as Honda Jazz drivers are evil) has misjudged their filtering and caught the back of the Ferrari or the Ferrari driver has tried to jump ahead of the jazz, rather than die of old age driving behind it, and got clipped.
The above is a lie - it’s further away from where I thought so god only knows how it happened!
Just looking at those Russian referendum results. The official invented turnouts were around 30k, in regions with populations of 1-2 million*. They are just imbeciles in every respect.
*Except Luhansk, where the 'turnout' was reported as greater than the population.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
It has become an article of faith among the MAGA crowd that Biden destroyed the pipeline.
Just want to make sure everyone understands that Republicans are now *trying to start WWIII* to own the libs, falsely accusing their own country of terrorism to try to justify a Russian attack on America, NATO, or Ukraine’s nuclear facilities whose fallout could trigger Article 5 https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1575282878560276480
Must have missed when Radek Sikorski, Polish MEP put on his MAGA hat.
Just looking at those Russian referendum results. The official invented turnouts were around 30k, in regions with populations of 1-2 million*. They are just imbeciles in every respect.
*Except Luhansk, where the 'turnout' was reported as greater than the population.
Luhansk's returning officer has Dunny a great job?
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Thousands of resentful, often drunk, unfit, untrained men who know they are meat for the meat grinder will surrender in droves, melt away, be slaughtered at a high rate, kill their officers etc. etc.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Putin can't win though.
He can kill 500k of his own citizens, mostly drafted from ethnic minorities he's happy to cleanse, but what is he going to arm them with?
Without logistics, he can't win, and his logistics are f***ed while Ukraine has NATO's behind him.
Soldiers win battles, but logistics win wars.
Except that nukes won the Battle of Japan in 1945. Without a single US soldier dying. The only logistics required were two planes and two bombs
Does Putin calculate that the west will be so shocked by a nuclear attack we lose interest in ukraine...its possible once the attack occurs all the corybnites and the labour left will call for peace
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Putin can't win though.
He can kill 500k of his own citizens, mostly drafted from ethnic minorities he's happy to cleanse, but what is he going to arm them with?
Without logistics, he can't win, and his logistics are f***ed while Ukraine has NATO's behind him.
Soldiers win battles, but logistics win wars.
Except that nukes won the Battle of Japan in 1945. Without a single US soldier dying. The only logistics required were two planes and two bombs
Rather more than that. A substantual USAAF organization, even if one doesn't count the many who died to get the bases. And 'soldier' omits the crew of the Indianapolis who died to ferry the bomb material.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Putin can't win though.
He can kill 500k of his own citizens, mostly drafted from ethnic minorities he's happy to cleanse, but what is he going to arm them with?
Without logistics, he can't win, and his logistics are f***ed while Ukraine has NATO's behind him.
Soldiers win battles, but logistics win wars.
Except that nukes won the Battle of Japan in 1945. Without a single US soldier dying. The only logistics required were two planes and two bombs
I think you'll find tens of millions died in WWII and there were plenty of logistics involved in creating the bombs and getting them to Japan.
Oh and America was the only side armed with nukes then. NATO has nukes today, not just Russia, and nuking Ukraine where radiation would reach NATO countries would be an attack on NATO too.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
Any defeat is the end of Putin. Even more so now he has incorporated half of Ukraine into Russia. If he loses now he is losing a large chunk of Russia. That is intolerable. Not just for him but maybe for any future leader
This annexation makes serious escalation all-but-inevitable. And it is designed that way
It is designed for the next move which is “these people wanted to be Russian, this is what I need to keep Russia safe, let’s negotiate over an agreement by Ukraine to cede this territory and I promise I won’t go any further”.
A Munich for the 21st century, essentially.
Putin is playing with fire, absolutely, but his calculation all along has been that the West does not want this conflict to go nuclear. He calculates this because NATO have not been involved on the ground. He is therefore gambling that in the face of these threats NATO will ask Ukraine to call it off, or will remove their support for Ukrainian offensives in the annexed territories.
I can still see a situation where he gets this agreement, unfortunately. Quite possibly for an agreement that Rump Ukraine is free to join NATO if it wishes but cannot have WMD on its territory.
Unfortunately what this does is make it more likely that he or the next Russian leader tries this all again in 15 years time, but only this time directly against NATO.
US attitude will be key but Poland, Baltic states, Norway, Sweden, Canada, UK etc will not support that approach. There would be massive partisan activity so it would be unstable and could West just ignore the worst war crimes in Europe since Kosovo or WW2?
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
That is an interesting and persuasive analysis. A Russian military collapse could end up being very rapid though and not under the control of anyone. The shockwaves and political changes within Russia could also be pretty rapid...
Except:
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Thousands of resentful, often drunk, unfit, untrained men who know they are meat for the meat grinder will surrender in droves, melt away, be slaughtered at a high rate, kill their officers etc. etc.
Of course. But it also, sometimes, works, as Russians know from their cruel history
Throw a nearly-infinite number of men at a battle against a superior enemy and it can be won. Along with General Winter, it is Russia's secret weapon. Their tolerance of vast suffering. Putin is gambling that this still exists
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
It doesn't 'legally' allow him to do anything, since it's illegal.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I've been mulling over this. It feels like time is our friend here.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
Any defeat is the end of Putin. Even more so now he has incorporated half of Ukraine into Russia. If he loses now he is losing a large chunk of Russia. That is intolerable. Not just for him but maybe for any future leader
This annexation makes serious escalation all-but-inevitable. And it is designed that way
Saddam survived losing the Gulf War. I think the fact that Putin will start to worry about his grip on power will make him more likely to walk away from Ukraine without using nukes, because he'll have more immediate threats to concentrate on.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
So I only just had it this summer after 3 jabs - the illness itself was a bad flu, I was bedbound for a few days with a high temp, and didn't actually have much in the way of bad lung stuff.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
I'm sorry you're not feeling good, and hope you're feeling better soon.
Please take what follows as honest discord and not a belittlement of how you're feeling, but with all respect I'm sorry to say that shit happens, viruses exist, and we need to get used to it.
If the healthcare system is crippled, then people will die. If people die, then they come off waiting lists and stop needing pensions, or care, or ... eventually a new equilibrium is found.
Its horrible, and its unpleasant, but its also true. What is the alternative? How do we prevent a rampant virus from spreading? The virus can not be contained or controlled, its hubris to suggest it can be, unless we lockdown for about six months to remove and permanently seal up the borders, permanently prevent international trade and permanently prevent international travel.
Realistically, post-vaccines is as good as it gets.
We can reduce the spread of viruses and other pathogens, and routinely do so. We eradicated smallpox and rinderpest, and are making good progress against polio. We contained SARS and MERS. We work every year to minimise the impact of flu, through vaccinations, through behaviour and through reducing infection in animal populations. We work every year to minimise the impact of HIV/AIDS, through behaviour, testing and contact tracing.
Likewise, there is plenty we can do to reduce COVID-19 cases: good air filtration in buildings, encouraging those with symptoms to not go into work and to wear masks, vaccination campaigns. These methods are effective and they are cost effective. But libertarians like to pretend we’re impotent because they are so allergic* to any form of collective action. Bart’s “let them die in the streets” is perhaps at the extreme end of that…
Another senior Whitehall figure on the economic crisis:
"I’m not sure [Downing Street] has the necessary experience and expertise to extricate the situation and I’m not convinced the very top has the requisite leadership either.”
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The membership polls had Truss top or thereabout for a long period but what is unclear is how much the anti-Sunak sentiment was a factor. He did better than expected but there was undoubtedly an "anyone but Sunak" faction. The reason for this seemed to be that they disliked his fiscal profligacy ......
Let's be honest, though. No doubt a fair few disliked the colour of his skin. I was assured by a Tory-inclined acquaintance that he was just "too dark".
Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. No one - and certainly not a "Tory-inclined acquaintance" of yours - said to you that Sunak's skin was too dark. Plenty to attack the Cons about but they have just had one of the most diverse leadership contests in British history.
Comments
If any Tory MPs don't want to follow the Tory whip, they're perfectly entitled to cross the floor. If enough MPs do that, her Government falls.
Russian nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nukes if Russia itself is under attack. By Friday, it will be under attack. By Ukraine, using NATO weapons
Putin is taking this to the absolute brink. He’s cornering himself
That would save £150bn a year and fund all her tax cuts so we could take out more efficient health insurance plans just like the USA
Destroying pensions is one way of keeping people working...
How long can we go politically feather bedding pensioner incomes at a time when the working population is seeing their incomes crushed & many of them are falling into poverty?
The triple lock was a mistake: Pensions should have been tied to UK wages so that pensioners got a fair shake out of UK output, not given this promise that meant they never lost out regardless of what happened to everyone else.
There may have been something slightly more subtle at work though - I think the non dom and US green card revelations created a sense that he wasn't fully committed to the UK, and people were perhaps more willing to believe that because of his background. Perhaps some also felt resentment about his wealth that they wouldn't have done if he was a white guy from old money. In general I think the days of overt discrimination are largely over but I do also think that certain people are less likely to get away with things than others are. In other words, perhaps race becomes an aggregating factor in people's views once they have other, legitimate, reasons to dislike people. We are perhaps seeing a bit of this at work with Kwarteng too.
Problem I have now is, a few months after that, I'm still exhausted, I'm having headaches and brainfog, I'm getting muscle aches and chest pain all the time. I used to walk home most days from the office, about 4.5 miles in about an hour depending on weather and if I popped into the shops. I can't do half of that atm without breaking into flopsweats and wheezing.
Even if you think it's fine for people to get sick and die - the long term impact of this won't go away. My doc is assuming it's long covid, but I'm going to go for tests, impacting an already crippled healthcare system. I can't work as efficiently as I have been, my quality of life has dramatically reduced - hell I'm finding doing 30 mins - 1 hour of housework hard. And I'm in my early 30s. We have no idea how long these symptoms will last, or if we can treat them. That's a strain on our healthcare system, a strain on our labour productivity, a strain on society.
And if we keep letting wave after wave hit the populace, the chance people have of getting ill and staying ill gets closer to 1. A nation enfeebled by this is a pretty significant threat, in my view.
They cannot change the rules unless they are sure the letters will be there.
No one will put a letter in unless the rules are changed.
To alter the rules in order to enable a contest would smack of the ultimate in disloyalty and spark off an internal war.
Declare that the fighting is in Russia. Then all the 60 year olds with rusty AKs aren't being sent abroad…
The UK spent hundreds of billions on Covid. A hundred and fifty billion was pencilled in for Energy Price Support without a murmur of dissent, and asked for by the Opposition. Thirty eight billion of tax cuts were already known about by the markets from her leadership election winning platform.
The "surprise" in the 45p announcement was a £2 billion tax cut.
Now I know as Reagan said, a billion here and a billion there and soon we're talking about real money, and I wouldn't sniff at the significance of that, but to suggest that has destroyed the finances of the country is being a tad extreme.
The markets have belatedly reacted to the debt the UK is dealing with, which is predominantly the hundreds of billions from locking down for Covid and for supporting energy prices, not a two billion pound tax cut.
Just in time, Starmer has succeeded in shafting the 'racists who can't do Maths' faction of the Labour party (helped immeasurably by Rupa Huq, whose public and swift defenestration is an ideal contrast to equivalent incidents under Corbyn). Every time Owen and Femi issue him an ultimatum on Twitter, his standing increases.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have scuppered their (hitherto) single biggest long-term advantage over Labour - the perception of economic competence.
If the economy goes into complete meltdown, Starmer will be bequeathed a miserable situation but can very credibly blame the Conservatives.
If Truss/Kwarteng do somehow manage to cultivate an economic recovery, they will be remembered slightly better in the history books but the recovery will be inherited by Starmer.
Either way, Labour almost certainly wins.
There is no point for the Conservatives in changing leader before the election; the damage is done, so the best they can hope for is some kind of economic recovery that they bequeath to the opposition.
I would suggest the Conservatives pick either Badenoch or Sunak for next leader after the next election, but I have no say in the matter.
He's probably mad enough to use at nuke, but all the signs are this is just another exercise in trying to scare rather than a direct prelude or preparation to use them. So in that sense no different for what he's been doing for months.
I imagine Putin has a couple of hands to play first. Chief among them an “I am ready to negotiate now”. I think if he is going to do the unthinkable he is going to want to show that it was the unreasonable west that forced him into it.
Please take what follows as honest discord and not a belittlement of how you're feeling, but with all respect I'm sorry to say that shit happens, viruses exist, and we need to get used to it.
If the healthcare system is crippled, then people will die. If people die, then they come off waiting lists and stop needing pensions, or care, or ... eventually a new equilibrium is found.
Its horrible, and its unpleasant, but its also true. What is the alternative? How do we prevent a rampant virus from spreading? The virus can not be contained or controlled, its hubris to suggest it can be, unless we lockdown for about six months to remove and permanently seal up the borders, permanently prevent international trade and permanently prevent international travel.
Realistically, post-vaccines is as good as it gets.
Truss defenestration in the next six months must be favourite
If the million-man conscript army with sticks for rifles can't force them out, it does look to be a self-defeating move.
Russian nuclear doctrine does not obviously allow Putin to use nukes at the moment. Russia is not being existentially threatened or invaded. By tomorrow that will change
The problem really is that she and Kwazi have been in hiding for 5 days so they haven't been able to get their messages out on 'the real reasons' for the market turmoil. It goes back to this being a problem entirely of their own making.
Fairly easy rule change - for the following twelve months the threshold isn't 15% it's 40%. That would mean there would only be another vote if it was pretty certain the leader would be removed.
Viruses cause problems.
Epstein Barr - MS, and just recently identified, enterovirus- Type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes Onset Strongly Linked to Enterovirus Infection Type, Timing
https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/easd/100920
Drove an SF90 at the weekend. That thing fucks. Not many cars can take my 997 Turbo to Gapplebees but the SF90 monstered it in a 10-100mph roll race.
That might work. But probably not. Ukraine won’t give up all that territory. Ukraine will fight on - with or without NATO
And that’s when it gets truly dangerous
So a lot of votes would have been cast before members had a chance to watch the hustings, even if they'd been so inclined.
The biggest risk is if things unfold very quickly, Putin panics / goes mad / makes one last throw of the dice and then things escalate into global nuclear conflict.
The longer the mobilisation goes on, with Ukraine continuing to take chunks of territory back and Russian citizens gradually becoming more disillusioned, the less momentum and less immediate casus belli there is for Putin to escalate to nuclear, and the less likelihood his leadership will go along with it.
We need the Ukraine war to go out not with a bang but a whimper. Incremental gains along with ongoing attritional Russian losses are probably a lot safer than a whirlwind rout with Ukraine marching on Sebastopol by Christmas.
I believe long Covid is to do with the immune system being in overdrive. You've got to calm it all down and it takes time. Increasing your stress and anxiety only makes it worse.
Eat well, sleep plenty, meditate, try cold showers and incrementally up the exercise. Give yourself a mental break to convalesce, take time doing things you enjoy and you'll be OK. Eventually your life might have more meaning because you will appreciate your health so much more.
And having declared the regions Russian any negotiation by Putin will not include giving them back.
He will have to be beaten now.
She has my vote and should have yours too and I urge you to tell your favoured opinion pollster of that fact, preferably before midnight tomorrow. And insist they publish their findings immediately.
I'm keeping my head down, down, down. At least I'm not up for re-election until 2025 (but still likely to lose).
This annexation makes serious escalation all-but-inevitable. And it is designed that way
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63066317
Timing could hardly be worse either after that truly damning BBC documentary.
I'm also wondering if the timing is still optimistic. I'm no expert but one thing that struck me about Glen Sannox when they were filming it was the continuing buckling of plates on its side, which doesn't look like a well-designed and robust ship.
If there are structural weaknesses, after all this time, there must be a non-trivial chance they never actually do enter service.
Bunch of numpties.
The average mortgage is not up £5k a year. The average mortgage is a fixed rate with an increasingly long duration over the last few years.
If you are in the unfortunate position of having to remortgage today then your rates will be higher.
But that’s not what the tweet claims
Peak corbynism
https://twitter.com/beckettunite/status/1575199419737157633?s=21&t=km_2yScjkcH_JDW__xeizg
Not sure what kind of statement you expect them to make. Reversing on the mini budget won't calm the market since the market has woken up to the energy market money being the issue, not the two billion disputed politically in the news, and reversing that energy support isn't viable.
There's no point acting like headless chickens now, keep calm and carry on. And the BoE buying gilts rather than selling them should calm the markets down.
What happened this morning was that the Prime Minister intruded on an awful lot of voters' favourite local morning shows. They know the presenters well, and think of them in much the same way as "friends and family". And those presenters (who don't depend on the PM's patronage for their career) calmly questioned her, and allowed her to flounder. That will be a thousand times more damning than any number of Westminster-centric journo "gotchas".
“Vladimir Putin has told aides that a staggering half a million Russian losses would be “acceptable” if it enables him to dismember Ukraine, it has been claimed.
The same source suggests he is ready to mobilise two million or more reservists out of a potential pool of 25 million - much larger than the initial 300,000 suggested.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-tells-close-aides-28101733
Putin has to win. And will do almost anything to win
Just demonstrates that nuclear blackmail works and guarantees round 3 at some point.
And as you say, Ukraine will say fuck off anyway. So pour yourself a stiff G&T.
He can kill 500k of his own citizens, mostly drafted from ethnic minorities he's happy to cleanse, but what is he going to arm them with?
Without logistics, he can't win, and his logistics are f***ed while Ukraine has NATO's behind him.
Soldiers win battles, but logistics win wars.
The key thing is the current government's plan is rely on vaccines. Hopefully this wave won't be too damaging.
And yes - lots of those admitted will be with covid, but not because of covid - however it still puts strain on hospitals caring for them.
The first would be a demonstration. Maybe an island in the Black Sea. Maybe the ocean. Maybe On a tiny village in Moldova “by mistake”
If that doesn’t work he will then escalate
It’s what Putin has done at every single stage of this insane war: he’s escalated. He’s doubled down. And each time we’ve had tiresomely “wise” commenters on PB saying “oh he’s not mad, he won’t do that”. Then he goes and does it
Every time. Starting with the invasion itself
Just want to make sure everyone understands that Republicans are now *trying to start WWIII* to own the libs, falsely accusing their own country of terrorism to try to justify a Russian attack on America, NATO, or Ukraine’s nuclear facilities whose fallout could trigger Article 5
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1575282878560276480
A Munich for the 21st century, essentially.
Putin is playing with fire, absolutely, but his calculation all along has been that the West does not want this conflict to go nuclear. He calculates this because NATO have not been involved on the ground. He is therefore gambling that in the face of these threats NATO will ask Ukraine to call it off, or will remove their support for Ukrainian offensives in the annexed territories.
I can still see a situation where he gets this agreement, unfortunately. Quite possibly for an agreement that Rump Ukraine is free to join NATO if it wishes but cannot have WMD on its territory.
Unfortunately what this does is make it more likely that he or the next Russian leader tries this all again in 15 years time, but only this time directly against NATO.
She wasn't wrong either, as the local elections a couple of weeks into the campaign had the Tories 11% ahead of Labour. I suspect no-one around her thought she had even the slightest chance of losing when they called the election.
https://twitter.com/AllBiteNoBark88/status/1575274952428703745?s=20&t=-Qkc8S_Gq2qFxv9OoGxR_g
One way and another the world has suddenly gone terrifying, including in the UK!
The official invented turnouts were around 30k, in regions with populations of 1-2 million*. They are just imbeciles in every respect.
*Except Luhansk, where the 'turnout' was reported as greater than the population.
Yes, @Morris_Dancer, our politest poster, (aka Mr. Dancer) is now using the "like button". The world is doomed.
Oh and America was the only side armed with nukes then. NATO has nukes today, not just Russia, and nuking Ukraine where radiation would reach NATO countries would be an attack on NATO too.
Throw a nearly-infinite number of men at a battle against a superior enemy and it can be won. Along with General Winter, it is Russia's secret weapon. Their tolerance of vast suffering. Putin is gambling that this still exists
https://twitter.com/heawood/status/1575445700242022400
Likewise, there is plenty we can do to reduce COVID-19 cases: good air filtration in buildings, encouraging those with symptoms to not go into work and to wear masks, vaccination campaigns. These methods are effective and they are cost effective. But libertarians like to pretend we’re impotent because they are so allergic* to any form of collective action. Bart’s “let them die in the streets” is perhaps at the extreme end of that…
"I don’t think I’ve heard people say fin de siècle vibes this early on into a new administration," one official says.
https://www.ft.com/content/87d16cce-aa0e-470d-9370-f952b36e5bc6
Another senior Whitehall figure on the economic crisis:
"I’m not sure [Downing Street] has the necessary experience and expertise to extricate the situation and I’m not convinced the very top has the requisite leadership either.”
https://www.ft.com/content/87d16cce-aa0e-470d-9370-f952b36e5bc6