We could be close to the outright defeat of Russia in Ukraine. They are now rapidly retreating in the east and the south
Which means we are potentially close to the point where Putin goes totally postal. Or not
As they say: Brace
We are now 48 hours after Ukrainians have attacked legally Russian territory. No nukes yet.
I wonder if the back channel talks are that the moment the first nuke gets fired - anywhere - by Russia, Ukraine gets admitted to NATO.
I would be wary of that, because the moment Ukraine is admitted to NATO, if Putin fired another tactical nuke to defend the 4 new regions of Russia from Ukraine attack we would be at war with Russia, where we too could be drawn into nuclear war.
Tighten the sanctions and maintain weapons supplies to Ukraine but defend existing NATO states only, don't expand it to Ukraine
We could be close to the outright defeat of Russia in Ukraine. They are now rapidly retreating in the east and the south
Which means we are potentially close to the point where Putin goes totally postal. Or not
As they say: Brace
He's defeated, his nation is defeated, a hollow shell now. Someone will put a bullet in the back of his head before they commit suicide by launching nukes on his command.
For months there was stalemate, but many of us said then that stalemate was good news for Ukraine as they with NATOs logistics and training were improving while Russia was deteriorating.
For weeks now, since the Queen died essentially, the stalemate has been broken and its all one way traffic. Ukraine is winning the war. And the problem for Russia is they've got nothing they can do to turn it around. A million conscripts with no weaponry to arm them with, no logistics to supply them with, is not going to be much use.
The longer this war goes on, the more land Ukraine will reclaim, until they've recovered all their land including all of Crimea and the other lands that Russia pretends to have annexed.
The Russians still have lots of weaponry. Their problem all along can be summarised as, "all the gear and no idea." Ukraine started the war with essentially the same equipment, in many cases a bit less advanced. S-300 but no S-400 for example. But their training and strategy was so much better.
The conscripts will be even less well trained than the so-called elite units who failed in the Battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv and elsewhere. And more Ukrainian soldiers are receiving NATO training.
My only concern is whether a GOP victory in the midterms will see US support blocked, while the UK is too skint to take up the slack.
By many estimates most of their tanks etc that they started the war with now either have been destroyed, or are now owned by Ukraine. Their planes and ammunition storage keep getting destroyed, which is part of why they keep collapsing, the forces that are surrounded are being left with no gear left to fight with as well as no morale to do so.
And while in wars previously countries had the ability to manufacture to replace what was destroyed, Russia doesn't. They've not got the manufacturing capabilities anymore, or the technological ones either, to be able to replace that which has been lost.
Formerly they were all the gear, no idea, but now the gear is missing too.
This isn't quite true yet. Russia has very large stores of equipment. The newly formed Third Army Core, that has done so badly once deployed, was provided with a fair number of some of the newest Russian kit, such as T-90 tanks.
There have been trainloads of T-80s, and relatively new self-propelled artillery seen crossing the Kerch bridge into Crimea during the last month. It's not just T-62s that are being pulled out of storage.
Not that this will do the Russians much good. The Ukrainians captured one of the most modernised T-90s recently.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Spot on.
The Tories have well and truly screwed this country. I hope they are annihilated at the next GE, never to recover.
I have to say this internal reaction against Truss and her 🤪 economics and 🤑 politics, really makes me think again about parts of the Tory tribe. For many it’s clearly not just about power, money and narrow self interest.
That's an intriguing post, Jonathan. Tell us more.
Are we talking tribalism here? We're all prone to it. For some absurd reason I care about what happens to Leyton Orient in a way that I do not and cannot care about other teams, no matter how good. If I'm honest, I'll admit to some tribal feelings towards leftish parties and antipathy towards right wing ones, though not with the same passion as with the O's and their opponents.
That's hardly a new insight though. Or did you have something else in mind?
Clearly tribalism is at play, but there is more to it. There are principles at play here. Tory supporters are calling out Truss as fundamentally wrong. Not wrong because she is costing millions of votes, but wrong morally and bad for the country. They say that it’s basically unjust to load up the rich with cash, whilst the poor are under serious pressure. This is not something we hear a lot from Tories and after austerity is unexpected. Nevertheless they are prepared to go strike or ditch the party altogether over this. It deserves respect.
A society without the ability to look out for the interests of the mass of its citizens is without the ability to conserve itself.
Liz Truss. Why did the Tories choose that as a hill to die on?
Because the party membership has a very high average age and a lot of them are senile?
They want very high interest rates and they are determined to get them?
It is the end point of Brexit. The triumph of faith over reason.
Anyone who looked like they had ability had to go, be removed from the field in case they found a way to frustrate The Project. We have all seen how the Leavers lived in terror of Remain reversing the outcome. Ability had to be disposed of, only the inept could stay in power.
Of course, a secondary outcome is that less and less got done, but that was OK because eventually The Great Chancer was elected and brutally ejected anyone of ability until he was surrounded by utter non-entities and it was all going so well until the bl**dy idiot shot himself in the foot.
And all of a sudden, there was nobody left except, the vacant, the inept and the easily led.
And now they are the government.
Brexit was about the Tories embracing eurosceptisim and limiting low income immigration to improve the lot of the British working class. It led to a massive majority.
This government, led by a Remainer, has embraced subsidies to corporations and tax cuts for the rich. It has led to political collapse.
She was never a Remainer. She was an opportunist who thought Remain was going to win. As soon s Leave won she changed "sides" in the blink of an eye.
Brexit was an article of faith. Whatever you thought it was, you could have it, it would turn up and it would be a success and no one had the foggiest idea of how it was going to be done.
She "changed sides" because, unlike a lot of Remainers, she had some basic respect for democracy. That doesn't make up for her flaws but it does make her better than the elitists like Grieve and Soubry.
As for Brexit, it is simply a mechanism to return control to the British electorate. The British electorate knew that when you get elitist policies such as corporate bailouts and mass immigration from a UK PM, you can turf them out of power (as will now happen), while when you get corporate bailout and mass immigration from the EU bureaucracy you are stuffed. Smart people.
A huge "corporate" bailout happened a couple of days ago in case you missed it Immigration is higher than it has ever been We now have a PM we never elected
The Labour Party are "very clearly the favourites" to form the next government, pollster Sir John Curtice has told Tory activists in Birmingham.
New PM Liz Truss was now as unpopular with voters as Boris Johnson was when he was ousted, said Sir John.
And even if Labour's current double digit poll lead reduced before the next election in 2024, Labour were still likely to gain power, he suggested.
His analysis was greeted with dismay and cries of "wow" from activists.
The veteran pollster, who masterminds general election exit polls, said Labour already had a nine point lead in the polls when Ms Truss won last month's Tory leadership election and she had not enjoyed a honeymoon period.
That's what happens when a party expels or drives away all sympathetic but dissident voices. That's been creeping up on the Conservatives for a while, but has gone into overdrive under Johnson and Truss.
It's also what happens when you have closed media bubbles. Perhaps 1955ish to 2010ish was a now-finished golden age. One where most people got their news from the BBC and ITV, who strove to cover things in reasonable depth and with an aspiration towards accuracy and balance.
The Tory party is much the weaker for having driven out the Rory Stewarts of this world, of that there is no doubt. The BBC coverage, specifically on the Today program verges between the hysterical and the hostile. It surprises me that the government has gone back to putting up ministers for it. The TV coverage is much, much more balanced.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Even Badenoch would not have gone this far. Badenoch is more socially conservative than Truss but not as ideological an economic libertarian. She would have cut NI and corporation tax but probably not the 45p top rate yet
Badenoch did talk about the state doing less but better, which sounds pretty small-state. It's a good soundbite, but I don't think she ever said what the state should stop doing.
So more honest than Truss, but probably heading in the same direction.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
I'll echo the general thanks for another interesting and insightful piece @Cyclefree
I'd argue the nostalgia is a symptom of political and ideological bankruptcy and that's a natural result for parties after long periods in office.
The Conservatives have tried to re-invent on three occasion, 2016, 2019 and 2022. On each occasion, the internal re-invention has come from someone associated with the previous administration basically turning on that administration and decrying everything it did or said. That form of re-invention can work - it worked for Johnson, it also worked for Major for a while.
Unfortunately, each such invention seems to have a shorter shelf life than its predecessor - this incarnation managed about a week before imploding. The truth is the Conservatives are out of ideas and out of road. They can drift on, zombie like, for another 18 months or so but we know it's over.
The Party now needs a period in opposition to allow for ideological and practical renewal. All parties need it - some are forced into it for much longer than they'd like but in a functioning democracy the alternating of power between competing ideologies is no bad thing.
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
See, that's an interesting and worthwhile thesis you have there. Yet I didn't get that from the header as my eyes glazed over at all the paragraphs and "bullet points" especially when there is much to distract, of a turbulent Sunday evening
Sometimes the more you say, the less you relay
You could have made this valid argument with 400 words, not 2000
Modern politics is a three way battle between future-looking progressives (Blair, Starmer, Brown), steady as we go conservatives (Cameron, May, Hague)and romantic backward looking nostalgists (Farage, Truss, Johnson, Corbyn).
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
It is a very interesting piece.
"For a very long time, Tory electoral success has been based on a time-honoured trick: persuading the social middle that it has nothing in common with the bottom, and indeed kicking poor people around just to reinforce the point, something that the Truss government’s approach to “welfare” looks set to resume. But the crisis we are in is blurring those distinctions."
"Reports are mounting of a Russian collapse on the Kherson front, where approximately 25,000 Russian troops are trapped on the right bank of the Dnipro River with bridges across the river partially destroyed and unable to support military vehicles"
A critical moment. An astounding defeat if this plays out
Collapses happen fast but time for patience on this one. This is just one collapsed front in Kherson and exploitation requires the Ukrainians to push on, itself not easy due to resupply and having follow on forces, though straightforward in its intent. Its a big force Russia has down there and there are some good units further down the road. Admittedly some fucking awful units as well. A feature of the Kharkiv front where the Ukrainians have gone great guns recent weeks is how much fighting has been done the LPR & DPR separatists and Russian reservists (in effect their TA)
The big point about Kherson, however, is sound. The Russians dont have a straight escape route because their arses are getting damp touching the river and the bridges are very much degraded, making re-supply a real problem.
What has surprised me is the intensity of the fighting over nearly 3 weeks now when the bridges across the Dneiper were all supposedly down or out of commission. The Russians really should have been running out of amunition, food etc by now but the fighting remains intense with even the Ukranians accepting that they are incurring heavy casualties there. This reflects the terrain (open, minimal cover) and the quality of the Russian units deployed but why are they not out of ammo yet?
Because there are other supply routes over land, now under serious threat of being cut by the retreat on the North Eastern front, they are still able to bring traffic across the river by pontoon, though its proven not wholly effective, and they have had time to stockpile.
Like anything the problem they are going to hit is exactly due to what you have said, high intensity combat. With damaged supply line you can go on for a bit at full tilt but then start to suffer when re-supply does not meet expendtiure
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
If there is one criticism I’d make, it’s that the headers have gone the way of the comments in their lack of betting.
I think we should have a rule. Every header and at least one in every ten comments by every poster should reference a betting market.
Ok here's one. Coral are best price 4/9 Labour most seats at the next GE. I'd go with that being an 80pc plus chance atm but you're probs waiting 2 years for your money and inflation might eat 15pc of it. But they lazily haven't updated their special Cons not to get most seats market. 8/15 still available there. So if you want to play, that's the market to go for.
Someone has helpfully posted a clip from the interview that Conservative Chairman Jake Berry did with Sophy Ridge this morning, so I can quote him directly:
People know that when their bills arrive, they can either cut their consumption or they can get higher salary or higher wages, go out there and get that new job. That's the approach the Government is taking. We are saying "Look, let's create growth so households can afford their bills" as well as the brilliant work we're doing on energy bills.
So, the general message is that people who are on lower incomes should either freeze in Winter or find better paid work. Great. Firstly the UK 'jobs miracle' that Boris Johnson always used to go on about largely consists of minimum wage crap jobs, so how are all these people suddenly meant to find the kind of upper middle class employment that will still pay them just about enough to heat and eat properly? Secondly, a lot of those who are in full-time employment and yet already rationing fuel use and buying budget brands (or even visiting food banks) are the very same key workers that we were all entreated to praise, and engage in performative pot banging in honour of, only a couple of years ago. If all the chronically underpaid care home workers, nurses and so on who struggle with their bills tried to piss off to work in city financial institutions (or, for that matter, in Aldi) then we, as a nation, would be completely sunk.
These are our rulers. Tone deaf, cruel and absolutely thick as mince.
While I think Jake Berry is a tone deaf idiot, I think the misery porn can be overblown. Anyone in middle class employment lives very well.
This evidently depends very much on your personal circumstances, and on exactly how high your earnings are. With the ridiculous state of rents, mortgages, childcare costs and petrol prices, a lot of really quite well paid couples would nonetheless have been in the just about managing category before the latest inflationary shock. We now have significant food price inflation, most pay settlements contracting in real terms, those nasty domestic energy bills, and very substantial increases in accommodation costs coming round the corner to knock an awful lot of people clear over the edge of the financial precipice. It's not going to be pretty.
The FT majored heavily a fortnight ago, on the "deterioration" of median incomes over the past 22 years, when the actual data showed median household incomes rising from $30,000 to $44,000 in real terms over that period.
Two questions immediately spring to mind. Firstly, how much of the reported real terms increase happened in the first eight years and how much in the subsequent period? Secondly, what was the increase in housing costs over the same period? I strongly suspect that figures banded about which purport to show levels of affluence in the likes of Slovenia and Poland about to overtake, or at least approach, those in the UK are rooted in the effects of Britain's system of investments-not-homes property speculation.
An outright owner-occupier can still live very comfortably in this country off a modest income; mortgage or rent payers, not so much.
If you live in say the north of england and are mortgage free a single person could live very comfortably on 25 grand a year
Probably true further south as well.
But to have paid of a mortgage on a forever home, you either need to be in at least your fifties and bought before the Blair house price boom or have had a hefty windfall.
And there are the two nations separated by age again.
This stuff matters, because the UK isn't as prosperous as we'd like, and we can't pay for the things we'd like without tax rates we don't.
And it's tempting to blame Brussels, Immigrants, Greens or Davos for that, but I suspect the issue is decisions we have collectively taken, maybe without realising. I'm pretty sure that pumping so much money into hose prices is one of those.
Liz Truss. Why did the Tories choose that as a hill to die on?
Because the party membership has a very high average age and a lot of them are senile?
They want very high interest rates and they are determined to get them?
It is the end point of Brexit. The triumph of faith over reason.
Anyone who looked like they had ability had to go, be removed from the field in case they found a way to frustrate The Project. We have all seen how the Leavers lived in terror of Remain reversing the outcome. Ability had to be disposed of, only the inept could stay in power.
Of course, a secondary outcome is that less and less got done, but that was OK because eventually The Great Chancer was elected and brutally ejected anyone of ability until he was surrounded by utter non-entities and it was all going so well until the bl**dy idiot shot himself in the foot.
And all of a sudden, there was nobody left except, the vacant, the inept and the easily led.
And now they are the government.
Brexit was about the Tories embracing eurosceptisim and limiting low income immigration to improve the lot of the British working class. It led to a massive majority.
This government, led by a Remainer, has embraced subsidies to corporations and tax cuts for the rich. It has led to political collapse.
She was never a Remainer. She was an opportunist who thought Remain was going to win. As soon s Leave won she changed "sides" in the blink of an eye.
Brexit was an article of faith. Whatever you thought it was, you could have it, it would turn up and it would be a success and no one had the foggiest idea of how it was going to be done.
She "changed sides" because, unlike a lot of Remainers, she had some basic respect for democracy. That doesn't make up for her flaws but it does make her better than the elitists like Grieve and Soubry.
As for Brexit, it is simply a mechanism to return control to the British electorate. The British electorate knew that when you get elitist policies such as corporate bailouts and mass immigration from a UK PM, you can turf them out of power (as will now happen), while when you get corporate bailout and mass immigration from the EU bureaucracy you are stuffed. Smart people.
The case for Remain/Rejoin is that the Continent is in general, more left wing economically, and more liberal socially, than any government that this country is likely to elect.
In all honesty, I'd have to say that recent election results on the Continent call both assumptions into question. The term "far right" is overused, but I think that the governments of several EU nations are to the right of our own, and I suspect we're only one election away from RN winning a majority in France.
I worked and lived in Norway for a while. Norwegians who don't want Norway to join the EU do so because they think it is a capitalist free-for-all.
Reverse 45%, keep all the tax cuts both parties support, and you still have something like a 7.5% unfunded deficit. Mainly because of the policy supported by both parties to spend four per cent or so of national income on co-payments for imported fuel, and the right-thinking people believe this should be even higher.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Which is why the Scots want to rule themselves.
When did the Scots decide libertarianism wasn't for them?
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Which is why the Scots want to rule themselves.
Other than the Unionist Scots. Who, slightly outnumber the Nationalist Scots.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
Exile is about the only thing he can be offered.
We should definitely offer him and his family a safe exile, if that is the price of Russian retreat and a Ukrainian peace
It will stick in the craw, but there it is. The British Empire made the same calculation with Napoleon and we were right to do so
Er... So we offer Putin exile in, say, the Falkland Islands?
The best thing the Soviets did after Kruschev nearly killed us all in the Cuban missile crises, was to allow him to retire peacefully. Ditto Gorbachov. Let Putin also retire to his gilded Palace.
When dictators know that it is either absolute power or death then they may well choose death. Give them the choice of retirement in internal exile and there is an easy way out.
Key questions - will Lula win outright in today's 1st round, and will Bolsonaro accept the result if he loses?
Thanks,
DC
According to a Brazilian political betting punter on the star spangled gamblers podcast, the first results will come through very quickly after polls close.
The exit poll suggests support for the Government coalition has fallen from 46.1% to 35.4%.
The main opposition GERB is up slightly and will top the poll with 23.5%. The centrist Movement of Rights and Freedoms (DPS) has finished a solid third with 15.2%.
The main government party, Petkov and Vasilev's Change Continues (PP) is down from 25.7% to 19.5% and will lose ground to GERB making Borisov leader of the largest bloc.
The other big winners are Revival, the strongly anti-EU, anti-western and pro-Russia party which has more than doubled its support to 10% to finish fourth.
Trifonov's There Is Such A People (ITN) will probably lose all its 16 seats and drop out of the National Assembly.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
I'll echo the general thanks for another interesting and insightful piece @Cyclefree
I'd argue the nostalgia is a symptom of political and ideological bankruptcy and that's a natural result for parties after long periods in office.
The Conservatives have tried to re-invent on three occasion, 2016, 2019 and 2022. On each occasion, the internal re-invention has come from someone associated with the previous administration basically turning on that administration and decrying everything it did or said. That form of re-invention can work - it worked for Johnson, it also worked for Major for a while.
Unfortunately, each such invention seems to have a shorter shelf life than its predecessor - this incarnation managed about a week before imploding. The truth is the Conservatives are out of ideas and out of road. They can drift on, zombie like, for another 18 months or so but we know it's over.
The Party now needs a period in opposition to allow for ideological and practical renewal. All parties need it - some are forced into it for much longer than they'd like but in a functioning democracy the alternating of power between competing ideologies is no bad thing.
The government has run its course, I think.
I gave the growth numbers since 2000 on the earlier thread. The fundamental problem is that living standards are rising by about a quarter, each generation, whereas we expect them to rise by half.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Even Badenoch would not have gone this far. Badenoch is more socially conservative than Truss but not as ideological an economic libertarian. She would have cut NI and corporation tax but probably not the 45p top rate yet
Badenoch did talk about the state doing less but better, which sounds pretty small-state. It's a good soundbite, but I don't think she ever said what the state should stop doing.
So more honest than Truss, but probably heading in the same direction.
It is a disaster for the Libertarians. Complex problems rarely respond well to the simple solutions of "Ignore it" or "Cut it"
On a positive note, the thread header appears to be spelled correctly.
On a less positive side, I would like Cyclefree to stretch herself next time, and not do a 'things are terrible and awful and shit, and everyone is stupid, and here's 7 bullet points about why and how.' thread header. A lot of people seem to use PB as therapy to cleanse them of their rage and negativity, but usually it's below the line. Maybe actually propose something positive that might make things better in a small way?
Regarding economical growth, the header is wrong - going for growth was exactly what Sunak wasn't going to do; in common with the general Davos consensus, his prospectus was a swerve into austerity that held every prospect of not only bringing a recession, but a depression. We're lucky we've dodged that bullet. Growth itself is a rebellious choice these days, and God speed Truss for making it her choice.
Some proposals from May 2020 on how to pay for the spending we had of necessity incurred by then.
I wonder what your responses were then to those proposals and what constructive proposals you made then or since.
In fact since you seem to think that Truss's proposals are great please explain how they will work.
I am quite worried because I think the position for pension funds, their companies and banks is probably more serious and likely to last longer than a few days. Understandably the authorities are not letting on. This is based on my experience - pretty close tho the heart of the action - back in 2008. And I have little confidence in the government having a clue as to what to do or even appreciating that there is a problem.
I have something to say. It comes from a particular perspective, which may be of interest to some. It is certainly not a complete or the only perspective on what is happening. It is I would venture to suggest a touch more valuable than your Panglossian approach.
I do find the spectacle of politics at the moment immensely funny - in a black humour sort of way. That is until I remember that it is damaging the prospects and hopes of my children. And that makes me angry. It is not therapy I want. But revenge on those who are damaging their future.
I had not read the thread header that you reference, and although I don't agree with everything you say there, I did relish reading that a lot more, as I do with anything that flips from complaint into desire for improvement. I'm sorry that I was strongly critical - that's my fault for giving vent to my own frustrations. But I do believe that with your writing and analytical skills, you are capable of better. We shouldn't stay in anger and revenge for long. They're real emotions but they disconnect us from any real power to make things better.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Which is why the Scots want to rule themselves.
The new 40% top rate only applies in England not Scotland. Holyrood already decides most Scottish domestic policy
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Which is why the Scots want to rule themselves.
Though FWIW the Scottish NHS is scarcely any better than that down south, and the performance of the education system is demonstrably worse. These are both already devolved matters and have been for two decades. Independence would be no panacea.
On the ambulances outside hospitals topic, am relieved to confirm that my mother-in-law finally got out of the ambulance and was admitted to the assessment ward after seventeen hours.
This happened in Wales. Things are going to shit north and south, east and west.
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a special case) its not over.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
It is a very interesting piece.
"For a very long time, Tory electoral success has been based on a time-honoured trick: persuading the social middle that it has nothing in common with the bottom, and indeed kicking poor people around just to reinforce the point, something that the Truss government’s approach to “welfare” looks set to resume. But the crisis we are in is blurring those distinctions."
Interesting how much of the middle class vote tory yet actually despise the sort of people you may find in west london or the rich parts of surrey. They are full of contradictions often aspirational yet hating people they regard as too successful. A taxi driver told me how he despised the people in a nearby wealthy town...but guess what he voted tory
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Even Badenoch would not have gone this far. Badenoch is more socially conservative than Truss but not as ideological an economic libertarian. She would have cut NI and corporation tax but probably not the 45p top rate yet
Badenoch did talk about the state doing less but better, which sounds pretty small-state. It's a good soundbite, but I don't think she ever said what the state should stop doing.
So more honest than Truss, but probably heading in the same direction.
Truss would ideally have no state at all, never mind just a state doing less but better
We could be close to the outright defeat of Russia in Ukraine. They are now rapidly retreating in the east and the south
Which means we are potentially close to the point where Putin goes totally postal. Or not
As they say: Brace
We are now 48 hours after Ukrainians have attacked legally Russian territory. No nukes yet.
I wonder if the back channel talks are that the moment the first nuke gets fired - anywhere - by Russia, Ukraine gets admitted to NATO.
I would be wary of that, because the moment Ukraine is admitted to NATO, if Putin fired another tactical nuke to defend the 4 new regions of Russia from Ukraine attack we would be at war with Russia, where we too could be drawn into nuclear war.
Tighten the sanctions and maintain weapons supplies to Ukraine but defend existing NATO states only, don't expand it to Ukraine
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a sepcial case) its not over.
Also the time for big offensives may be coming to an end as we enter mud season. So a stalemate may develop
Liz Truss. Why did the Tories choose that as a hill to die on?
Because the party membership has a very high average age and a lot of them are senile?
They want very high interest rates and they are determined to get them?
Possibly, though if that was a specific want (to jack their savings returns right up) then it would be definite evidence of senility. The one thing most likely to cause a house price crash is a large spike in interest rates.
What was ultimately at the root of it all was probably some kind of Thatcher nostalgia thing, coupled with suspicion of Sunak (both for his part in toppling Johnson and for being too centrist.)
You say that like its a bad thing.
Having a better savings ratio, and lower house prices, would be too improvements to rebalancing the UK economy.
From the point of view of elderly minted southern English homeowners (the core both of the Tory membership and wider vote, who expect their pile of bricks to be worth an ever-growing fortune, and intend on mining it for jollies through equity release and/or passing on fat tax-free inheritances to their offspring,) tumbling house prices are not what they desire or expect.
The two most useful things that could happen to promote economic renewal in this country would be a house price crash, and a mass building programme of new dwellings to prevent strangulated demand from triggering a reflation. But is that what the old troughers want? Hell no!
I am obliged to point out again that a house price crash is an economic catastrophe not a moment of economic renewal. The reason is that very little housebuilding will take place for many years due to the build cost problem. Essentially the cost of building is so high because of inflation, that you cannot build any more houses due to depressed sale prices. The last house price crash did not solve the housing problem, housebuilding essentially froze up for about three years, years, with much gloom, and the same thing will almost certainly happen again, this time around.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
In short: a return to Stalinism then.
A slide into ever more uncompromising autocracy has been the hallmark of Putin's entire reign. Why would he feel the need to stop now?
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
See, that's an interesting and worthwhile thesis you have there. Yet I didn't get that from the header as my eyes glazed over at all the paragraphs and "bullet points" especially when there is much to distract, of a turbulent Sunday evening
Sometimes the more you say, the less you relay
You could have made this valid argument with 400 words, not 2000
Modern politics is a three way battle between future-looking progressives (Blair, Starmer, Brown), steady as we go conservatives (Cameron, May, Hague)and romantic backward looking nostalgists (Farage, Truss, Johnson, Corbyn).
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
The Russians using even a single battlefield nuke will trigger mass panic in the west. Shelves cleared of tinned food, fighting in the aisles over the last roll of andrex. The markets will shit themselves. Like what happened last week - cascading margin calls - only much, much worse, and it will be much harder (and costlier) for the government to step in to stabilise things.
Meanwhile, a conventional reply by NATO forces - wiping out Russian positions in Ukraine, Black Sea Fleet, etc, could potentially lead to a deadly escalation. It could, for example, make ordinary Russian soldiers in the chain of command more likely to agree to an order from Putin to use strategic nukes, as they feel as if they are responding to NATO aggression. It could also lead to a deadly miscalculation - Russian radar sees a dozen conventional missiles approaching, mistakes them for a nuclear first strike, responds in kind.
"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." That is the rational answer. The question is, is Putin rational? The other questions are: would his orders be followed, and what state is the Russian nuclear arsenal in? Questions I don't particularly want to find out the answers to. All I know is, this has the potential to escalate from here, very fast.
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a sepcial case) its not over.
Also the time for big offensives may be coming to an end as we enter mud season. So a stalemate may develop
A big problem for the Russian logistics when there trucks can only do the paved roads.
I think though that the mud season is more of an issue in the Donbas compared to the drier, Sandler Kherson soils.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
I thought the Americans had made their stance clear to several levels of the Russian hierarchy with the intention of making it impossible for nuclear orders to flow through the chain, unless they are all as mad as Vlad
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
Exile is about the only thing he can be offered.
We should definitely offer him and his family a safe exile, if that is the price of Russian retreat and a Ukrainian peace
It will stick in the craw, but there it is. The British Empire made the same calculation with Napoleon and we were right to do so
Er... So we offer Putin exile in, say, the Falkland Islands?
The best thing the Soviets did after Kruschev nearly killed us all in the Cuban missile crises, was to allow him to retire peacefully. Ditto Gorbachov. Let Putin also retire to his gilded Palace.
When dictators know that it is either absolute power or death then they may well choose death. Give them the choice of retirement in internal exile and there is an easy way out.
He should go somewhere wet where umbrellas are commonplace
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
See, that's an interesting and worthwhile thesis you have there. Yet I didn't get that from the header as my eyes glazed over at all the paragraphs and "bullet points" especially when there is much to distract, of a turbulent Sunday evening
Sometimes the more you say, the less you relay
You could have made this valid argument with 400 words, not 2000
Modern politics is a three way battle between future-looking progressives (Blair, Starmer, Brown), steady as we go conservatives (Cameron, May, Hague)and romantic backward looking nostalgists (Farage, Truss, Johnson, Corbyn).
That is just laughably wrong
Nah. It’s right.
The biggest driving force in recent years has been the nostalgists of the left and right, all trying to turn the clock back to their preferred utopian view of the past. They have largely been in battle with the conservatives. We are only just beginning to see some new ideas creep in again as progressive forces gain strength..
"I’m told the collapse of Russian lines in ne Kherson is a story that is still in progress. Understand Ukraine has moved south by at least 20km since yesterday. “It could be even more interesting by the morning,” a recon soldier tells me."
I have to say this internal reaction against Truss and her 🤪 economics and 🤑 politics, really makes me think again about parts of the Tory tribe. For many it’s clearly not just about power, money and narrow self interest.
Those Tories should think hard about who is getting the warm fuzzies about their current behaviour.
Democracy is to the British what Food is to the French or Opera to the Italians
We don't actually do it that well anymore, and we haven't innovated for 50 years, and often others do it better: yet we pride ourselves in it, because we believe it is ours. And we will fight for that, even if it makes us poorer
"I’m told the collapse of Russian lines in ne Kherson is a story that is still in progress. Understand Ukraine has moved south by at least 20km since yesterday. “It could be even more interesting by the morning,” a recon soldier tells me."
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a sepcial case) its not over.
Also the time for big offensives may be coming to an end as we enter mud season. So a stalemate may develop
A big problem for the Russian logistics when there trucks can only do the paved roads.
I think though that the mud season is more of an issue in the Donbas compared to the drier, Sandler Kherson soils.
The Ukrainians have modern military trucks, it seems. With good capacity for what the US military used to call “flotation”.
The Russians seem to be running out of shit truck with crappy tires….
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
See, that's an interesting and worthwhile thesis you have there. Yet I didn't get that from the header as my eyes glazed over at all the paragraphs and "bullet points" especially when there is much to distract, of a turbulent Sunday evening
Sometimes the more you say, the less you relay
You could have made this valid argument with 400 words, not 2000
Modern politics is a three way battle between future-looking progressives (Blair, Starmer, Brown), steady as we go conservatives (Cameron, May, Hague)and romantic backward looking nostalgists (Farage, Truss, Johnson, Corbyn).
That is just laughably wrong
Nah. It’s right.
The biggest driving force in recent years has been the nostalgists of the left and right, all trying to turn the clock back to their preferred utopian view of the past. They have largely been in battle with the conservatives. We are only just beginning to see some new ideas creep in again as progressive forces gain strength..
I agree that both left and right have been obsessed with nostalgia for a romanticised past, but I don't think that the centre-left has a coherent narrative. Truss is barking but does have a vision, albeit one of a crazy oligarchy in charge of impoverished serfs.
There seems to be some odd narrative developing that Truss is poor communicating to the public but really impressive on private
Are these people deluded? We can’t have a PM who cannot communicate her vision publicly. Absolutely batshit
Who are these people saying that Truss is impressive in private? I accept that they're unlikely to be prominent in my Centrist Dad media bubble (e.g. Rory Stewart, Sam Freedman) but the comments I've seen are that she's awful in private.
And the form of her previous awfulness (totally uninterested in engaging with anything that contradicts her soundbites) match what we're now seeing in public.
I have to say this internal reaction against Truss and her 🤪 economics and 🤑 politics, really makes me think again about parts of the Tory tribe. For many it’s clearly not just about power, money and narrow self interest.
Those Tories should think hard about who is getting the warm fuzzies about their current behaviour.
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a sepcial case) its not over.
Also the time for big offensives may be coming to an end as we enter mud season. So a stalemate may develop
A big problem for the Russian logistics when there trucks can only do the paved roads.
I think though that the mud season is more of an issue in the Donbas compared to the drier, Sandler Kherson soils.
The Ukrainians have modern military trucks, it seems. With good capacity for what the US military used to call “flotation”.
The Russians seem to be running out of shit truck with crappy tires….
I think the Russians will have more to fear from when the muddy season switches to the frozen season. How many of their troops are equipped with winter gear? From videos I saw from the Kharkiv front they were sleeping under plastic sheets hung from trees.
The in-depth analysis is one of the things that sets this place apart. The tldr; idiots can go elsewhere.
There is a time and place for indepth analysis. When she's on form @Cyclefree does it really well (and, as I am well aware, for free)
Not this time tho. This is an awful lots of words to say Truss is, so far, a 2nd rate Thatch. We can all see that
It's not just that she's a 2nd rate Thatch. It's that the party seems to think that only a copy of a previous leader will do. See Boris doing his Churchill tribute act.
Why can't they be themselves - a leader for the country now? Learn lessons from others: yes. But understand today's world and problems and come up with ideas for today.
Nostalgia: it's the British disease and it infects our politics.
(And also thank you for the compliment and the advice. Genuinely.)
See, that's an interesting and worthwhile thesis you have there. Yet I didn't get that from the header as my eyes glazed over at all the paragraphs and "bullet points" especially when there is much to distract, of a turbulent Sunday evening
Sometimes the more you say, the less you relay
You could have made this valid argument with 400 words, not 2000
987 words, in reality.
But if brevity is my weakness, exaggeration is yours.
If Putin is close to defeat, is now the time to offer him something if we think he might go postal planet killer?
Not sure what. I guess that’s the trouble.
No, because the odds on him going nuclear are still fairly long. 1. People within his own coterie will seek to stop him and 2. I believe the US when they have said they will do a very large retaliation, which will, in effect end Russias ability to win this. And if they lose, Putin is likely done anyway.
In short even if he did, if the West sticks to that stance, Putin is finished
FWIW, a report in the Graun quotes General Petraeus (the ex-CIA director and senior American general) suggesting that NATO would respond to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by wiping out the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine and sinking the Black Sea fleet.
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
The Russians using even a single battlefield nuke will trigger mass panic in the west. Shelves cleared of tinned food, fighting in the aisles over the last roll of andrex. The markets will shit themselves. Like what happened last week - cascading margin calls - only much, much worse, and it will be much harder (and costlier) for the government to step in to stabilise things.
Meanwhile, a conventional reply by NATO forces - wiping out Russian positions in Ukraine, Black Sea Fleet, etc, could potentially lead to a deadly escalation. It could, for example, make ordinary Russian soldiers in the chain of command more likely to agree to an order from Putin to use strategic nukes, as they feel as if they are responding to NATO aggression. It could also lead to a deadly miscalculation - Russian radar sees a dozen conventional missiles approaching, mistakes them for a nuclear first strike, responds in kind.
"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." That is the rational answer. The question is, is Putin rational? The other questions are: would his orders be followed, and what state is the Russian nuclear arsenal in? Questions I don't particularly want to find out the answers to. All I know is, this has the potential to escalate from here, very fast.
The events of the past seven months have demonstrated that Western peoples are not pathetic cowards who will let the Russians roll over Ukraine for fear of their living standards being adversely affected.
Putin is fucked, and there is nothing he can do about it now.
There are unconfirmed reports of a collapse of Russian lines to the North East of Kherson as a Ukrainian offensive pushes down the west bank of the Dneiper river. If so its currently a tenuous position for the Ukrainians as they appear to be most rapidly moving down the right flank of a concentration of Russian troops, ahead of the advancement further west. The bad news for the Russians is that it threatens yet another danger, if not quite of encirclement right now, of a hammer and anvil situation.
On Lyman, no one knows how many Russians got trapped, how many escaped and how many died trying to get out but there is visual evidence suggesting hundreds got killed trying to escape.
Ukraine seem to be making gains inland of the initial gains on the riverbank.
On Lyman, Ukraine claimed 500 Russian casualties two days in a row. Given some reports I thought the figure reported today could have been 1,000.
The strories from Lyman are that it was in infamous turkey shoot territory.
The North east advance is, if reports are true, looking a bit lopsided. That could just be reporting catching up, but its imperative that Ukrainian forces can avoid the Russians turning to face right to isolate that lopsidedness. Thats possible since the latter appears to be in reverse right now, but its not a banker.
Two notes: 1. The Russan Airforce continues to not perform. 2. Russian artillery appears to have lost its edge, possibly because lots of it has been destroyed, possibly because their logistics chain has been really rumbled by depth strikes. Many weeks ago I ventured that this was an interesting comparison between the Russians who were very much direct fire on front line and the Ukrainians who were going for indirect and destruction behind the front.
So far one winner.
The most concerning thing though, if you are on the Russian side, is precisely no sizeable counter offensive anywhere, either directly to counter the recent advance or to divert/exploit a thin Ukrainian line somewhere. Its a really bad sign if they cant get something together.
The Russians have continued to waste men and resources on fruitless attacks towards Bakhmut, rather than divert those forces to attempt a counteroffensive against recent Ukrainian advances. (Edit: This indicates a strategic failure at the top.)
That said there is evidence in recent weeks of some Ukrainian advances defeated at some cost, towards Davydiv Brid and Pisky, so there are still Russian soldiers able and willing to fight and inflict losses on Ukraine.
Its war, the Ukrainians will lose locally but right now they are winning strategically. Russia appears to have lost the ability right now to conduct large scale and wide offensives which seems absolutely nuts but there it is. Some of that is the sheer damage done to their first line manpower and kit, some if its poor troops, some of it is that the Ukrainians have much superior battlespace management which is one of the hidden stories of this war. I cant see that Russian inability lasting forever but the short term window to put the brakes on Ukraine is closing.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a sepcial case) its not over.
Also the time for big offensives may be coming to an end as we enter mud season. So a stalemate may develop
A big problem for the Russian logistics when there trucks can only do the paved roads.
I think though that the mud season is more of an issue in the Donbas compared to the drier, Sandler Kherson soils.
The Ukrainians have modern military trucks, it seems. With good capacity for what the US military used to call “flotation”.
The Russians seem to be running out of shit truck with crappy tires….
I think the Russians will have more to fear from when the muddy season switches to the frozen season. How many of their troops are equipped with winter gear? From videos I saw from the Kharkiv front they were sleeping under plastic sheets hung from trees.
I think that is part of the reason the Ukranians have cancelled their autumn draft. Fewer troops to supply makes the winter logistics easier. Those Russian mobiks are in for a world of pain.
Yes but a rarity where a party lost a working majority to another party with a working majority. That doesn't often happen here.
I asked specifically about landslide to landslide.
1945 would be the last time, albeit in very special circumstances. It was landslide to landslide as far as election results were concerned, albeit with some special circumstances inbetween.
They’ve gone quite mad. I thought Badenoch would do this kind of thing, I didn’t think Truss was this batshit crazy. Every day’s a school day.
It’s fascinating to watch, even as the imminent shafting I, my loved ones and friends are all going suffer comes ever closer.
I fucking despise these bastards for everything they’ve done since 2016. I cannot wait to see the back of them. They call themselves patriots yet deliberately turn the country to shit.
I had to shift my mum’s sofas from her front room to her south facing back room today, because it’s warmer in the winter. She’s not poor by any stretch of the imagination but she’s worried she won’t be able to afford her heating. I have to remortgage in August. God knows how much that’s going to go up. We’re a rich country, yet we’re reduced to warm banks. On top of food banks. Ambulances queuing outside hospitals for hours and hours. Crumbling roads. Shit filled rivers.
These aren’t faults. They’re by design. This is what this government wants. They don’t give a flying fuck about the vast majority of people in this country.
Even Badenoch would not have gone this far. Badenoch is more socially conservative than Truss but not as ideological an economic libertarian. She would have cut NI and corporation tax but probably not the 45p top rate yet
Badenoch did talk about the state doing less but better, which sounds pretty small-state. It's a good soundbite, but I don't think she ever said what the state should stop doing.
So more honest than Truss, but probably heading in the same direction.
Democracy is to the British what Food is to the French or Opera to the Italians
We don't actually do it that well anymore, and we haven't innovated for 50 years, and often others do it better: yet we pride ourselves in it, because we believe it is ours. And we will fight for that, even if it makes us poorer
Hence, Brexit
This is a fun game.
How about: France - cuisine; Italy - opera; Britain - team sports?
Or: France - fashion; Italy - art; Britain - er, mountaineering?
Comments
Via social media...🤦♂️
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1576658503099637760
Tighten the sanctions and maintain weapons supplies to Ukraine but defend existing NATO states only, don't expand it to Ukraine
There have been trainloads of T-80s, and relatively new self-propelled artillery seen crossing the Kerch bridge into Crimea during the last month. It's not just T-62s that are being pulled out of storage.
Not that this will do the Russians much good. The Ukrainians captured one of the most modernised T-90s recently.
The Tories have well and truly screwed this country. I hope they are annihilated at the next GE, never to recover.
Immigration is higher than it has ever been
We now have a PM we never elected
Sorry.... what were your points again????
So more honest than Truss, but probably heading in the same direction.
I'd argue the nostalgia is a symptom of political and ideological bankruptcy and that's a natural result for parties after long periods in office.
The Conservatives have tried to re-invent on three occasion, 2016, 2019 and 2022. On each occasion, the internal re-invention has come from someone associated with the previous administration basically turning on that administration and decrying everything it did or said. That form of re-invention can work - it worked for Johnson, it also worked for Major for a while.
Unfortunately, each such invention seems to have a shorter shelf life than its predecessor - this incarnation managed about a week before imploding. The truth is the Conservatives are out of ideas and out of road. They can drift on, zombie like, for another 18 months or so but we know it's over.
The Party now needs a period in opposition to allow for ideological and practical renewal. All parties need it - some are forced into it for much longer than they'd like but in a functioning democracy the alternating of power between competing ideologies is no bad thing.
"For a very long time, Tory electoral success has been based on a time-honoured trick: persuading the social middle that it has nothing in common with the bottom, and indeed kicking poor people around just to reinforce the point, something that the Truss government’s approach to “welfare” looks set to resume. But the crisis we are in is blurring those distinctions."
Back SKS as PM after next election, but not as next PM
Back no Scot Ref before 2025
Back Labour most seats in next election but not for a majority
and
Galactica e/w at Tipperary tomorrow 1.45. (Modest sums only).
Like anything the problem they are going to hit is exactly due to what you have said, high intensity combat. With damaged supply line you can go on for a bit at full tilt but then start to suffer when re-supply does not meet expendtiure
Besides which, a resort to nuclear weapons is the one atrocity so grave that the United States could use it as a wedge to separate China and India from Putin. In particular, if I were in Biden's place I'd be having conversations with Xi in such circumstances along the lines of (a) trade with Russia or trade with us, you can't have both; and then, if that doesn't force him to drop Putin like a red hot stove, (b) you back this shit using nuclear weapons to wage a war of conquest, and we'll both recognise Taiwanese independence and extend our own nuclear umbrella over the island. You will never, ever get it back.
Putin knows that there are a few lines he can't cross without triggering total economic isolation and the consequent collapse of the Russian economy, and so will all his cronies. If he wants to survive defeat then his best option isn't to resort to the indiscriminate use of WMDs, it's to draw up a long list of internal enemies on whom to blame the Russian army's failures and have them all arrested and tried for treason. Evidence of corruption on the part of almost every soldier above the rank of corporal shouldn't be hard to find for starters.
When dictators know that it is either absolute power or death then they may well choose death. Give them the choice of retirement in internal exile and there is an easy way out.
@luishusier on Twitter. May be worth following.
The exit poll suggests support for the Government coalition has fallen from 46.1% to 35.4%.
The main opposition GERB is up slightly and will top the poll with 23.5%. The centrist Movement of Rights and Freedoms (DPS) has finished a solid third with 15.2%.
The main government party, Petkov and Vasilev's Change Continues (PP) is down from 25.7% to 19.5% and will lose ground to GERB making Borisov leader of the largest bloc.
The other big winners are Revival, the strongly anti-EU, anti-western and pro-Russia party which has more than doubled its support to 10% to finish fourth.
Trifonov's There Is Such A People (ITN) will probably lose all its 16 seats and drop out of the National Assembly.
I gave the growth numbers since 2000 on the earlier thread. The fundamental problem is that living standards are rising by about a quarter, each generation, whereas we expect them to rise by half.
On the ambulances outside hospitals topic, am relieved to confirm that my mother-in-law finally got out of the ambulance and was admitted to the assessment ward after seventeen hours.
This happened in Wales. Things are going to shit north and south, east and west.
The reality is that Ukrainian successes are serious and substantial but i have cautioned before against assuming its all over, its not. Until the Ukrainians can roll the Russians out, with the exception of Crimea, (which even the Ukrainians admit may be a special case) its not over.
Bolsonaro 3.5
The reason is that very little housebuilding will take place for many years due to the build cost problem. Essentially the cost of building is so high because of inflation, that you cannot build any more houses due to depressed sale prices.
The last house price crash did not solve the housing problem, housebuilding essentially froze up for about three years, years, with much gloom, and the same thing will almost certainly happen again, this time around.
Are these people deluded? We can’t have a PM who cannot communicate her vision publicly. Absolutely batshit
Meanwhile, a conventional reply by NATO forces - wiping out Russian positions in Ukraine, Black Sea Fleet, etc, could potentially lead to a deadly escalation. It could, for example, make ordinary Russian soldiers in the chain of command more likely to agree to an order from Putin to use strategic nukes, as they feel as if they are responding to NATO aggression. It could also lead to a deadly miscalculation - Russian radar sees a dozen conventional missiles approaching, mistakes them for a nuclear first strike, responds in kind.
"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." That is the rational answer. The question is, is Putin rational? The other questions are: would his orders be followed, and what state is the Russian nuclear arsenal in? Questions I don't particularly want to find out the answers to. All I know is, this has the potential to escalate from here, very fast.
Lula 51.15%
Bolsonaro 36.77%
After 6 mins of counting - think that is the quickest results I have seen anywhere ever.
I think though that the mud season is more of an issue in the Donbas compared to the drier, Sandler Kherson soils.
Bolsonaro 4.2
To be fair though, they are drowning in jaw-dropping material to use. https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1576540302848000000/video/1
The biggest driving force in recent years has been the nostalgists of the left and right, all trying to turn the clock back to their preferred utopian view of the past. They have largely been in battle with the conservatives. We are only just beginning to see some new ideas creep in again as progressive forces gain strength..
https://twitter.com/FlorianNeuhof/status/1576663033404792834
Tighten that noose, guys, tighten that noose.
Bolsonaro 3.7
As expected, very volatile betting market
Edit
Now
1.61
2.72
We don't actually do it that well anymore, and we haven't innovated for 50 years, and often others do it better: yet we pride ourselves in it, because we believe it is ours. And we will fight for that, even if it makes us poorer
Hence, Brexit
Bols 2.4
The Russians seem to be running out of shit truck with crappy tires….
Bols 3
….and we’re back where we started.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/02/ben-wallace-wont-rule-standing-tory-leadership-future/
And the form of her previous awfulness (totally uninterested in engaging with anything that contradicts her soundbites) match what we're now seeing in public.
But if brevity is my weakness, exaggeration is yours.
😉
Putin is fucked, and there is nothing he can do about it now.
Thanks to whoever linked to Martin Wolf’s FT piece^
The 40 year chart of 10yr Uk govt bond yields is quite something to behold.
Fucking scary, actually.
Unless the new trend reverses, It’s going to have a profound impact on our politics.
Whoever is in government is going to be constrained by balanced budgets.
How about: France - cuisine; Italy - opera; Britain - team sports?
Or: France - fashion; Italy - art; Britain - er, mountaineering?
Or: Germany - classical music; Greece - civilisation; Britain - queues?
https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2022/apuracao/president
0.54% counted, Bolsonaro leads 48-41
Betfair Lula 1.51 Bolsonaro 2.94
That was a National/coalition caretaker Government of a massive coalition that went to a landslide.
Starmer would be single party landslide to single party landslide. So that leaves I think 1906?