Is the Daily Mail turning on Truss? – politicalbetting.com

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Is the Daily Mail turning on Truss? – politicalbetting.com

It is very unusual for the Daily Mail to be anything other than totally supportive of the Tories whoever is the leader so today’s front page comes as something as a surprise. That it should be so critical is almost unprecedented. But then so are 30%+ poll leads for Labour.

Read the full story here

DecrepiterJohnL

Technically, that is yesterday's front page.

DecrepiterJohnL

There is certainly a lot riding on the Prime Minister's conference speech, set for 11.05 this morning.
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1577347905626800130

IanB2

Second!

SeaShantyIrish2

IanB2 said:

Second!

Fake news!

WillG

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

WillG said:

rcs1000 said:

WillG said:

rcs1000 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

MoonRabbit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

MoonRabbit said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Moon Rabbit insists they are anti Tory but seems to spend their whole time telling us how great the Tories are. It’s only themself they’re kidding

Anyone can post a view of what the Truss government argument is for their policy thinking, to kick that around a to see if we all agree not with it, but that it is at least that all right, without being Team Truss or voting for the Two Nation nonsense of it. I don’t want to be cheeky, but it’s a step up than merely throwing “40% poll lead” spaghetti at the wall over and over again.

It may be escaping you horse, but this isn’t just the last alliance of elves and men against the evil of Sauron going on here - Kwarteng and Truss are criticising decades of what they call the policies of declineism - the podium at this conference is rich with challenge to orthodox thinking. We are on the same page in hating the resulting Two Nation policies, but only one of us is engaging with the philosophy and motivation of the opponent.

It is a 3 stage problem.

I think the first stage is that they are bright enough to have identified a real problem - and one that many on all sides of the debate have identified for many years so I don't give them too much credit for it. We are in decline and we are all part of a very long term but undeniable ponzi scheme. We cannot simply carry on as we are because you cannot tax your way of an ever increasing public spending and demographic crisis

They also have a solution. Stage 2. This solution, which is not the only possible one but is valid none the less - cutting the size of the state and making people more responsible for their own well being - could work if it is done carefully and thoughtfully and by taking the public along with you through education and open debate of the issues and the possible solutions. That relies on politicians being honest and also ensuring that the basic principles of fairness and a proper safety net are retained. It also relies on picking the right moment to start it.

But the last stage - now this is where they show their true colours and simply go mad. They are so inept and so drunk with their own power that they have managed to do just about every single thing wrong. Wrong timing, wrong policies, wrong winners and certainly wrong losers. No preparation, no explanation and no remorse when it all goes wrong. They are just, basically, fecking useless.

It doesn't change the fact that the analysis and the possible solution (amongst others) were all sound. But they are so totally incompetent and arrogant that that all counts for nothing.

The trouble is that when they are long gone the problems will still remain and I don't really see any other UK politicians facing up to that fact in the next decade and making any meaningful attempts to deal with it. I would like to think I am wrong on this and that Starmer or Gove or Badenock or some other politician yet to emerge will grasp the issues and make a meaningful attempt to solve them. But I am not holding my breath.

you are saying this moment is in fact 1975, not 1995 - an orthodoxy, a consensus, is rightly being challenged here, if/when managed well it actually represents the future, and shapes the future?

Indeed. But I also don't think the solutions that were developed from 1979 onwards are necessarily going to be the ones that work this time.

To a large extent Thatcher had it easy. So much of the UK economy was nationalised that privatising it was, for a significant majority of the public, fairly uncontroversial. That easy solution no longer exists.

The past decade and a half had been mostly Labour years and so it was also relatively easy to place the blame elsewhere. The Tories cannot do that now. Only Labour can and I am not sure they are in the right place ideologically to challenge the orthodoxy.

And, of course, there was a ready source of income in the form of North Sea Oil to help pay for the transition. Again, that large reserve does not exist today.

Everything fell right for a paradigm shift in the late 70s. I am not sure anything is right for a similar shift today. Nor, if I am honest, do I know what that shift should necessarily be. All I know is that something has to give and either we control it or it will happen anyway in a form we might not like at all.

The biggest single issue facing governments of all shades and hues is the issue of an ageing population, because that puts pressure on government spending (pensions and health care), diverting workers into looking after the elderly, while at the same time meaning a smaller proportion of people are of working age.

The first step to solving this is to make sure that *everyone* is saving for their own retirement all the time - which probably means a system like the Australian compulsory saving scheme.

The issue is that - while this is absolutely the right thing in the long-term - it means one generation of workers will simultaneously be paying for yesterday's unfunded promises, and saving for their own retirement. And that is a very hard sell.

The first step to solving this is getting the fertility rate up, especially among the more productive segments of society.

There is exactly one country in the world where college educated women have a TFR of 2.1 or higher: France.

(France is the only country where TFRs rise with education levels.)

But here's the thing. France has done this by making tax allowances stack. So, two parents with two kids get four lots of tax allowances to share. It also means that families with children are treated tax advantageously to the single young and to... ahhhhh... retirees.

Getting the TFR up is also a very long term project (albeit probably a necessary one) that will take 25 years to have an impact.

I agree with all of that, but we need to start now. 25 years from now will be too late. Single child families will have set in as the norm, and at that point its too late to roll back.

The other big piece of this is the ridiculous working hours of graduate jobs.

Is this not just a human ponzi scheme? If we create or import more young people then, barring wars, we shall end up with more old people, so will need yet more young people and eventually we will run out of room.

Which takes you back to immigration - whilst global population has topped out almost everywhere, Africa is the exception with a boom generation of young people still to work through the demographics. How these population bulges are to be employed and supported isn’t clear, whereas other parts of the world particularly Europe and the US needs more workers.

Except of course these young Africans are, for the most part, extremely low skilled by Western standards. The vast majority have not got to GCSE level. And low income workers take more from the state in benefits and public services than they pay in via taxes.

In addition, unless the migrants come from the country/culture right next door, there is a limit to how much the host society is willing to take. Typically at around 15-20% foreign born as a share of total population, the far right takes off. So sure, take the most skilled Africans who can command a salary over 40k, but beyond that you need fertility.

swing_voter

WillG said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

WillG said:

rcs1000 said:

WillG said:

rcs1000 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

MoonRabbit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

MoonRabbit said:

CorrectHorseBattery3 said:

Moon Rabbit insists they are anti Tory but seems to spend their whole time telling us how great the Tories are. It’s only themself they’re kidding

Anyone can post a view of what the Truss government argument is for their policy thinking, to kick that around a to see if we all agree not with it, but that it is at least that all right, without being Team Truss or voting for the Two Nation nonsense of it. I don’t want to be cheeky, but it’s a step up than merely throwing “40% poll lead” spaghetti at the wall over and over again.

It may be escaping you horse, but this isn’t just the last alliance of elves and men against the evil of Sauron going on here - Kwarteng and Truss are criticising decades of what they call the policies of declineism - the podium at this conference is rich with challenge to orthodox thinking. We are on the same page in hating the resulting Two Nation policies, but only one of us is engaging with the philosophy and motivation of the opponent.

It is a 3 stage problem.

I think the first stage is that they are bright enough to have identified a real problem - and one that many on all sides of the debate have identified for many years so I don't give them too much credit for it. We are in decline and we are all part of a very long term but undeniable ponzi scheme. We cannot simply carry on as we are because you cannot tax your way of an ever increasing public spending and demographic crisis

They also have a solution. Stage 2. This solution, which is not the only possible one but is valid none the less - cutting the size of the state and making people more responsible for their own well being - could work if it is done carefully and thoughtfully and by taking the public along with you through education and open debate of the issues and the possible solutions. That relies on politicians being honest and also ensuring that the basic principles of fairness and a proper safety net are retained. It also relies on picking the right moment to start it.

But the last stage - now this is where they show their true colours and simply go mad. They are so inept and so drunk with their own power that they have managed to do just about every single thing wrong. Wrong timing, wrong policies, wrong winners and certainly wrong losers. No preparation, no explanation and no remorse when it all goes wrong. They are just, basically, fecking useless.

It doesn't change the fact that the analysis and the possible solution (amongst others) were all sound. But they are so totally incompetent and arrogant that that all counts for nothing.

The trouble is that when they are long gone the problems will still remain and I don't really see any other UK politicians facing up to that fact in the next decade and making any meaningful attempts to deal with it. I would like to think I am wrong on this and that Starmer or Gove or Badenock or some other politician yet to emerge will grasp the issues and make a meaningful attempt to solve them. But I am not holding my breath.

you are saying this moment is in fact 1975, not 1995 - an orthodoxy, a consensus, is rightly being challenged here, if/when managed well it actually represents the future, and shapes the future?

Indeed. But I also don't think the solutions that were developed from 1979 onwards are necessarily going to be the ones that work this time.

To a large extent Thatcher had it easy. So much of the UK economy was nationalised that privatising it was, for a significant majority of the public, fairly uncontroversial. That easy solution no longer exists.

The past decade and a half had been mostly Labour years and so it was also relatively easy to place the blame elsewhere. The Tories cannot do that now. Only Labour can and I am not sure they are in the right place ideologically to challenge the orthodoxy.

And, of course, there was a ready source of income in the form of North Sea Oil to help pay for the transition. Again, that large reserve does not exist today.

Everything fell right for a paradigm shift in the late 70s. I am not sure anything is right for a similar shift today. Nor, if I am honest, do I know what that shift should necessarily be. All I know is that something has to give and either we control it or it will happen anyway in a form we might not like at all.

The biggest single issue facing governments of all shades and hues is the issue of an ageing population, because that puts pressure on government spending (pensions and health care), diverting workers into looking after the elderly, while at the same time meaning a smaller proportion of people are of working age.

The first step to solving this is to make sure that *everyone* is saving for their own retirement all the time - which probably means a system like the Australian compulsory saving scheme.

The issue is that - while this is absolutely the right thing in the long-term - it means one generation of workers will simultaneously be paying for yesterday's unfunded promises, and saving for their own retirement. And that is a very hard sell.

The first step to solving this is getting the fertility rate up, especially among the more productive segments of society.

There is exactly one country in the world where college educated women have a TFR of 2.1 or higher: France.

(France is the only country where TFRs rise with education levels.)

But here's the thing. France has done this by making tax allowances stack. So, two parents with two kids get four lots of tax allowances to share. It also means that families with children are treated tax advantageously to the single young and to... ahhhhh... retirees.

Getting the TFR up is also a very long term project (albeit probably a necessary one) that will take 25 years to have an impact.

I agree with all of that, but we need to start now. 25 years from now will be too late. Single child families will have set in as the norm, and at that point its too late to roll back.

The other big piece of this is the ridiculous working hours of graduate jobs.

Is this not just a human ponzi scheme? If we create or import more young people then, barring wars, we shall end up with more old people, so will need yet more young people and eventually we will run out of room.

Which takes you back to immigration - whilst global population has topped out almost everywhere, Africa is the exception with a boom generation of young people still to work through the demographics. How these population bulges are to be employed and supported isn’t clear, whereas other parts of the world particularly Europe and the US needs more workers.

Except of course these young Africans are, for the most part, extremely low skilled by Western standards. The vast majority have not got to GCSE level. And low income workers take more from the state in benefits and public services than they pay in via taxes.

In addition, unless the migrants come from the country/culture right next door, there is a limit to how much the host society is willing to take. Typically at around 15-20% foreign born as a share of total population, the far right takes off. So sure, take the most skilled Africans who can command a salary over 40k, but beyond that you need fertility.

Your statement "And low income workers take more from the state in benefits and public services than they pay in via taxes...." do you have any evidence to back that up. From my personal experience it is the opposite - many migrant low wage workers utilise very few public services directly, they have few/no children, work long hours and often return home thus never draw a pension, send children to school here or become ill in old age (except in country of origin)... the Philippines is a good example of a huge army of workers who send money home and retire back in the homeland.

pigeon

After Penny Mordaunt's intervention on benefit uprating, more open defiance from the cabinet:

King Charles should attend the upcoming climate change conference COP27, the president of last year's summit and member of Liz Truss's cabinet has said.

Alok Sharma was responding to a report which claimed the prime minister had "ordered" the King not to attend.

Buckingham Palace later confirmed the King will not attend the summit in Egypt next month.

Mr Sharma said the King had championed the environment for decades and other countries wanted him to attend.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63136131

Nigelb

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

Casino_Royale

The Daily Mail is on the side of her inner core who want her to hold course and double-down, hence the headline. It is aligned with the prejudices of its core (retired) readers all of whom can only see more £££ signs from higher interest rates for their savings.

They are wrong - they will still lose money in real terms after inflation, and won't be happy when their children and grandchildren end up back living with them due to unaffordability/ repossession, which they will have to help pay for - but since the Daily Mail is mainly about hypocrisy and judging others this allows them to freely indulge in imagining they had it far worse in their day and it's jolly well about time they had a pay off.

JosiasJessop

As comes as no surprise to anyone who follows his shenanigans, Baby Musk's offer to 'buy' Twitter yesterday is... more complex than it was presented.

Basically, it is: "Stop the trial and we'll go back to where we were. But I can still pull out, m'kay?"

Or put more basically: it is a delaying action, because Musk knows that the deal had time limits on it (which is why he tried to get the court case put back to next year).

https://twitter.com/chancery_daily/status/1577377535255613442

darkage

Totally off topic but may be of interest.
I booked a flight on Ryanair for 2 months time, departing around midday.
I went back to book another seat on the same flight and saw that the time has changed, it has been moved back by 4 and a half hours which is very inconvenient.
Ryanair have not 'notified' us of the change, there has been no email or anything like that.
I had assumed that we could get a refund but, looking at their terms and conditions, they can change the flight by up to 5 hours without any requirement for compensation, notification or anything.
That just isn't acceptable in my view, but it is what happens.

Roger

The British are suckers for repentant sinners and she has shown that there's more to the job than costume changes and photo ops.

Heathener

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

darkage

Casino_Royale said:

The Daily Mail is on the side of her inner core who want her to hold course and double-down, hence the headline. It is aligned with the prejudices of its core (retired) readers all of whom can only see more £££ signs from higher interest rates for their savings.

They are wrong - they will still lose money in real terms after inflation, and won't be happy when their children and grandchildren end up back living with them due to unaffordability/ repossession, which they will have to help pay for - but since the Daily Mail is mainly about hypocrisy and judging others this allows them to freely indulge in imagining they had it far worse in their day and it's jolly well about time they had a pay off.

I get the feeling that the Daily Mail are not the powerful force that they once were. They have been ineffective at influencing the 'woke' stuff, for instance.

Roger

Casino_Royale said:

The Daily Mail is on the side of her inner core who want her to hold course and double-down, hence the headline. It is aligned with the prejudices of its core (retired) readers all of whom can only see more £££ signs from higher interest rates for their savings.

They are wrong - they will still lose money in real terms after inflation, and won't be happy when their children and grandchildren end up back living with them due to unaffordability/ repossession, which they will have to help pay for - but since the Daily Mail is mainly about hypocrisy and judging others this allows them to freely indulge in imagining they had it far worse in their day and it's jolly well about time they had a pay off.

Either that or Dacre is off with flu

Heathener

The Daily Mail have got themselves into a bind. They now realise that they've backed a dud.

They will respond as they usually do. Volte-face and find someone else to pin their fading lights to.

Cicero

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

edmundintokyo

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she was presumably aiming for.

Big_G_NorthWales

Good morning

I really cannot see any future for Truss and her dreadful COE and hope when parliament returns next week her mps remove them both

This morning's speech will be interesting to see who is not there and hopefully it is poorly received and a few walkouts would be welcome

As has been said she is the conservatives Corbyn and I see no other result than a Labour majority at the next election

Scott_xP

Senior MP urges Tories not to quit and gives Liz Truss until Christmas https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/05/senior-mp-urges-tories-not-to-quit-and-gives-liz-truss-until-christmas?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Scott_xP

Suella Braverman's speech today is a textbook case of radical right ideology. Nativist and authoritarian, mobilizing against asylsum seekers, disregard for international law and institutions. So much attention to Italy and Sweden, but the radical right is in government in the UK
https://twitter.com/tabouchadi/status/1577383180532940803
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1577345641654648833

rkrkrk

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she was presumably aiming for.

Not my biggest miss (that's a crowded field with Donald trump's face leering at me) but j was pretty confident she would surprise on the upside.

Scott_xP

James Cleverly distances himself from home secretary Suella Braverman, who accused Tory MPs who forced Liz Truss to U-turn on the 45p tax rate of staging a "coup".

"She chose the words that she chose," he tells @KayBurley

https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1577542005323976704

squareroot2

Never believe anything you read in the Mail or the Grauniad

JosiasJessop

The following chart from Oryx shows Russia's problem:

https://twitter.com/alfabetaceta5/status/1577414896442015746/photo/1

They are losing *masses* of kit - 9 times what Ukraine is losing. I am slightly sceptical about this, as the belief (and common sense) was that the attacking side would lose much more material. But given Russia's poor performance and near-constant retreat, it is possible.

In other news, Iran - yes, Iran - does not recognise Russia's annexation of the four regions. It's hard to think of countries that do. Belarus? North Korea? Obviously a sign of Russia's stronkingness on the world stage.

Peter_the_Punter

Scott_xP said:

Senior MP urges Tories not to quit and gives Liz Truss until Christmas https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/05/senior-mp-urges-tories-not-to-quit-and-gives-liz-truss-until-christmas?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Christmas has come early and often for Starmer.

Was there ever a luckier General?

Scott_xP

On the absolute state of the Conservative party https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/04/liz-truss-tories-ideology-fiscal-voters

Scott_xP

Peter_the_Punter said:

Scott_xP said:

Senior MP urges Tories not to quit and gives Liz Truss until Christmas https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/05/senior-mp-urges-tories-not-to-quit-and-gives-liz-truss-until-christmas?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Christmas has come early and often for Starmer.

Was there ever a luckier General?

The harder you work, the luckier you get...

edmundintokyo

JosiasJessop said:

In other news, Iran - yes, Iran - does not recognise Russia's annexation of the four regions. It's hard to think of countries that do. Belarus? North Korea? Obviously a sign of Russia's stronkingness on the world stage.

North Korea have recognized the annexation.

Belarus haven't IIUC, and they abstained on the condemnation motion at the UN. I guess it's a slightly complicated situation for them since they're allied to Russia but won't really want it to do the next logical thing and... annex Belarus...

Morris_Dancer

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Punter, Julian the Apostate's victory in the Roman civil war was luckier.

His opponent died before a major battle could be fought, naming Julian his successor.

Peter_the_Punter

DecrepiterJohnL said:

There is certainly a lot riding on the Prime Minister's conference speech, set for 11.05 this morning.
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1577347905626800130

Popcorn supplies reach crisis point.

DougSeal

On topic, the Mail seems to have swung back onside this morning

DougSeal

darkage said:

Totally off topic but may be of interest.
I booked a flight on Ryanair for 2 months time, departing around midday.
I went back to book another seat on the same flight and saw that the time has changed, it has been moved back by 4 and a half hours which is very inconvenient.
Ryanair have not 'notified' us of the change, there has been no email or anything like that.
I had assumed that we could get a refund but, looking at their terms and conditions, they can change the flight by up to 5 hours without any requirement for compensation, notification or anything.
That just isn't acceptable in my view, but it is what happens.

Never. Fly. Ryanair.

bondegezou

Tim Farron tweets…

https://twitter.com/timfarron/status/1577217590543253504

Farron to agent Truss: you might need to tone it down a bit now, it all looks a little too obvious, some people are beginning to suspect…

Scott_xP

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

Peter_the_Punter

DougSeal said:

darkage said:

Totally off topic but may be of interest.
I booked a flight on Ryanair for 2 months time, departing around midday.
I went back to book another seat on the same flight and saw that the time has changed, it has been moved back by 4 and a half hours which is very inconvenient.
Ryanair have not 'notified' us of the change, there has been no email or anything like that.
I had assumed that we could get a refund but, looking at their terms and conditions, they can change the flight by up to 5 hours without any requirement for compensation, notification or anything.
That just isn't acceptable in my view, but it is what happens.

Never. Fly. Ryanair.

I do, and it's fun, but you have to accept it's a game of cat and mouse between you and them and sometimes they win.

Foxy

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she was presumably aiming for.

What went wrong was her inflexibility. She had assembled a Libertarian toolkit of tax cuts for the rich and for business, and a ripping up of environmental, planning and social protections, and let rip as soon as she could, without even noticing the international situation or worsening inflationary pressures.

I think the measures are a disaster, but they could have created some economic growth at high cost to the fabric of the nation if the timing was correct.

She has an intellectual and emotional rigidity that just doesn't work.

Peter_the_Punter

Morris_Dancer said:

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Punter, Julian the Apostate's victory in the Roman civil war was luckier.

His opponent died before a major battle could be fought, naming Julian his successor.

Morris, I love your classical references.

I'll check it out.

Scott_xP

Asked to describe how the Tory conference has gone, foreign secretary James Cleverly says: "Brilliant. The atmosphere's fantastic."

Er ...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-conference-chaos-as-cabinet-ministers-condemn-tax-u-turn_uk_633c4fe4e4b02816452e353f

From The Times

One veteran of Conservative conferences going back to the 1990s said they were always a good indication of the mood of the party, adding that it felt “terminal”.

Nigelb

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

"But I was right about the necklace..."

Scott_xP

...

Foxy

DougSeal said:

darkage said:

Totally off topic but may be of interest.
I booked a flight on Ryanair for 2 months time, departing around midday.
I went back to book another seat on the same flight and saw that the time has changed, it has been moved back by 4 and a half hours which is very inconvenient.
Ryanair have not 'notified' us of the change, there has been no email or anything like that.
I had assumed that we could get a refund but, looking at their terms and conditions, they can change the flight by up to 5 hours without any requirement for compensation, notification or anything.
That just isn't acceptable in my view, but it is what happens.

Never. Fly. Ryanair.

I flew with them recently for a research meeting in Germany, and they were fine. Punctual and efficient if you check in online and take only hand luggage. You get what you pay for and you don't pay much.

ydoethur

pigeon said:

After Penny Mordaunt's intervention on benefit uprating, more open defiance from the cabinet:

King Charles should attend the upcoming climate change conference COP27, the president of last year's summit and member of Liz Truss's cabinet has said.

Alok Sharma was responding to a report which claimed the prime minister had "ordered" the King not to attend.

Buckingham Palace later confirmed the King will not attend the summit in Egypt next month.

Mr Sharma said the King had championed the environment for decades and other countries wanted him to attend.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63136131

If she cannot enforce something so basic as collective cabinet responsibility, she’s finished. Whether she is technically still PM or not.

This has been astonishing to watch. I knew she wasn’t going to be another Pitt the Younger but I never thought she’d be a greater disaster than Anthony Eden.

Nigelb

Scott_xP said:

Asked to describe how the Tory conference has gone, foreign secretary James Cleverly says: "Brilliant. The atmosphere's fantastic."

Er ...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-conference-chaos-as-cabinet-ministers-condemn-tax-u-turn_uk_633c4fe4e4b02816452e353f

From The Times

One veteran of Conservative conferences going back to the 1990s said they were always a good indication of the mood of the party, adding that it felt “terminal”.

For the PM or the party ?

Foxy

Nigelb said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

"But I was right about the necklace..."

She certainly is booking herself a good thrashing!

RochdalePioneers

DougSeal said:

darkage said:

Totally off topic but may be of interest.
I booked a flight on Ryanair for 2 months time, departing around midday.
I went back to book another seat on the same flight and saw that the time has changed, it has been moved back by 4 and a half hours which is very inconvenient.
Ryanair have not 'notified' us of the change, there has been no email or anything like that.
I had assumed that we could get a refund but, looking at their terms and conditions, they can change the flight by up to 5 hours without any requirement for compensation, notification or anything.
That just isn't acceptable in my view, but it is what happens.

Never. Fly. Ryanair.

Why? Ryanair are great. Good leg room at stupid prices. The whole point in flying with them and getting minimal protections is that the price of a ticket is largely peanuts - its low risk if you change your mind or arse you about.

eek

Nigelb said:

Scott_xP said:

Asked to describe how the Tory conference has gone, foreign secretary James Cleverly says: "Brilliant. The atmosphere's fantastic."

Er ...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-conference-chaos-as-cabinet-ministers-condemn-tax-u-turn_uk_633c4fe4e4b02816452e353f

From The Times

One veteran of Conservative conferences going back to the 1990s said they were always a good indication of the mood of the party, adding that it felt “terminal”.

For the PM or the party ?

Probably both

Nigelb

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

RochdalePioneers

On topic, what really bugs the wail isn't the attempt to derail Truss. They have no interest in Truss. The number one editorial priority for the newspaper is get Paul Dacre a seat in the Lords. That's it.

They were loyal to that lying crook long after they turned into a parody - remember the 10 days of front pages about Starmer's curry? If Truss goes, or even if the vultures keep circling, that delays the Boris resignation honours containing ermine for Dacre.

So they will do anything they can, anything at all, to shore her up.

Scott_xP

Nigelb said:

For the PM or the party ?

Daniel Finkelstein's column in The Times today may serve as an obituary...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-must-brace-for-a-rout-worse-than-1997-28sblqpz0

Foxy

The death of a political party, filmed up close for the first time ever. It’s like an Attenborough film about extinction.

https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1577322900398317569?t=K-YS2JX40STt3kQ0XK30Rg&s=19

Great video clip of Coffey, who seems to have discovered the cure for insomnia.

Foxy

Nigelb said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

I suspect a lot of others have gone to ground internally. Time for a hunting trip Vanya, see you in the spring...

Selebian

Who is 'Hugh'? Looks very similar in style and format to Matt.

Good to see the Mail still gets Meghan on the front page.

Scott_xP

Cabinet ministers privately think a general election next year is inevitable as the Conservatives are an “ungovernable rabble”.

But after days of civil war at Birmingham conference, Truss will double down on her dash to grow the economy with tax cuts.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20007587/liz-truss-salvage-tory-party-conference/

Cicero

Nigelb said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

They may well be initially shout louder, but the weakness of Russia is now obvious and they are going to need friends. Keep Putin means no change, and Russia badly needs to change.

I was also trying to translate the pun in "mogilisatsya", I think "Morguelisation" is the closest.

JosiasJessop

Nigelb said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

They might be 'worse' tan Putin, but they still have to deal with the realities of the situation. Anyone taking power after Putin would have to offer their supporters (and they won't be lone eagles) something, and that would have to be 'different' from Putin's offering.

It's also much easier for someone new to chart a reverse course of de-escalation, rather than Putin's continuous escalations. It'd be easy to paint the whole Ukraine mess as 'Putin's gamble' or 'Putin's mistake'.

In the short term, I cannot see anyone taking over from Putin as being 'worse' for us than Putin - as they'll have to deal with reality.

Pro_Rata

Scott_xP said:

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

That Guardian article nails it. In fact Truss herself would be able to pick a lot of truth out of it.

She has come to fore with a choice. Safely steer in the hope of winning the next election against the prevailing winds or to go for it.

As a monomaniacal ideological small state libertarian (is there any other kind) she has decided, of course, to go for it. Her PMship is imagined as a two year moonshot.

A budget that forces the hand of cuts (and £200bn on a one off scheme helps that), without the OBR being allowed to say so, is just the ticket for month one.

Perhaps they hoped, with a nod and a wink, that the pub small statism of individual city traders meant the collective would get it. Or perhaps they could take a fiscal crisis as
helpful.

Whatever, slash and burn the state, regulations as much as you can, see what sticks, see what is left by 2024.

Hope by 2024 that Labour is going to need so much super glue and without the money to buy much, that the small deregulated state becomes the defacto reality.

There isn't time to make it all work, Truss need only concern herself with the breakage.

Ideologically, two years of bull in a China shop, wrecking enough that it will be hard to put back together, suits Truss to the ground.

Who cares if the Tories get destroyed in the process. They will have done what they set out to do.

Nigelb

Scott_xP said:

Senior MP urges Tories not to quit and gives Liz Truss until Christmas https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/05/senior-mp-urges-tories-not-to-quit-and-gives-liz-truss-until-christmas?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

David David was on R4 this morning spouting the same guff.
If they don't move now, they'll face the impossible choice if changing leaders with no time for the replacement to turn things around, or sticking with a PM who, they'll come to realise, is going to lead them to electoral annihilation.

Bad investors make the same mistake of not cutting their losses early, in the vain hope things might improve.

CD13

I'm beginnng to feel sorry for Liz Truss.

I called her 'gottle-a-geer' from the beginning, but I fear she's ill-suited to politics, rather than malevolent. Of course, I'm usually wrong.

Scott_xP

James Cleverly says Truss reforms are like “bitter tasting medicine” that people won’t necessarily like even though it’s good for them in the long term (on Times Radio). Pitching the UK as being a sick person that needs a cure
https://twitter.com/rowenamason/status/1577548224545554433


The sickness is of course the swivel-eyed loons running the Government

Ratters

On a side note, expect the pensions industry fiasco to start hitting headlines again in the next couple of weeks.

Fund managers across the industry continue to be forced to sell assets as quickly as they can to improve pension scheme liquidity. But will it be enough to stop another run on the gilt market later in the month? We'll see.

Foxy

Pro_Rata said:

Scott_xP said:

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

That Guardian article nails it. In fact Truss herself would be able to pick a lot of truth out of it.

She has come to fore with a choice. Safely steer in the hope of winning the next election against the prevailing winds or to go for it.

As a monomaniacal ideological small state libertarian (is there any other kind) she has decided, of course, to go for it. Her PMship is imagined as a two year moonshot.

A budget that forces the hand of cuts (and £200bn on a one off scheme helps that), without the OBR being allowed to say do, is just the ticket for month one.

Perhaps they hoped, with a nod and a wink, that the pub small statism of individual city traders meant the collective would get it. Or perhaps they could take a fiscal crisis as
helpful.

Whatever, slash and burn the state, regulations as much as you can, see what sticks, see what is left by 2024.

Hope by 2024 that Labour is going to need so much super glue and without the money to buy much, that the small deregulated state becomes the defacto reality.

There isn't time to make it all work, Truss need only concern herself with the breakage.

Ideologically, two years of bull in a China shop, wrecking enough that it will be hard to put back together, suits Truss to the ground.

Who cares if the Tories get destroyed in the process. They did what they set out to do.

Yes, I think that broadly her plan. A scorched earth Libertarianism to smash the welfare state beyond repair.

As the Anarchist aphorism goes: To build we must first destroy...

edmundintokyo

Does anyone know of a good English-language source (twitter or a blog or whatever) on Russian politics? I feel like when/how a country's regime is going to change isn't something you can deduce from first principles, you have to actually know about politics in that country. And obviously in situations like this people are prone to wish fulfillment.

Nigelb

.

JosiasJessop said:

Nigelb said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

They might be 'worse' tan Putin, but they still have to deal with the realities of the situation. Anyone taking power after Putin would have to offer their supporters (and they won't be lone eagles) something, and that would have to be 'different' from Putin's offering.

It's also much easier for someone new to chart a reverse course of de-escalation, rather than Putin's continuous escalations. It'd be easy to paint the whole Ukraine mess as 'Putin's gamble' or 'Putin's mistake'.

In the short term, I cannot see anyone taking over from Putin as being 'worse' for us than Putin - as they'll have to deal with reality.

You could well be right about that, in the short term (though it will still be a dangerous moment when it comes).
I was thinking more from Russia's own POV.
It's easy to imagine a more repressive regime than Putin's, bad as that is.

DougSeal

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

Scott_xP

Foxy said:

As the Anarchist aphorism goes: To build we must first destroy...

If you want to rebuild from the rubble, first there has to be rubble...

RochdalePioneers

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

Her problem with that is that she keeps saying she has cut energy bills. She has DOUBLED them. The £2,500 cap is double what it was last winter. So every time they stupidly and increasingly patronisingly say they have cut bills, they sink their public perception a little lower.

darkage

Pro_Rata said:

Scott_xP said:

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

That Guardian article nails it. In fact Truss herself would be able to pick a lot of truth out of it.

She has come to fore with a choice. Safely steer in the hope of winning the next election against the prevailing winds or to go for it.

As a monomaniacal ideological small state libertarian (is there any other kind) she has decided, of course, to go for it. Her PMship is imagined as a two year moonshot.

A budget that forces the hand of cuts (and £200bn on a one off scheme helps that), without the OBR being allowed to say so, is just the ticket for month one.

Perhaps they hoped, with a nod and a wink, that the pub small statism of individual city traders meant the collective would get it. Or perhaps they could take a fiscal crisis as
helpful.

Whatever, slash and burn the state, regulations as much as you can, see what sticks, see what is left by 2024.

Hope by 2024 that Labour is going to need so much super glue and without the money to buy much, that the small deregulated state becomes the defacto reality.

There isn't time to make it all work, Truss need only concern herself with the breakage.

Ideologically, two years of bull in a China shop, wrecking enough that it will be hard to put back together, suits Truss to the ground.

Who cares if the Tories get destroyed in the process. They will have done what they set out to do.

This may have been the plan, but as we can now see, it won't work because Tory MP's are not behind it. So it can't be enacted. As far as I can see, there is no hope for the plan because Truss has no authority amongst Tory MP's. My best guess is that we will just get a zombie government, Theresa May style, lurching from crisis to crisis until 2025.

DougSeal

Foxy said:

Pro_Rata said:

Scott_xP said:

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

That Guardian article nails it. In fact Truss herself would be able to pick a lot of truth out of it.

She has come to fore with a choice. Safely steer in the hope of winning the next election against the prevailing winds or to go for it.

As a monomaniacal ideological small state libertarian (is there any other kind) she has decided, of course, to go for it. Her PMship is imagined as a two year moonshot.

A budget that forces the hand of cuts (and £200bn on a one off scheme helps that), without the OBR being allowed to say do, is just the ticket for month one.

Perhaps they hoped, with a nod and a wink, that the pub small statism of individual city traders meant the collective would get it. Or perhaps they could take a fiscal crisis as
helpful.

Whatever, slash and burn the state, regulations as much as you can, see what sticks, see what is left by 2024.

Hope by 2024 that Labour is going to need so much super glue and without the money to buy much, that the small deregulated state becomes the defacto reality.

There isn't time to make it all work, Truss need only concern herself with the breakage.

Ideologically, two years of bull in a China shop, wrecking enough that it will be hard to put back together, suits Truss to the ground.

Who cares if the Tories get destroyed in the process. They did what they set out to do.

Yes, I think that broadly her plan. A scorched earth Libertarianism to smash the welfare state beyond repair.

As the Anarchist aphorism goes: To build we must first destroy...

She spent a couple of weeks in the Oxford University Socialist Workers, before moving onto the OU Lib Dems, joining the Tories, backing Remain, then Brexit, then May, then
Johnson. Her political journey does not suggest, to me anyway, the fixed ideology (or even plan) that many ascribe to her. Her plan was to become PM. I don’t see much beyond that.

DavidL

The rate of collapse of Russian forces in Ukraine is increasing, particularly in Kherson but also in the east: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/4/2126969/-Ukraine-update-Russian-defensive-lines-are-reportedly-broken-as-Ukraine-moves-for-Berislav

It seems as if the logistical shortages west of the Dneiper river, combined with a slighly bizarre lack of radio contact between Russian forces, is causing the abandonment of position after position with ever less actual fighting. Within days we are likely to see a more fundamental collapse and much larger scale surrenders.

Which will, of course, be the moment of maximum danger. It is quite clear that Putin's recent gambles have failed. The entire province of Kharkiv will soon be back in Ukranian hands yet this is supposed to be mother Russia. The shambles of the mobilisation has simply shown another level of Russian incompetence and increasing domestic resistance. Putin is trapped, humiliated and desperate. If he continues in power (and domestic terror is one of his skills) I fear that the use of nuclear weapons becomes probable. Only an internal coup reduces the risk to moderate. This should be getting far more attention than it is. I think people still think that at some point we are going to have a bloody stalemate and time. We are not.

StillWaters

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Why would Ukrainians be travelling over the Estonia-Russian border? Wouldn’t there be more direct routes?

logical_song

RochdalePioneers said:

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

Her problem with that is that she keeps saying she has cut energy bills. She has DOUBLED them. The £2,500 cap is double what it was last winter. So every time they stupidly and increasingly patronisingly say they have cut bills, they sink their public perception a little lower.

...and, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the £ sinking against the $ caused by her policies put up energy costs further.

eek

logical_song said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

Her problem with that is that she keeps saying she has cut energy bills. She has DOUBLED them. The £2,500 cap is double what it was last winter. So every time they stupidly and increasingly patronisingly say they have cut bills, they sink their public perception a little lower.

...and, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the £ sinking against the $ caused by her policies put up energy costs further.

Yep - gas is sold on the international market - so the market price is in $s...

Of course the £ has rebounded a bit over the past few days, the unknown question is has the market turned or is it simply a temporary bounce before a bigger down wave...

TimS

Nigelb said:

.

JosiasJessop said:

Nigelb said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Yes, I think the Russians themselves have said it's over 750k who've fled, so the estimate seems reasonable.
Will any big changes within Russia be for the better, though ? Absent a wholesale revolution, those likely to seize power might be worse than Putin.

They might be 'worse' tan Putin, but they still have to deal with the realities of the situation. Anyone taking power after Putin would have to offer their supporters (and they won't be lone eagles) something, and that would have to be 'different' from Putin's offering.

It's also much easier for someone new to chart a reverse course of de-escalation, rather than Putin's continuous escalations. It'd be easy to paint the whole Ukraine mess as 'Putin's gamble' or 'Putin's mistake'.

In the short term, I cannot see anyone taking over from Putin as being 'worse' for us than Putin - as they'll have to deal with reality.

You could well be right about that, in the short term (though it will still be a dangerous moment when it comes).
I was thinking more from Russia's own POV.
It's easy to imagine a more repressive regime than Putin's, bad as that is.

I certainly can’t see there being a liberal pro-Western regime there anytime soon. The population are going to be in a revanchist mood for a while. Unlike in Iran where it really does feel there is a popular groundswell of opinion (at least in cities) for something a bit more modern.

Maybe Argentina after the Falklands is a useful precedent. Galtieri was pushed out, the country gave up any expansionist military plans, but it continued to be both badly governed and fiercely resentful of the British claim on the Falklands until, well, until this day.

Foxy

StillWaters said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Why would Ukrainians be travelling over the Estonia-Russian border? Wouldn’t there be more direct routes?

Ukrainians deported after filtration camps in Mariopol and other occupied territories have made their way out to the EU after a period in Russia via that and other routes.

Scott_xP

"It is not democratic to try to impose your plans on an unwilling electorate, no matter how much cleverer you think you are."

@Martha_Gill on how Liz Truss has forgotten Brexit's only important lesson. https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/10/liz-truss-brexit-important-ordinary-voters?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1664889766-6

TimS

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

OnlyLivingBoy

DougSeal said:

Foxy said:

Pro_Rata said:

Scott_xP said:

Interesting point in the Guardian article linked earlier

It is significant that neither she nor Kwarteng have experience of opposition. Both became MPs in 2010. Their paths to power were beaten smooth by the previous generation of Tory “modernisers”. They benefited from the work that David Cameron put into decontaminating the “nasty party” brand, but they didn’t taste enough bitter defeat to learn a proper dread of the old toxin.

That Guardian article nails it. In fact Truss herself would be able to pick a lot of truth out of it.

She has come to fore with a choice. Safely steer in the hope of winning the next election against the prevailing winds or to go for it.

As a monomaniacal ideological small state libertarian (is there any other kind) she has decided, of course, to go for it. Her PMship is imagined as a two year moonshot.

A budget that forces the hand of cuts (and £200bn on a one off scheme helps that), without the OBR being allowed to say do, is just the ticket for month one.

Perhaps they hoped, with a nod and a wink, that the pub small statism of individual city traders meant the collective would get it. Or perhaps they could take a fiscal crisis as
helpful.

Whatever, slash and burn the state, regulations as much as you can, see what sticks, see what is left by 2024.

Hope by 2024 that Labour is going to need so much super glue and without the money to buy much, that the small deregulated state becomes the defacto reality.

There isn't time to make it all work, Truss need only concern herself with the breakage.

Ideologically, two years of bull in a China shop, wrecking enough that it will be hard to put back together, suits Truss to the ground.

Who cares if the Tories get destroyed in the process. They did what they set out to do.

Yes, I think that broadly her plan. A scorched earth Libertarianism to smash the welfare state beyond repair.

As the Anarchist aphorism goes: To build we must first destroy...

She spent a couple of weeks in the Oxford University Socialist Workers, before moving onto the OU Lib Dems, joining the Tories, backing Remain, then Brexit, then May, then
Johnson. Her political journey does not suggest, to me anyway, the fixed ideology (or even plan) that many ascribe to her. Her plan was to become PM. I don’t see much beyond that.

I enjoyed reading about the early stages of her ideological journey. To be so obnoxious that even a bunch of Oxford University Trots think you're a twat almost feels like an achievement.

Foxy

TimS said:

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

Quite blustery warm and wet. The tail end of hurricane Ian?

DavidL

logical_song said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

Her problem with that is that she keeps saying she has cut energy bills. She has DOUBLED them. The £2,500 cap is double what it was last winter. So every time they stupidly and increasingly patronisingly say they have cut bills, they sink their public perception a little lower.

...and, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the £ sinking against the $ caused by her policies put up energy costs further.

Well it would if it was happening but Sterling is currently $1.14 and has performed quite strongly in recent days so the effect, if anything, is the reverse. Gas in dollars is roughly 10% cheaper than it was at the bottom of Sterling's collapse. The volatility of the gas price itself remains a much bigger factor though. It is back off the peaks seen when the pipeline was blown up but still high.

Jonathan

The curious thing about Truss’s energy announcement that she is desperate to receive credit for is that originally she didn’t want to do it, but was forced into it by events and the opposition.

edmundintokyo

StillWaters said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Why would Ukrainians be travelling over the Estonia-Russian border? Wouldn’t there be more direct routes?

For instance see this account, they're from Donetsk which the Russians are occupying so presumably it's hard to go via Kiev what with a war zone in the way.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Eesti/comments/xtgul6/crossing_the_ivangorod_narva_border_as_a/

Scott_xP

Suella Braverman is what happens if you feed Priti Patel after midnight.
#CPC22
https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1577373106653511696

DavidL

TimS said:

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

Probably doing more for gas bills right now than all the government interventions put together.

Scott_xP

Did @JamesCleverly actually just say that if people didn't listen to Liz Truss that is their problem, not hers? Different planet.
https://twitter.com/Alison_McGovern/status/1577560000653938689

TimS

DavidL said:

TimS said:

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

Probably doing more for gas bills right now than all the government interventions put together.

That and German industry helpfully reining in its energy use significantly, and some decent wind power across Northern Europe this week.

Dura_Ace

edmundintokyo said:

Does anyone know of a good English-language source (twitter or a blog or whatever) on Russian politics? I feel like when/how a country's regime is going to change isn't something you can deduce from first principles, you have to actually know about politics in that country. And obviously in situations like this people are prone to wish fulfillment.

There isn't one as far as I know. Many English language writers on Russian politics are in the pay of one side or another. Maybe Yevgenia Albats once but she's now clearly pushing a pro-Navalny line in an attempt to rehabilitate him in the west from Islamophobic hyper-nationalist to anti-corruption crusader. Everybody's second favourite geordie after Cummings, Fiona Hill, is very knowledgeable and realistic but doesn't write articles very frequently. Probably insufficiently hysterically Russophobe for most on here.

Even if they could be found I don't they would help more than marginally. Imagine how good your understanding of British politics would be if you only had Russian language sources

DavidL

TimS said:

DavidL said:

TimS said:

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

Probably doing more for gas bills right now than all the government interventions put together.

That and German industry helpfully reining in its energy use significantly, and some decent wind power across Northern Europe this week.

Indeed, we are down to 30 odd % for gas production of power right now and that includes some fairly significant exports of energy to western Europe through the interconnectors. No doubt this (relatively) good news will dominate BBC coverage today.

StillWaters

Foxy said:

StillWaters said:

Cicero said:

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The current estimate of Russian men fleeing the "mogilisatsya" is now close to a million. Clearly many people in Russia are beginning to understand the propaganda is garbage. Perhaps more to the point, several sectors of the Russian economy are on the brink of collapse as the result of the exodus.

Of the few hapless conscripts who even make it in theatre, lack of training, equipment or supplies will just make them Ukrainian speed bumps. As front after front gives way, we are watching the greatest disaster in Russian military history and there is no effective means for the Russians to fix their problems within any kind of timeline that prevents defeat. Any nuclear operation will most likely accelerate the collapse and guarantee Russian pariah status for generations, even if it were to stabilize the front now (which it is unlikely to).

Still the petty acts of spite and cruelty continue: Ukrainian refugees at the Estonian border are being delayed for days while they are interrogated by the Russians, routine torture continues in Ukraine, insults and bile drip from the Russian media. The murders of civilians are just the icing on a litany of war crimes that match those of the Nazis.

Yet, increasingly, Putin is losing the war and losing the Russians. We sense big changes are coming, and possibly quite soon.

Why would Ukrainians be travelling over the Estonia-Russian border? Wouldn’t there be more direct routes?

Ukrainians deported after filtration camps in Mariopol and other occupied territories have made their way out to the EU after a period in Russia via that and other routes.

Thx

Benpointer

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

She'd be getting a bit more credit for controlling the energy price cap if she hadn't spent the summer ruling one out:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/trusss-attacks-on-sturgeon-likely-to-dominate-scottish-hustings

(Those turning to Sunak as the voice of reason should remember he also ruled out a freeze.)

RochdalePioneers

DavidL said:

TimS said:

DavidL said:

TimS said:

A preternaturally mild night and morning. 17C when I woke up.

Probably doing more for gas bills right now than all the government interventions put together.

That and German industry helpfully reining in its energy use significantly, and some decent wind power across Northern Europe this week.

Indeed, we are down to 30 odd % for gas production of power right now and that includes some fairly significant exports of energy to western Europe through the interconnectors. No doubt this (relatively) good news will dominate BBC coverage today.

Why should it? You want the Beeb to suggest people should be thanking Truss?

Nope, that's not how this works at all. This is the (oddly warm) calm before the storms of winter, not a "we're saved!!!" event.

JamesF

In Moscow's Shadow

Mark Galleoti's blog/Twitter/podcast series. Seriously well informed

His blog also has a blog roll that I haven't explored.

Benpointer

Dura_Ace said:

edmundintokyo said:

Does anyone know of a good English-language source (twitter or a blog or whatever) on Russian politics? I feel like when/how a country's regime is going to change isn't something you can deduce from first principles, you have to actually know about politics in that country. And obviously in situations like this people are prone to wish fulfillment.

There isn't one as far as I know. Many English language writers on Russian politics are in the pay of one side or another. Maybe Yevgenia Albats once but she's now clearly pushing a pro-Navalny line in an attempt to rehabilitate him in the west from Islamophobic hyper-nationalist to anti-corruption crusader. Everybody's second favourite geordie after Cummings, Fiona Hill, is very knowledgeable and realistic but doesn't write articles very frequently. Probably insufficiently hysterically Russophobe for most on here.

Even if they could be found I don't they would help more than marginally. Imagine how good your understanding of British politics would be if you only had Russian language sources

How do you see things playing out over the coming weeks Dura?

Roger

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she was presumably aiming for.

.....Oh no it wasn't!

(It was the gross ugliness of her and her party's policies which they have finally been called out on)

northern_monkey

Cold War Steve nails it again.



https://twitter.com/coldwarsteve/status/1577563676575408128?s=46&t=z4_-DW1zoRXP2FN5UvOvOA

Nigelb

Good article on the potential for the use of machine vision as a diagnostic tool.
Enormous potential, with caveats.

The amazing power of "machine eyes"
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-amazing-power-of-machine-eyes
...Now, with such advances, there have to be caveats and limitations acknowledged. Except for the few randomized trials noted (enhanced ECG and colonoscopy), all of these reports are based on retrospective analyses. While these are useful, in silico analysis of complete, “cleaned” datasets is quite different from prospective assessment on the real world of clinical medicine. Accordingly, results of retrospective reports should be considered as hypotheses-generating and need to be confirmed by either prospective and/or randomized clinical trials.

The other concern is the centering on man vs machine, which is an outgrowth of the world of AI dating back well before Garry Kasparov took on Deep Blue for chess in 1997. While it is convincing that machines “see” things that expert clinicians can’t see from multiple studies, there’s been no assessment of what is missed by machines, but detected by humans. In medical practice, the context of seeing the patient, reviewing the records, and much other context is a big edge that is not currently embedded into machine vision of medical images. ...

JosiasJessop

Dura_Ace said:

edmundintokyo said:

Does anyone know of a good English-language source (twitter or a blog or whatever) on Russian politics? I feel like when/how a country's regime is going to change isn't something you can deduce from first principles, you have to actually know about politics in that country. And obviously in situations like this people are prone to wish fulfillment.

There isn't one as far as I know. Many English language writers on Russian politics are in the pay of one side or another. Maybe Yevgenia Albats once but she's now clearly pushing a pro-Navalny line in an attempt to rehabilitate him in the west from Islamophobic hyper-nationalist to anti-corruption crusader. Everybody's second favourite geordie after Cummings, Fiona Hill, is very knowledgeable and realistic but doesn't write articles very frequently. Probably insufficiently hysterically Russophobe for most on here.

Even if they could be found I don't they would help more than marginally. Imagine how good your understanding of British politics would be if you only had Russian language sources

Please don't mistake a dislike of what Russia is doing in Ukraine to 'Russophobia'. I hope to see a rehabilitated Russia under a new leader playing a positive role in world affairs - as it could be doing now, if it was not for Putin's decisions over the last two decades.

DougSeal

Benpointer said:

DougSeal said:

edmundintokyo said:

Heathener said:

@Leon tried to tell us how fantastic Liz Truss was going to be. I assume he has now recanted.

Has there ever, in British history, been a more inept person as Prime Minister? She is absolutely dire. The most godawful, out of depth, useless, zombified, disaster zone in political history:

https://news.sky.com/video/beth-rigby-to-liz-truss-rishi-was-right-wasnt-he-12712006

How the hell did the Conservative membership do this to themselves and us?

(Not a Tory but) I thought she be good too, I think it's my biggest ever miss reading British politics.

Somewhat in her defence I think she had some bad luck as well as bad judgement, in that a bunch of other factors aligned to make the markets freak out the way they did. It was the market freak-out that put her firmly in the "dumb ideologue wrecking the economy" box and destroyed all hope of the "bold fresh leader sweeping all opposition aside" vibe she
was presumably aiming for.

The market freak-out wasn’t bad luck. Sunak (amongst many others) predicted it and she dismissed that prediction as “Project Fear”. So it was bad judgment on her part. As was the 45p fiasco, which was unnecessary even if you take all the other measures at face value.

I will, though, concede that the Queen’s passing overshadowing her energy cap announcement could be regarded as bad luck for Truss. Which is why, in every single interview, she answers nearly every single question with a reference to it. But even if the Queen has not passed at that time, the markets would still have had a freak-out at what came subsequently.

She'd be getting a bit more credit for controlling the energy price cap if she hadn't spent the summer ruling one out:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/16/trusss-attacks-on-sturgeon-likely-to-dominate-scottish-hustings

(Those turning to Sunak as the voice of reason should remember he also ruled out a freeze.)

Sunak is no voice of reason, and I hope you don’t think I’m a supporter, but even he predicted the market reaction.

Dura_Ace

Benpointer said:

Dura_Ace said:

edmundintokyo said:

Does anyone know of a good English-language source (twitter or a blog or whatever) on Russian politics? I feel like when/how a country's regime is going to change isn't something you can deduce from first principles, you have to actually know about politics in that country. And obviously in situations like this people are prone to wish fulfillment.

There isn't one as far as I know. Many English language writers on Russian politics are in the pay of one side or another. Maybe Yevgenia Albats once but she's now clearly pushing a pro-Navalny line in an attempt to rehabilitate him in the west from Islamophobic hyper-nationalist to anti-corruption crusader. Everybody's second favourite geordie after Cummings, Fiona Hill, is very knowledgeable and realistic but doesn't write articles very frequently. Probably insufficiently hysterically Russophobe for most on here.

Even if they could be found I don't they would help more than marginally. Imagine how good your understanding of British politics would be if you only had Russian language sources

How do you see things playing out over the coming weeks Dura?

Fucked if I know. Probably disappointing to both sides in different ways.

kle4

Nigelb said:

This is an interesting article which details how Putin is no longer fully in charge of how events are perceived in Russia.
That’s quite a dangerous development for him - and by extension potentially for us, too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2
… The Kremlin’s declaration of partial mobilization exposed the general Russian public to the consequences of the defeat around Kharkiv and then at Lyman, shattering the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the war as limited and generally successful. The Russian defeat around Lyman has generated even more confusion and negative reporting in the mainstream Russian information space than had the Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Snake Island, or even Kharkiv. The impact of Lyman is likely greater because Russians now fear being mobilized to fix problems on the battlefield. An independent Russian polling organization, the Levada Center, found that more than half of respondents said that they were afraid that the war in Ukraine could lead to general mobilization, whereas the majority of respondents had not voiced such concerns in February 2022.[10] Russians also likely see that the Kremlin is executing the current partial mobilization – which was supposed to be a limited call-up of qualified reservists – in an illegal and deceptive manner, which places more men at the risk of being mobilized to reinforce collapsing frontlines.

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship, especially after the Kremlin adopted a law that threatens Russians with up to 15 years in jail for “discrediting the army.”…

The Kremlin was trying to claim only 5k had died, but also that mobilization was necessary to defend and liberate mother Russia.

Whilst much propaganda messaging can be in conflict with each other, their current efforts seem too confused, halfway between 'its going great' and 'we are in an existential fight with the West'.