That seems overly pessimistic to me on several fronts (no pun intended). What is clear is that it is Russia that is back on the offensive everywhere except the Dnipro river crossing and even there there seems to be a counterattack. The confident assertions that Russia was going to run out of men, shells, artillery and missiles have all proved to be false.
The American style war focusing on the opponents logistics has also failed to blunt the attacks. Instead Ukraine seem to be switching to hitting more targets within Russia itself, trying to bring home to Russians the price of war. This does seem to have had an effect on the polling but they are not fighting a democracy or anything like one.
I am not sure how long it can go on like this. Sooner rather than later one or perhaps both sides will simply be exhausted. It is by no means a given that Ukraine will be first to reach that point but it may well be possible.
The secondary point of the strikes into Russia, IMHO, is that a number of Russian regime friendly pundits have suggested that they will continue A War Of The Cities (bombarding Ukrainian cities and infrastructure) no matter what the outcome of the war. Ukraine is making clear that this is a two way thing.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
Don't know if you have noticed - have been busy - but Mr Wallis's blog has a new posting in re the session yesterday (I think). Worth a read, as it concerns the issue of conspiracy.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
It's a tricky area, there's a balance to strike, and I think we have it about right. There are exceptions, for sure there are, each to be called out and condemned, as indeed I myself sometimes do, but given I think 'under threat' is an exaggeration you can imagine what I think about 'dead'.
I'm not one of those 'one way merchants' you (rightly) complain about btw. I simply do not believe in untrammelled free speech. I think it's a bad thing. If you want my honest opinion I reckon that fulminating about free speech being under mortal threat here in the UK is mainly just virtue-signalling by rather precious 'muscular liberal' types who don't have enough to worry about.
Don't know if you have noticed - have been busy - but Mr Wallis's blog has a new posting in re the session yesterday (I think). Worth a read, as it concerns the issue of conspiracy.
That’s very good. I really want to see prosecutions here. Jason Beer KC also deserves to be Sir Jason, he’s been brilliant at tearing the PO witnesses apart.
Jason Beer: Was it your view that POL should just grit its teeth and get on with prosecuting people? Rob Wilson: I think so, yes. Jason Beer: Just carry on regardless? Rob Wilson: Well… Jason Beer: More important than whether or not there was a problem with the system was public relations and cost? Rob Wilson: Well, I didn’t believe that we had a problem with the system because of the Rod Ismay report. In 2012, Wilson’s essentially mad position was overruled by Crichton, who brought in the independent investigators Second Sight who, under great pressure, eventually blew the whole scandal open.
I’m in a Bangkok gogo bar doing intersectional reseatch for a university and it’s full of couples watching the topless (and sometims naked) girls gyrate in the swimming pool bit and it’s full of COUPLES
Not just couples. Indian couples. Rich Indians. Weird
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
It is screamingly obvious there will be a full on extremist government jn the west within a decade or so
You could argue Trump was fairly close. Closer than Meloni. Orban is close
And it might not be extreme right - could be left. Certainly don’t rule it out. Everything is pushing politics towards the edges - tho my hunch is far right is much more likely because so much of the pressure is from migration and from the woke left pushing red buttons
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
It's a tricky area, there's a balance to strike, and I think we have it about right. There are exceptions, for sure there are, each to be called out and condemned, as indeed I myself sometimes do, but given I think 'under threat' is an exaggeration you can imagine what I think about 'dead'.
I'm not one of those 'one way merchants' you (rightly) complain about btw. I simply do not believe in untrammelled free speech. I think it's a bad thing. If you want my honest opinion I reckon that fulminating about free speech being under mortal threat here in the UK is mainly just virtue-signalling by rather precious 'muscular liberal' types who don't have enough to worry about.
Personslly I don't think it's a tricky area at all. There have long been laws coverng incitement, endangerment and libel/slander. Apart from that (and I believe even some of those are too strict), I don't believe we should have any laws curtailing free speech. I certainly don't believe anyone has the right to be protected from being offended, nor should people be protected from views they might not like..
There have been a number of posters on PB who have held views I find thoroughly offensive - beating up grannies for daring to vote is one that immediately springs to mind - but I would never call for them to be banned or prevented from expressing their opinion. People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats.
I honestly don't know why Boris doesn't trumpet his Ukrainian support more, make it the centrepiece of his post premiership career, when the Russians themselves seem to bolster his importance.
Lavrov claimed that initial agreements with Ukraine were reached in late March in Istanbul, following negotiations.
However, the situation changed after Boris Johnson's visit.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
It's a tricky area, there's a balance to strike, and I think we have it about right. There are exceptions, for sure there are, each to be called out and condemned, as indeed I myself sometimes do, but given I think 'under threat' is an exaggeration you can imagine what I think about 'dead'.
I'm not one of those 'one way merchants' you (rightly) complain about btw. I simply do not believe in untrammelled free speech. I think it's a bad thing. If you want my honest opinion I reckon that fulminating about free speech being under mortal threat here in the UK is mainly just virtue-signalling by rather precious 'muscular liberal' types who don't have enough to worry about.
Personslly I don't think it's a tricky area at all. There have long been laws coverng incitement, endangerment and libel/slander. Apart from that (and I believe even some of those are too strict), I don't believe we should have any laws curtailing free speech. I certainly don't believe anyone has the right to be protected from being offended, nor should people be protected from views they might not like..
There have been a number of posters on PB who have held views I find thoroughly offensive - beating up grannies for daring to vote is one that immediately springs to mind - but I would never call for them to be banned or prevented from expressing their opinion. People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats.
It's an area which can occasionally get slightly complicated in niche cases, but it is not as complicated as people act like it is.
In any case we should all be much more willing to risk acting like twats ourselves, and accept that others can act like twats.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
It's a tricky area, there's a balance to strike, and I think we have it about right. There are exceptions, for sure there are, each to be called out and condemned, as indeed I myself sometimes do, but given I think 'under threat' is an exaggeration you can imagine what I think about 'dead'.
I'm not one of those 'one way merchants' you (rightly) complain about btw. I simply do not believe in untrammelled free speech. I think it's a bad thing. If you want my honest opinion I reckon that fulminating about free speech being under mortal threat here in the UK is mainly just virtue-signalling by rather precious 'muscular liberal' types who don't have enough to worry about.
Personslly I don't think it's a tricky area at all. There have long been laws coverng incitement, endangerment and libel/slander. Apart from that (and I believe even some of those are too strict), I don't believe we should have any laws curtailing free speech. I certainly don't believe anyone has the right to be protected from being offended, nor should people be protected from views they might not like..
There have been a number of posters on PB who have held views I find thoroughly offensive - beating up grannies for daring to vote is one that immediately springs to mind - but I would never call for them to be banned or prevented from expressing their opinion. People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats.
Bemused by the thought of someone holding a view to beat up grannies for daring to vote!
Free speech seems under pressure from the left for thinking people shouldn't be allowed to behave like twats, and from the right for thinking people should definitely be able to behave like twats, but no-one else is allowed to notice or act on them being twats.
Could we replace the whole free speech legislation with "People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats" perhaps?
Comments
NEW THREAD
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/criminal-conspiracy-slowly-joining-the-dots/
I'm not one of those 'one way merchants' you (rightly) complain about btw. I simply do not believe in untrammelled free speech. I think it's a bad thing. If you want my honest opinion I reckon that fulminating about free speech being under mortal threat here in the UK is mainly just virtue-signalling by rather precious 'muscular liberal' types who don't have enough to worry about.
Jason Beer: Was it your view that POL should just grit its teeth and get on with prosecuting people?
Rob Wilson: I think so, yes.
Jason Beer: Just carry on regardless?
Rob Wilson: Well…
Jason Beer: More important than whether or not there was a problem with the system was public relations and cost?
Rob Wilson: Well, I didn’t believe that we had a problem with the system because of the Rod Ismay report.
In 2012, Wilson’s essentially mad position was overruled by Crichton, who brought in the independent investigators Second Sight who, under great pressure, eventually blew the whole scandal open.
You could argue Trump was fairly close. Closer than Meloni. Orban is close
And it might not be extreme right - could be left. Certainly don’t rule it out. Everything is pushing politics towards the edges - tho my hunch is far right is much more likely because so much of the pressure is from migration and from the woke left pushing red buttons
There have been a number of posters on PB who have held views I find thoroughly offensive - beating up grannies for daring to vote is one that immediately springs to mind - but I would never call for them to be banned or prevented from expressing their opinion. People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats.
Lavrov claimed that initial agreements with Ukraine were reached in late March in Istanbul, following negotiations.
However, the situation changed after Boris Johnson's visit.
"Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came and said, 'let's fight a little more.' NATO and the European Union say that we are obliged to support Ukraine," Lavrov stated.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/lavrov-declares-boris-johnson-is-to-blame-for-ongoing-war/ar-AA1kR9Pe?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=4efdfa6ca54b47658aad060b964afdcb&ei=11
In any case we should all be much more willing to risk acting like twats ourselves, and accept that others can act like twats.
Free speech seems under pressure from the left for thinking people shouldn't be allowed to behave like twats, and from the right for thinking people should definitely be able to behave like twats, but no-one else is allowed to notice or act on them being twats.
Could we replace the whole free speech legislation with "People have the absolute right to be twats and to be seen to be twats" perhaps?