It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
What's ridiculous about it? Putin's only way to survive may rapidly become declaring all out war with NATO and hoping he can cling on in a total war setting.
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
No, Putin is bogged down, with his forces unable to take a pit village on the Don. The idea that he is a conventional threat to us is risible. Perhaps slightly more real for Poland and the Baltics, but not us.
Conscription into a citizen army is a nonsense. We have no equipment, accommodation or money to pay them.
Interesting piece in The Observer on why the armed forces can't recruit.
Incidentally, I think citing unjust wars is wrong. People joining the services don't just want to train, they actually want to test themselves in combat and kill. We need some pointless military campaign to keep them interested. Perhaps the Yemen will need to do.
What have those poor souls done wrong? Fought over by proxies for the Saudis and the Iranians, and down you’re wishing gung-ho British squaddies on them.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who are the people? Is 'apparently sensible' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence?
The Swedish government?
Sweden's call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism
It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, “
I see. Sweden have been at war with Peter the Great's Russia, and probably other times I've not read about. Brutal conflict. The Swedish King was very brilliant but they lost in the end. I think it was Sweden invading a bit of Russia from memory but I could be wrong.
Being prepared against an invasion just seems wise to me - we should be similarly prepared. Our Government uses strong words on the one hand and shitcans our one blast furnace making weapons grade steel on the other.
I’m not arguing with any of that. HMG’s attitude to defence has been chaotically bad and stupid for decades
Fighting wars we didn’t actually need to fight - Iraq, then Libya - and at the same time letting our armed forces wither so we can’t face real enemies who menace the UK
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
No, Putin is bogged down, with his forces unable to take a pit village on the Don. The idea that he is a conventional threat to us is risible. Perhaps slightly more real for Poland and the Baltics, but not us.
Conscription into a citizen army is a nonsense. We have no equipment, accommodation or money to pay them.
Interesting piece in The Observer on why the armed forces can't recruit.
Incidentally, I think citing unjust wars is wrong. People joining the services don't just want to train, they actually want to test themselves in combat and kill. We need some pointless military campaign to keep them interested. Perhaps the Yemen will need to do.
Dura_Ace and others have made the same point about recruitment. Lousy pay, worse housing and Ryanair means no need to join up to see the world. Nowadays flights are cheap and soldiers are lucky to see Catterick.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
"It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation. "
There's so much to be said about this, little of it good. Sacking staff *before* an investigation sort-of prejudices the investigation, doesn't it? And what are the terms of the investigation - is it just into the specific direct allegations, or more into the way UNRWA was working in Gaza? And on the other hand, is it valid to stop funds to an organisation that is apparently doing so much good, even if some of what its staff do is bad?
It’s a suspension of funds not the stopping of them permanently. The suspicion is that those who were sacked are scapegoats.
UNRWA vehicles were used by the Oct 7 terrorists. That requires cooperation. The question is how high the rot goes.
It was also pretty disturbing to hear UNRWA’s spokeswoman on the radio this morning describing the suspension of funds as a “collective punishment” for the Palestinian people. That’s a very specific term in this context.
It’s… coincidental that Israel’s allegations towards UNWRA came out just after the ICJ preliminary ruling was issued and was somewhat critical of Israel.
It might be. And haven't UNWRA actually sacked a bunch of people? I don't think it's just baseless Israeli accusations.
I don’t think the accusations are baseless. I think it may be that Israel held back on making them until they wanted a distraction from the ICJ ruling.
I think that is needlessly conspiratorial thinking, and the problem with that kind of thinking is that it's almost always possible to find a hook for it.
If this information had come out around the time the ICJ was hearing the preliminary arguments, it could have been said to be a distraction from that. Or from any number of other events.
By all means do not allow yourself to be distracted from the ICJ ruling. It's important that Israel is held to the instruction to discipline officials who make statements that excuse or encourage genocidal acts, for example.
But once you start down the road of seeing conspiracies you'll start seeing them everywhere.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
What's ridiculous about it? Putin's only way to survive may rapidly become declaring all out war with NATO and hoping he can cling on in a total war setting.
It’s a bit like the pandemic. A ludicrous idea - the whole world locking down for a bug out of a lab? - until it actually happens
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Taiwan aside, why would China want to bite the hand that feeds its economy?
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
How on earth did a ‘young girl’….. presumably teenager ……. manage to get herself in danger of drowning at 4am on a winter morning?
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
How on earth did a ‘young girl’….. presumably teenager ……. manage to get herself in danger of drowning at 4am on a winter morning?
PFO*?
The most common reason for amateur boating drownings is the jetty or tender trip back from the pub.
*"Pissed, Fell Over" as we used to record in medical notes.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
Yes. That’s where I’d invade if I was Vlad
Its not in NATO, it was once part of the USSR, it has a tiny army, he’s got a readymade base in the enclave of transdniester next door
He could probably conquer it in an hour and what would we do? Nothing, I suspect
Moldova is not Ukraine. It could not fight back
With Moldova swallowed he’d also have most of rUkraine surrounded
If this was one solitary hysterical voice the inclination is to ignore it. But this is part of a choir of warnings from multiple sources
The paper also suggests Putin will prevail in Ukraine this spring
Most people in Britain are not going to fight in any war because they have forgotten about it after 80 years. It has died out over 3 generations or so. They then go on to invent stories that reassure themselves, like the green party defence policy, or the idea that the world is peaceful and we are the aggressors. Eventually this all gets culturally embedded and reflected in policy. It can go on ok for a while but is unlikely to end well.
If you look at Russian strategy it is essentially opportunistic and exploiting this cultural weakness. It has vast borders to defend and a military budget a fraction of the size of western countries but it still goes on to opportunistically invade other countries in part because it views itself as a superior civilisation. It thinks that 80% of people would just submit to it and the other 20% can be dealt with.
The western strategy to deal with Russia, given that we are where we are, is to bog it down in Ukraine. Make it defend a fake 'border' far in to Ukraine and keep supporting Ukraine in attacking it. The problem I can foresee is that it ends either when there is a political change of direction (as per afghanistan etc) or the cost eventually becomes too much to bear for Ukraine in terms of hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers with no willing replacements, and then Russia gets its victory.
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
How on earth did a ‘young girl’….. presumably teenager ……. manage to get herself in danger of drowning at 4am on a winter morning?
Good morning @OldKingCole and hope you are well despite your health issues
Our son is popping in later today so no doubt we will hear the full story but it does seem a strange time for an incident like this but no matter, she is now safe
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
How on earth did a ‘young girl’….. presumably teenager ……. manage to get herself in danger of drowning at 4am on a winter morning?
PFO*?
The most common reason for amateur boating drownings is the jetty or tender trip back from the pub.
*"Pissed, Fell Over" as we used to record in medical notes.
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
How on earth did a ‘young girl’….. presumably teenager ……. manage to get herself in danger of drowning at 4am on a winter morning?
PFO*?
The most common reason for amateur boating drownings is the jetty or tender trip back from the pub.
*"Pissed, Fell Over" as we used to record in medical notes.
As someone who lived in a seaside town whilst studying, I remember being actutely aware of the need to avoid going near the water after a night out, no much how good an idea everyone else thought it was.
A couple of times a year, someone would get into trouble to the extent of needing to call out the brigade or the lifeboat, which I imagine was quickly sobering for those involved.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
Who was the 19th cent British politician who commented that (having taken a look at the terrain maps for Russia vs Afghanistan /India) if allowed, the Army would garrison The Moon against an invasion from Mars?
Worth remembering Ukraine was easily defeated in 2014. They then spent years planning and training to make themselves militarily more resilient.
Russia's future military interventions will also not be made with its 2022 military system and approach.
Apart from its use of drones, Russia has largely regressed to WW1 tactics of heavy artillery bombardment then bloody infantry attacks. They seem incapable now with war of manoeuvre, or operations above battalion level. It is simply attrition, where they grind down Ukranian forces.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
Who was the 19th cent British politician who commented that (having taken a look at the terrain maps for Russia vs Afghanistan /India) if allowed, the Army would garrison The Moon against an invasion from Mars?
Reputedly Lord Salisbury. 1905 at the latest, but I don't know if it was before or after the H. G. Wells novel.
Still happens. British armed forces types were complaining about indyref cos it would danage UK defence against alien invasion.
Nadine's just watched a room full of people many of whom say they abandoned the Tories due to Boris Johnson, and still ends the programme arguing that people want Boris Johnson.
"As bad political predictions go George Robertson’s prediction only has Sion Simon as a rival"
Really? What about the Remainer drivel that leaving the EU would cause a house price crash, 3 million unemployed (or was it 5 million - they never seemed sure?), 100,000 job losses in the City, the disintegration of the Union, nobody wanting to deal with us, horrible discrimination against blacks and gay people who clearly owed all their rights to our EU membership, etc. etc?
(Not that the Leave campaign got everything, or even most things, right either - forecasting is inherently difficult when there are lots of moving parts. But the Remainer scare stories really were in a class of their own for disingenous inaccuracy).
Remainers on here were absolutely certain - and gleeful - that London would no longer be the pre-eminent European financial centre. The only question was whether it would be Frankfurt or Paris or Dublin that became the new #1.
Actually it is, increasingly, Dubai. I wouldn't be too optimistic for the longer term in the City unless there is some serious reforms.
It really isn’t
Indeed, and I say that as a patriotic Remainer.
Biggest threat to Financial Services and the City is a government that threatens to castrate an independent judiciary.
Why do people like doing business in the UK? We have courts that will put the government in their box when they overreach.
Language and timezone helps
Nowhere near enough without an independent judiciary.
It’s all important. An independent judiciary is necessary but not sufficient
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
What’s new. Areas like this have been on their own and left to wither for decades now anyway. Treated with barely disguised contempt by politicians across all parties.
It was a major driver of the leave vote in these areas. Economic boom post crash. What economic boom. Areas like these never enjoyed it.
Had prosperity been spread more evenly we would have never voted leave. Still, we did, and remainers need to get over it.
The Remanian independence argument strikes me as being the sort of argument a toddler uses: ‘if we can’t have what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home’
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who are the people? Is 'apparently sensible' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence?
The Swedish government?
Sweden's call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism
It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, “
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Russia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
"It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation. "
There's so much to be said about this, little of it good. Sacking staff *before* an investigation sort-of prejudices the investigation, doesn't it? And what are the terms of the investigation - is it just into the specific direct allegations, or more into the way UNRWA was working in Gaza? And on the other hand, is it valid to stop funds to an organisation that is apparently doing so much good, even if some of what its staff do is bad?
It’s a suspension of funds not the stopping of them permanently. The suspicion is that those who were sacked are scapegoats.
UNRWA vehicles were used by the Oct 7 terrorists. That requires cooperation. The question is how high the rot goes.
It was also pretty disturbing to hear UNRWA’s spokeswoman on the radio this morning describing the suspension of funds as a “collective punishment” for the Palestinian people. That’s a very specific term in this context.
It’s… coincidental that Israel’s allegations towards UNWRA came out just after the ICJ preliminary ruling was issued and was somewhat critical of Israel.
That sounds like an excuse to dismiss the allegations without considering them. Almost like you don’t want to approach this is a fair and just manner. Perhaps you are biased towards one side?
The reality is that the US and UK government moved quickly, suggesting that they had been thinking through the issues for some time. 7 other countries, including Germany, have responded in the same way, suggesting there is a prima facia case.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Putin wants the old USSR back. We all know this.
All his moves over the last 10+ years point to it - he doesn't respect the independent "breakaway" states, and views them as illegitimate - and it's immensely popular in Russia itself, a bit like how China saw the reverse of its humiliations under the Western powers in the 19th and early 20th Century as an essential national mission.
The only thing he (they) will respect is strength and resolve, which is why we have to rearm to 1990 levels and we're going to have to pay more tax for it, I'm afraid.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who are the people? Is 'apparently sensible' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence?
The Swedish government?
Sweden's call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism
It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, “
This wouldn't be happening without serious intelligence of bad intentions.
FWIW, I think it's actually about us all rearming sufficiently to deter Putin, so a war never happens.
Nah, it's being driven by American Republicans stopping further aid to Ukraine and the prospect of Trump in the White House.
They are doing exactly what Putin asks of them. I really cannot understand why @Sandpit supports them rather than Biden, who was Ukraines staunchest supporter.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
This is clear from some of the not so subtle messaging from Sadiq Khan. Labour's forthcoming victory will further embolden him and others of his persuasion.
Although to win a majority labour needs these areas as much as it needs the big cities.
I'm thinking more of what will happen after, rather than before, the election.
Khan has bee a mediocre mayor at best. It is utterly bizarre that the Tories chose Susan Hall as their candidate. She is his best chance of holding on.
CCHQ does not want to play by the rules. Unfortunately, its record at putting its thumb on the scale is mixed, to say the least. Susan Hall is Mayoral candidate after a failed attempt to rig the selection process for a Cameroon candidate who withdrew. We've already mentioned photo ID, and it lost the Brexit referendum after making it harder for Labour-leaning young people to vote.
What are your thoughts about the extension of the registration period ahead of the Brexit vote?
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
What’s new. Areas like this have been on their own and left to wither for decades now anyway. Treated with barely disguised contempt by politicians across all parties.
It was a major driver of the leave vote in these areas. Economic boom post crash. What economic boom. Areas like these never enjoyed it.
Had prosperity been spread more evenly we would have never voted leave. Still, we did, and remainers need to get over it.
The Remanian independence argument strikes me as being the sort of argument a toddler uses: ‘if we can’t have what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home’
In that sense, it's rather similar to Brexit. Both share a similar logic and destructiveness.
@PippaCrerar Kemi Badenoch hits out at Tory plotters for “stirring” by suggesting she could replace Rishi Sunak, telling @bbclaurak that PMs “cannot be treated as disposable”.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
This is clear from some of the not so subtle messaging from Sadiq Khan. Labour's forthcoming victory will further embolden him and others of his persuasion.
Although to win a majority labour needs these areas as much as it needs the big cities.
I'm thinking more of what will happen after, rather than before, the election.
Khan has bee a mediocre mayor at best. It is utterly bizarre that the Tories chose Susan Hall as their candidate. She is his best chance of holding on.
CCHQ does not want to play by the rules. Unfortunately, its record at putting its thumb on the scale is mixed, to say the least. Susan Hall is Mayoral candidate after a failed attempt to rig the selection process for a Cameroon candidate who withdrew. We've already mentioned photo ID, and it lost the Brexit referendum after making it harder for Labour-leaning young people to vote.
What are your thoughts about the extension of the registration period ahead of the Brexit vote?
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
Cameron could have added, as they did in Scotland for SindyRef, 16 to 18 year old voters. But he didn't because he knew he was going to win without them. Because he was a serial winner.
The difference is "They will steal the election and here's the evidence"
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
This is clear from some of the not so subtle messaging from Sadiq Khan. Labour's forthcoming victory will further embolden him and others of his persuasion.
Although to win a majority labour needs these areas as much as it needs the big cities.
I'm thinking more of what will happen after, rather than before, the election.
Khan has bee a mediocre mayor at best. It is utterly bizarre that the Tories chose Susan Hall as their candidate. She is his best chance of holding on.
CCHQ does not want to play by the rules. Unfortunately, its record at putting its thumb on the scale is mixed, to say the least. Susan Hall is Mayoral candidate after a failed attempt to rig the selection process for a Cameroon candidate who withdrew. We've already mentioned photo ID, and it lost the Brexit referendum after making it harder for Labour-leaning young people to vote.
What are your thoughts about the extension of the registration period ahead of the Brexit vote?
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
The extension of the registration period was of course an attempt to undo what they'd done, once they realised its implications.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
We will always have a safe house for you here in the Vale of Glamorgan should the mood darken.
Putin knows the best battle is one you win without fighting. In Georgia and Ukraine, he tried political interference to get his political friends into power, or to get those countries to do what he wanted. When that failed, he invaded. I'd class them as punishment beatings.
Politics is often about offers - what a party is offering to the population. In the case of pro-EU parties, those offers might include greater prosperity, less (sadly, not no) corruption, and less 'traditional' lifestyles.
Russia cannot politically beat that offer, which is one reason so many countries in Eastern Europe looked west in the 1990s and 2000s rather than east.
But the punishment beating Ukraine is getting gives pro-Russian (visibly, and invisibly) politicians, another powerful offer: they can say that NATO and the EU won't protect them from Russia, and that's because NATO and the EU don't 'care' for your country. Therefore best to cozy up with Vlad - which, of course, is the natural state of things... And what's the point of women, going to work, or greater prosperity, if war means you're homeless or dead?
And there's a sub-message for the powerful and influential: back pro-Russia candidates, and some of that filthy lucre from corruption will head your way.
These offers will not appeal to everyone; they just need to appeal to enough people. And they don't even have to be explicitly stated; it can just be subliminally messaged: "Peace matters!"
Putin does not need to win on the battlefield; he can win politically. And the US (and to a lesser extent NATO) are actually helping him do that at the moment.
On topic - the best way to halt the movement to Scottish independence is to have a Westminster Govt that has a clue what it is doing. Also they had better be clean shaven or else!
@PippaCrerar Kemi Badenoch hits out at Tory plotters for “stirring” by suggesting she could replace Rishi Sunak, telling @bbclaurak that PMs “cannot be treated as disposable”.
Oh...
That's good, it won't be her then. She speaks well but is fairly useless.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
Most younger Romanians have moved west in search of better prospects. So what sort of fight they’d put up, shorn of many younger people, would be inadequate.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
We will always have a safe house for you here in the Vale of Glamorgan should the mood darken.
If - when - it all kicks off I’m probably safer in Cambodia than almost anywhere else. Who cares about tiny Cambodia? Its not strategic, it has no military value and no great natural resources worth plundering
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
If you want that photo of a mirror you need to send me an email address that works.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who are the people? Is 'apparently sensible' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence?
The Swedish government?
Sweden's call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism
It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, “
This wouldn't be happening without serious intelligence of bad intentions.
FWIW, I think it's actually about us all rearming sufficiently to deter Putin, so a war never happens.
Nah, it's being driven by American Republicans stopping further aid to Ukraine and the prospect of Trump in the White House.
They are doing exactly what Putin asks of them. I really cannot understand why @Sandpit supports them rather than Biden, who was Ukraines staunchest supporter.
Most of the Republican objections to Ukraine aren’t so much about Ukraine itself, but the amounts of money that Biden is claiming to be spending there - the vast majority of which isn’t real new money at all, but overvaluing of old surplus military kit.
I think that a change of government in the US changes little actually on the ground in Ukraine, but changes a lot in terms of Washington talking points.
Personally I wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for in the US, all of the politicians are either far to the right, far to the left, or nakedly in it to enrich themselves. There’s almost no-one who appears to be in politics to make life better for the people they represent.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
If you want that photo of a mirror you need to send me an email address that works.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who is going to do the fighting, and what are they going to be fighting over? All my lads are fighting age, I'll be loading them up in my van and driving off somewhere neutral!
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
How can Russia get troops to Transnistra? It controls neither the sea nor the air to it.
A fair point. But transnistria provides an excellent base from which to attack Moldova - if Putin so desires and if he can get his troops there
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
The transport and supply problems for Rusdia are insurmountable. Far easier for Ukraine to defeat Transnistra.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
No, I don’t believe for a moment that Romania would invade and fight Russian troops directly
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
I wouldn't dismiss a Putin Russia emboldened by Trump, but you really need to dry those pants.
lol
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
If you want that photo of a mirror you need to send me an email address that works.
Independence is driven by a number of factors but an important one is that Scotland elects damn few Tories and yet gets Tory governments because the English vote differently.
It is no coincidence that Salmond, a supremely competent politician, contrived to have the referendum when there was a Tory government or that Better Together was led by a Labour politician.
A Labour government with nearly half the seats in Scotland will defuse the Independence issue for a while, very probably the next decade. It will be a government that Scots have voted for.
Independence will indeed not go away and when the Tories regain power in the mid to late 2030s it may well come back. But right now the danger has passed.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Who are the people? Is 'apparently sensible' doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence?
The Swedish government?
Sweden's call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism
It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, “
This wouldn't be happening without serious intelligence of bad intentions.
FWIW, I think it's actually about us all rearming sufficiently to deter Putin, so a war never happens.
Nah, it's being driven by American Republicans stopping further aid to Ukraine and the prospect of Trump in the White House.
They are doing exactly what Putin asks of them. I really cannot understand why @Sandpit supports them rather than Biden, who was Ukraines staunchest supporter.
Most of the Republican objections to Ukraine aren’t so much about Ukraine itself, but the amounts of money that Biden is claiming to be spending there - the vast majority of which isn’t real new money at all, but overvaluing of old surplus military kit.
I think that a change of government in the US changes little actually on the ground in Ukraine, but changes a lot in terms of Washington talking points.
Personally I wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for in the US, all of the politicians are either far to the right, far to the left, or nakedly in it to enrich themselves. There’s almost no-one who appears to be in politics to make life better for the people they represent.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
"It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation. "
There's so much to be said about this, little of it good. Sacking staff *before* an investigation sort-of prejudices the investigation, doesn't it? And what are the terms of the investigation - is it just into the specific direct allegations, or more into the way UNRWA was working in Gaza? And on the other hand, is it valid to stop funds to an organisation that is apparently doing so much good, even if some of what its staff do is bad?
It’s a suspension of funds not the stopping of them permanently. The suspicion is that those who were sacked are scapegoats.
UNRWA vehicles were used by the Oct 7 terrorists. That requires cooperation. The question is how high the rot goes.
It was also pretty disturbing to hear UNRWA’s spokeswoman on the radio this morning describing the suspension of funds as a “collective punishment” for the Palestinian people. That’s a very specific term in this context.
It wasn't just vehicles. There are allegations that hostages were held in the homes of UNRWA officials.
There is a further issue which is this: if there are close links between UNRWA and Hamas then governments cannot fund the former if that means funds reach Hamas, as it is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Doing so would be a criminal offence.
That will be one reason why payment of money has been suspended until it is clear that nothing which goes to UNRWA will go to Hamas. Establishing that would be a challenging investigation in any circumstances, but particularly at the moment.
There are other UN agencies which help Palestinian civilians so it is not the case that they will remain without assistance. At least I very much hope so.
Matthew Syed excellent, as usual, in The Sunday Times today - he is also very concerned about the Wokery:
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
MAGA rap. Posted for interest, not as an endorsement.
That’s actually been #1 on the iTunes chart for the past couple of days. Ben Shapiro is much better known as a conservative cultural comenator than a rapper.
There’s been a handful of these songs released by conservatives over the last year or so, and they almost always go very high in the charts for a few days, because it doesn’t actually take many sales (as opposed to streams) to get to #1 any more.
On topic - the best way to halt the movement to Scottish independence is to have a Westminster Govt that has a clue what it is doing. Also they had better be clean shaven or else!
Being clean shaven is a necessary but not sufficient criteria. Both Liz Truss and Nicola Sturgeon demonstrate the point.
It seems utterly ridiculous, but a lot of apparently sensible people are raising the alarm
Emboldened by his man Trump's victory, a new Russian empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok must be the ambition.
We might be OK because Trump has assets in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry. Maybe the UK and Ireland become the 51st and 52nd states.
Putin is an old man in a hurry. He’s getting closer to a kind of victory in Ukraine
If he achieves it, will he stop there? Why should he stop there? He’s turned Russia into a wartime economy and he might as well continue now, he faces no more major internal threats it seems
Georgia next? The Baltics? Moldova?
The concern must be that this is all co-ordinated with China. Attack the west from multiple directions so America’s might is divided. Put a choke on Taiwan, destabilise the Middle East, march into chisinau
Hm
Moldova looking pretty shaky to be honest. I can certainly see him rolling tanks in there.
there's no land borders from Russia/Belarus into Moldova (it would need to cross Ukrainian territory by some margin).
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
What’s new. Areas like this have been on their own and left to wither for decades now anyway. Treated with barely disguised contempt by politicians across all parties.
It was a major driver of the leave vote in these areas. Economic boom post crash. What economic boom. Areas like these never enjoyed it.
Had prosperity been spread more evenly we would have never voted leave. Still, we did, and remainers need to get over it.
The Remanian independence argument strikes me as being the sort of argument a toddler uses: ‘if we can’t have what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home’
In that sense, it's rather similar to Brexit. Both share a similar logic and destructiveness.
Not really
Brexit was a question put to the British demos: do you want to continue to be a signatory to the Treaty of Rome or not. It was entirely in the letter and the spirit of the Treaty.
Remainia is a threat to break the demos because they lost the vote
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
This is clear from some of the not so subtle messaging from Sadiq Khan. Labour's forthcoming victory will further embolden him and others of his persuasion.
Although to win a majority labour needs these areas as much as it needs the big cities.
I'm thinking more of what will happen after, rather than before, the election.
Khan has bee a mediocre mayor at best. It is utterly bizarre that the Tories chose Susan Hall as their candidate. She is his best chance of holding on.
CCHQ does not want to play by the rules. Unfortunately, its record at putting its thumb on the scale is mixed, to say the least. Susan Hall is Mayoral candidate after a failed attempt to rig the selection process for a Cameroon candidate who withdrew. We've already mentioned photo ID, and it lost the Brexit referendum after making it harder for Labour-leaning young people to vote.
What are your thoughts about the extension of the registration period ahead of the Brexit vote?
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
The extension of the registration period was of course an attempt to undo what they'd done, once they realised its implications.
Ah.
So anything done that you think favours the other side is done deliberately and with ill intent to “steal the election”. And anything that favours your side is just and with moral intent to “right the balance”.
Got it.
See the problem with these accusations? They just undermine the democratic system in the west and play into the hands of the likes of Trump. We have a good system. It’s not perfect but it’s a damn sight better than the alternative
Our foreign policy seems very disjointed and counterproductive. We realise China is a threat, yet we don't even have reciprocal tariffs on their goods when they place them on ours to advantage their own industries. Through Net Zero we close our own businesses and offshore manufacturing to China, where they burn coal and sell stuff back to us. Many of us also get the screaming abdabs when Liz Truss decides to visit Taiwan like it's the end of the world. We happily join every war going whilst diminishing our fighting capacity to zilch. What's the point of it? It feels like the deliberate running down of a business before its assets are stripped. We seem to be the country equivalent of BHS.
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
This is clear from some of the not so subtle messaging from Sadiq Khan. Labour's forthcoming victory will further embolden him and others of his persuasion.
Although to win a majority labour needs these areas as much as it needs the big cities.
I'm thinking more of what will happen after, rather than before, the election.
Khan has bee a mediocre mayor at best. It is utterly bizarre that the Tories chose Susan Hall as their candidate. She is his best chance of holding on.
CCHQ does not want to play by the rules. Unfortunately, its record at putting its thumb on the scale is mixed, to say the least. Susan Hall is Mayoral candidate after a failed attempt to rig the selection process for a Cameroon candidate who withdrew. We've already mentioned photo ID, and it lost the Brexit referendum after making it harder for Labour-leaning young people to vote.
What are your thoughts about the extension of the registration period ahead of the Brexit vote?
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
The extension of the registration period was of course an attempt to undo what they'd done, once they realised its implications.
Ah.
So anything done that you think favours the other side is done deliberately and with ill intent to “steal the election”. And anything that favours your side is just and with moral intent to “right the balance”.
Got it.
See the problem with these accusations? They just undermine the democratic system in the west and play into the hands of the likes of Trump. We have a good system. It’s not perfect but it’s a damn sight better than the alternative
The tories have been quite clear about their motivations for fiddling around with electoral registration. So blame them for undermining the democratic system, not the people calling them out for it.
The dilemma facing any separatist government at Holyrood is whether to govern well and make people satisfied or to govern badly and try to blame Westminster. A unionist government would not face this problem, but the existence of a strong separatist block would focus their attention. In Wales, with no serious independence sentiment, a unionist government can rule as badly as humanly possible and still hope to be re-elected.
On topic - the best way to halt the movement to Scottish independence is to have a Westminster Govt that has a clue what it is doing. Also they had better be clean shaven or else!
Being clean shaven is a necessary but not sufficient criteria. Both Liz Truss and Nicola Sturgeon demonstrate the point.
It's also somewhat discriminatory even where males are concerned. But maybe the Tories are fishing for another woke war.
Agreed on this. As someone who has never liked the SNP and still doesn't, I think the issue of Scottish independence is seperate and distinct from the politicians making the case for it. When I was growing up in Scotland I was a unionist but if I had a vote now it would probably be for independence. It would be very difficult economically in the short to medium term but I think Scotland is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from the United Kingdom to achieve its long term potential.
Given that it appears to be Groundhog Referendum Day on PB, Remainia is falling well short of where it could be as a country and needs to break free from Leavistan to achieve its long term potential.
Bye bye Barnsley and Bolsover, good luck on your own.
What’s new. Areas like this have been on their own and left to wither for decades now anyway. Treated with barely disguised contempt by politicians across all parties.
It was a major driver of the leave vote in these areas. Economic boom post crash. What economic boom. Areas like these never enjoyed it.
Had prosperity been spread more evenly we would have never voted leave. Still, we did, and remainers need to get over it.
The Remanian independence argument strikes me as being the sort of argument a toddler uses: ‘if we can’t have what I want, I’m taking my toys and going home’
In that sense, it's rather similar to Brexit. Both share a similar logic and destructiveness.
Not really
Brexit was a question put to the British demos: do you want to continue to be a signatory to the Treaty of Rome or not. It was entirely in the letter and the spirit of the Treaty.
Remainia is a threat to break the demos because they lost the vote
Nevertheless, ultimately what matters is getting to the best position for the country. Which isn't where we are.
Comments
I cannot see Independence happening for a long time but I doubt Labour running Scotland will diminish the ambition which was alive and well when I lived in Berwick-upon-Tweed in the mid fifties
As an aside my son had a shout at 4.00am this morning and he and the crew of the inshore lifeboat managed to save a young girl in the water off the jetty
A happy story for today
Fighting wars we didn’t actually need to fight - Iraq, then Libya - and at the same time letting our armed forces wither so we can’t face real enemies who menace the UK
If this information had come out around the time the ICJ was hearing the preliminary arguments, it could have been said to be a distraction from that. Or from any number of other events.
By all means do not allow yourself to be distracted from the ICJ ruling. It's important that Israel is held to the instruction to discipline officials who make statements that excuse or encourage genocidal acts, for example.
But once you start down the road of seeing conspiracies you'll start seeing them everywhere.
Remember: normalcy bias
so no change there, then.
What's she said now?
The most common reason for amateur boating drownings is the jetty or tender trip back from the pub.
*"Pissed, Fell Over" as we used to record in medical notes.
Its not in NATO, it was once part of the USSR, it has a tiny army, he’s got a readymade base in the enclave of transdniester next door
He could probably conquer it in an hour and what would we do? Nothing, I suspect
Moldova is not Ukraine. It could not fight back
With Moldova swallowed he’d also have most of rUkraine surrounded
If you look at Russian strategy it is essentially opportunistic and exploiting this cultural weakness. It has vast borders to defend and a military budget a fraction of the size of western countries but it still goes on to opportunistically invade other countries in part because it views itself as a superior civilisation. It thinks that 80% of people would just submit to it and the other 20% can be dealt with.
The western strategy to deal with Russia, given that we are where we are, is to bog it down in Ukraine. Make it defend a fake 'border' far in to Ukraine and keep supporting Ukraine in attacking it. The problem I can foresee is that it ends either when there is a political change of direction (as per afghanistan etc) or the cost eventually becomes too much to bear for Ukraine in terms of hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers with no willing replacements, and then Russia gets its victory.
Our son is popping in later today so no doubt we will hear the full story but it does seem a strange time for an incident like this but no matter, she is now safe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria
Worth remembering Ukraine was easily defeated in 2014. They then spent years planning and training to make themselves militarily more resilient.
Russia's future military interventions will also not be made with its 2022 military system and approach.
A couple of times a year, someone would get into trouble to the extent of needing to call out the brigade or the lifeboat, which I imagine was quickly sobering for those involved.
The Moldovan army has 6000 men. Putin wouldn’t need entire divisions to overwhelm the country. Also, after what we’ve all witnessed in Ukraine there’s a good chance the country might simply surrender rather than lose thousands of young men against a vastly stronger enemy
It’s not in NATO and I very much doubt NATO would send in troops to save it
But Putin has to first assemble a force in Transnistria; which as you say would not be plain sailing
I want an answer, Thomas.
Still happens. British armed forces types were complaining about indyref cos it would danage UK defence against alien invasion.
FWIW, I think it's actually about us all rearming sufficiently to deter Putin, so a war never happens.
Romania would probably intervene if Moldova was seriously threatened. 42% of Moldovans (including their PM) and 75% or Romanians want reunification.
The reality is that the US and UK government moved quickly, suggesting that they had been thinking through the issues for some time. 7 other countries, including Germany, have responded in the same way, suggesting there is a prima facia case.
All his moves over the last 10+ years point to it - he doesn't respect the independent "breakaway" states, and views them as illegitimate - and it's immensely popular in Russia itself, a bit like how China saw the reverse of its humiliations under the Western powers in the 19th and early 20th Century as an essential national mission.
The only thing he (they) will respect is strength and resolve, which is why we have to rearm to 1990 levels and we're going to have to pay more tax for it, I'm afraid.
Indeed, the Americans would surely stop them, as that would be a hot NATO v Russia conflict
They are doing exactly what Putin asks of them. I really cannot understand why @Sandpit supports them rather than Biden, who was Ukraines staunchest supporter.
"The cultural retreat can be seen in other ways, too: in the drift towards lived experience rather than objective reality, the obsession with cat videos, the willingness to heatedly disagree on trivial matters such as whether cooking jerk chicken amounts to cultural appropriation — an exemplar of what the British anthropologist Ernest Crawley called “the narcissism of minor differences”.
We have also spent an inordinate amount of time trashing our own nations and histories, which would have been fine if the debate had been conducted with nuance and wisdom. But the cartoon indictments of the West rarely take account of what we might call the plausible counterfactual: how would the world have looked if the Islamists, Bolsheviks or genocidal Chinese Communist Party had been in charge? The West, in this context, can be seen as the world’s greatest blessing, not its greatest curse. Yet it raises the question: why would youngsters today fight for a system they’ve been taught to despise?"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/decadence-has-sapped-our-defences-we-need-more-than-military-service-qj55t3llf
Which reminds me that I was scheduled in late 2021 to go to Odessa in April 2022. And then the war happened
True story
Internal party stuff is just that
But the kind of allegations you make are close relatives of Trump’s approach: “they stole the election”
Chaser
@PippaCrerar
Kemi Badenoch hits out at Tory plotters for “stirring” by suggesting she could replace Rishi Sunak, telling @bbclaurak that PMs “cannot be treated as disposable”.
Oh...
I’m sitting in a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok airport drinking a small bottle of excellent sake. I’ve had a brilliant weekend with friends and now I’m heading back to sunny Phnom Penh. I’m in a highly benign mood, not cowering in some bunker
But the war stuff is fascinating
The difference is "They will steal the election and here's the evidence"
MAGA rap. Posted for interest, not as an endorsement.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-in-india-2023-24-1389386/india-vs-england-1st-test-1389399/live-cricket-score
Putin knows the best battle is one you win without fighting. In Georgia and Ukraine, he tried political interference to get his political friends into power, or to get those countries to do what he wanted. When that failed, he invaded. I'd class them as punishment beatings.
Politics is often about offers - what a party is offering to the population. In the case of pro-EU parties, those offers might include greater prosperity, less (sadly, not no) corruption, and less 'traditional' lifestyles.
Russia cannot politically beat that offer, which is one reason so many countries in Eastern Europe looked west in the 1990s and 2000s rather than east.
But the punishment beating Ukraine is getting gives pro-Russian (visibly, and invisibly) politicians, another powerful offer: they can say that NATO and the EU won't protect them from Russia, and that's because NATO and the EU don't 'care' for your country. Therefore best to cozy up with Vlad - which, of course, is the natural state of things... And what's the point of women, going to work, or greater prosperity, if war means you're homeless or dead?
And there's a sub-message for the powerful and influential: back pro-Russia candidates, and some of that filthy lucre from corruption will head your way.
These offers will not appeal to everyone; they just need to appeal to enough people. And they don't even have to be explicitly stated; it can just be subliminally messaged: "Peace matters!"
Putin does not need to win on the battlefield; he can win politically. And the US (and to a lesser extent NATO) are actually helping him do that at the moment.
Possibly even safer than Glamorgan, TBH
But I am grateful for the offer
Mine is info@cyclefree.co.uk.
Meanwhile areas in the north and midlands are building, in some cases, too many.
It is hard to see how labour can really do anything about this to reverse it in the next Parliament.
https://x.com/sam_dumitriu/status/1746830581428564014?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
I think that a change of government in the US changes little actually on the ground in Ukraine, but changes a lot in terms of Washington talking points.
Personally I wouldn’t have a clue who to vote for in the US, all of the politicians are either far to the right, far to the left, or nakedly in it to enrich themselves. There’s almost no-one who appears to be in politics to make life better for the people they represent.
Hmm. Odd. Let me check. Soz
Its smoothsnakeleon@gmail.com
It is no coincidence that Salmond, a supremely competent politician, contrived to have the referendum when there was a Tory government or that Better Together was led by a Labour politician.
A Labour government with nearly half the seats in Scotland will defuse the Independence issue for a while, very probably the next decade. It will be a government that Scots have voted for.
Independence will indeed not go away and when the Tories regain power in the mid to late 2030s it may well come back. But right now the danger has passed.
They were pushed back and then the war bogged down but they were never defeated
There is a further issue which is this: if there are close links between UNRWA and Hamas then governments cannot fund the former if that means funds reach Hamas, as it is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Doing so would be a criminal offence.
That will be one reason why payment of money has been suspended until it is clear that nothing which goes to UNRWA will go to Hamas. Establishing that would be a challenging investigation in any circumstances, but particularly at the moment.
There are other UN agencies which help Palestinian civilians so it is not the case that they will remain without assistance. At least I very much hope so.
“Finland goes to the polls as border tensions with Russia rise”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/28/finland-goes-to-the-polls-as-border-tensions-with-russia-rise
There’s been a handful of these songs released by conservatives over the last year or so, and they almost always go very high in the charts for a few days, because it doesn’t actually take many sales (as opposed to streams) to get to #1 any more.
However I was responding to a claim that there is no Russian/belarus border with Moldova. There absolutely IS - Transnistria is basically Russia
A friend of mine went there last summer and said they are more Russian than the Russians (he knows Russia well)
But yes Putin would have to quietly get troops there. A series of fake civilian flights maybe? Moving equipment would be harder
Brexit was a question put to the British demos: do you want to continue to be a signatory to the Treaty of Rome or not. It was entirely in the letter and the spirit of the Treaty.
Remainia is a threat to break the demos because they lost the vote
So anything done that you think favours the other side is done deliberately and with ill intent to “steal the election”. And anything that favours your side is just and with moral intent to “right the balance”.
Got it.
See the problem with these accusations? They just undermine the democratic system in the west and play into the hands of the likes of Trump. We have a good system. It’s not perfect but it’s a damn sight better than the alternative
Think I'll just sit here and sulk.