Man is jailed and banned for driving for 20 years after driving wrong way on a road whilst on bail. He killed two people (a passenger) and a mother of 8.
At what point do people get banned from driving for life?
In the real world I imagine he'll be released after five minutes because of overcrowding about 9-12 years.
UK law is weird on some of these points. It should be a punishment element, and then indeterminate from then until he has proven his mental stability and psychological suitability to be given control of vehicles that can harm others.
There is considerable discretion to impose driving bans where the Courts deem appropriate - even at Magistrates Court level, but it is hardly used. Plus more loopholes than a colander around eg 'exceptional hardship'.
The Sentencing Council did a consultation this spring, but even they did not ask many of the right questions.
The exceptional hardship loophole is bonkers. You want higher standards for people who drive for a living, not lower ones. It should only exist for people caring for family members in rural areas, and the ban should be applied after that role had concluded.
An automatic life driving ban for death by dangerous driving or use of a vehicle as a weapon wound focus some minds, while not clogging up prisons.
Man is jailed and banned for driving for 20 years after driving wrong way on a road whilst on bail. He killed two people (a passenger) and a mother of 8.
At what point do people get banned from driving for life?
There’s constituency polls showing the Greens might have a viable shot at 4+ seats.
Sunak campaigning in seats with 20,000+ Tory majorities.
Lib Dems optimistic about tons of targets.
Reform shooting themselves in the foot but still appearing to have some viable skin in the game.
What signs are we currently missing to make us think that Labour 500 seats / Lib Dems official opposition / Tories under 50 seats (or a combo of the above) is actually on?
That constituency polling is a load of bobbins.
Edit and show me a general election where the Lib Dems weren't optimistic about the seats they were going to win.
Yesterday I noticed I still had the Covid app on my phone so deleted it. But it's now continuingly given me the message 'Your phone will no longer log nearby devices ... blah blah blah ... you won't be notified of possible exposures.' Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!
Yesterday I noticed I still had the Covid app on my phone so deleted it. But it's now continuingly given me the message 'Your phone will no longer log nearby devices ... blah blah blah ... you won't be notified of possible exposures.' Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Its not a pb thing but plenty of isolationist let the big boys do whatever shit they do and keep out of it all over here too.
With the benefit of a nights sleep I have come to the conclusion that Farage does not want to lead a group of 40 Reform MPs. He is trying to hit 20% of the vote but not win more than 2 or 3 seats allowing him to claim the establishment are against him and his turning round the U.K. is being prevented by ‘the blob’. That is, in his mind, the way to maximise brand Nigel and gain his best financial return. Frankly the idea that anyone can possibly think he has the best interests of anyone other than himself at heart is bonkers.
Are you suggesting that he's following the Bialystock and Bloom playbook? We all have to hope that Springtime for Putin doesn't turn out to be a massive hit.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Perhaps more importantly, it stops dead any hope he might have had of a reverse takeover of the Conservative party. I can't imagine a scenario where decent types like HYUFD, Big G or Casino would ever accept Farage as leader.
But as JohnT says downthread, I don't think Farage wants to take over the Conservative party, I think his brand depends on being the anti-establishment outsider whipping up fervent outrage against the rigged system that's against him. Very Trumpian. Two or three seats on 20% of the vote would do him very nicely in that respect. That way brand Farage remains intact and he can keep on hoovering up the money from the media appearances.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
I have lived in Moscow (before and after 2014) and met many Ukrainians. The general view used to be that Ukrainian was the language of the home but Russian was the main commercial language (so yes - a bit like Welsh & English). I understand that situation has now changed and many Ukrainians now refuse to use Russian. I don't blame them.
I also know various Kazakhs, Uzbeks & other 'stans' and they generally speak Russian as a common language - but don't like Russians one but.
With the benefit of a nights sleep I have come to the conclusion that Farage does not want to lead a group of 40 Reform MPs. He is trying to hit 20% of the vote but not win more than 2 or 3 seats allowing him to claim the establishment are against him and his turning round the U.K. is being prevented by ‘the blob’. That is, in his mind, the way to maximise brand Nigel and gain his best financial return. Frankly the idea that anyone can possibly think he has the best interests of anyone other than himself at heart is bonkers.
Are you suggesting that he's following the Bialystock and Bloom playbook? We all have to hope that Springtime for Putin doesn't turn out to be a massive hit.
The massive hit I would like to see is The New Producers around Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Yes, there’s a lot of anti-war sentiment in the States, outside of the political centre there’s lots of people saying what Farage is saying.
But in the US, the argument is that there are more important domestic spending priorities, and that Europe has for too long relied totally on the US military and they need to do this one themselves. Funnily enough, that bit goes down like a cup of cold sick in Europe.
Thankfully, the majority of the Congresscritters and Senators in the US are in that middle, so the support continues for now.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
Farage needs the conversation to move on fast
Sounds like Nigel is somewhat tone deaf as a politician - couldn't resist doing the 'Look at me! I was right! thing when circumstances demanded he quietly join the anti-Putin consensus. Either that or his sense of self-worth is massively out of control.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
Darkage. How would you reslove the problem exactly? If you cut a deal with Putin how could you be sure he would keep his word?
You can’t cut a deal with Putin
Ultimately this will end - at least for a while - with some frozen armistice and both sides rearming and a long period of cold hostility but not actual fighting. Like Korea. If we’re lucky
I have heard Ukrainians predict this, so it’s not me being a “fucking appeaser”
I think it is most probable that it will end like how Leon says. Then how long until it starts up again depends on how things go afterwards in dealings between the West and Russia. Arguably the war started in 2014 and we are 10 years in, with 8 years of a frozen conflict largely whilst Trump was in power and then the west became weak ie in afghanistan. There may be another 20 or even more to go but a lot depends on what happens in Russia post Putin. This is unclear.
If someone thinks Russia can be beaten, they need to provide an answer to the nuclear escalation paradox and the apparent behaviour of the two sides that I have explained above. Another way it could have ended is through the collapse of the regime in Russia, but I have never been convinced that this either desirable (given what may follow afterwards) nor realistic, given the regime has shown so much resilience.
I would agree that the conduct of Russia is terrible, but there are many things that are terrible in the world that we do nothing about and even facilitate in some way, it shoudn't prevent taking a realistic view of trying to solve this conflict.
Oops, I accidentally invaded my neighbour because I was scared of a military bloc they weren't in.
Russians do not see Ukraine as a neighbour in the way you are using the word. They see about half of Ukraine as fundamentally - culturally, linguistically, historically - a part of Russia. They founded and built Odessa. They developed Crimea - it is full of tsarist mansions
Westerners arrogantly pontificating about the war without knowing the history are not helping
It’s a shame @Dura_Ace has disappeared (I do hope he’s not lying in some hospital in Kharkiv) - he might be a mad bastard but he knows his onions in this matter
That’s how the British originally thought of Ireland though, and before that the USA. Georgian Dublin was a British city. So were Boston and Philadelphia.
Nobody doubts Russia feels like that, but I’m not sure what the sequitur is.
If nothing else it puts paid to the idea this is some kind of defensive war provoked by NATO expansion. It’s a war of irredentism.
The two things are not mutually exclusive. You could say that the war was provoked by the weakness of the West because we courted Ukraine to leave the Russian sphere of influence and join our institutions without realising the stakes that were involved.
We might regard it as an evil throwback to the 19th century for Russia to think that way about Ukraine, but the fact is it does, and we knew that, so it was negligent to move ahead with steps towards political and economic integration without offering any security guarantees.
courted =/= invaded
Russia also "courted" Ukraine. And threatened and subverted and finally tried to murder them. Our provocation is being open to cooperation. That's not a reasonable casus belli unless you start from the point that Ukraine already belonged to Russia.
It is a detail that has gone entirely without mention in this discussion that Ukraine did elect a pro-Russian, Yanukovych, a corrupt oligarch no doubt, but nobody disputes his election was legitimate. It was he that cancelled the EU association agreement, and he was then deposed by the Maidan protests that were supported by the West.
Given that the elected Government had a Russia-oriented policy, it is not purely a question of Ukraine choosing the West over Russia and the necessity of supporting them in that decision.
I’ve mentioned previously the slave attitude of ‘some’ Indian businessmen. It relates to belief in caste and karma.
If you want another example look at Sunny Balwani during his reign of terror at Theranos.
It’s important to point out though that appalling treatment of workers and near-despotic rule occurs anywhere in any culture, race, or creed and should be exposed equally fairly and rigorously across the board throughout the world.
Nigel needs to stand up and say what he believes in! He believes in himself. I doubt that. He just wants your full attention and belives in nothing at all.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
Given that you have made the comparison with WW2, do you think that a policy of only sending weapons (and carefully controlling what is on offer and how it can be used) is adequate?
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
I have lived in Moscow (before and after 2014) and met many Ukrainians. The general view used to be that Ukrainian was the language of the home but Russian was the main commercial language (so yes - a bit like Welsh & English). I understand that situation has now changed and many Ukrainians now refuse to use Russian. I don't blame them.
I also know various Kazakhs, Uzbeks & other 'stans' and they generally speak Russian as a common language - but don't like Russians one but.
Zelensky is, of course, a native Russian speaker. I see Leon's already resorting to silly analogies to try and reinforce his dubious point.
Essentially Farage's argument is that our refusing to be Putin's accomplice in re-subjugating an independent Ukraine was provocation.
It is quite amusing that this website is full of people who like to think highly of their knowledge about the world, but the acceptable analysis of Ukraine cannot go beyond 'they have to win and we have to keep giving them whatever they need to do it'. Anyone who disagrees is 'evil' and 'literally a Hitler appeaser'. The standard of debate about this is at a school yard level. Perhaps people are seeking reassurance that they are 'in the right' and they get it, because they have created a climate where no one can actually offer a critical perspective. When someone like Nigel Farage comes along and says something critical, they cannot handle it, jumping to the conclusion that 'he's Putin's shill. It must now be over for him and the Reform Party. Bet accordingly'.
The situation in Ukraine reveals a paradox. Every time Russia starts losing ground, it ramps up talk of using nuclear weapons. When Russia starts looking like it may succeed, then more funding is put in to the defence of Ukraine by its Western backers. This appears to have little to do with good and evil, it is more like a proxy for a great power conflict. The conflict will probably go on and on even after Ukraine has been concluded, as the regime in Russia has been found to be stable and resilient, it is aggrieved and feels under threat, it has a psychology that it is in a state of war, so it is likely to start up another conflict.
If you want to avoid this, you have to think at a strategic level about how to resolve the problem, but not many people appear able to do that.
A few confusions here. 1) WRT Farage. he is currently the leader of a party in a GE. What he says and how people react is not a RUSI conference for international relations wonks, it's a cage fight in which political lives are going to succeed, retire hurt, have limbs cut off and in some cases die a painful death. Get the level right. The most terrifying interpretation of this would be that he is correct in thinking there are votes in this.
2) With Farage there is a pattern in recent times: there is that which he attacks without qualification (other parties, refugees, EU) and that which he only deals with in a qualified and nuanced way: Putin, Russia, NATO, Trump and his multi faceted evil deeds etc. DYOR and draw your own conclusions.
A further pattern is a series of nods to QAnon style conspiracy theory. Ditto.
Finally, we are not short in the UK of nuanced expertise on international politics and military matters. For a site dedicated to laying sound and lawful bets (!). PB does pretty well on the subtleties of east European policy.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
Farage will not join the Tory party. He has far bigger plans than that. World leader.
They wouldn't now have him. And that's saying something.
It was vaguely plausible, previously, that he'd stage a reverse takeover. Perhaps more than damaging his current party's electoral prospects, he's made himself toxic to the Tory right.
There is, of course, quite a bit of Putin admiration and defending on the far right in the UK (and much more in the US and some other places). But it just isn't something that even very right wing Tory MPs want to touch.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
You don't give a shit about Ukraine. You were singing the praises of Putin on here and other sites right up to the war. I hope Ukraine bars you from entering any more. In fact I intend to ensure they do.
You're like your mates Nige and Donald. Disrupt everything and everywhere. All you care about is YOU.
Give Leon a break.Lets focus on the what people think will happen in last part of the campaign and what the final result will be. The person who calls the number of seats for each party will get a congratulations message from me.
@Leon: "It's SHITE being a Tory! We're the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash, that was shat into civilization! Some people hate the Labour Party, I don't! They're just wankers! We, on the other hand, are about to lose by a massive landslide TO wankers! Can't even find a decent Party to lose an election to! We're ruled by effete arseholes! It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Nigel, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!"
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin,
There you have it everyone. This FAKE 'Leon' whose real name we ALL know unmasked for the Putin loving turd that he is
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Quite similar, think more like Spanish and Portuguese. If you spoke only one, you could get the gist of reading a newspaper in the other.
Edit: Spanish and Catalan would be a better comparison.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
IIRC correctly no state has to this day attacked an inch of NATO protected territory. Thus far the expansion to the east has been 100% successful. I know this is no guide to the future, but nothing is.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Perhaps more importantly, it stops dead any hope he might have had of a reverse takeover of the Conservative party. I can't imagine a scenario where decent types like HYUFD, Big G or Casino would ever accept Farage as leader.
But as JohnT says downthread, I don't think Farage wants to take over the Conservative party, I think his brand depends on being the anti-establishment outsider whipping up fervent outrage against the rigged system that's against him. Very Trumpian. Two or three seats on 20% of the vote would do him very nicely in that respect. That way brand Farage remains intact and he can keep on hoovering up the money from the media appearances.
Big_G will spend six months telling us how will be resigning as soon as Farage becomes the leader…then when the GE with Farage comes along he’ll still be a member and his wife will again be telling him that he is to vote Tory…..
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin,
There you have it everyone. This FAKE 'Leon' whose real name we ALL know unmasked for the Putin loving turd that he is
The random single words in capitals is a very familiar tik on this site.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Basque is emphatically not a dialect, being a language isolate, and hasn't got an army, or a country. And is one of the world's great linguistic miraculous survivals.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
You don't give a shit about Ukraine. You were singing the praises of Putin on here and other sites right up to the war. I hope Ukraine bars you from entering any more. In fact I intend to ensure they do.
You're like your mates Nige and Donald. Disrupt everything and everywhere. All you care about is YOU.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Quite similar, think more like Spanish and Portuguese. If you spoke only one, you could get the gist of reading a newspaper in the other.
Edit: Spanish and Catalan would be a better comparison.
Russian-speaking English friend says she can understand a lot of Ukrainian when spoken, but finds it more confusing when it’s written down.
There’s also a dialect continuum across Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian. The language of eastern Ukraine is sort of partway between (western) Ukrainian and Russian.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Well if you are interested, since I can speak to some degree several Slavic languages. The Slavic speakers, like speakers of the Romance languages, have some degree of mutual intelligibility across all three sub groups: Western (Polish, Czech, Slovak and Sorbian), Southern (Slovene "Serbo-Croat", Macedonian and Bulgarian) and Eastern (Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian). The closest language to Ukrainian in terms of grammar and accent is Belarusian, and in theory then Russian, but I find Ukrainian quite easy to understand from Polish, but Russian is much further away. The word for Yes for example is Tak, like the Polish, rather than Da, like Russian (and the Southern Slavonic languages), the word for World is Svit, closer to Polish Swiat than Russian Mir.
In Belarus there is slang called "Trasianka" which mixes Belarusian and Russian and is probably the most spoken language in the country. In Ukraine the equivalent pidgin is called Surzhyk, but this is now declining in favour of properly grammatical Ukrainian. There has always been a certain amount of code switching, and not just in the territory of modern Ukraine, the dialects of many in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions are closer to Ukrainian than to Russian. Remember also that like the Irish in English, the Ukrainians who speak Russian have a very distinct accent.
If you want a parallel with the Romance languages, I would say if Ukrainian is Spanish, then Belarusian is Portuguese, Russian is Italian and Polish is French.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
IIRC correctly no state has to this day attacked an inch of NATO protected territory. Thus far the expansion to the east has been 100% successful. I know this is no guide to the future, but nothing is.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Is your wording because the Argentine invasion of the Falklands doesn’t count?
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
You don't give a shit about Ukraine. You were singing the praises of Putin on here and other sites right up to the war. I hope Ukraine bars you from entering any more. In fact I intend to ensure they do.
You're like your mates Nige and Donald. Disrupt everything and everywhere. All you care about is YOU.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Basque is emphatically not a dialect, being a language isolate, and hasn't got an army, or a country. And is one of the world's great linguistic miraculous survivals.
It's marvelously weird, as well
It is so strange: so utterly unlike anything else. I once spent quite a lot of time in the Spanish Basque Country, researching the witches of Zugarramurdi. THE WITCHES OF ZUGARRAMURDI. It doesn't get better than that, if you need a weird and witchy name
I've read theories that Basque might be some extraordinary survival from the Ice Age, a pocket of homo sapiens that hid out in the Pyrenees speaking a non-Indo-European tongue. Also, they can look quite Neanderthal
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
IIRC correctly no state has to this day attacked an inch of NATO protected territory. Thus far the expansion to the east has been 100% successful. I know this is no guide to the future, but nothing is.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Is your wording because the Argentine invasion of the Falklands doesn’t count?
Yes. It is disputed as to whether the territory counts within the treaty, but anyway we didn't invoke it. I don't think NATO covers the Falklands. But I am not an expert!
1. Companies not allowed to decide odds or max limits based on customer profiling. 2. Companies not allowed to advertise on TV during sports events, nor to sponsor sports teams.
1 seems unfair to the companies, frankly. Would any of us bet with someone you constantly lost to? They are not providing a public service.
2, absolutely. We have gone far too far in removing restrictions on gambling and it causes serious harm.
1. Will cost the bookies 2. Will save them a fortune, and have the positive (for Labour) effect of annoying Sky TV.
1. Is about fairness, as the back end data mining is as out of control as the advertising, but it’s not visible to the punters. If you think the probablily of some event happening is 10/1 and you decide to let people bet £100 on that outcome, then the bet should be available to anyone who wants it until weight of money makes you adjust the odds or the limit. That’s how the old-fashioned on-course bookies work. The large online companies will, as many here know, reduce you to pennies or close accounts arbitrarily, purely because you got a big win from them.
So it is fair that you are allowed to use information on your betting track record but the companies are not allowed to use that information?
The information is massively asymmetric, unless you’re a full-time better running spreadsheets and simulations, yet they dishonestly represent this to their customers. Your average punter thinks they’re betting against a simple computerised version of the on-course bookie, but they’re actually competing against a vastly more complex computer modelling system that makes it almost impossible to win. It’s close to fraud, and it’s feeding increasing amount of addition which is public bad. We regulate other public bads such as cigarettes and alcohol advertising, and should regulate gambling advertising in a similar way.
I’ve no issue with restricting advertising
The issue is in forcing them to be market makers who take risk
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Basque is emphatically not a dialect, being a language isolate, and hasn't got an army, or a country. And is one of the world's great linguistic miraculous survivals.
Although Basque is a dialect continuum. Biscayan (in the west) and Souletin (in the east, in France) are only somewhat mutually intelligible, but the political situation meant the creation of a standard Basque and a common Basque language identity was more important. Which shows that politics still matters when it comes to what we count as a language versus a dialect.
Nigel needs to be careful here. His instinct will be to retaliate and slag Zelensky off in a snide and dismissive way, but he'd be well advised to bite his tongue - brand Nigel is in a precarious situation and the slightest ill-judged remark could kill it off.
Yes, to go back to the original point - which was Farage rather than Ukraine - I think this might have done real damage to Reform. Its headline news
It’s not so much the specifics of his point - it’s that it reinforces the latent image of Farage as a bit dodgy. That’s always there - hovering. The spivviness, the guy who went on Russia today. It badly tarnishes his carefully curated image as the plain honest speaker and makes him something significantly nastier
So a lot of people who might have been considering a Reform vote will now think again, perhaps. It therefore stops the Reform momentum at exactly the wrong time
He should have found better words - or found a way to evade the question entirely
Is Farage's Ukraine problem that he has spent too much time in the United States, where such sentiments are not uncommon in MAGA and alt-right circles?
Possibly. Also he might feel vindicated - he’s got a video of him making this point in 2014 - that EU accession talks with Ukraine will provoke Putin
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
You don't give a shit about Ukraine. You were singing the praises of Putin on here and other sites right up to the war. I hope Ukraine bars you from entering any more. In fact I intend to ensure they do.
You're like your mates Nige and Donald. Disrupt everything and everywhere. All you care about is YOU.
I love you too, just don't give away our secret
One more ALIAS you mean Sean?
I don't remotely mind you hurling abuse at me, but I am not "Sean" and I repeat: doxxing is a bannable offence. Desist
The other comment I would make is that this Farage episode reveals how poorly prepared we are for another Trump presidency. The perspective expressed by Farage may well be in the ascendancy at a global level.
Gambling destroys many lives. Of course we should allow gambling responsibly but I would ban gambling adverts.
They are essentially dishonest, because they do not acknowledge that successful punters will be banned.
The nonsense about 'responsible gambling' is also bollox, for the same reason.
Not banned but heavily restricted. It is like being banned except the betting firm still gets to boast of its millions of open accounts when it reports to the City.
Here is a picture of Ladbrokes limiting my £20 stake to £1.43 on a 20/1 shot back in 2022.
I found the same when I got into betting on cycling - by closely following the sport, and with so many participants in each race, it became reasonably straightforward to find value at the initial market opening.
I was only ever low stakes, but it was a bit galling when I’d be limited to something like 75p.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 2h — there is total fury among Tories at the quality of their campaign
— two ministers say they think Sunak should announce this weekend he understands the public want change and hand over the campaign to Cabinet to make the case for a strong opposition
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
IIRC correctly no state has to this day attacked an inch of NATO protected territory. Thus far the expansion to the east has been 100% successful. I know this is no guide to the future, but nothing is.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Is your wording because the Argentine invasion of the Falklands doesn’t count?
Yes. It is disputed as to whether the territory counts within the treaty, but anyway we didn't invoke it. I don't think NATO covers the Falklands. But I am not an expert!
On the contrary, the treaty is quite clear that only North American and European territories are protected.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Er, we are upholding that independence. Although Farage would no doubt leave them to their fate of being raped by Russia on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
It is quite amusing that this website is full of people who like to think highly of their knowledge about the world, but the acceptable analysis of Ukraine cannot go beyond 'they have to win and we have to keep giving them whatever they need to do it'. Anyone who disagrees is 'evil' and 'literally a Hitler appeaser'. The standard of debate about this is at a school yard level. Perhaps people are seeking reassurance that they are 'in the right' and they get it, because they have created a climate where no one can actually offer a critical perspective. When someone like Nigel Farage comes along and says something critical, they cannot handle it, jumping to the conclusion that 'he's Putin's shill. It must now be over for him and the Reform Party. Bet accordingly'.
The situation in Ukraine reveals a paradox. Every time Russia starts losing ground, it ramps up talk of using nuclear weapons. When Russia starts looking like it may succeed, then more funding is put in to the defence of Ukraine by its Western backers. This appears to have little to do with good and evil, it is more like a proxy for a great power conflict. The conflict will probably go on and on even after Ukraine has been concluded, as the regime in Russia has been found to be stable and resilient, it is aggrieved and feels under threat, it has a psychology that it is in a state of war, so it is likely to start up another conflict.
If you want to avoid this, you have to think at a strategic level about how to resolve the problem, but not many people appear able to do that.
A few confusions here. 1) WRT Farage. he is currently the leader of a party in a GE. What he says and how people react is not a RUSI conference for international relations wonks, it's a cage fight in which political lives are going to succeed, retire hurt, have limbs cut off and in some cases die a painful death. Get the level right. The most terrifying interpretation of this would be that he is correct in thinking there are votes in this.
2) With Farage there is a pattern in recent times: there is that which he attacks without qualification (other parties, refugees, EU) and that which he only deals with in a qualified and nuanced way: Putin, Russia, NATO, Trump and his multi faceted evil deeds etc. DYOR and draw your own conclusions.
A further pattern is a series of nods to QAnon style conspiracy theory. Ditto.
Finally, we are not short in the UK of nuanced expertise on international politics and military matters. For a site dedicated to laying sound and lawful bets (!). PB does pretty well on the subtleties of east European policy.
There are votes in this stance but he probably has much of those already. The downside of showing his brown nose off is going to be higher. Ive said it before about Farage and had some posts deleted, because I used the T word. Farage isnt interested in his own country half as much as he makes out and his associations tell you that. Whilst he has air gapped some of his chummy relationships with foriegn interests that are diametrically opposed to the UK's best interests, some of his cohorts have not. Dont think he isnt looking to his own interest here. I will leave it others to conclude what that self interest is.
British people, by and large, know the fundamental right and wrongs and the attempt at a full scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine (failed) was nothing other than an Imperial ambition at best or at worst motivated by some ethnic bullshit view. Most people know it was wrong and it is to be opposed.
And again, I consider myself a British nationalist, I voted for Brexit (what happened in 2014 in Ukraine had a bearing on that vote) and I expect our government to crack down on illegal migration so, you know, me and old Nigel there should have something in common but you can smell his stink from here in Belfast.
For those knocking on about Putin has nuclear weapons, we have two years of 'Putin will do this or that'. We'll he fucking hasnt because he hasnt got it in him and in a lot of cases hasnt got the tools. Why you think all the recruitment of fairly low grade natives in European countries to carry out sabotage? Best he can fucking well do.
If Ukraine shifts the Russians out of its territory, there will be no nuclear response. Got it?
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Er, we are upholding that independence. Although Farage would no doubt leave them to their fate of being raped by Russia on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I mean: we are complicit in helping them make that mistake. They should never have given up their nukes, if they had kept the nukes there is no way Putin would have invaded. They did give up the bomb because we, the Yanks and Putin assured them it would all be fine
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
An n-gram distance model shows that of the languages surveyed, Russian's closest cousin is Bulgarian. Then Serbian, then Ukrainian. My understanding is that Ukrainian and Russian, and Serbian and Russian, are not mutually intelligible.
Also, there are other ways to measure language similarity.
Russian place names in Ukraine Lvov, Kiev, Nikolayev
Yeah, but we pay 25p for a plastic bag now so everything is going to be fine.
I thought the plastic bag levy was 10p?
An amazing impact of a small thing - single use plastic bags from shops are down by 98% since the charge was introduced.
A 5p charge was first introduced in supermarkets in 2015. Since then, usage at the main retailers – Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative Group, Tesco and Waitrose – has dropped by more than 98%.
The average person in England now buys just two single-use carrier bags a year from these businesses, compared with around 140 in 2014 before the charge was introduced.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
An n-gram distance model shows that of the languages surveyed, Russian's closest cousin is Bulgarian. Then Serbian, then Ukrainian. My understanding is that Ukrainian and Russian, and Serbian and Russian, are not mutually intelligible.
Also, there are other ways to measure language similarity.
Russian place names in Ukraine Lvov, Kiev, Nikolayev
Ukrainian names Lviv, Kyiv, Mikolayiv (M, not N!)
Ukrainians prefer the ‘h’ to the ‘g’ as well - e.g. hriby rather than griby for mushrooms (and in Russia, JK’s boy wizard is known as ‘Gary Potter’).
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Indeed the US and UK promised to underwrite Ukraine’s security. Which is exactly what we are doing now.
Complicit would be not doing everything possible to help Ukraine defend itself.
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
Basque is emphatically not a dialect, being a language isolate, and hasn't got an army, or a country. And is one of the world's great linguistic miraculous survivals.
It's marvelously weird, as well
It is so strange: so utterly unlike anything else. I once spent quite a lot of time in the Spanish Basque Country, researching the witches of Zugarramurdi. THE WITCHES OF ZUGARRAMURDI. It doesn't get better than that, if you need a weird and witchy name
I've read theories that Basque might be some extraordinary survival from the Ice Age, a pocket of homo sapiens that hid out in the Pyrenees speaking a non-Indo-European tongue. Also, they can look quite Neanderthal
Thanks. This ought to elicit much more interest than it does. One of those subjects like Akkadian, Elamite, Ethiopic, Coptic, Sumerian, the Celtic languages, early Irish history that the UK relatively neglects in favour of other stuff. There are no Basque undergraduate degrees in this country which is pretty shameful.
The overwhelmingly likely history, leaving out magical thinking, is that it is the one (so 'isolate') survivor of the language family across western Europe before the arrival of the Celtic languages (as in modern Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish) - which, unlike Basque of course, are branches of the Indo-European family, like all other western European languages. (Counting Hungary and Finland as central, not western!).
What modern genetics has to add (which will be interesting) I don't know.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Indeed the US and UK promised to underwrite Ukraine’s security. Which is exactly what we are doing now.
Complicit would be not doing everything possible to help Ukraine defend itself.
No, we advised them badly. That's my point. We should've told them to keep the nukes
Somebody's door-knocking numbers must be disappointing - Conservative posters are being torn down/defaced.
Not the actions of opponents confident of victory...
Or peeps are f-ing sick of the tories. Perish that thought.
Or our opponents are illiberal and undemocratic. Perish that thought.
A bit harsh that, calling former Conservative voters "illiberal and undemocratic" just because they have all trooped off to swell the ranks of Reform.....
The total value of the minerals in Ukraines are estimated to be from 10 to 14.8 trillion depending on who you believe with more than 70.0% concentrated in Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipro. Apart from Oil and gas,coal, Titanium, Lithium. It has 5% of the earths mineral resources. Iron Ore , Copper, Nickel, The list is endless and this is the main reason Russia has the interest in the country. Not only the defense argument we are given.
Also the people. Russia is in a demographic crisis and if Putin can add 20 million white Christian Slavic Ukrainians - who speak Russian anyway - to the Russian empire then that is a massive win - there’s no problem with assimilation etc etc
Well, it might be (probably is) a factor in what passes for Putin's thought processes, but rather less than a third of Ukrainians are Russian speaking so it won't even be close to 20 million.
I’m dubious of that language statistic. I’m not dismissing it but nearly all the Ukrainians I’ve met - in Ukraine - seem to speak Russian in addition to Ukrainian. They are bilingual. And you hear it everywhere - except places like lviv but they have a very different history - Lviv was part of austro-hungary
Maybe a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as their “main language”. That would make more sense
The use of the Ukranian language has increased dramatically as a result of the war. Before 2022, everyone would mostly converse in Russian (or English in Kiev and Lviv). Think Welsh language use in Wales for a reasonable comparison.
Welsh, of course, is a radically different language from English although Welsh speakers are happy to drift in and out of English as appropriate, much as educated English drift in and out of Latin or French occasionally. I'm not conversant with Russian or Ukrainian but Russian nationalists seem to regard Ukrainian as either a dialect or, even worse, an accent. Someone once said a language is a dialect with an army, so Ukrainian has certainly passed that test. Are the languages radically different or is it more of a continuum?
An n-gram distance model shows that of the languages surveyed, Russian's closest cousin is Bulgarian. Then Serbian, then Ukrainian. My understanding is that Ukrainian and Russian, and Serbian and Russian, are not mutually intelligible.
Also, there are other ways to measure language similarity.
In vocabulary Bulgarian is very archaic so it does overlap with Russian, but in morphology it is very simple, so actual intelligibility between Bulgarian and Russian is surprisingly difficult.
Gambling destroys many lives. Of course we should allow gambling responsibly but I would ban gambling adverts.
They are essentially dishonest, because they do not acknowledge that successful punters will be banned.
The nonsense about 'responsible gambling' is also bollox, for the same reason.
Not banned but heavily restricted. It is like being banned except the betting firm still gets to boast of its millions of open accounts when it reports to the City.
Here is a picture of Ladbrokes limiting my £20 stake to £1.43 on a 20/1 shot back in 2022.
I found the same when I got into betting on cycling - by closely following the sport, and with so many participants in each race, it became reasonably straightforward to find value at the initial market opening.
I was only ever low stakes, but it was a bit galling when I’d be limited to something like 75p.
Out of interest, does your stake get imited if you go into a High Street bookies rather than online?
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
IIRC correctly no state has to this day attacked an inch of NATO protected territory. Thus far the expansion to the east has been 100% successful. I know this is no guide to the future, but nothing is.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Is your wording because the Argentine invasion of the Falklands doesn’t count?
Yes. It is disputed as to whether the territory counts within the treaty, but anyway we didn't invoke it. I don't think NATO covers the Falklands. But I am not an expert!
On the contrary, the treaty is quite clear that only North American and European territories are protected.
Not least because at the time of foundation a number of member states had worldwide colonial empires.
From that MEE story, this photo of Wes Streeting's constituency office shows it is next door to a shop offering private tutoring of schoolchildren. There are several such shops around here. This is the modern face of private education, soon (one imagines) to be hit by 20 per cent fees alongside Eton and Winchester.
What a fucking dump. Is shopfront signage not covered by planning regs?
The amount of time I spend around bus stations, train stations and taxi ranks, I can confirm that a lot of England looks like that. It's why I'm such a fan of John Harris and such an unfan of Matthew Parris.
Somebody's door-knocking numbers must be disappointing - Conservative posters are being torn down/defaced.
Not the actions of opponents confident of victory...
Or peeps are f-ing sick of the tories. Perish that thought.
Or our opponents are illiberal and undemocratic. Perish that thought.
A signboard for our Tory candidate has had two circles spray-painted on it. Possibly meant to be some form of breasts.
Anecdotally, I'm seeing a fair few Lib Dem boards in the towns, and Conservative ones in the countryside. Only a couple of Labour ones so far (including the one wrapping itself in the flag). One of those in town, the other in a village.
It is quite amusing that this website is full of people who like to think highly of their knowledge about the world, but the acceptable analysis of Ukraine cannot go beyond 'they have to win and we have to keep giving them whatever they need to do it'. Anyone who disagrees is 'evil' and 'literally a Hitler appeaser'. The standard of debate about this is at a school yard level. Perhaps people are seeking reassurance that they are 'in the right' and they get it, because they have created a climate where no one can actually offer a critical perspective. When someone like Nigel Farage comes along and says something critical, they cannot handle it, jumping to the conclusion that 'he's Putin's shill. It must now be over for him and the Reform Party. Bet accordingly'.
The situation in Ukraine reveals a paradox. Every time Russia starts losing ground, it ramps up talk of using nuclear weapons. When Russia starts looking like it may succeed, then more funding is put in to the defence of Ukraine by its Western backers. This appears to have little to do with good and evil, it is more like a proxy for a great power conflict. The conflict will probably go on and on even after Ukraine has been concluded, as the regime in Russia has been found to be stable and resilient, it is aggrieved and feels under threat, it has a psychology that it is in a state of war, so it is likely to start up another conflict.
If you want to avoid this, you have to think at a strategic level about how to resolve the problem, but not many people appear able to do that.
A few confusions here. 1) WRT Farage. he is currently the leader of a party in a GE. What he says and how people react is not a RUSI conference for international relations wonks, it's a cage fight in which political lives are going to succeed, retire hurt, have limbs cut off and in some cases die a painful death. Get the level right. The most terrifying interpretation of this would be that he is correct in thinking there are votes in this.
2) With Farage there is a pattern in recent times: there is that which he attacks without qualification (other parties, refugees, EU) and that which he only deals with in a qualified and nuanced way: Putin, Russia, NATO, Trump and his multi faceted evil deeds etc. DYOR and draw your own conclusions.
A further pattern is a series of nods to QAnon style conspiracy theory. Ditto.
Finally, we are not short in the UK of nuanced expertise on international politics and military matters. For a site dedicated to laying sound and lawful bets (!). PB does pretty well on the subtleties of east European policy.
There are votes in this stance but he probably has much of those already. The downside of showing his brown nose off is going to be higher. Ive said it before about Farage and had some posts deleted, because I used the T word. Farage isnt interested in his own country half as much as he makes out and his associations tell you that. Whilst he has air gapped some of his chummy relationships with foriegn interests that are diametrically opposed to the UK's best interests, some of his cohorts have not. Dont think he isnt looking to his own interest here. I will leave it others to conclude what that self interest is.
British people, by and large, know the fundamental right and wrongs and the attempt at a full scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine (failed) was nothing other than an Imperial ambition at best or at worst motivated by some ethnic bullshit view. Most people know it was wrong and it is to be opposed.
And again, I consider myself a British nationalist, I voted for Brexit (what happened in 2014 in Ukraine had a bearing on that vote) and I expect our government to crack down on illegal migration so, you know, me and old Nigel there should have something in common but you can smell his stink from here in Belfast.
For those knocking on about Putin has nuclear weapons, we have two years of 'Putin will do this or that'. We'll he fucking hasnt because he hasnt got it in him and in a lot of cases hasnt got the tools. Why you think all the recruitment of fairly low grade natives in European countries to carry out sabotage? Best he can fucking well do.
If Ukraine shifts the Russians out of its territory, there will be no nuclear response. Got it?
Hear, hear. I'm the same as you.
@Leon should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for his remarks this morning.
Farage was foolish to make those comments yesterday - in a basic political way. Bad timing, bad optics. His first big unforced error
He also has long links with Putin’s Russia - like working for RT even after Crimea - which raise eyebrows. I would not be at all surprised if some Russian money is making its way to Reform - but then I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin is pro-SNP either. His aim is to roil and divide the west
However I’ve now spent a month in total in wartime Ukraine. I’ve been to Odessa, Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsi and multiple small towns. And I’ve talked to a lot of Ukrainians and read just about all the Ukrainian history there is
The situation is a lot more nuanced than we like to admit. A fair chunk of Ukraine was founded or developed by Russia and has always been seen as quintessentially Russian - eg Odessa. Crimea likewise. Even now a lot of Ukrainians will express a liking for Russia and Russians, a cousinhood - and they speak Russian - even if they loathe and fear Putin
The west was misguided in its fairly aggressive expansions - by NATO and the EU - and the apparent attempt to pull Ukraine permanently into a western orbit and thereby forever estranged from mother Russia.
Admitting this is not popular.
It's also largely balls, as it minimises Ukraine's wish to join the west.
I agree and it does make me wonder about the thought processes of some. The reality here is that the decision of the people of Eastern Europe to join the EU and NATO was theirs to make and that decision should be respected by others. Neither of the two organisations has a history of violence or hostility to their neighbours. So using the decisions of some Eastern European countries as a justification for invading Ukraine (which was not even one of the countries involved), is a simple appeasement of a dictator. Farage may want to be Putin’s poodle, and that’s fine, but so close to the commemoration of the anniversary of D Day most right minded European citizens will consider his words disgusting.
But realpolitik is a real political thing, hence the name
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
So, talking of nuance, what is Farage's view on Ukraine having given up its nuclear weapons, because it's independence in doing so was underwritten by Russia. Then the fuckers invaded Ukraine - becaue they didnt have nukes.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
Er, its independence post-nukes was also underwritten by the UK and USA. We are complicit
Er, we are upholding that independence. Although Farage would no doubt leave them to their fate of being raped by Russia on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
@Leon is probably doing this just so he can get some attention.
AI was closed off - and this one gets a really good reaction and the news is just too good to let pass.
Comments
Qualifying is going to be worth watching, at 15:00 UK time.
An automatic life driving ban for death by dangerous driving or use of a vehicle as a weapon wound focus some minds, while not clogging up prisons.
Edit and show me a general election where the Lib Dems weren't optimistic about the seats they were going to win.
https://x.com/jonburkeUK/status/1803741563337523502?t=r03qV2yognXSH4WzRjt37w&s=19
Ha! Serves them right.
But as JohnT says downthread, I don't think Farage wants to take over the Conservative party, I think his brand depends on being the anti-establishment outsider whipping up fervent outrage against the rigged system that's against him. Very Trumpian. Two or three seats on 20% of the vote would do him very nicely in that respect. That way brand Farage remains intact and he can keep on hoovering up the money from the media appearances.
Ergo, it’s another case of him being the honest speaker and getting it right and everyone else lying. However he has perhaps misjudged British public opinion - most people either don’t understand the nuances of the Ukrainian war or they are in no mood to hear them. Putin is evil, end of
Farage needs the conversation to move on fast
I also know various Kazakhs, Uzbeks & other 'stans' and they generally speak Russian as a common language - but don't like Russians one but.
I put it in caps @RobD to indicate it’s a newspaper headline so don’t be silly
But in the US, the argument is that there are more important domestic spending priorities, and that Europe has for too long relied totally on the US military and they need to do this one themselves. Funnily enough, that bit goes down like a cup of cold sick in Europe.
Thankfully, the majority of the Congresscritters and Senators in the US are in that middle, so the support continues for now.
I think it is most probable that it will end like how Leon says. Then how long until it starts up again depends on how things go afterwards in dealings between the West and Russia. Arguably the war started in 2014 and we are 10 years in, with 8 years of a frozen conflict largely whilst Trump was in power and then the west became weak ie in afghanistan. There may be another 20 or even more to go but a lot depends on what happens in Russia post Putin. This is unclear.
If someone thinks Russia can be beaten, they need to provide an answer to the nuclear escalation paradox and the apparent behaviour of the two sides that I have explained above. Another way it could have ended is through the collapse of the regime in Russia, but I have never been convinced that this either desirable (given what may follow afterwards) nor realistic, given the regime has shown so much resilience.
I would agree that the conduct of Russia is terrible, but there are many things that are terrible in the world that we do nothing about and even facilitate in some way, it shoudn't prevent taking a realistic view of trying to solve this conflict.
Given that the elected Government had a Russia-oriented policy, it is not purely a question of Ukraine choosing the West over Russia and the necessity of supporting them in that decision.
I’ve mentioned previously the slave attitude of ‘some’ Indian businessmen. It relates to belief in caste and karma.
If you want another example look at Sunny Balwani during his reign of terror at Theranos.
It’s important to point out though that appalling treatment of workers and near-despotic rule occurs anywhere in any culture, race, or creed and should be exposed equally fairly and rigorously across the board throughout the world.
He excuses Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine
And he is more focussed on inflammatory rhetoric than delivering for working people
We can’t concede to his style of politics, nor allow him in our party
https://x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1804440863835054111
Nigel has been clear that he wants to destroy our party
He excuses Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine
And he is more focussed on inflammatory rhetoric than delivering for working people
We can’t concede to his style of politics, nor allow him in our party
https://x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1804440863835054111
Thanks for that mate. Cheques in the post or I can send it via Banksy let me know.
VV
I see Leon's already resorting to silly analogies to try and reinforce his dubious point.
Essentially Farage's argument is that our refusing to be Putin's accomplice in re-subjugating an independent Ukraine was provocation.
1) WRT Farage. he is currently the leader of a party in a GE. What he says and how people react is not a RUSI conference for international relations wonks, it's a cage fight in which political lives are going to
succeed, retire hurt, have limbs cut off and in some cases die a painful death. Get the level right. The most terrifying interpretation of this would be that he is correct in thinking there are votes in this.
2) With Farage there is a pattern in recent times: there is that which he attacks without qualification (other parties, refugees, EU) and that which he only deals with in a qualified and nuanced way: Putin, Russia, NATO, Trump and his multi faceted evil deeds etc. DYOR and draw your own conclusions.
A further pattern is a series of nods to QAnon style conspiracy theory. Ditto.
Finally, we are not short in the UK of nuanced expertise on international politics and military matters. For a site dedicated to laying sound and lawful bets (!). PB does pretty well on the subtleties of east European policy.
Realpolitik says that even if Mexico wanted and voted for a military/economic alliance with China, there is no way the USA would allow that, indeed America would probably invade Mexico to prevent it happening. So China would be stupid to attempt such an alliance, and would not do so. Equally, America would not go into a close military and economic alliance with Mongolia, with clear hostile intent towards Chima, because it would be a casus belli for China
Ukraine is much closer to Russian hearts than Mexico is to the USA or Mongolia is to China
So, arguably, Farage is right that we were foolishly provocative towards Putin, even if it WAS morally correct to offer Ukraine EU accession, possibly NATO membership, as the Ukrainians apparently desired
But that is a nuanced point and PB - like most of Britain - doesn't do nuance on this subject, and this is therefore an error by Farage, possibly a major one
It was vaguely plausible, previously, that he'd stage a reverse takeover. Perhaps more than damaging his current party's electoral prospects, he's made himself toxic to the Tory right.
There is, of course, quite a bit of Putin admiration and defending on the far right in the UK (and much more in the US and some other places). But it just isn't something that even very right wing Tory MPs want to touch.
You don't give a shit about Ukraine. You were singing the praises of Putin on here and other sites right up to the war. I hope Ukraine bars you from entering any more. In fact I intend to ensure they do.
You're like your mates Nige and Donald. Disrupt everything and everywhere. All you care about is YOU.
"It's SHITE being a Tory! We're the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash, that was shat into civilization! Some people hate the Labour Party, I don't! They're just wankers! We, on the other hand, are about to lose by a massive landslide TO wankers! Can't even find a decent Party to lose an election to! We're ruled by effete arseholes! It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Nigel, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!"
https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/energy-transition/020123-china-to-maintain-renewables-growth-pace-in-2023-despite-uncertainty
Edit: Spanish and Catalan would be a better comparison.
Ask another question: If Ukraine and the Baltic states were all outside
NATO (instead of a 1-3 split) would liberal democracy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be safer today than it is at this minute?
Asia Pacific Graph also includes india who are still going gangbusters with coal.
Not the actions of opponents confident of victory...
There’s also a dialect continuum across Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian. The language of eastern Ukraine is sort of partway between (western) Ukrainian and Russian.
In Belarus there is slang called "Trasianka" which mixes Belarusian and Russian and is probably the most spoken language in the country. In Ukraine the equivalent pidgin is called Surzhyk, but this is now declining in favour of properly grammatical Ukrainian. There has always been a certain amount of code switching, and not just in the territory of modern Ukraine, the dialects of many in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions are closer to Ukrainian than to Russian. Remember also that like the Irish in English, the Ukrainians who speak Russian have a very distinct accent.
If you want a parallel with the Romance languages, I would say if Ukrainian is Spanish, then Belarusian is Portuguese, Russian is Italian and Polish is French.
Give Ukraine back a hundred nuclear weapons. Then let's see how belligerant the Russian bear is - and its arse-wipe shills.
In the meantime, fuck of Farage.
It is so strange: so utterly unlike anything else. I once spent quite a lot of time in the Spanish Basque Country, researching the witches of Zugarramurdi. THE WITCHES OF ZUGARRAMURDI. It doesn't get better than that, if you need a weird and witchy name
https://www.pyreneanexperience.com/witches-of-zugarramurdi/
I've read theories that Basque might be some extraordinary survival from the Ice Age, a pocket of homo sapiens that hid out in the Pyrenees speaking a non-Indo-European tongue. Also, they can look quite Neanderthal
The issue is in forcing them to be market makers who take risk
What bets should I ask for peeps?
I was only ever low stakes, but it was a bit galling when I’d be limited to something like 75p.
British people, by and large, know the fundamental right and wrongs and the attempt at a full scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine (failed) was nothing other than an Imperial ambition at best or at worst motivated by some ethnic bullshit view. Most people know it was wrong and it is to be opposed.
And again, I consider myself a British nationalist, I voted for Brexit (what happened in 2014 in Ukraine had a bearing on that vote) and I expect our government to crack down on illegal migration so, you know, me and old Nigel there should have something in common but you can smell his stink from here in Belfast.
For those knocking on about Putin has nuclear weapons, we have two years of 'Putin will do this or that'. We'll he fucking hasnt because he hasnt got it in him and in a lot of cases hasnt got the tools. Why you think all the recruitment of fairly low grade natives in European countries to carry out sabotage? Best he can fucking well do.
If Ukraine shifts the Russians out of its territory, there will be no nuclear response. Got it?
Lvov, Kiev, Nikolayev
Ukrainian names
Lviv, Kyiv, Mikolayiv (M, not N!)
What those defacing them don't know is where our hidden animal-trap cameras are located.
There's going to be some fun postings online...
An amazing impact of a small thing - single use plastic bags from shops are down by 98% since the charge was introduced.
A 5p charge was first introduced in supermarkets in 2015. Since then, usage at the main retailers – Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative Group, Tesco and Waitrose – has dropped by more than 98%.
The average person in England now buys just two single-use carrier bags a year from these businesses, compared with around 140 in 2014 before the charge was introduced.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plastic-bag-use-falls-by-more-than-98-after-charge-introduction
NEW THREAD
Complicit would be not doing everything possible to help Ukraine defend itself.
The overwhelmingly likely history, leaving out magical thinking, is that it is the one (so 'isolate') survivor of the language family across western Europe before the arrival of the Celtic languages (as in modern Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish) - which, unlike Basque of course, are branches of the Indo-European family, like all other western European languages. (Counting Hungary and Finland as central, not western!).
What modern genetics has to add (which will be interesting) I don't know.
Anecdotally, I'm seeing a fair few Lib Dem boards in the towns, and Conservative ones in the countryside. Only a couple of Labour ones so far (including the one wrapping itself in the flag). One of those in town, the other in a village.
@Leon should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for his remarks this morning.
AI was closed off - and this one gets a really good reaction and the news is just too good to let pass.