About Richard Tice and all his FOI questions. Here is his latest
"To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work."
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos sparked Mercedes-Benz backlash with sponsorship threat Exclusive: Revelation comes amid string of shock splits and cutbacks across billionaire’s sporting portfolio, most notably at Man Utd ... Indeed, such is the financial pressure on Ineos, two leading credit ratings agencies recently raised red flags over the group. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s, which provide financial health checks for most big companies, said Ratcliffe’s business had racked up debts that were between five to six times larger than the company’s annual earnings. The agencies downgraded their outlooks for the company to “negative”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2025/02/17/sir-jim-ratcliffe-ineos-sparked-mercedes-benz-backlash/ (£££)
Manchester United, Mercedes F1, NZ Rugby, America's Cup.
The INEOS / Mercedes F1 deal is a bit more than sponsorship. They actually bought a 33% stake in the team, with Daimler Benz and Toto Wolff also having a third each.
That investment will only have gone up considerably in value in the intervening years.
Investing in a football club, on the other hand, has always been a good way to make a small fortune - so long as one starts with a large fortune! MU need to spend hundreds of millions on a crumbling stadium, and hundreds of millions more on some decent players.
We could go down. Get one of the teams below on a run late season and it could happen.
I agree with Amorim though - transform the team by playing a different style of football. And how I'd do that and manage the debts is promote youth, sell the old and expensive rubbish, and bring in a couple of sagey old hands to look after the kids.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
All getting a bit cranky on here and it is not even 8 o'clock.
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
And you still believe that the Trump administration *are* acting in good faith? Trump is selling Ukraine down the river.
The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.
Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
Always funny to me that "listen to your people when they object to mass migration" and "censorship is bad" is treated as a "threat to democracy."
Do you know what "democracy" actually means?
The transatlantic elite have created so many institutions to silence their own people and to delegitimize the beliefs of the public. Of course, the Biden administration was the worst offender.
Even if you disagree with me substantively, these institutions have revealed themselves to be so brittle. AfD is in second place in Germany. The "far right" keeps getting closer in France.
Wake up!
Wow.
If only he showed the same degree of concern about the mass migration of Russian troops into Ukraine.
I think the failure of the Liberal elites to control migration, prioritise their own citizens, and not act in their immediate self-interest (instead preferring to condemn those who object) has an awful lot to answer for though.
They haven't been listening for 20 years.
Plenty still aren't.
Cynicism, and alienation of Western populations towards their governments, suits the purposes of the world’s dictators perfectly. If our leaders don’t think that their societies are worth defending, why should the masses?
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos sparked Mercedes-Benz backlash with sponsorship threat Exclusive: Revelation comes amid string of shock splits and cutbacks across billionaire’s sporting portfolio, most notably at Man Utd ... Indeed, such is the financial pressure on Ineos, two leading credit ratings agencies recently raised red flags over the group. Fitch Ratings and Moody’s, which provide financial health checks for most big companies, said Ratcliffe’s business had racked up debts that were between five to six times larger than the company’s annual earnings. The agencies downgraded their outlooks for the company to “negative”. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2025/02/17/sir-jim-ratcliffe-ineos-sparked-mercedes-benz-backlash/ (£££)
Manchester United, Mercedes F1, NZ Rugby, America's Cup.
The INEOS / Mercedes F1 deal is a bit more than sponsorship. They actually bought a 33% stake in the team, with Daimler Benz and Toto Wolff also having a third each.
That investment will only have gone up considerably in value in the intervening years.
Investing in a football club, on the other hand, has always been a good way to make a small fortune - so long as one starts with a large fortune! MU need to spend hundreds of millions on a crumbling stadium, and hundreds of millions more on some decent players.
We could go down. Get one of the teams below on a run late season and it could happen.
I agree with Amorim though - transform the team by playing a different style of football. And how I'd do that and manage the debts is promote youth, sell the old and expensive rubbish, and bring in a couple of sagey old hands to look after the kids.
Isn't that what Ferguson did ? Promote the youth with a few old hands.
It will be "Come back Glaziers, all is forgiven" soon
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Just to expand on that, the Robinson interview was predicated on how difficult it would be to find even an extra £8bn in funding, and the £9m was referred to as a "fiver" in that context.
So he was saying pretty well the opposite of what boulet seems to have thought he was saying.
Just on Vance, I wonder if anyone pointed out that at a security/defence gathering the biggest risk might just be the country that's invaded a European nation rather than something else.
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
I suspect and fear that the Americans have no intention of acting in good faith.
The USA's 'plan' seems to be: 1) Russia gets sanctions dropped and to effectively keep annexed territory 2) The USA gets 'compensated' for its military aid by means of resource extraction from Ukraine 3) Ukraine gets to do as it's told 4) Europe (mostly EU but also the UK, I imagine) gets to fund an incredibly expensive peacekeeping force without the USA bothering to dirty itself in such a way
I imagine that what Trump and his clique have in mind is a grand bargain whereby (a) Putin gets a free hand in Eastern Europe, so long as the US gets mineral rights (b) the US gets a free hand in the Arctic (c) The US and Israel get the green light to ethnically cleanse Gaza and (d) China gets Taiwan.
That's one thing I've been speculating about.
Perhaps Trump is trying to recreate a world like the 1890s, where big powers get to do what they want - eg foment the Spanish-American war or the earlier 1848 war that allowed the USA to take over half of Mexico *. He wants to be able to operate like Presidents McKinley or Teddy Roosevelt.
That requires an understanding with Russia and China, and Europe with it's annoying belief in International Law etc to be taken out of the wider game - as I put it turned into a place to be quarried like South America used to be.
The weaknesses in the position are that Russia is nothing like as powerful as he thinks, and neither relatively is the USA - bearing in mind the proportion of population and GDP compared to South America or Europe or the rest of the world.
His thought framework is stuck in the past, and he's rolling the dice to create a new age of Usonian Imperialism.
It also involves overthrowing the current Usonian polity, which is what is happening now.
Always funny to me that "listen to your people when they object to mass migration" and "censorship is bad" is treated as a "threat to democracy."
Do you know what "democracy" actually means?
The transatlantic elite have created so many institutions to silence their own people and to delegitimize the beliefs of the public. Of course, the Biden administration was the worst offender.
Even if you disagree with me substantively, these institutions have revealed themselves to be so brittle. AfD is in second place in Germany. The "far right" keeps getting closer in France.
Wake up!
Wow.
If only he showed the same degree of concern about the mass migration of Russian troops into Ukraine.
I think the failure of the Liberal elites to control migration, prioritise their own citizens, and not act in their immediate self-interest (instead preferring to condemn those who object) has an awful lot to answer for though.
They haven't been listening for 20 years.
Plenty still aren't.
Of course they haven't. Their tactic has simply be to denigrate anyone who raised any concerns about the vast cultural and demographic changes imposed on the country without any real democratic mandate as racist aided and abetted by an army of online posters with pink hair and nose rings.
For the majority of the last 20 years, the Conservative Party has been in power and they rarely stopped talked about immigration concerns, giving us such highlights as the hostile environment and Brexit.
What they say, of course, being the direct opposite of what they wanted to do, and actually did.
Were I being picky, I’d say that they sometimes did what they wanted to, but, yes, you’re right, broadly speaking, the Tories talked a lot about their immigration concerns while greatly increasing immigration. (In particular, Brexit had the opposite effect.) That always seemed like a foolish strategy to me, but that’s what they did.
So, the issue *isn’t* liberal elites denigrating any discussion of immigration. Rather, it’s Conservative elites promoting discussion of immigration, while acting otherwise.
And, of course, the Tories tried to deflect attention from the massive increase in legal immigration by demonising the relatively tiny number of illegal immigrants.
One of the many things that SKS underwhelms at is hanging the Rishiwave around Badenoch's neck. The 2022 and 2023 immigration figures are so amazing they just look wrong when written down. While this was going on The Little Shit had a healthy if deteriorating majority and could have greatly curtailed legal migration with legislation. Instead he just wanked his baked bean sized knob over Rwanda as if that were the answer to anything. He was worse than Truss in some respects.
Always funny to me that "listen to your people when they object to mass migration" and "censorship is bad" is treated as a "threat to democracy."
Do you know what "democracy" actually means?
The transatlantic elite have created so many institutions to silence their own people and to delegitimize the beliefs of the public. Of course, the Biden administration was the worst offender.
Even if you disagree with me substantively, these institutions have revealed themselves to be so brittle. AfD is in second place in Germany. The "far right" keeps getting closer in France.
Wake up!
Wow.
If only he showed the same degree of concern about the mass migration of Russian troops into Ukraine.
I think the failure of the Liberal elites to control migration, prioritise their own citizens, and not act in their immediate self-interest (instead preferring to condemn those who object) has an awful lot to answer for though.
They haven't been listening for 20 years.
Plenty still aren't.
Of course they haven't. Their tactic has simply be to denigrate anyone who raised any concerns about the vast cultural and demographic changes imposed on the country without any real democratic mandate as racist aided and abetted by an army of online posters with pink hair and nose rings.
For the majority of the last 20 years, the Conservative Party has been in power and they rarely stopped talked about immigration concerns, giving us such highlights as the hostile environment and Brexit.
What they say, of course, being the direct opposite of what they wanted to do, and actually did.
Were I being picky, I’d say that they sometimes did what they wanted to, but, yes, you’re right, broadly speaking, the Tories talked a lot about their immigration concerns while greatly increasing immigration. (In particular, Brexit had the opposite effect.) That always seemed like a foolish strategy to me, but that’s what they did.
So, the issue *isn’t* liberal elites denigrating any discussion of immigration. Rather, it’s Conservative elites promoting discussion of immigration, while acting otherwise.
And, of course, the Tories tried to deflect attention from the massive increase in legal immigration by demonising the relatively tiny number of illegal immigrants.
To Libtards like you (no offence) we either shouldn't talk about immigration at all or, if we do, to be effusively positive about it and make it even easier.
There is absolutely no place whatsoever where you would ever concede control of type and number. Because at some level that would imply an acceptance of borders.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
And you still believe that the Trump administration *are* acting in good faith? Trump is selling Ukraine down the river.
The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.
Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
"Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone."
Both of those are the bosses, and have repeatedly spread Russian misinformation lines.
As has your hero Musk. How is spreading Russian propaganda to their bases helpful?
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
And you still believe that the Trump administration *are* acting in good faith? Trump is selling Ukraine down the river.
The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.
Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
Neither of whom have any real say in the negotiation. Their job is to keep us quiet while Trump makes his deal with Putin.
That's certainly how it appears to me, and the European leaders. And the Russians. We'll see who is right pretty soon.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Just to expand on that, the Robinson interview was predicated on how difficult it would be to find even an extra £8bn in funding, and the £9m was referred to as a "fiver" in that context.
So he was saying pretty well the opposite of what boulet seems to have thought he was saying.
Absolute risible weaseling. I was angry about people dismissing amounts such as 8b as “a fiver” which is what Robinson was doing. The mere fact that he had been talking about the difficulty of finding 8b makes it even more ludicrous to dismiss such an amount as a mere fiver in spending.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
He was talking about this: ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal millionswas frittered on woke projects...
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
And you still believe that the Trump administration *are* acting in good faith? Trump is selling Ukraine down the river.
The voices I’m listening to from the American side are Rubio and Kellogg, who are handling the Russian and Ukranian delegations respectively. Both are experienced diplomats, unlike Trump and Vance who are talking mostly to a domestic American audience in their unusual undiplomatic tone.
How is Little Marco an experienced diplomat? He's been SoS for 4 weeks and before that was a career politician in the Senate and Florida HoR. That sneaky old fuck Lavrov will have him for zavtrak.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
He was talking about this: ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal millionswas frittered on woke projects...
FFS his exact words are “£8 billion isn’t even a fiver in the national finances”.
Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
He was talking about this: ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal millionswas frittered on woke projects...
FFS his exact words are “£8 billion isn’t even a fiver in the national finances”.
Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
It's entirely clear from the context that the "woke robots" are the pittance. You're effectively defending the view that the government's research spend is entirely wasteful, when the truth is that it's one of the most productive things they spend money on.
The entire interview is about how raising money for extra defence finding requires tough choices, not sons trivia the press have latched onto.
You've talked about the same thing yourself. Grow up.
Good luck today to Marco Rubio, about to be the most senior Western politician to meet the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine. He’s meeting Lavrov in Riyadh.
Hopefully the start of serious negotiations to end the war, though I suspect and fear that the Russians have no intention of acting in good faith.
I doubt that an accurate translation of "good faith" exists in Russian.
Nick Robinson is just such a giant twat. He was interviewing someone about the possibility of defence spending increases and touched on today’s Sun highlighting £8b of what the spSun says is waste (not sure what as haven’t read it) and then opined that £8billion is just a fiver per year in government spending and the economist trilled in with mention of trillions of spending.
This has really become a bugbear of mine now - £8 billion is not a “fiver” but a huge amount of money. It can buy huge amounts of kit for defence, improve conditions even to attract more people to the milirptary and more importantly keep experienced military.
All these absolute fuckers who dismiss £90m, £8b as insignificant “in the wider scale of things” need to give their heads a wobble. Stop just thinking this money is nothing because all these “fivers” add up and when you don’t mind them being spent on things that aren’t vital you are depriving those funds to things that are more vital.
Some people seem to think there is an endless supply of money. There isn’t. It’s usually people who live off the largess of entities that don’t have to bust their balls to generate the money so never have to tester on the edge of their salaries going or being cut because of markets or it’s people who always think that someone else needs to pay more tax to cover these “fivers” and that someone will always be someone who earns a little bit more than them but not actually them.
You owe the "giant twat" an apology; he was talking about nine million.
What does that make you ?
Ok - go and listen to it again at around 6.57am - he is talking about the £8b identified by the sun and refers to it dismissively as a fiver in gov spending.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
He was talking about this: ...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal millionswas frittered on woke projects...
FFS his exact words are “£8 billion isn’t even a fiver in the national finances”.
Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
It's entirely clear from the context that the "woke robots" are the pittance. You're effectively defending the view that the government's research spend is entirely wasteful, when the truth is that it's one of the most productive things they spend money on.
The entire interview is about how raising money for extra defence finding requires tough choices, not sons trivia the press have latched onto.
You've talked about the same thing yourself. Grow up.
Jesus Christ - my rant was about the way people dismiss huge sums of money as noting in relation to overall government spending spending and Robinson’s was a live example - £8b is not a fiver - I was not judging the validity of the Sun article and even said I hadn’t read it - I’m imagining it’s a mix of questionable spending and things that have a long lead the journalist can’t or doesn’t want to admit is actually good spending.
When there are tough choices it’s even more important not to be dismissing huge sums as “fivers” as people need to understand how every penny is vital.
And thanks for telling me to “grow up”. Very grown up.
Grocery bills were already ridiculously high before so they probably won't care, even if they go higher. People were already annoyed by that problem a lot earlier.
The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on. Sadly.
Europe cannot rely on this happening in four years.
As it almost certainly wont now unless there has been civil war.
Michael McFaul @McFaul · 3h Europeans, don't give up on America yet! Trump does not represent us all. Most believe, like I do, that a strong NATO serves US security interests We need to limit the damage over the next 4 years so that we can rebuild our transatlantic partnership again in the future.
It won't matter if it does. The concept of the United States as "leader of the free world" is dead and buried. Even if there's much of a free world left for it to lead in four years' time.
I love comments like this. What is it that you expect to happen to the free world in the next four years? And show your working.
I'm giving in to pessimism, and why not? The entire state of the world gives no cause for anything else. Four years is ample time for Ukraine to be dismembered, the Baltics to fall to the next invasion like a pack of cards, Germany to discover the joys of neo-Nazism and fuck knows what else, and that's just in our little corner of this dying planet. The country is rotting, we are beset by insoluble problems at home and surrounded by extreme danger of several different kinds. I don't see any prospect of our circumstances improving, just getting worse and worse and worse. Perhaps you'd like to show your working for how everything *doesn't* go to hell in a handcart?
Maybe you just need a few days of springlike weather?
Most peoples lives in 2025 are better than the lives of any other people in history. Europe is already coming together to face a new paradigm. Russia has fecked itself trying to achieve a three day victory that’s inexplicably taken over two years already. The Russian army is not the threat it used to seem, even in 2022. Trump/America is not the free world. Step back from doom scrolling and get some fresh air.
Perhaps. It does feel like it's been cold for a thousand fucking years. I'm so sick of it.
Unfortunately I think we passed peak civilization about twenty years ago. And I'd be a lot more sanguine about the level of the threat posed by Russia if they weren't such a deeply evil people with an inexhaustible supply of rape-murdering barbarians available to throw at us, whereas the British armed forces consist of not much more than a couple of rusty boats and a marching band. And we are one of the stronger European states. It's also come to something when we find ourselves having to survive in a world being carved up between three despotisms and China is beginning to look the most appealing.
I think that overstates the case in America. Trump won an election fair and square. And there will be new elections in less than four years time. And let’s imagine he finds a way to be eligible to stand again. The US public can still choose someone else. Too many people who hate Trump, hate Musk (not without reason, mind) have bought into the whole ‘they’re Nazis’ thing, and have rather lost their critical faculties. I’d suggest reacquainting themselves with some of the better studies of Nazi Germany to regain a sense of perspective.
Er. Hitler won power through an election.
That's a best a half-truth. Hitler didn't really "win" power, he was handed it through a backroom deal with von Papen, a man whose political judgement makes Liz Truss look like Tony Blair, and blessed by the President, Hindenburg, who by then made Biden last year look young and sprightly. Hindeburg had actually beaten Hitler quite handily (53-37) the year before. And there was considerable evidence that by early 1933 the Nazis' electoral appeal had peaked - they lost 34 of their 230 seats in the November 1932 Reichstag elections.
Certainly before he could rig elections, Hitler never achieved anything like Trump's performance last year, winning the popular vote with his party getting a majority in both houses of the legislaure, though of course the Weimar political system was much more fragmented than America's is.
Incidentally I would just like to thank several people, but especially PoodleInASlipstream a month ago for his sound advice on graphics card expansion. With slight modifications I followed his advice and the extra monitors all seem to be working.
The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on. Sadly.
Europe cannot rely on this happening in four years.
As it almost certainly wont now unless there has been civil war.
Michael McFaul @McFaul · 3h Europeans, don't give up on America yet! Trump does not represent us all. Most believe, like I do, that a strong NATO serves US security interests We need to limit the damage over the next 4 years so that we can rebuild our transatlantic partnership again in the future.
It won't matter if it does. The concept of the United States as "leader of the free world" is dead and buried. Even if there's much of a free world left for it to lead in four years' time.
I love comments like this. What is it that you expect to happen to the free world in the next four years? And show your working.
I'm giving in to pessimism, and why not? The entire state of the world gives no cause for anything else. Four years is ample time for Ukraine to be dismembered, the Baltics to fall to the next invasion like a pack of cards, Germany to discover the joys of neo-Nazism and fuck knows what else, and that's just in our little corner of this dying planet. The country is rotting, we are beset by insoluble problems at home and surrounded by extreme danger of several different kinds. I don't see any prospect of our circumstances improving, just getting worse and worse and worse. Perhaps you'd like to show your working for how everything *doesn't* go to hell in a handcart?
Maybe you just need a few days of springlike weather?
Most peoples lives in 2025 are better than the lives of any other people in history. Europe is already coming together to face a new paradigm. Russia has fecked itself trying to achieve a three day victory that’s inexplicably taken over two years already. The Russian army is not the threat it used to seem, even in 2022. Trump/America is not the free world. Step back from doom scrolling and get some fresh air.
Perhaps. It does feel like it's been cold for a thousand fucking years. I'm so sick of it.
Unfortunately I think we passed peak civilization about twenty years ago. And I'd be a lot more sanguine about the level of the threat posed by Russia if they weren't such a deeply evil people with an inexhaustible supply of rape-murdering barbarians available to throw at us, whereas the British armed forces consist of not much more than a couple of rusty boats and a marching band. And we are one of the stronger European states. It's also come to something when we find ourselves having to survive in a world being carved up between three despotisms and China is beginning to look the most appealing.
I think that overstates the case in America. Trump won an election fair and square. And there will be new elections in less than four years time. And let’s imagine he finds a way to be eligible to stand again. The US public can still choose someone else. Too many people who hate Trump, hate Musk (not without reason, mind) have bought into the whole ‘they’re Nazis’ thing, and have rather lost their critical faculties. I’d suggest reacquainting themselves with some of the better studies of Nazi Germany to regain a sense of perspective.
I do not believe that Donald Trump is a Nazi. I do think he's a wannabe autocrat who's bending the available levers of power at home towards that aim, and is possibly intent on gaining imperial colonies. Time will tell whether or not these rather extraordinary manoeuvres to acquire Greenland and the Gaza Strip, of all places, are negotiating ploys or something more serious. But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?
I’d be astonished. . The fate of Greenland is nothing to do with Starmer
Doesn’t stop Trump demanding it as a condition of a deal
Starmer isn’t dumb enough to offer something not within his power.
Nobody is suggesting that Starmer is going to offer up Greenland.
" But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"
The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on. Sadly.
Europe cannot rely on this happening in four years.
As it almost certainly wont now unless there has been civil war.
Michael McFaul @McFaul · 3h Europeans, don't give up on America yet! Trump does not represent us all. Most believe, like I do, that a strong NATO serves US security interests We need to limit the damage over the next 4 years so that we can rebuild our transatlantic partnership again in the future.
It won't matter if it does. The concept of the United States as "leader of the free world" is dead and buried. Even if there's much of a free world left for it to lead in four years' time.
I love comments like this. What is it that you expect to happen to the free world in the next four years? And show your working.
I'm giving in to pessimism, and why not? The entire state of the world gives no cause for anything else. Four years is ample time for Ukraine to be dismembered, the Baltics to fall to the next invasion like a pack of cards, Germany to discover the joys of neo-Nazism and fuck knows what else, and that's just in our little corner of this dying planet. The country is rotting, we are beset by insoluble problems at home and surrounded by extreme danger of several different kinds. I don't see any prospect of our circumstances improving, just getting worse and worse and worse. Perhaps you'd like to show your working for how everything *doesn't* go to hell in a handcart?
Maybe you just need a few days of springlike weather?
Most peoples lives in 2025 are better than the lives of any other people in history. Europe is already coming together to face a new paradigm. Russia has fecked itself trying to achieve a three day victory that’s inexplicably taken over two years already. The Russian army is not the threat it used to seem, even in 2022. Trump/America is not the free world. Step back from doom scrolling and get some fresh air.
Perhaps. It does feel like it's been cold for a thousand fucking years. I'm so sick of it.
Unfortunately I think we passed peak civilization about twenty years ago. And I'd be a lot more sanguine about the level of the threat posed by Russia if they weren't such a deeply evil people with an inexhaustible supply of rape-murdering barbarians available to throw at us, whereas the British armed forces consist of not much more than a couple of rusty boats and a marching band. And we are one of the stronger European states. It's also come to something when we find ourselves having to survive in a world being carved up between three despotisms and China is beginning to look the most appealing.
I think that overstates the case in America. Trump won an election fair and square. And there will be new elections in less than four years time. And let’s imagine he finds a way to be eligible to stand again. The US public can still choose someone else. Too many people who hate Trump, hate Musk (not without reason, mind) have bought into the whole ‘they’re Nazis’ thing, and have rather lost their critical faculties. I’d suggest reacquainting themselves with some of the better studies of Nazi Germany to regain a sense of perspective.
I do not believe that Donald Trump is a Nazi. I do think he's a wannabe autocrat who's bending the available levers of power at home towards that aim, and is possibly intent on gaining imperial colonies. Time will tell whether or not these rather extraordinary manoeuvres to acquire Greenland and the Gaza Strip, of all places, are negotiating ploys or something more serious. But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?
I’d be astonished. . The fate of Greenland is nothing to do with Starmer
Doesn’t stop Trump demanding it as a condition of a deal
Starmer isn’t dumb enough to offer something not within his power.
Nobody is suggesting that Starmer is going to offer up Greenland.
" But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"
The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on. Sadly.
Europe cannot rely on this happening in four years.
As it almost certainly wont now unless there has been civil war.
Michael McFaul @McFaul · 3h Europeans, don't give up on America yet! Trump does not represent us all. Most believe, like I do, that a strong NATO serves US security interests We need to limit the damage over the next 4 years so that we can rebuild our transatlantic partnership again in the future.
It won't matter if it does. The concept of the United States as "leader of the free world" is dead and buried. Even if there's much of a free world left for it to lead in four years' time.
I love comments like this. What is it that you expect to happen to the free world in the next four years? And show your working.
I'm giving in to pessimism, and why not? The entire state of the world gives no cause for anything else. Four years is ample time for Ukraine to be dismembered, the Baltics to fall to the next invasion like a pack of cards, Germany to discover the joys of neo-Nazism and fuck knows what else, and that's just in our little corner of this dying planet. The country is rotting, we are beset by insoluble problems at home and surrounded by extreme danger of several different kinds. I don't see any prospect of our circumstances improving, just getting worse and worse and worse. Perhaps you'd like to show your working for how everything *doesn't* go to hell in a handcart?
Maybe you just need a few days of springlike weather?
Most peoples lives in 2025 are better than the lives of any other people in history. Europe is already coming together to face a new paradigm. Russia has fecked itself trying to achieve a three day victory that’s inexplicably taken over two years already. The Russian army is not the threat it used to seem, even in 2022. Trump/America is not the free world. Step back from doom scrolling and get some fresh air.
Perhaps. It does feel like it's been cold for a thousand fucking years. I'm so sick of it.
Unfortunately I think we passed peak civilization about twenty years ago. And I'd be a lot more sanguine about the level of the threat posed by Russia if they weren't such a deeply evil people with an inexhaustible supply of rape-murdering barbarians available to throw at us, whereas the British armed forces consist of not much more than a couple of rusty boats and a marching band. And we are one of the stronger European states. It's also come to something when we find ourselves having to survive in a world being carved up between three despotisms and China is beginning to look the most appealing.
I think that overstates the case in America. Trump won an election fair and square. And there will be new elections in less than four years time. And let’s imagine he finds a way to be eligible to stand again. The US public can still choose someone else. Too many people who hate Trump, hate Musk (not without reason, mind) have bought into the whole ‘they’re Nazis’ thing, and have rather lost their critical faculties. I’d suggest reacquainting themselves with some of the better studies of Nazi Germany to regain a sense of perspective.
I do not believe that Donald Trump is a Nazi. I do think he's a wannabe autocrat who's bending the available levers of power at home towards that aim, and is possibly intent on gaining imperial colonies. Time will tell whether or not these rather extraordinary manoeuvres to acquire Greenland and the Gaza Strip, of all places, are negotiating ploys or something more serious. But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?
I’d be astonished. . The fate of Greenland is nothing to do with Starmer
Doesn’t stop Trump demanding it as a condition of a deal
Starmer isn’t dumb enough to offer something not within his power.
Nobody is suggesting that Starmer is going to offer up Greenland.
" But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"
He was responding to your post.
Read the thread - he was the one who suggested it, not me.
Comments
NEW THREAD
"To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work."
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-01-29/27381
I agree with Amorim though - transform the team by playing a different style of football. And how I'd do that and manage the debts is promote youth, sell the old and expensive rubbish, and bring in a couple of sagey old hands to look after the kids.
Good local news from where I am, Zelensky was in UAE yesterday, and the two countries signed a trade agreement which will likely see food going one way and reconstruction/investment funds going the other way.
It will be "Come back Glaziers, all is forgiven" soon
So he was saying pretty well the opposite of what boulet seems to have thought he was saying.
Perhaps Trump is trying to recreate a world like the 1890s, where big powers get to do what they want - eg foment the Spanish-American war or the earlier 1848 war that allowed the USA to take over half of Mexico *. He wants to be able to operate like Presidents McKinley or Teddy Roosevelt.
That requires an understanding with Russia and China, and Europe with it's annoying belief in International Law etc to be taken out of the wider game - as I put it turned into a place to be quarried like South America used to be.
The weaknesses in the position are that Russia is nothing like as powerful as he thinks, and neither relatively is the USA - bearing in mind the proportion of population and GDP compared to South America or Europe or the rest of the world.
His thought framework is stuck in the past, and he's rolling the dice to create a new age of Usonian Imperialism.
It also involves overthrowing the current Usonian polity, which is what is happening now.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican–American_War
There is absolutely no place whatsoever where you would ever concede control of type and number. Because at some level that would imply an acceptance of borders.
And that's your biggest problem.
What does that make you? Maybe check before you embarrass yourself again.
Both of those are the bosses, and have repeatedly spread Russian misinformation lines.
As has your hero Musk. How is spreading Russian propaganda to their bases helpful?
What do you see that I don't?
That's certainly how it appears to me, and the European leaders. And the Russians.
We'll see who is right pretty soon.
...Another £8billion a year is earmarked for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants — but The Sun can reveal millionswas frittered on woke projects...
Stop twisting to avoid admitting that your attack was embarrassingly wrong.
You're effectively defending the view that the government's research spend is entirely wasteful, when the truth is that it's one of the most productive things they spend money on.
The entire interview is about how raising money for extra defence finding requires tough choices, not sons trivia the press have latched onto.
You've talked about the same thing yourself.
Grow up.
When there are tough choices it’s even more important not to be dismissing huge sums as “fivers” as people need to understand how every penny is vital.
And thanks for telling me to “grow up”. Very grown up.
It just so happens that their parents age group of 45-60 also happens to be that most likely to vote Reform
Certainly before he could rig elections, Hitler never achieved anything like Trump's performance last year, winning the popular vote with his party getting a majority in both houses of the legislaure, though of course the Weimar political system was much more fragmented than America's is.
Incidentally I would just like to thank several people, but especially PoodleInASlipstream a month ago for his sound advice on graphics card expansion. With slight modifications I followed his advice and the extra monitors all seem to be working.
" But if, for argument's sake, Keir Starmer goes to Washington to try to persuade Trump to provide logistical support and guarantees for any Ukrainian settlement, and he agrees on the condition that the Danes present him with Greenland as a present, would any of us be particularly surprised?"