To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The biggest mistake the West ever made was not reaching out and helping Russia in the 1990s when it had a broadly non-hostile leader in Yeltsin, and was open to rejoining the ranks of civilised nations.
By doing nothing we helped create the Putin monster we have today.
The West was too busy basking in the warm glow of "we told you so" and "the end of history".
But I'm not entirely convinced it would have been easy. Remember that Russia is almost entirely dependent on energy exports. (And remember that it was the persistently low oil price that did for Communist Russia more than any Star Wars expenditure.) And the 1990s, particularly the latter half the decade, were terrible from an oil price perspective. (Ditto the other commodities - coal, natural gas, metals - that Russia / the Soviet Union exported.)
Russia, as it collapsed, was begging for money. Robert Service's book on the end of the Cold War is excellent on this. Gorbachev and then Yeltsin needed money. And it would probably have been in our long term interests to have provided the money and the help Russia needed to reform.
But bailing out Russia would have been extraordinarily expensive. It's very hard to persuade sceptical electorates that their tax dollars should have been used to subsidise Russians. Who would have paid? And how much? Would it have been loans to an economy that was collapsing? Would the Russians have accepted IMF type terms for money?
What bailed Russia out was not Putin's brilliant leadership. It was that he took over as commodity prices started to rise.
In 10 years time we will be closer to having enough doctors graduating, which will be a postwar novelty.
Good to see where the new medical schools are going to be. As well as hopefully retaining some doctors locally*, it will attract higher calibre senior staff too as teachers.
*though in the East Mids at our two University hospitals we retain only 50% of our graduates locally, the lowest rate in the country. National recruitment to specialist training is in part to blame. If this was devolved back to the regions then local retention would be better.
Good news indeed. In the shorter term the fall in inflation (contrary to what the OBR was saying, oh all of 6 days ago) means we may well get back to real wages increasing again as soon as next month.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
No. The data was improperly obtained. Probably with Facebook turning a blind eye.
As for the dossier, which info was false?
I was talking specifically about this evenings episode, which was shock horror campaigns play on fear and emotion and we have Super PACs to run attack ads.
I have commented on previous episodes.
I am not watching it, but by the sound of it there’s not much new there. However, most audiences will likely be unaware of the power of social media to hyper target and shape opinion.
It’s moved on a lot since even the Obama win, and what we now have is actually bloody scary when used effectively by political campaigners. It raises real issues about what the public sphere means in a democracy.
The challenge though is getting the data - which is where CA came in...
The collection of data by Amazon, Google, Facebook is scary.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned, Facebook doesn't just collect your data from its site. It is one of the worlds biggest buyer of personal data. They have so much, it is known they can match up quite a lot of anonymized data based on what you have put on Facebook and all the other sources they have previously purchased and aligned.
I did not know that, but am unsurprised. Facebook’s business - more than anybody else’s - is to sell your attention to advertisers. There have been an unending list of ethical breaches over the past 10 years - unsurprisingly given the company ethos is to commodify you.
I had a Facebook account in 2006, and deleted it in around 2010.
Years ago, I started to set up a Facebook account and decided against it before I'd completed the process. Didn't even decide on a password.
They're still sending me e-mails saying all these people would like to befriend me.
I guess the war with Russia distraction from ideological austerity will be strung out until after the May elections, after which something else will be used to be othered and made the enemy the Tory establishment needs to distract us further.Meanwhile,the Saudis continue to murder children in Yemen using weapons made in the UK and all you hear is silence and silence always equals consent.
I don’t agree with all of what Self says in this video (certainly I don’t think the parallel with Old Labour and Corbynism quite works). But I do think that it’s hard to see how Marxists and neo-liberals can co-exist in the same party together.
I guess the war with Russia distraction from ideological austerity will be strung out until after the May elections, after which something else will be used to be othered and made the enemy the Tory establishment needs to distract us further.Meanwhile,the Saudis continue to murder children in Yemen using weapons made in the UK and all you hear is silence and silence always equals consent.
Do you not see a difference between people being killed in Yemen and people being attacked with chemical weapons in the UK itself?
The biggest mistake the West ever made was not reaching out and helping Russia in the 1990s when it had a broadly non-hostile leader in Yeltsin, and was open to rejoining the ranks of civilised nations.
By doing nothing we helped create the Putin monster we have today.
The West was too busy basking in the warm glow of "we told you so" and "the end of history".
But I'm not entirely convinced it would have been easy. Remember that Russia is almost entirely dependent on energy exports. (And remember that it was the persistently low oil price that did for Communist Russia more than any Star Wars expenditure.) And the 1990s, particularly the latter half the decade, were terrible from an oil price perspective. (Ditto the other commodities - coal, natural gas, metals - that Russia / the Soviet Union exported.)
Russia, as it collapsed, was begging for money. Robert Service's book on the end of the Cold War is excellent on this. Gorbachev and then Yeltsin needed money. And it would probably have been in our long term interests to have provided the money and the help Russia needed to reform.
But bailing out Russia would have been extraordinarily expensive. It's very hard to persuade sceptical electorates that their tax dollars should have been used to subsidise Russians. Who would have paid? And how much? Would it have been loans to an economy that was collapsing? Would the Russians have accepted IMF type terms for money?
What bailed Russia out was not Putin's brilliant leadership. It was that he took over as commodity prices started to rise.
I've heard that when Russia moved away from communism in the 1990s it adopted what it thought capitalism was.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
The biggest mistake the West ever made was not reaching out and helping Russia in the 1990s when it had a broadly non-hostile leader in Yeltsin, and was open to rejoining the ranks of civilised nations.
By doing nothing we helped create the Putin monster we have today.
The West was too busy basking in the warm glow of "we told you so" and "the end of history".
But I'm not entirely convinced it would have been easy. Remember that Russia is almost entirely dependent on energy exports. (And remember that it was the persistently low oil price that did for Communist Russia more than any Star Wars expenditure.) And the 1990s, particularly the latter half the decade, were terrible from an oil price perspective. (Ditto the other commodities - coal, natural gas, metals - that Russia / the Soviet Union exported.)
Russia, as it collapsed, was begging for money. Robert Service's book on the end of the Cold War is excellent on this. Gorbachev and then Yeltsin needed money. And it would probably have been in our long term interests to have provided the money and the help Russia needed to reform.
But bailing out Russia would have been extraordinarily expensive. It's very hard to persuade sceptical electorates that their tax dollars should have been used to subsidise Russians. Who would have paid? And how much? Would it have been loans to an economy that was collapsing? Would the Russians have accepted IMF type terms for money?
What bailed Russia out was not Putin's brilliant leadership. It was that he took over as commodity prices started to rise.
I've heard that when Russia moved away from communism in the 1990s it adopted what it thought capitalism was.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
A staggeringly good point (whether or not it is altogether correct).
I guess the war with Russia distraction from ideological austerity will be strung out until after the May elections, after which something else will be used to be othered and made the enemy the Tory establishment needs to distract us further.Meanwhile,the Saudis continue to murder children in Yemen using weapons made in the UK and all you hear is silence and silence always equals consent.
Think you would need to discuss that with Sir Thomas More.
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
It was appalling: the meat was indescribable and inedible; the water tasted as if someone had farted into it...
Don't tell me they also put chocolate on their ersatz coffee cappuccinos ... ?
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
snip (sorry!).
I went to St Petersburg about 10 years ago when working as a private banker in Switzerland. I had many clients and contacts with Russian connections but this was absolutely purely about seeing somewhere I had always wanted to see so I left my "baggage" at home about the side of Russia I saw every day and was very open minded and excited.
St Petersburg was incredible, shabby, grand, surprising, exciting. Best sushi I have ever had surprisingly (and I love my sushi). My favourite city I have been to. Apart from the weirdness of everyone having their wedding photos taken by the Russian admiralty building and the sight of the most beautiful young girls walking arm in arm with fat old ugly men in football shorts, vests and shower flip-flops it felt like any other European city.
It's so very sad how we missed the opportunity to bring them into the fold instead of celebrating the difference and "the win" but to put into perspective even ten years ago (which is the point of this ramble) I was stopped at gatwick at the gate whilst boarding my flight back to Geneva and the guys who stopped us knew exactly where we had been, what y partner and I did in Geneva and wanted to know what we felt and how we had been treated. It was the strange converse of the depth of info the Russian consulate in Geneva wanted for our visa applications.
The mistrust runs so deep when perhaps we missed an opportunity to be open rather than give Putin et al the perfect campaigning tool of "defending" Russia against "the other"....
I've heard that when Russia moved away from communism in the 1990s it adopted what it thought capitalism was.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
I'm not sure that's quite true. Indeed, one of the issues in the later Soviet Union was known as the 'Dallas complex' - the belief from those American TV series aired in the USSR that everyone under capitalism lived like an oil baron. So although this was a false perception (of course) it did lead to the belief that capitalism equalled wealth for everybody whereas communism equalled poverty for everybody. Curiously both the US and Venezuela are testing those to destruction at this moment.
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
I'm surprised Facebook's business model is suddenly news
For the past three years I’ve been doing presentations to schools and parents about social media and the dangers of over sharing information. It’s good to finally see people waking up to it. Facebook’s share price falling rapidly again today.
What has always shocked me is not how much of people's personal life people publicly post on Facebook, but how much personal data which is totally unnecessary people are willing to fill in eg phone number.
User consent is not an entirely convincing excuse...
The agreement came as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended....
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
It was appalling: the meat was indescribable and inedible; the water tasted as if someone had farted into it; there were no vegetables of any kind though we were once shown an orange.
The ice cream was good as was the bread and vodka.
I'm amazed that Russians are nostalgic for the Soviet period. Soviet Russia was like a third world country: not just no food but badly built buildings, tar on the roads which melted in the heat and a general air of down at heel shabbiness. There was nothing in the shops. Nothing. Apart from some rather nice Lenin cards, which I still have.
Like Burkina Faso but with bombs, as someone once said.
The churches, which were being repaired, were beautiful; the circus was great fun; the Moscow metro was gorgeous and the people - to the extent we could communicate with them - seemed friendly enough. But what struck me was the poverty. It was a revelation. For all the changes since then I do wonder whether life for ordinary Russians has got significantly better.
I was there in 1980, still in Brezhnev's time. There was not much absolute poverty but the standard of living was very low. Everything was drab and there was minimal traffic. Decent goods were only available in "dollar" shops accepting foreign currency. Fresh goods were very limited and dependent on remarkably open black markets for supply. Crime seemed to be non existent. It was an odd but fascinating situation.
I've heard that when Russia moved away from communism in the 1990s it adopted what it thought capitalism was.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
I'm not sure that's quite true. Indeed, one of the issues in the later Soviet Union was known as the 'Dallas complex' - the belief from those American TV series aired in the USSR that everyone under capitalism lived like an oil baron. So although this was a false perception (of course) it did lead to the belief that capitalism equalled wealth for everybody whereas communism equalled poverty for everybody. Curiously both the US and Venezuela are testing those to destruction at this moment.
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
snip (sorry!).
I went to St Petersburg about 10 years ago when working as a private banker in Switzerland. I had many clients and contacts with Russian connections but this was absolutely purely about seeing somewhere I had always wanted to see so I left my "baggage" at home about the side of Russia I saw every day and was very open minded and excited.
St Petersburg was incredible, shabby, grand, surprising, exciting. Best sushi I have ever had surprisingly (and I love my sushi). My favourite city I have been to. Apart from the weirdness of everyone having their wedding photos taken by the Russian admiralty building and the sight of the most beautiful young girls walking arm in arm with fat old ugly men in football shorts, vests and shower flip-flops it felt like any other European city.
It's so very sad how we missed the opportunity to bring them into the fold instead of celebrating the difference and "the win" ....
I'm not sure how real that opportunity was. I'll grant the west could have tried harder, but the size of the problem, and the ingrained culture were, probably, insurmountable.
I've heard that when Russia moved away from communism in the 1990s it adopted what it thought capitalism was.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
I'm not sure that's quite true. Indeed, one of the issues in the later Soviet Union was known as the 'Dallas complex' - the belief from those American TV series aired in the USSR that everyone under capitalism lived like an oil baron. So although this was a false perception (of course) it did lead to the belief that capitalism equalled wealth for everybody whereas communism equalled poverty for everybody. Curiously both the US and Venezuela are testing those to destruction at this moment.
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
What would have been more dangerous in Dallas was not that the Ewing family were rich but that in 1980s Texas the oil workers, cowboys and domestic servants were living lives of varying degrees of affluence.
Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party must decide once and for all whether Putin's Russia represents a threat to ourselves and our allies – or whether his actions are a legitimate response to Western pressures and threats. Does it actually believe, like so-many left-wing stooges for the old Soviet Union, that Russia would become a nicer country if only the West behaved more nicely itself?
Labour should also answer some specific questions.
Does it accept Putin's assertion of a right to protect so-called Russian compatriots in any bordering country? What support will a future Labour government offer to countries which consider themselves under threat from Russia, particularly those formally allied to us through Nato?
What steps, if any, does Labour propose for the restoration of Ukraine's frontiers?
Should the present economic sanctions on Russia be reduced or extended or kept the same?
Does Labour have any new proposals to induce the Russians to release to British justice the alleged murderers of Alexander Litvinenko?
Will Labour do anything to change Russia's dishonest and uncooperative response to the investigation into the shooting-down of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine more than three years ago, in which ten Britons were killed?
Finally, does Labour believe that Putin's Russia is a fit host for the football World Cup next year? Does it believe that British fans, especially gay ones, will be safe if they choose to go there?
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Cyclefree was and is one of the best posters on here. Her comments are perfectly salient
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
Do you have a source for that story as I've heard it before (maybe here) but can't find it online. I'm wondering if its true or an apocryphal urban legend?
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
It was appalling: the meat was indescribable and inedible; the water tasted as if someone had farted into it...
Don't tell me they also put chocolate on their ersatz coffee cappuccinos ... ?
Khodorkovsky has some interesting comments on the attack, but I'm not entirely sure how one can distinguish between Putin (and his 'circle') and the Russian government ?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/20/russian-oligarch-in-london-fatalistic-about-his-safety-from-attack “The Russian government is not involved in this. The government is made up of officials, who do the usual official stuff, and the only thing you can accuse them of is that from time to time they take bribes,” he said. “But there is clear distinction between the government and Putin’s circle. All this is the work of Putin’s circle. Given that this is not about Russia or the Russian government but the criminal group inside Russia’s circle, the method of fighting it should be the methods used to fight criminal gangs.”
That might conceivably be true in terms of the bureaucracy - but as far as the executive is concerned, surely that is Putin ?
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
Do you have a source for that story as I've heard it before (maybe here) but can't find it online. I'm wondering if its true or an apocryphal urban legend?
My source is Raymond Pearson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire. It's basically a cultural history of postwar Communism, and very interesting.
I have mentioned it before because I find it very funny, so that may be where you heard it.
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
snip (sorry!).
I went to St Petersburg about 10 years ago when working as a private banker in Switzerland. I had many clients and contacts with Russian connections but this was absolutely purely about seeing somewhere I had always wanted to see so I left my "baggage" at home about the side of Russia I saw every day and was very open minded and excited.
St Petersburg was incredible, shabby, grand, surprising, exciting. Best sushi I have ever had surprisingly (and I love my sushi). My favourite city I have been to. Apart from the weirdness of everyone having their wedding photos taken by the Russian admiralty building and the sight of the most beautiful young girls walking arm in arm with fat old ugly men in football shorts, vests and shower flip-flops it felt like any other European city.
It's so very sad how we missed the opportunity to bring them into the fold instead of celebrating the difference and "the win" but to put into perspective even ten years ago (which is the point of this ramble) I was stopped at gatwick at the gate whilst boarding my flight back to Geneva and the guys who stopped us knew exactly where we had been, what y partner and I did in Geneva and wanted to know what we felt and how we had been treated. It was the strange converse of the depth of info the Russian consulate in Geneva wanted for our visa applications.
The mistrust runs so deep when perhaps we missed an opportunity to be open rather than give Putin et al the perfect campaigning tool of "defending" Russia against "the other"....
I took the train, Moscow to St Petersburg.
Some of the places it passes through I can only describe as feudal. Subsistence farming. Little or no electricity - at night at least - and no sign of any investment since the Soviets.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
Mmm. That sounds suspiciously like the plan for dealing with Corbyn that resulted in a hugely increased majority last time.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven false, and several parts of it have been shown to be true
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
I do find it hard to disagree with your assessment of him. He does seem to harbour a "dislike" of Britain and British values.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
The loss of Michael Fallon from the frontline for Tories is quite big in this regard. He was the best of a bad bunch at going on the media channels and attacking opponents.
But we can't have a knee toucher anywhere near the levers of power, but we can have terrorist sympathizer that have IRA memorabilia on their walls....
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
Mmm. That sounds suspiciously like the plan for dealing with Corbyn that resulted in a hugely increased majority last time.
I think Corbyn is doing it all on his own - seems to keep digging the hole deeper every day
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven false, and several parts of it have been shown to be true
Even the bloke who wrote it doesn't now think all of it to be true.
British spy behind explosive Trump-Russia dossier says that he thinks the dossier is between 70 and 90 per cent accurate
I am not going to get into defending Trump, because I am not fan. My point was that muck racking and attack ads is a staple part of US politics, so it isn't really shocking that CA would say so.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
Mmm. That sounds suspiciously like the plan for dealing with Corbyn that resulted in a hugely increased majority last time.
Wasn’t something similar attempted recently with that spy story?
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
The Ben Bradley manoeuvre... went down a storm last time.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
Mmm. That sounds suspiciously like the plan for dealing with Corbyn that resulted in a hugely increased majority last time.
I think Corbyn is doing it all on his own - seems to keep digging the hole deeper every day
The Sun must be kicking themselves over the timing of that agent story.
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Cyclefree was and is one of the best posters on here. Her comments are perfectly salient
I am also a big fan. Yet she's still joining the baying mob when no actual evidence has been released. When Russia comes into it, all objectivity departs.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
"Comrades, this is your Leader. It is an honour to speak to you today, and I am honoured to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our Party's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary — The Conservative Party. For a hundred years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today the game is different. We have the advantage. It reminds me of the heady days of 1945 and Clement Attlee, when the world trembled at the sound of our Nationalisations! Well, they will tremble again — at the sound of our Glorious support for Putin's regime. The order is: engage the Corbyn Drive!
"Comrades, our own Parliamentary Party don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our MPs behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct Austerity Debates! Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our laughter, while we sail to St Petersburg, where the sun is warm, and so is the... Comradeship!
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven false, and several parts of it have been shown to be true
Even the bloke who wrote it doesn't now think all of it to be true.
British spy behind explosive Trump-Russia dossier says that he thinks the dossier is between 70 and 90 per cent accurate...
He never did claim it was all true. This was raw intelligence, never intended for publication in that form, and subject to a whole load of caveats.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven false, and several parts of it have been shown to be true
Even the bloke who wrote it doesn't now think all of it to be true.
British spy behind explosive Trump-Russia dossier says that he thinks the dossier is between 70 and 90 per cent accurate...
He never did claim it was all true. This was raw intelligence, never intended for publication in that form, and subject to a whole load of caveats.
70-90% accurate is remarkably high.
The point was that it seems most likely that the most salacious stuff isn't true. What is much more likely to be accurate is the business related stuff, but that isn't what got all the attention.
Everybody was talking about golden showers not financial sourcing.
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
Do you have a source for that story as I've heard it before (maybe here) but can't find it online. I'm wondering if its true or an apocryphal urban legend?
My source is Raymond Pearson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire. It's basically a cultural history of postwar Communism, and very interesting.
I have mentioned it before because I find it very funny, so that may be where you heard it.
Cheers for repeating the recommendation (which I didn't notice previously); need some new reading material.
I have also been to Russia - 30 years ago. I met my husband there. After 4 days we became an item and have been together ever since. I blame - or credit - the appalling Russian food which must have addled our brains.
It was appalling: the meat was indescribable and inedible; the water tasted as if someone had farted into it...
Don't tell me they also put chocolate on their ersatz coffee cappuccinos ... ?
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Which is why I think the OPCW is the right way to go. It’s the correct process. Both expert and independent.
The point which you are missing is that inspection of the sample is not necessary for Russia to say whether or not they did it. It is pure disingenuousness to say so.
The one potential positive I saw coming from Brexit was that there might develop a new realism about the limitations Britain now operated under in the modern world, given its new isolation and relatively modest heft. Sadly, the Brexiters seem to becoming steadily more delusional. Any day now they're going to declare a resurrection of Pax Britannica.
Despite the sneery overtone, you're accidentally right! A small, well-defended, non-interfering and non-interfered with Britain on the model of a bigger Switzerland would be ideal. It's EU fans who think we need to club together as part of a big bloc to tell other people what to do. And they accuse us of being nostalgic for the days of Empire.
As Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." I'm afraid the greater Switzerland option simply isn't available to the UK, or England, because of its role in the balance of power in Europe.
there is no balance of power in Europe, just Germany versus the awkward squad
Germany is an economic power, but clearly not a military one. The only military expansionist countries on our continent are Russia and Turkey, and the latters ambitions are not in Europe.
Isolation against the continent is not attractive, a strong political and economic alliance with the mainland would be far better.
The EU is offering nothing on Russia other than toadying lickspittlism.
Germany is pacifist and dependent on its gas. France thinks it has some sort of transcendent high-cultural relationship with Moscow that puts it in a different league, but it’s a fantasy.
The only ones I’d trust would be Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway and Finland, together with the Baltic states.
The current Polish government is quite keen on the Russians, and implemented (Moscow inspired) anti-fracking legislation.
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack. I Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Cyclefree was and is one of the best posters on here. Her comments are perfectly salient
I am also a big fan. Yet she's still joining the baying mob when no actual evidence has been released. When Russia comes into it, all objectivity departs.
To be honest the fact Corbyn has lined himself fair and square behind Putin even to being quoted on Russia Today, has a life long alignment with Russia, has supported anti UK and the West including NATO narratives and never utters a word in support of the US, he is by his own actions creating a narrative against him
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Cyclefree was and is one of the best posters on here. Her comments are perfectly salient
I am also a big fan. Yet she's still joining the baying mob when no actual evidence has been released. When Russia comes into it, all objectivity departs.
You are utterly naive to believe that evidence will be released directly for you to assess. Sources need to be protected. Some things you cannot talk about in public.
The language chosen for these things is very carefully selected. Not to deceive - but to be as accurate as possible without giving away more than is absolutely necessary.
There isn't a baying mob. There is a group of people who have accepted that Russia is behind the events in Salisbury and who believe that action has to be taken.
A baying mob would be calling for the nuking of Moscow or something similar. I have seen no such calls.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Just catching up on Ch4 expose on CA. Am I supposed to be shocked that political campaigns try to use peoples emotions rather than run on simply the facts and that Super PACs run attack ads.
We seem to be forgetting the other side were involved in the dodgy dossier against Trump and there seems to be a lot of false info in that dossier.
Nothing in the Steele dossier has been proven false, and several parts of it have been shown to be true
Even the bloke who wrote it doesn't now think all of it to be true.
British spy behind explosive Trump-Russia dossier says that he thinks the dossier is between 70 and 90 per cent accurate...
He never did claim it was all true. This was raw intelligence, never intended for publication in that form, and subject to a whole load of caveats.
70-90% accurate is remarkably high.
The point was that it seems most likely that the most salacious stuff isn't true. What is much more likely to be accurate is the business related stuff, but that isn't what got all the attention.
Everybody was talking about golden showers not financial sourcing.
To be fair Corbyn wants Russia to test a sample so they can say whether they were behind attack.
Utterly bonkers
If you think about it for a moment, it's not even necessary to share the sample. Russia does not need a sample to say whether it was behind the attack. It knows whether it did this or not.
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
The Cyclefree I knew set a very high store by evidence and due process. Ho hum.
Cyclefree was and is one of the best posters on here. Her comments are perfectly salient
I am also a big fan. Yet she's still joining the baying mob when no actual evidence has been released. When Russia comes into it, all objectivity departs.
No. I am not. My concern is with Corbyn’s approach. Some of it is good eg his focus on financial action. I also think he is right to call out the Tories for their closeness to some of Putin’s friends.
But the way he is approaching the question of Russia’s likely involvement, which is what the government has said, is both incoherent and naive, which are not good qualities for a potential PM.
The one potential positive I saw coming from Brexit was that there might develop a new realism about the limitations Britain now operated under in the modern world, given its new isolation and relatively modest heft. Sadly, the Brexiters seem to becoming steadily more delusional. Any day now they're going to declare a resurrection of Pax Britannica.
Despite the sneery overtone, you're accidentally right! A small, well-defended, non-interfering and non-interfered with Britain on the model of a bigger Switzerland would be ideal. It's EU fans who think we need to club together as part of a big bloc to tell other people what to do. And they accuse us of being nostalgic for the days of Empire.
As Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." I'm afraid the greater Switzerland option simply isn't available to the UK, or England, because of its role in the balance of power in Europe.
there is no balance of power in Europe, just Germany versus the awkward squad
Germany is an economic power, but clearly not a military one. The only military expansionist countries on our continent are Russia and Turkey, and the latters ambitions are not in Europe.
Isolation against the continent is not attractive, a strong political and economic alliance with the mainland would be far better.
The EU is offering nothing on Russia other than toadying lickspittlism.
Germany is pacifist and dependent on its gas. France thinks it has some sort of transcendent high-cultural relationship with Moscow that puts it in a different league, but it’s a fantasy.
The only ones I’d trust would be Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway and Finland, together with the Baltic states.
The current Polish government is quite keen on the Russians, and implemented (Moscow inspired) anti-fracking legislation.
The Russians have been quietly getting the right wing nationalists across Eastern and Southern Europe on side for years. PB Tories and Putin cheerleading for the same people was always going to end badly.
I think the Tories should simply come out and say this. Corbyn clearly supports all the sworn enemies of the UK. Let him sue. Even if he narrowly wins the legal argument the odious reality of his position (on the IRA, Iraq, Russia, Iran, etc etc) will lose him millions of votes. He will be the Oscar Wilde of politics.
The Tories might have to pay damages, Corbyn will be ruined.
I do find it hard to disagree with your assessment of him. He does seem to harbour a "dislike" of Britain and British values.
With the exception of the IRA, why exactly ARE those countries the 'sworn enemies' though? They didn't swear it. Saddam's regime was less foul than the forces it was holding at bay, Iran are foreign policy doves compared to KSA who we love, Russia haven't actually done anything to us. They happen to be geopolitical rivals to the USA, that's the beginning and the end of it. We are a sidekick, so we keep picking their fights and getting the shitty end of their stick. When we realise that it'll be a happy day. I love Americans as people, but the US is a foreign country like any other.
Comments
Some clever interviewer should put this to Corbyn.
If this was a substance made in Russia which had been lost, the Russians would be the first to be shouting about this since they would have lost control.
But I'm not entirely convinced it would have been easy. Remember that Russia is almost entirely dependent on energy exports. (And remember that it was the persistently low oil price that did for Communist Russia more than any Star Wars expenditure.) And the 1990s, particularly the latter half the decade, were terrible from an oil price perspective. (Ditto the other commodities - coal, natural gas, metals - that Russia / the Soviet Union exported.)
Russia, as it collapsed, was begging for money. Robert Service's book on the end of the Cold War is excellent on this. Gorbachev and then Yeltsin needed money. And it would probably have been in our long term interests to have provided the money and the help Russia needed to reform.
But bailing out Russia would have been extraordinarily expensive. It's very hard to persuade sceptical electorates that their tax dollars should have been used to subsidise Russians. Who would have paid? And how much? Would it have been loans to an economy that was collapsing? Would the Russians have accepted IMF type terms for money?
What bailed Russia out was not Putin's brilliant leadership. It was that he took over as commodity prices started to rise.
Both Milne and Corbyn have very similar large ears. And their mouths are open in the same way.
Were they photoshopped? I think we should be told.
(I do hope I start a new meme: from photoshopped Hat to photoshopped Ears......)
They're still sending me e-mails saying all these people would like to befriend me.
I don’t agree with all of what Self says in this video (certainly I don’t think the parallel with Old Labour and Corbynism quite works). But I do think that it’s hard to see how Marxists and neo-liberals can co-exist in the same party together.
But what it thought capitalism was was what it had accused the West of being in its propaganda ie wealth concentrated in a tiny number of people with the vast majority in poverty and the state the puppet of the few extremely rich.
St Petersburg was incredible, shabby, grand, surprising, exciting. Best sushi I have ever had surprisingly (and I love my sushi). My favourite city I have been to. Apart from the weirdness of everyone having their wedding photos taken by the Russian admiralty building and the sight of the most beautiful young girls walking arm in arm with fat old ugly men in football shorts, vests and shower flip-flops it felt like any other European city.
It's so very sad how we missed the opportunity to bring them into the fold instead of celebrating the difference and "the win" but to put into perspective even ten years ago (which is the point of this ramble) I was stopped at gatwick at the gate whilst boarding my flight back to Geneva and the guys who stopped us knew exactly where we had been, what y partner and I did in Geneva and wanted to know what we felt and how we had been treated. It was the strange converse of the depth of info the Russian consulate in Geneva wanted for our visa applications.
The mistrust runs so deep when perhaps we missed an opportunity to be open rather than give Putin et al the perfect campaigning tool of "defending" Russia against "the other"....
However, more disastrous for Communism was the Kit-E-Kat scandal. In 1988 an ITV show was aired live and unedited to Moscow. This included commercials. This led to the stunning and uncomfortable revelation that in the workers' paradise, the average human ate rather less meat in a week than the average cat in the evil capitalist west ate in a day...and that was one the government really didn't have an answer for.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/20/david-carroll-cambridge-analytica-uk-courts-us-professor
The company may also be facing millions of dollars in fines if it is found to have violated a 2011 consent decree reached with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection limiting the release of information to third parties.
The agreement came as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended....
Labour should also answer some specific questions.
Does it accept Putin's assertion of a right to protect so-called Russian compatriots in any bordering country? What support will a future Labour government offer to countries which consider themselves under threat from Russia, particularly those formally allied to us through Nato?
What steps, if any, does Labour propose for the restoration of Ukraine's frontiers?
Should the present economic sanctions on Russia be reduced or extended or kept the same?
Does Labour have any new proposals to induce the Russians to release to British justice the alleged murderers of Alexander Litvinenko?
Will Labour do anything to change Russia's dishonest and uncooperative response to the investigation into the shooting-down of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine more than three years ago, in which ten Britons were killed?
Finally, does Labour believe that Putin's Russia is a fit host for the football World Cup next year? Does it believe that British fans, especially gay ones, will be safe if they choose to go there?
http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/10/09/digging-into-corbyn-s-silence-on-putin
Has Corbyn answered any of these questions on Russia, asked last year by a former chief of staff to Denis Healey?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/20/russian-oligarch-in-london-fatalistic-about-his-safety-from-attack
“The Russian government is not involved in this. The government is made up of officials, who do the usual official stuff, and the only thing you can accuse them of is that from time to time they take bribes,” he said. “But there is clear distinction between the government and Putin’s circle. All this is the work of Putin’s circle. Given that this is not about Russia or the Russian government but the criminal group inside Russia’s circle, the method of fighting it should be the methods used to fight criminal gangs.”
That might conceivably be true in terms of the bureaucracy - but as far as the executive is concerned, surely that is Putin ?
I have mentioned it before because I find it very funny, so that may be where you heard it.
Some of the places it passes through I can only describe as feudal. Subsistence farming. Little or no electricity - at night at least - and no sign of any investment since the Soviets.
But we can't have a knee toucher anywhere near the levers of power, but we can have terrorist sympathizer that have IRA memorabilia on their walls....
British spy behind explosive Trump-Russia dossier says that he thinks the dossier is between 70 and 90 per cent accurate
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-steele-dossier-russia-likely-true-british-spy-claims-a8057496.html
I am not going to get into defending Trump, because I am not fan. My point was that muck racking and attack ads is a staple part of US politics, so it isn't really shocking that CA would say so.
Imagine if they had run it last weekend...
"Comrades, our own Parliamentary Party don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our MPs behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct Austerity Debates! Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our laughter, while we sail to St Petersburg, where the sun is warm, and so is the... Comradeship!
"A great day, Comrades! We sail into history!"
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Exclusive-Tempe-police-chief-says-early-probe-12765481.php
70-90% accurate is remarkably high.
Everybody was talking about golden showers not financial sourcing.
The point which you are missing is that inspection of the sample is not necessary for Russia to say whether or not they did it. It is pure disingenuousness to say so.
The language chosen for these things is very carefully selected. Not to deceive - but to be as accurate as possible without giving away more than is absolutely necessary.
There isn't a baying mob. There is a group of people who have accepted that Russia is behind the events in Salisbury and who believe that action has to be taken.
A baying mob would be calling for the nuking of Moscow or something similar. I have seen no such calls.
NEW THREAD
https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/139/590x/farage-731813.jpg
But the way he is approaching the question of Russia’s likely involvement, which is what the government has said, is both incoherent and naive, which are not good qualities for a potential PM.