You would not think it possible, but the Stop The War campaign manages effortlessly to attack the UK, USA and NATO over current events in Russia and Ukraine while managing to find not a word of criticism of Russia.
The number of Labour MPs and members signing up to this affront is ammunition to the Tories.
The far right uniting with the far left it seems behind Putin
Putin has cultivated the far right for a number of years, backing AfD, Front National, and even the Nick Griffin. The far left are just thick.
And for the avoidance of doubt, those two stopped clocks may be right twice a day, but on this issue they're dead wrong.
You have missed off his cultivation of Brexit and Scottish Nationalism. Anyone who believes he hasn't is naive in the extreme. Whether it was enough to turn the dial by 2% is anyone's guess.
No No No. He absolutely interfered in Sindy. But as the ISC were not permitted to investigate Brexit it would be a terrible Remoaner lie to suggest that Russian meddling pre 2015 extended past that date.
What are you to suggest such a thing, a Putin stooge?
The West can at least be thankful that Trump is not currently US president, and Le Pen didn't win the last French election. And, much as it pains me to say so given what we got instead, that Corbyn didn't win the last GE here. We have, by and large, Russia hawks in charge of the major NATO powers, with even Scholz on the journey now.
The header makes grim and frightening reading. Any hot war in the Baltic states leads eventually to global nuclear holocaust. I think I am ready to agree that Putin has gone a bit mad, and that is dangerous. Our best hope is perhaps that his henchmen and generals have retained some sanity.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
I’m actually less pessimistic today than yesterday
There’s a chance Putin will stop here. Annexation of some depressed coal-mining regions of Far East Ukraine. It’s not great for world peace but it’s not Pearl Harbour
I wonder if the fairly stern western response has put him off the full fat, guns-blazing Barbarossa. He reckons he can get away with this, and he probably can. But no more
And he is visibly ageing and weakening. 69. He’s not gonna be there forever
Yes, that's the optimistic reading. We slow him down for long enough, then old age and national demographics eventually take their toll.
Next steps after this are perhaps Anschluss with Belarus and an attempt at similar with Kazakhstan.
Eastern Europe could do with the Chinese discovering a bit of expansionist ambition in the Russian Far East.
On sick pay - I know someone with schizophrenia who is effectively frozen out of payment insurance, so if they were too sick to work, they would have to rely on SSP or its equivalent. They are also classed as too healthy for PIP. That is to say - they're classed as too sick to get the protection that non-sick people get, but bizarrely too healthy to get the disability payments that sick people get. There needs to be some sort of satirical political movement that takes it's cue from Feminism that attacks the Saniarchy.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Good morning one and all. At least the wind seems to have dropped, but the sky I can see from my window looks a bit threatening. I'm somewhat concerned at the dropping of all restrictions; I don't get the I'm press ion that everything's OK now, by any means, although I do think we have to learn to live with endemic Covid; I only hope it remains a mild variety. I suspect there's still an issue with schools.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, are not the boundaries of these States somewhat artificial. AIUI, the majority, possibly the vast majority, of the population of the separatist 'republics' identifies as Russian. I'm not defending Putin, who appears to be running diversionary tactics of his own...... what's going awry in Russia?
What issue do you see with schools? Children are the least vulnerable to this virus.
Schools 100% should be the first thing to live as normal.
The problem is that with Covid still ripping through quite a lot of primary schools the staff absence means that normal is difficult. OK so the period of sick leave is shorter than the old 2 weeks in chokey used to be but it is still disruptive.
Primary schools can be filled with snot monkeys at the best of times. Managing absences is something that schools have always had to do, and will always have to do.
However those absences should be because people are actually sick, rather than they have an endemic virus that hasn't made them sick.
Makes you wonder how we ever managed these situations before covid.
1. People catch virus 2. People go off sick because they are ill with the virus 3. People get better and return to work
BR has been demanding that people sick with Covid go to work as normal. If its Norovirus they don't bring arse-spraying mayhem into work, they stay home, so why is Covid any different? The genuinely good news is that for most people 3 jabs means Omicron is relatively mild. A few days of being crap, a week tops and you're back to normal.
Before Br says "eugh but a lot of people don't even know they have it the virus is that mild" then they won't be ill and won't be off sick. But if people are ill - with Covid or anything else - you don't want them in an office environment. I have both ordered people to go home and been ordered home for things that were not Covid.
Is is a legal mandate to stay home with norovirus, or just guidance based on common sense? As in, what you should do now if you have a cold, or sore throat etc.
No, not a legal mandate. But some on here (BR in particular) keep insisting Covid is the common cold and we should all just keep going to work if we have it.
My point is that as Covid becomes just another virus we need to treat it the same - if you are ill you stay off work. I keep reading "there is no reason for disruption in schools" yet I know some schools who have got staff problems as Covid tears through them. It isn't the common cold. And just like if you get a Norovirus outbreak it can hit somewhere like a school hard.
The point is, there's a difference between "having it (the virus)" and "being ill".
Of course! People who are sick should not be in work. Yet it has been claimed that people who have it should be going about their normal business because we all need to live with it.
Lifting mandatory quarantine is an obvious step. But lets not kneejerk all the way to "its just the common cold, you need to be in work even if you're ill"
The common cold can lead to very serious sickness (and even death) and if someone is sick with the common cold they should be staying home.
Who has said those who are seriously ill with the common cold should be going into work? Not me, not any 'other feller' connected to me either. I've never said that.
I've said people should be staying at home if they're ill, but having the virus does not mean you are ill. Being ill means you're ill. Treat the illness, not the virus, and you don't need testing to know your symptoms.
To move this on, you would support slapping down shyster employers who exploit our crap sick pay regime by forcing people who are sick (with Covid or anything else) from coming in?
If Keir Starmer made sorting out statutory sick pay a central plank of his next election I'd vote for him without a second thought. The current system is an utter disgrace and should have been junked years ago.
And I say that as somebody who has a very generous sick pay provision in his current post.
Doubt you will vote for him though. You'll find something to dislike.
I hadn't actually seen that announcement, which doesn't say much for his comms department or for how closely I've been following things.
And what in my posting history makes you think I would 'find something to dislike?'
It's the way on here. Castigate the Tories for their many incompetences but then refuse to vote Labour/Lib Dem/other because there's some issue that is vitally important to you where you don't align perfectly/some random councillor 10 years ago said something you don't like.
As for you personally - I would say your posting history shows you don't like the Labour party - but please, feel free to prove me wrong and vote Labour at the next election!
As to the announcement - I hadn't seen it either. But it was obvious to me that Labour would be looking to remove that injustice, so I knew there would be a policy on it. That's where Starmer needs to get to... not that he has a policy on everything, but that everyone knows without reading it roughly what the Labour policy would be.
I took 5 weeks off work with mental health issues. I was home based. One day I found that I couldn't do my work, and froze up, taking hours to write a sentence. I had a lie down, took a walk around the block, took a day off, and nothing improved. I called my manager up saying that I couldn't do my job any more and offered to resign. Fortunately she realised that I was going through stress and anxiety as she had gone through something similar earlier in her career. While off work I felt an enormous sense of guilt for being paid and not working, and doing things like travelling around to see family etc, stuff you would normally do on holiday, but in the end it was not a happy time and hardly enjoyable.
I’m actually less pessimistic today than yesterday
There’s a chance Putin will stop here. Annexation of some depressed coal-mining regions of Far East Ukraine. It’s not great for world peace but it’s not Pearl Harbour
I wonder if the fairly stern western response has put him off the full fat, guns-blazing Barbarossa. He reckons he can get away with this, and he probably can. But no more
And he is visibly ageing and weakening. 69. He’s not gonna be there forever
Yes, that's the optimistic reading. We slow him down for long enough, then old age and national demographics eventually take their toll.
Next steps after this are perhaps Anschluss with Belarus and an attempt at similar with Kazakhstan.
Eastern Europe could do with the Chinese discovering a bit of expansionist ambition in the Russian Far East.
Xi likely has a deal with Putin that they will respect Russian sovereignty and expansion into Ukraine in return for Putin's support when China invades Taiwan.
The Xi Putin summit earlier this month effectively affirmed that
I didn't mock mental health. I said its deadly serious problem for those who have it.
But it is also exceedingly easy to be signed off for "stress" while faking it. Just because you are signed off doesn't mean you aren't faking it - that's not to say all are faking it, its very serious for those who have it, but those who are faking it are also real too.
You are *still* mocking mental health as something easy to fake therefore something that must be suspect. Mental health crises are not something anyone with decency puts in "quotes".
Whats more as anyone who has suffered will tell you, the source can be specific and it can be acute. If you haven't suffered heart palpitations caused by having to go into work, or even *thinking* about doing so then you're not really in a place to say "stress".
The people who really have stress have stress.
The people who are faking it have "stress".
I'm not mocking it as something that is easy to fake. It simply is easy to fake, that is a matter of fact, that we need to be able to deal with.
Its not just mental health that is fakeable of course, its just one of the easiest things to fake, along with "back pain". I once knew a troubled individual who faked that she had cancer.
We once had a young lad who faked that his mum had died.
He went through the whole story of the time that she was admitted to hospital, a period that she got better and a period when she was ill again, eventually dying. We sent a card and flowers to his house.
We were very surprised when she came to our office three weeks after her death.
He made the whole story up just to get days off.
You witnessed the start of the zombie apocalypse and just stood there with your mouth open?
I didn't mock mental health. I said its deadly serious problem for those who have it.
But it is also exceedingly easy to be signed off for "stress" while faking it. Just because you are signed off doesn't mean you aren't faking it - that's not to say all are faking it, its very serious for those who have it, but those who are faking it are also real too.
You are *still* mocking mental health as something easy to fake therefore something that must be suspect. Mental health crises are not something anyone with decency puts in "quotes".
Whats more as anyone who has suffered will tell you, the source can be specific and it can be acute. If you haven't suffered heart palpitations caused by having to go into work, or even *thinking* about doing so then you're not really in a place to say "stress".
The people who really have stress have stress.
The people who are faking it have "stress".
I'm not mocking it as something that is easy to fake. It simply is easy to fake, that is a matter of fact, that we need to be able to deal with.
Its not just mental health that is fakeable of course, its just one of the easiest things to fake, along with "back pain". I once knew a troubled individual who faked that she had "cancer".
Wouldn't pretending to have a mental health condition be, in itself, a sign of not the best mental health? I mean. It's not something someone happy would consider.
Being unhappy isn't a mental health crisis. It depends upon the circumstances of course, but it varies from case to case. If someone thinks they can get paid in one job, then work cash in hand in another (or enjoy time off) then some people regrettably will fake it.
Incidentally one thing I just thought of and came back online to add is that unfortunately the poor provision of mental health treatment in this country for those with serious issues feeds into why its so easy to fake for those pretending to have them.
In order to get (and keep) a sick note for stress or depression or others they're often not doing so after repeated hours-long therapy sessions to treat them. They're frequently doing so after a less than ten minute conversation with a GP. Many with serious mental health crises will say how long it takes, and how difficult it is, to get serious help.
In a less than 10 minute conversation with a GP, those with serious mental health crises aren't getting the treatment they need. In a less than 10 minute conversation with a GP, those who are faking it can easily say what they need to in order to get signed off.
Its the worst of both worlds. Poor treatment for the unfortunate people who need more help, while easily facilitating those who are faking it. Nobody wins from this (except as often in life, the fraudsters).
I've got previous personal experience of this. In 2016 I had an unexplained panic attack at work and went to a group course after speaking to my GP. Only took a couple of days off.
Then in Christmas 2017 I suddenly had a much more severe panic attack which led to taking 3 months off, medication, and then eventually when I tried to return in spring 2018 I had to call it quits within a couple of weeks. I then took a year out of work (I was lucky enough to have the resources to do this) and really worked on my mental health on a personal level.
I'm much better now, doing a similar job to before my panic attacks but can manage the stress a lot better on no medication. I hopefully won't have to go through that experience again, but while I'm grateful for my GP who was very sympathetic, I didn't feel like they had many tools in the armoury apart from time off and medication and it was only ever a 10 minute appointment.
I feel I probably wouldn't have needed 15 months off work if there was proper investment in mental health services in this country and I felt guilty at taking the time off in the knowledge that a small minority would game the system.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Yes, yes it does. That's the whole point of allowing people to acquire nationality.
You'd be surprised by the attitude to "losing" projects due to funky governments, by some oil companies.
I was, when I worked for one. Then a senior manager told me - "We may lose a project now. It always ends up with us being asked back in, by the next government. And we put any loses on the tab...."
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets its Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Agreed - though some actions, like requiring full transparency about ownership of overseas companies holding UK assets, would potentially be both painful to dodgy Russian money, and a net benefit to the UK.
Serious sanctions do carry a heavy cost to both sides. War is more costly still, though.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
Yes, action needs to be targeted, not just blind prejudice.
The liberal west is either going to stand up to Putin, or it is just going to collapse, as Russian claims on Europe extend effectively all the way to the English Channel. We keep hearing that Britain is irredemably evil due to slavery and colonialism, yet based on what we are hearing from Putin it is threatened by a project of territorial expansion that is actually worse than colonialism, in that it seeks to subjugate people and deny them their own identity. It is grim, but the reality is that we will probably eventually need to actually fight Russia.
It is straight up Imperialism - conquering countries to add them to your own. It is a direct line from the Russian *Empire* to what Putin is doing now.
Important to remember Russia itself is still an Empire. Chechnya is only the most newsworthy amongst a significant number of areas whose people wouldn't choose to be Russian if anyone ever bothered to ask.
The white and pale beige sections are <50% "ethnic Russian". The white sections (>20%) are Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Tuva, I think. The 20-49% sections are Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia–Alania, Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Mari El, and Sakha.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
Germany refusing to certify Nordstream 2. Think this is a spectacular overplaying of Putin's hand here. Out of weakness not strength. Has the military strength, of course, to do what he likes. Not sure he has political or economic at all. The West has been surprisingly United and firm.
I wasn't questioning the report, just pointing out that it will require follow through. The statement is certainly strong (and if followed up, is a very big deal indeed).
Now that the Germans have acted, perhaps our PM would like to take another look at the Russian money in London, and what action might be appropriate there.
I didn't think you were questioning it at all. I added the link because I realised I was making a statement as fact without evidence. Which annoys me when others do it.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Is that the Abramovich to whom the UK refused a visa, as opposed to the Temerko who is a British citizen the UK refused to deport to Russia?
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
Way I feel this morning, we should blow the bloody thing up and be done with it.
The far right uniting with the far left it seems behind Putin
Whoever has weakened the West to the point it can't respond properly to brutal Russian aggression, it sure isn't Martin Daubney.
The conservatives, by contrast, have been in power in the UK for more than a decade.
The point is Trump and the European far right, Le Pen and Zemmour, Salvini, the AfD, even maybe Farage would not respond to Putin even if he is aggressive as ideologically they like a lot of his nationalist and anti woke agenda.
The Tories and Boris however might not go to war over Ukraine but they would defend Poland and the Baltic states along with Macron and Biden and NATO if Russia went even further, while still imposing sanctions on Putin over Ukraine
I have seen footage of Donald Trump years ago pointing out to stunned German officials that their gas contracts with Russia weren't exactly helping him defend them from Putin's aggression. Quite the opposite.
Of course that was pooh-pooed at the time by all the people who are calling for a firm response now. Trump was a fascist, he was the enemy, he was in league with Putin, blah blah blah.
Well its not on his watch that Putin is ramping up the aggression, eh? its on Biden's.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
“ which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking. “. is that not an outrageous bit of slander without pointing to the evidence 😦
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
You'd be surprised by the attitude to "losing" projects due to funky governments, by some oil companies.
I was, when I worked for one. Then a senior manager told me - "We may lose a project now. It always ends up with us being asked back in, by the next government. And we put any loses on the tab...."
Nevertheless, I was surprised to see sterling fall against the euro on news of the Russian invasion. I'd have thought that the EU has more to lose than the UK from an economic war with Russia.
I’m actually less pessimistic today than yesterday
There’s a chance Putin will stop here. Annexation of some depressed coal-mining regions of Far East Ukraine. It’s not great for world peace but it’s not Pearl Harbour
I wonder if the fairly stern western response has put him off the full fat, guns-blazing Barbarossa. He reckons he can get away with this, and he probably can. But no more
And he is visibly ageing and weakening. 69. He’s not gonna be there forever
I’m actually less pessimistic today than yesterday
There’s a chance Putin will stop here. Annexation of some depressed coal-mining regions of Far East Ukraine. It’s not great for world peace but it’s not Pearl Harbour
I wonder if the fairly stern western response has put him off the full fat, guns-blazing Barbarossa. He reckons he can get away with this, and he probably can. But no more
And he is visibly ageing and weakening. 69. He’s not gonna be there forever
But. Will whoever comes next be better? I have severe doubts.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
Ironically given the context, he was born in Ukraine...
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Boris needs to tell Europe what it can and cannot do? Erm.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
Everyone getting their arses in gear with the deployment of renewables would also be a good idea, both for the climate and for geopolitical stability. Enough of the foot dragging.
You'd be surprised by the attitude to "losing" projects due to funky governments, by some oil companies.
I was, when I worked for one. Then a senior manager told me - "We may lose a project now. It always ends up with us being asked back in, by the next government. And we put any loses on the tab...."
Nevertheless, I was surprised to see sterling fall against the euro on news of the Russian invasion. I'd have thought that the EU has more to lose than the UK from an economic war with Russia.
At this point in the crisis, expecting rationality from markets is not going to be a winning move.
It depends how things shake out - gas spot prices, for example.
Look, if ex Soviet states didn't want to be hassled they shouldn't dress themselves up that way. All 'I want to look west' and 'maybe NATO would be ok', they're asking for it, they want it even.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Yes, yes it does. That's the whole point of allowing people to acquire nationality.
Unless you're a blood and soil racist.
You're an absurdity on this front. Nationality does not supersede intent nor does it wash away uncomfortable backgrounds.
'Blood and soil racist' come on Phil. Some of us wonder where Russian energy moguls acquired their wealth.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
We may find out at 12.30. Or not.
Gardiner Admitted he took half a million quid.
The guy drinking in the bar angry about this is currently the only person to suffer sanction over it.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
Way I feel this morning, we should blow the bloody thing up and be done with it.
Biden promised us he would - with domehead Schultz stood next to him?
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
If we're playing the blame game we should perhaps include those many environmentalists who did so much to stymie gas exploration and production in the West, and in the process deliver Europe to a madman.
When Russian tanks are rolling across Europe, combatting climate change doesn't seem so important, right? How many divisions does David Attenborough have?
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
“ Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe. ”
I agree Putin hasn’t just come up with this from nowhere, he’s been scheming this a long time, Europe been asleep on the watch.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
Hmm. Orban's government seems to be blocking sanctions on individuals. Music to the ears of Putin, and no doubt with some corrupt links to the Hungarian regime too.
Shaun Walker @shaunwalker7 Thread: Yesterday I interviewed Kharkiv governor Oleh Synehubov about the city's plans in the event of a Russian invasion.
Kharkiv is a city of nearly 1.5 million people, mainly Russian speaking, and sits just across the border from Russia. Troops are massed on the other side.
You would not think it possible, but the Stop The War campaign manages effortlessly to attack the UK, USA and NATO over current events in Russia and Ukraine while managing to find not a word of criticism of Russia.
The number of Labour MPs and members signing up to this affront is ammunition to the Tories.
Am amazed that they haven't yet linked Putin's actions to Israel. Must be hard for them - a distraction from the sole and true conflict in the world which is Palestine.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
“ Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe. ”
I agree Putin hasn’t just come up with this from nowhere, he’s been scheming this a long time, Europe been asleep on the watch.
It was blatantly obvious in the design of Nord Stream 2 - lots of people having being saying this for many years
What an excellent header. You can't just feed the bear in the hope that he will get full. He will just consume one meal and then get hungry for the next. The best course is to back Ukraine to the hilt including military support. If the West has grown too weak and soft to not realize this yet, we need to instead fund a full blown guerilla resistance, so that Ukraine bleeds out Russia into disaster. Banning access to SWIFT, ending Nordstrom II, revoking all visas and freezing bank accounts of anyone even semi connected to the siloviki regime is also critical.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
If we're playing the blame game we should perhaps include those many environmentalists who did so much to stymie gas exploration and production in the West, and in the process deliver Europe to a madman.
When Russian tanks are rolling across Europe, combatting climate change doesn't seem so important, right? How many divisions does David Attenborough have?
Surely it would be more appropriate to blame the footdraggers and nimbys who have done everything possible to stand in the way of the development of renewables which, despite their opposition, are already considerably reducing our demand for gas?
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
TBH hadn't realised he was a citizen. So an easy one for me to apologise for and withdraw which I do now.
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
“ Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe. ”
I agree Putin hasn’t just come up with this from nowhere, he’s been scheming this a long time, Europe been asleep on the watch.
It was blatantly obvious in the design of Nord Stream 2 - lost of people having being saying this for many years
They might as well have written “Screw Ukraine” every meter along the length of the pipe.
The whole point of NS2 was so that Western Europe didn’t need gas coming from Ukraine, that country’s largest source of hard currency, but could get it straight from Russia.
Oliver Carroll @olliecarroll · 1h Yup. My sense is they won’t have expected such a blow so early. But nothing of the last few days suggests that will force a rethink.
Shashank Joshi @shashj So long, NSII. Substantial blow to Russia—and all they've got so far is recognition & occupation of territory they've de facto controlled for eight years. One reason why this is definitely not the end of story.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Boris needs to tell Europe what it can and cannot do? Erm.
Erm what? He’s been saying this for the last three weeks already. Havn’t you noticed?
He has to say it again today, now it’s not if, but for real.
Why? Leadership. What he has been asking Europe to do does impact us, and it needs that honesty to us from our leader. This lunchtimes salvo from Boris is on behalf of all of us, the British, and it needs that honesty from leadership, “this action we never wanted to take, and yes, it will hurt every household and business in the UK.”
Leadership is building we are all in it together, and being honest where there will be pain, we bear it together.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
If we're playing the blame game we should perhaps include those many environmentalists who did so much to stymie gas exploration and production in the West, and in the process deliver Europe to a madman.
When Russian tanks are rolling across Europe, combatting climate change doesn't seem so important, right? How many divisions does David Attenborough have?
Let's not play the blame game. Let's demand action now. Boris HAS to freeze the Russian money in London. He cannot claim to be tough on Putin until he does. We should hold him to account here.
Hmm. Orban's government seems to be blocking sanctions on individuals. Music to the ears of Putin, and no doubt with some corrupt links to the Hungarian regime too.
Appropriate bodies will then meet to finalise the package without delay.
The package contains proposals:
to target those who were involved in the illegal decision, to target banks that are financing Russian military and other operations in those territories, to target the ability of the Russian state and government to access the EU's capital and financial markets and services, to limit the financing of escalatory and aggressive policies, and to target trade from the two breakaway regions to and from the EU, to ensure that those responsible clearly feel the economic consequences of their illegal and aggressive actions...
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Yes, yes it does. That's the whole point of allowing people to acquire nationality.
Unless you're a blood and soil racist.
You're an absurdity on this front. Nationality does not supersede intent nor does it wash away uncomfortable backgrounds.
'Blood and soil racist' come on Phil. Some of us wonder where Russian energy moguls acquired their wealth.
As we have a right to when they are donating millions to the Conservative party.
Don't you see what has happened to the Russian state over the decades? Would you like aspects of it to appear here?
Sorry but this is nasty racism and xenophobia.
Do you accept that people who emigrate here and take citizenship here are real British citizens?
Or are they second class people with aspersions to be cast upon based upon where they were born?
Either you accept immigrants who've taken up a life and citizenship here or you don't. If Temerko is Russian to you, you're no better than the National Front.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
TBH hadn't realised he was a citizen. So an easy one for me to apologise for and withdraw which I do now.
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
Also citizens (or close enough - Irish and Commonwealth living in UK):
You'd be surprised by the attitude to "losing" projects due to funky governments, by some oil companies.
I was, when I worked for one. Then a senior manager told me - "We may lose a project now. It always ends up with us being asked back in, by the next government. And we put any loses on the tab...."
Nevertheless, I was surprised to see sterling fall against the euro on news of the Russian invasion. I'd have thought that the EU has more to lose than the UK from an economic war with Russia.
In times of war, you seek stability and the most reliable currencies. Perhaps, post-Brexit, that’s not the £.
The far right uniting with the far left it seems behind Putin
Whoever has weakened the West to the point it can't respond properly to brutal Russian aggression, it sure isn't Martin Daubney.
The conservatives, by contrast, have been in power in the UK for more than a decade.
The point is Trump and the European far right, Le Pen and Zemmour, Salvini, the AfD, even maybe Farage would not respond to Putin even if he is aggressive as ideologically they like a lot of his nationalist and anti woke agenda.
The Tories and Boris however might not go to war over Ukraine but they would defend Poland and the Baltic states along with Macron and Biden and NATO if Russia went even further, while still imposing sanctions on Putin over Ukraine
I have seen footage of Donald Trump years ago pointing out to stunned German officials that their gas contracts with Russia weren't exactly helping him defend them from Putin's aggression. Quite the opposite.
Of course that was pooh-pooed at the time by all the people who are calling for a firm response now. Trump was a fascist, he was the enemy, he was in league with Putin, blah blah blah.
Well its not on his watch that Putin is ramping up the aggression, eh? its on Biden's.
What are you talking about? Putin took US military bases in Syria in Trump's term.
You would not think it possible, but the Stop The War campaign manages effortlessly to attack the UK, USA and NATO over current events in Russia and Ukraine while managing to find not a word of criticism of Russia.
The number of Labour MPs and members signing up to this affront is ammunition to the Tories.
Am amazed that they haven't yet linked Putin's actions to Israel. Must be hard for them - a distraction from the sole and true conflict in the world which is Palestine.
The USA and allies are being imperialist, just like Israel is - link made.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
TBH hadn't realised he was a citizen. So an easy one for me to apologise for and withdraw which I do now.
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
Good on you for apologising.
If you know of any Russians, as opposed to Brits like Temerko, who are doing so I would find it interesting.
As far as I knew only citizens could donate large amounts like that, am I wrong in believing that? That some of the media like to racistly pretend Brits are not British when it comes to this subject muddies the water.
You would not think it possible, but the Stop The War campaign manages effortlessly to attack the UK, USA and NATO over current events in Russia and Ukraine while managing to find not a word of criticism of Russia.
The number of Labour MPs and members signing up to this affront is ammunition to the Tories.
Am amazed that they haven't yet linked Putin's actions to Israel. Must be hard for them - a distraction from the sole and true conflict in the world which is Palestine.
The USA and allies are being imperialist, just like Israel is - link made.
lol yes that's it. Time they organised a march against the Israeli embassy!
What an excellent header. You can't just feed the bear in the hope that he will get full. He will just consume one meal and then get hungry for the next. The best course is to back Ukraine to the hilt including military support. If the West has grown too weak and soft to not realize this yet, we need to instead fund a full blown guerilla resistance, so that Ukraine bleeds out Russia into disaster. Banning access to SWIFT, ending Nordstrom II, revoking all visas and freezing bank accounts of anyone even semi connected to the siloviki regime is also critical.
Definitely take action on SWIFT and Nord and banks. Bollocks to Putin.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
If we're playing the blame game we should perhaps include those many environmentalists who did so much to stymie gas exploration and production in the West, and in the process deliver Europe to a madman.
When Russian tanks are rolling across Europe, combatting climate change doesn't seem so important, right? How many divisions does David Attenborough have?
Let's not play the blame game. Let's demand action now. Boris HAS to freeze the Russian money in London. He cannot claim to be tough on Putin until he does. We should hold him to account here.
Yes. NordStream2 was Germany's ace card in the economic fight against Russia, and it looks like they've just played it. Time for Boris to follow suit.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
“ Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe. ”
I agree Putin hasn’t just come up with this from nowhere, he’s been scheming this a long time, Europe been asleep on the watch.
It was blatantly obvious in the design of Nord Stream 2 - lost of people having being saying this for many years
They might as well have written “Screw Ukraine” every meter along the length of the pipe.
The whole point of NS2 was so that Western Europe didn’t need gas coming from Ukraine, that country’s largest source of hard currency, but could get it straight from Russia.
At a loss leading discount till the competition is, err, no longer there.
The far right uniting with the far left it seems behind Putin
Whoever has weakened the West to the point it can't respond properly to brutal Russian aggression, it sure isn't Martin Daubney.
The conservatives, by contrast, have been in power in the UK for more than a decade.
The point is Trump and the European far right, Le Pen and Zemmour, Salvini, the AfD, even maybe Farage would not respond to Putin even if he is aggressive as ideologically they like a lot of his nationalist and anti woke agenda.
The Tories and Boris however might not go to war over Ukraine but they would defend Poland and the Baltic states along with Macron and Biden and NATO if Russia went even further, while still imposing sanctions on Putin over Ukraine
I have seen footage of Donald Trump years ago pointing out to stunned German officials that their gas contracts with Russia weren't exactly helping him defend them from Putin's aggression. Quite the opposite.
Of course that was pooh-pooed at the time by all the people who are calling for a firm response now. Trump was a fascist, he was the enemy, he was in league with Putin, blah blah blah.
Well its not on his watch that Putin is ramping up the aggression, eh? its on Biden's.
What are you talking about? Putin took US military bases in Syria in Trump's term.
Ooh ye, good point. Had forgotten that Russia is basically in charge of Syria now.
What an excellent header. You can't just feed the bear in the hope that he will get full. He will just consume one meal and then get hungry for the next. The best course is to back Ukraine to the hilt including military support. If the West has grown too weak and soft to not realize this yet, we need to instead fund a full blown guerilla resistance, so that Ukraine bleeds out Russia into disaster. Banning access to SWIFT, ending Nordstrom II, revoking all visas and freezing bank accounts of anyone even semi connected to the siloviki regime is also critical.
Definitely take action on SWIFT and Nord and banks. Bollocks to Putin.
Time for the CIA dirty tricks dept to start transplanting all ISIS prisoners to Chechnya with a “start your own insurgency” kit each…..
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Western Europe (not the UK - we get most of our gas from North Sea and Norway) can't stop using Russian gas altogether. Going... er.. cold turkey would stuff a fair number of countries.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
It sounds also that Germany is getting serious about changing the longer term direction of energy policy, too. While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Germany keeping the nuclear plants running, at least until there’s other sources of electricity to replace them, might be a reasonable starting point.
Everyone getting their arses in gear with the deployment of renewables would also be a good idea, both for the climate and for geopolitical stability. Enough of the foot dragging.
With a supportive government, we could have 8-10 tidal power stations on stream by the early 2030's, many of them starting partial production sooner. Each when complete the energy output of a Sizewell C. Popular. Creating 80,000 jobs in the process. And dependable electricity for centuries to come, at a fraction of the cost of nuclear. Without the waste along the way, without the risk of Chernobyl/Fukushima disaster along the way, without the massive costs of dismantling them at the end of their useful life.
C'mon Boris, you said you supported them on your hustings tour of Wales. Now deliver them. That is the sharpest kick you can give to Putin's shins.
What an excellent header. You can't just feed the bear in the hope that he will get full. He will just consume one meal and then get hungry for the next. The best course is to back Ukraine to the hilt including military support. If the West has grown too weak and soft to not realize this yet, we need to instead fund a full blown guerilla resistance, so that Ukraine bleeds out Russia into disaster. Banning access to SWIFT, ending Nordstrom II, revoking all visas and freezing bank accounts of anyone even semi connected to the siloviki regime is also critical.
Definitely take action on SWIFT and Nord and banks. Bollocks to Putin.
Time for the CIA dirty tricks dept to start transplanting all ISIS prisoners to Chechnya with a “start your own insurgency” kit each…..
Not a good idea - at all. An exact recipe for the kind of blowback that occurred from Afghanistan, to the entire world's cost.
On people taking 'sickies' and faking illness or stress, I suspect it tells us more about the employers than the employees. A good employer who looks after their staff and provides dignity, fair pay and respect at work will, I reckon, suffer little from sickies and fake illness. For example, I'll bet Timpson has low rates of staff absenteeism.
The Queen has cancelled her planned virtual engagements for Tuesday as she continues to experience Covid symptoms.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “As Her Majesty is still experiencing mild cold-like symptoms she has decided not to undertake her planned virtual engagements today, but will continue with light duties.’’
What an excellent header. You can't just feed the bear in the hope that he will get full. He will just consume one meal and then get hungry for the next. The best course is to back Ukraine to the hilt including military support. If the West has grown too weak and soft to not realize this yet, we need to instead fund a full blown guerilla resistance, so that Ukraine bleeds out Russia into disaster. Banning access to SWIFT, ending Nordstrom II, revoking all visas and freezing bank accounts of anyone even semi connected to the siloviki regime is also critical.
Definitely take action on SWIFT and Nord and banks. Bollocks to Putin.
The SWIFT question is an interesting one - it turns the sections from an attack on the lite in Russia into a general attack on the economy.
The Russian economy has plunged deep into the resource curse since the 90s - the economy is so dominated by resource production (oil and gas mainly) that other stuff has got squeezed out. So Russia is very, very dependent on imports of vital materials to run the economy.
The other thing to consider is that China would probably take the opportunity to launch a competitor to the SWIFT network - having a ground floor tenant the size of Russia could give such a system the kick off it needs. Trading via China would be much more expensive for Russia, but would provide an end run around the SWIFT issue - to an extent. And then, going forward....
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
TBH hadn't realised he was a citizen. So an easy one for me to apologise for and withdraw which I do now.
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
Good on you for apologising.
If you know of any Russians, as opposed to Brits like Temerko, who are doing so I would find it interesting.
As far as I knew only citizens could donate large amounts like that, am I wrong in believing that? That some of the media like to racistly pretend Brits are not British when it comes to this subject muddies the water.
My point remains that we go after British citizens money if we believe it to be criminal or fraudulent. There are a list of oligarchs / companies who are directly connected still to Russia / the Russian state / Russian businesses. If we are serious about turning the thumbscrews on Putin we can't say "oh they're a citizen now so the £500m they earned alongside Putin in untouchable.
Russia has directly influenced our politics. Whopping donations of Russian-linked money to the governing party who then ignore ISC evidence of Russian meddling in our elections and turn down ISC demands for protections. Oligarchs now reported by that left wing rag the Seanograph as directly lobbying the FCO. "oh we're citizens now and our money is clean" is an easy claim.
So the question is this. If the British authorities can freeze assets of born and bred British citizens suspected of making it illegally, why shouldn't the same apply to naturalised citizens connected with a pariah state we're imposing sanctions on?
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Boris needs to tell Europe what it can and cannot do? Erm.
Erm what? He’s been saying this for the last three weeks already. Havn’t you noticed?
He has to say it again today, now it’s not if, but for real.
Why? Leadership. What he has been asking Europe to do does impact us, and it needs that honesty to us from our leader. This lunchtimes salvo from Boris is on behalf of all of us, the British, and it needs that honesty from leadership, “this action we never wanted to take, and yes, it will hurt every household and business in the UK.”
Leadership is building we are all in it together, and being honest where there will be pain, we bear it together.
What part of this don’t you understand?
Boris can't level with anybody. As he's incapable of knowing, let alone telling the truth. I don't understand why Boris has the gall to pose as some kind of leader of European policy when he pissed off out of it. Yes I do. It's cakeism. For a supposed LD you're a mighty fan of the PM and the Tory Party.
Still wondering about Putin's state of mind after yesterday's rant. Perhaps it boils down to a choice of 3:
1. He's gone mad. It's quite possible he really does plan on recreating the USSR and will invade NATO states to achieve it. In which case RIP the Northern Hemisphere
2. He's a genius game theorist, who is now acting the madness card in order to scare Ukraine and the West into really believing 1, and secure what he really wants which is de facto acceptance of his annexation of Donbass and a more favourable negotiated settlement with NATO
3. He's in a weak and wavering position, not quite sure what to do next, and flailing about trying to make up tactics on the hoof.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
“ which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking. “. is that not an outrageous bit of slander without pointing to the evidence 😦
From a speech Johnson made in 2016:
'The European Union, as you will remember, exacerbated the problems by the premature decision to recognise Croatia.
'And if you want an example of EU foreign policy making on the hoof, and the EU’s pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine.'
On people taking 'sickies' and faking illness or stress, I suspect it tells us more about the employers than the employees. A good employer who looks after their staff and provides dignity, fair pay and respect at work will, I reckon, suffer little from sickies and fake illness. For example, I'll bet Timpson has low rates of staff absenteeism.
Sadly, from what I have seen, while the behaviour of the employer has an effect, it's not as great as you might think.
Presumably Johnson will now stop Russia laundering its dirty money through London, as he threatened to do just two days ago. Johnson does now say sanctions didn't go far enough in 2014 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking.
“ which Johnson blamed Ukraine for provoking. “. is that not an outrageous bit of slander without pointing to the evidence 😦
From a speech Johnson made in 2016:
'The European Union, as you will remember, exacerbated the problems by the premature decision to recognise Croatia.
'And if you want an example of EU foreign policy making on the hoof, and the EU’s pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine.'
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
British citizen Temerko who is Director of a British company and has lived in the UK since 2004?
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
TBH hadn't realised he was a citizen. So an easy one for me to apologise for and withdraw which I do now.
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
Good on you for apologising.
If you know of any Russians, as opposed to Brits like Temerko, who are doing so I would find it interesting.
As far as I knew only citizens could donate large amounts like that, am I wrong in believing that? That some of the media like to racistly pretend Brits are not British when it comes to this subject muddies the water.
My point remains that we go after British citizens money if we believe it to be criminal or fraudulent. There are a list of oligarchs / companies who are directly connected still to Russia / the Russian state / Russian businesses. If we are serious about turning the thumbscrews on Putin we can't say "oh they're a citizen now so the £500m they earned alongside Putin in untouchable.
Russia has directly influenced our politics. Whopping donations of Russian-linked money to the governing party who then ignore ISC evidence of Russian meddling in our elections and turn down ISC demands for protections. Oligarchs now reported by that left wing rag the Seanograph as directly lobbying the FCO. "oh we're citizens now and our money is clean" is an easy claim.
So the question is this. If the British authorities can freeze assets of born and bred British citizens suspected of making it illegally, why shouldn't the same apply to naturalised citizens connected with a pariah state we're imposing sanctions on?
Putin would be laughing his head off if the 'sanctions' on Russia were targeting British citizens who are Putin-critics whom he has tried and failed to get extradited to Russia.
If you want to target Putin's Russia, starting with Putin-critics seems a tad weird.
If money is criminal or fraudulent then that should be dealt with equitably for all, but that's got nothing to do with this.
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Yes, yes it does. That's the whole point of allowing people to acquire nationality.
Unless you're a blood and soil racist.
You're an absurdity on this front. Nationality does not supersede intent nor does it wash away uncomfortable backgrounds.
'Blood and soil racist' come on Phil. Some of us wonder where Russian energy moguls acquired their wealth.
As we have a right to when they are donating millions to the Conservative party.
Don't you see what has happened to the Russian state over the decades? Would you like aspects of it to appear here?
Sorry but this is nasty racism and xenophobia.
Do you accept that people who emigrate here and take citizenship here are real British citizens?
Or are they second class people with aspersions to be cast upon based upon where they were born?
Either you accept immigrants who've taken up a life and citizenship here or you don't. If Temerko is Russian to you, you're no better than the National Front.
I am asking:
Where did his wealth come from and why is he giving such a lot of it to the Conservative Party?
That he is a citizen has no bearing on these questions. And does not excuse anyone of actions under another passport.
(Can you argue more than one angle? Because you seem to have prepared heuristics that you beat the conversation down to. Not a man of nuance PB's Mr Roberts)
The Queen has cancelled her planned virtual engagements for Tuesday as she continues to experience Covid symptoms.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “As Her Majesty is still experiencing mild cold-like symptoms she has decided not to undertake her planned virtual engagements today, but will continue with light duties.’’
So now that Russia are the official baddies can we now have publication of the report into their meddling in our affairs? Surely we can all then collectively boo Putin and put right the damage he has done...
No, that is the limited ISC one that urged Downing Street to order a full enquiry and implement a framework to protect us from future attacks. Big Dog refused. We need the proper report that the ISC says we need to investigate Russian meddling in elections and referendums which Downing Street refuses to look at.
Why is Big Dog afraid of investigating Russia? Aren't they now the big bad who need to be Stopped? How can we stop them if he won't even look at it? Especially when the limited report showed meddling in the Scottish Independence vote - its totally logical to assume further meddling in the Brexit vote and both of the rerun elections of 2017 and 2019.
Here is the reality. The Tories take a lot of money from Russians. The Tories benefited from Russian state meddling in our democratic processes. The Tories say Russia is bad but are happy to take their money and their assistance because the Tories are brazenly corrupt.
So take everything the Big Dog says about Russia with a pinch of salt. They are his mates.
Do the Tories take Russian money though? I keep hearing this trotted out - is there any evidence of it? I'm tempted to treat this with a pinch of salt, like the Russia-interfered-in-the-2016-US-election meme. It seems on the face if it unlikely. And if so, money from which Russians? Money from the Russian state, or from their fugitives? I concede that it also seemed unlikely that Barry Gardiner was taking money from China, or that apparently everyone is taking money from Qatar.
That's one report. There are others. Temerko himself came to a hustings in Stockton South in 2015 to see what his money was being spent on.
If the government are serious about going after Russian money and influence to deter Putin, it would be a good start to stop taking Russian money and influence themselves.
Temerko is a British citizen.
Yes, and? Abramovich manages to be Israeli, Portuguese and Russian. Does each new nationality wipe a little more of his background away?
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
Yes, yes it does. That's the whole point of allowing people to acquire nationality.
Unless you're a blood and soil racist.
You're an absurdity on this front. Nationality does not supersede intent nor does it wash away uncomfortable backgrounds.
'Blood and soil racist' come on Phil. Some of us wonder where Russian energy moguls acquired their wealth.
As we have a right to when they are donating millions to the Conservative party.
Don't you see what has happened to the Russian state over the decades? Would you like aspects of it to appear here?
Sorry but this is nasty racism and xenophobia.
Do you accept that people who emigrate here and take citizenship here are real British citizens?
Or are they second class people with aspersions to be cast upon based upon where they were born?
Either you accept immigrants who've taken up a life and citizenship here or you don't. If Temerko is Russian to you, you're no better than the National Front.
I am asking:
Where did his wealth come from and why is he giving such a lot of it to the Conservative Party?
That he is a citizen has no bearing on these questions. And does not excuse anyone of actions under another passport.
(Can you argue more than one angle? Because you seem to have prepared heuristics that you beat the conversation down to. Not a man of nuances Mr Roberts)
He's the director of a British company and has been holding high positions in businesses for decades now.
What evidence do you have of dodgy money other than racism? Is it news to you that directors of successful businesses might be wealthy?
Still wondering about Putin's state of mind after yesterday's rant. Perhaps it boils down to a choice of 3:
1. He's gone mad. It's quite possible he really does plan on recreating the USSR and will invade NATO states to achieve it. In which case RIP the Northern Hemisphere
2. He's a genius game theorist, who is now acting the madness card in order to scare Ukraine and the West into really believing 1, and secure what he really wants which is de facto acceptance of his annexation of Donbass and a more favourable negotiated settlement with NATO
3. He's in a weak and wavering position, not quite sure what to do next, and flailing about trying to make up tactics on the hoof.
What was extremely bizarre was the very public coercion and prodding of his senior officials into giving assent, and joint responsibility for the plan, on camera.
That would obviously suggest to me that his position, and consensus within the government on what he's doing , is much weaker than it looks.
THOSE WHO ARE FRIENDS AND APOLOGISTS OF THE AGGRESSOR ARE ALSO THE AGGRESSOR.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
Boris needs to tell Europe what it can and cannot do? Erm.
Erm what? He’s been saying this for the last three weeks already. Havn’t you noticed?
He has to say it again today, now it’s not if, but for real.
Why? Leadership. What he has been asking Europe to do does impact us, and it needs that honesty to us from our leader. This lunchtimes salvo from Boris is on behalf of all of us, the British, and it needs that honesty from leadership, “this action we never wanted to take, and yes, it will hurt every household and business in the UK.”
Leadership is building we are all in it together, and being honest where there will be pain, we bear it together.
What part of this don’t you understand?
Boris can't level with anybody. As he's incapable of knowing, let alone telling the truth. I don't understand why Boris has the gall to pose as some kind of leader of European policy when he pissed off out of it. Yes I do. It's cakeism. For a supposed LD you're a mighty fan of the PM and the Tory Party.
We left the EU, but we are still part of Europe. European nations are still our friends and allies.
Comments
The number of Labour MPs and members signing up to this affront is ammunition to the Tories.
https://d30m66y232rpq4.cloudfront.net/uploads/2022/02/No-War-on-Ukraine-Petition.pdf
https://twitter.com/FlorianMKern/status/1496086073205788675
What are you to suggest such a thing, a Putin stooge?
The header makes grim and frightening reading. Any hot war in the Baltic states leads eventually to global nuclear holocaust. I think I am ready to agree that Putin has gone a bit mad, and that is dangerous. Our best hope is perhaps that his henchmen and generals have retained some sanity.
All sort of tough painful Decisions to be made today, for a range of governments and other organisations to prove, rather than say, they oppose Mad Vlad’s aggression (not just the tanks on someone else’s sovereign land, but his disgraceful remarks threatening everybody in his crazed address)
Gazprom feature heavily, as it’s four of their pipelines which now should not be used, but also they should be cut off from UEFA completely and champions league final moved. Ditto F1 have to take action pronto, strip Putin of his race and look at the funding from his regime.
Boris needs to do 2 things to prove he is serious, he needs to be vocal that Nord cannot be used by Europe, not just announce our sanctions today but speak up and say Gazprom/Putin pipelines cannot be used, but also be more straight with us that what he is calling for does impact us, as where UK gets it’s Gas must now have heavy competition for it, Boris already got off to a bad start today talking spin and bollocks about this part to the British People. He can’t try to make out the sanctions and counter sanctions won’t hurt us, he needs to be straight with us about this.
So he came to a Stockton South husting eleven years after migrating to Britain and you still consider him to be Russian when he's lived here for eighteen years?
What nasty xenophobia. That's BNP style language. British citizens are citizens of Britain not [or not just] those nations they happened to be born in. What a disgraceful attitude.
PS Russia tried to get Temerko extradited back to Russia seventeen years ago in 2005 but our courts refused to allow him to be extradited since he was a Putin-critic and the courts determined in 2005 a decade before your Stockton South visit that Putin was persecuting him. But since he was born there, you consider him "Russian" not British? Disgraceful!
Next steps after this are perhaps Anschluss with Belarus and an attempt at similar with Kazakhstan.
Eastern Europe could do with the Chinese discovering a bit of expansionist ambition in the Russian Far East.
Your argument is truly in bad faith.
As for you personally - I would say your posting history shows you don't like the Labour party - but please, feel free to prove me wrong and vote Labour at the next election!
As to the announcement - I hadn't seen it either. But it was obvious to me that Labour would be looking to remove that injustice, so I knew there would be a policy on it. That's where Starmer needs to get to... not that he has a policy on everything, but that everyone knows without reading it roughly what the Labour policy would be.
The Xi Putin summit earlier this month effectively affirmed that
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/xi-jinping-meets-vladimir-putin-china-russia-tensions-grow-west
Then in Christmas 2017 I suddenly had a much more severe panic attack which led to taking 3 months off, medication, and then eventually when I tried to return in spring 2018 I had to call it quits within a couple of weeks. I then took a year out of work (I was lucky enough to have the resources to do this) and really worked on my mental health on a personal level.
I'm much better now, doing a similar job to before my panic attacks but can manage the stress a lot better on no medication. I hopefully won't have to go through that experience again, but while I'm grateful for my GP who was very sympathetic, I didn't feel like they had many tools in the armoury apart from time off and medication and it was only ever a 10 minute appointment.
I feel I probably wouldn't have needed 15 months off work if there was proper investment in mental health services in this country and I felt guilty at taking the time off in the knowledge that a small minority would game the system.
Unless you're a blood and soil racist.
I was, when I worked for one. Then a senior manager told me - "We may lose a project now. It always ends up with us being asked back in, by the next government. And we put any loses on the tab...."
Serious sanctions do carry a heavy cost to both sides. War is more costly still, though.
The white and pale beige sections are <50% "ethnic Russian". The white sections (>20%) are Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Tuva, I think. The 20-49% sections are Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia–Alania, Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Mari El, and Sakha.
Not using Nord Stream 2 is the key - it is designed so that Russia can send gas to Western Europe, while cutting off the Near Abroad (aka the bits Russia wants to steal back). So if it goes into operation, Putin can play off Western and Eastern Europe.
Sounds like the German government is pausing that, according to a report in the Independent.
I added the link because I realised I was making a statement as fact without evidence.
Which annoys me when others do it.
While that won't make any immediate impact, it could significantly reduce dependency on Russian gas over time.
Of course that was pooh-pooed at the time by all the people who are calling for a firm response now. Trump was a fascist, he was the enemy, he was in league with Putin, blah blah blah.
Well its not on his watch that Putin is ramping up the aggression, eh? its on Biden's.
I have severe doubts.
Erm.
It depends how things shake out - gas spot prices, for example.
'Blood and soil racist' come on Phil. Some of us wonder where Russian energy moguls acquired their wealth.
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-01-12/owner-of-tory-donor-company-chaired-firm-linked-to-russian-corruption-allegations
As we have a right to when they are donating millions to the Conservative party.
Don't you see what has happened to the Russian state over the decades? Would you like aspects of it to appear here?
The guy drinking in the bar angry about this is currently the only person to suffer sanction over it.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/02/419_323375.html
@maxseddon
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1m
I tried to run through what Putin could do next on Ukraine. It ranges from grim to extremely grim reading.
@Stanovaya
made my hair stand on end when she said: "The goal is to end Ukraine’s existence in its current form. No Ukraine — no problem."
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1496095098018406403
When Russian tanks are rolling across Europe, combatting climate change doesn't seem so important, right? How many divisions does David Attenborough have?
I agree Putin hasn’t just come up with this from nowhere, he’s been scheming this a long time, Europe been asleep on the watch.
Why can't we meet him halfway on that?
@shaunwalker7
Thread: Yesterday I interviewed Kharkiv governor Oleh Synehubov about the city's plans in the event of a Russian invasion.
Kharkiv is a city of nearly 1.5 million people, mainly Russian speaking, and sits just across the border from Russia. Troops are massed on the other side.
https://twitter.com/shaunwalker7/status/1496094274567430149
Now, about all the rest pf the oligarchs donating to the Tories, the ones now lobbying in an entirely unconnected way to not being sanctioned...
The whole point of NS2 was so that Western Europe didn’t need gas coming from Ukraine, that country’s largest source of hard currency, but could get it straight from Russia.
@olliecarroll
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1h
Yup. My sense is they won’t have expected such a blow so early. But nothing of the last few days suggests that will force a rethink.
Shashank Joshi
@shashj
So long, NSII. Substantial blow to Russia—and all they've got so far is recognition & occupation of territory they've de facto controlled for eight years. One reason why this is definitely not the end of story.
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1496081942546112513
He has to say it again today, now it’s not if, but for real.
Why? Leadership. What he has been asking Europe to do does impact us, and it needs that honesty to us from our leader. This lunchtimes salvo from Boris is on behalf of all of us, the British, and it needs that honesty from leadership, “this action we never wanted to take, and yes, it will hurt every household and business in the UK.”
Leadership is building we are all in it together, and being honest where there will be pain, we bear it together.
What part of this don’t you understand?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_22_1281
...An informal meeting of EU Foreign Affairs Ministers chaired by the High Representative will take place today at 4 pm. Following that, a first package of sanctions will be formally tabled later this afternoon.
Appropriate bodies will then meet to finalise the package without delay.
The package contains proposals:
to target those who were involved in the illegal decision,
to target banks that are financing Russian military and other operations in those territories,
to target the ability of the Russian state and government to access the EU's capital and financial markets and services, to limit the financing of escalatory and aggressive policies,
and to target trade from the two breakaway regions to and from the EU, to ensure that those responsible clearly feel the economic consequences of their illegal and aggressive actions...
Do you accept that people who emigrate here and take citizenship here are real British citizens?
Or are they second class people with aspersions to be cast upon based upon where they were born?
Either you accept immigrants who've taken up a life and citizenship here or you don't. If Temerko is Russian to you, you're no better than the National Front.
https://fullfact.org/law/most-non-uk-citizens-cant-donate-uk-political-parties/
If you know of any Russians, as opposed to Brits like Temerko, who are doing so I would find it interesting.
As far as I knew only citizens could donate large amounts like that, am I wrong in believing that? That some of the media like to racistly pretend Brits are not British when it comes to this subject muddies the water.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant
C'mon Boris, you said you supported them on your hustings tour of Wales. Now deliver them. That is the sharpest kick you can give to Putin's shins.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “As Her Majesty is still experiencing mild cold-like symptoms she has decided not to undertake her planned virtual engagements today, but will continue with light duties.’’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/22/queen-cancels-virtual-engagements-due-to-covid
The Russian economy has plunged deep into the resource curse since the 90s - the economy is so dominated by resource production (oil and gas mainly) that other stuff has got squeezed out. So Russia is very, very dependent on imports of vital materials to run the economy.
The other thing to consider is that China would probably take the opportunity to launch a competitor to the SWIFT network - having a ground floor tenant the size of Russia could give such a system the kick off it needs. Trading via China would be much more expensive for Russia, but would provide an end run around the SWIFT issue - to an extent. And then, going forward....
Russia has directly influenced our politics. Whopping donations of Russian-linked money to the governing party who then ignore ISC evidence of Russian meddling in our elections and turn down ISC demands for protections. Oligarchs now reported by that left wing rag the Seanograph as directly lobbying the FCO. "oh we're citizens now and our money is clean" is an easy claim.
So the question is this. If the British authorities can freeze assets of born and bred British citizens suspected of making it illegally, why shouldn't the same apply to naturalised citizens connected with a pariah state we're imposing sanctions on?
[Counterpoint: Russian forces have already deployed yesterday + the separatists are Russian forces by another name]
https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1496101461746503684
I don't understand why Boris has the gall to pose as some kind of leader of European policy when he pissed off out of it.
Yes I do. It's cakeism.
For a supposed LD you're a mighty fan of the PM and the Tory Party.
1. He's gone mad. It's quite possible he really does plan on recreating the USSR and will invade NATO states to achieve it. In which case RIP the Northern Hemisphere
2. He's a genius game theorist, who is now acting the madness card in order to scare Ukraine and the West into really believing 1, and secure what he really wants which is de facto acceptance of his annexation of Donbass and a more favourable negotiated settlement with NATO
3. He's in a weak and wavering position, not quite sure what to do next, and flailing about trying to make up tactics on the hoof.
'The European Union, as you will remember, exacerbated the problems by the premature decision to recognise Croatia.
'And if you want an example of EU foreign policy making on the hoof, and the EU’s pretensions to running a defence policy that have caused real trouble, then look at what has happened in Ukraine.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3581363/Boris-Johnson-blasted-apologist-President-Putin-No-10-Jack-Straw-slam-claim-EU-blame-starting-war-Ukraine.html
If you want to target Putin's Russia, starting with Putin-critics seems a tad weird.
If money is criminal or fraudulent then that should be dealt with equitably for all, but that's got nothing to do with this.
Where did his wealth come from and why is he giving such a lot of it to the Conservative Party?
That he is a citizen has no bearing on these questions. And does not excuse anyone of actions under another passport.
(Can you argue more than one angle? Because you seem to have prepared heuristics that you beat the conversation down to. Not a man of nuance PB's Mr Roberts)
What evidence do you have of dodgy money other than racism? Is it news to you that directors of successful businesses might be wealthy?
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1496102650974248961
That would obviously suggest to me that his position, and consensus within the government on what he's doing , is much weaker than it looks.