So the war starts – Ukraine is being invaded – politicalbetting.com

One way of cutting through legal issues would be primary legislation in parliament confiscating the property of named individuals. Funds to be distributed to support Ukraine charities or compensate for war damage. Chelsea should fetch a good price.

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Lots of the anti wokeness on social media, too, which can equally be described as dribbling self-hating nonsense. You are welcome to ignore it all, as I do.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

I think HYUFD's point is that it doesn't matter how you or I see wokeness but how these rulers of other adversarial countries see it. But given they also see democracy as a weakness I think there comes a point where you have to say that you cannot decide your social and moral positions based on how they are viewed by potential enemies.

For the record I do not agree with either 'wokeness' nor BLM but those should be decisions made within our own societies not ones dictated by fear of adverse external impressions of us.

China may not be a democracy, Russia is, at least in theory. Both Putin and its Parliament are elected by Russian voters in multiparty elections

You do know that they have elections in North Korea too, right? There is a lot more to this whole democracy lark than having an election.

My favourite example of Napoleons election methods and all that...

https://file.io/bGVa7W40WfnS

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

I think HYUFD's point is that it doesn't matter how you or I see wokeness but how these rulers of other adversarial countries see it. But given they also see democracy as a weakness I think there comes a point where you have to say that you cannot decide your social and moral positions based on how they are viewed by potential enemies.

For the record I do not agree with either 'wokeness' nor BLM but those should be decisions made within our own societies not ones dictated by fear of adverse external impressions of us.

China may not be a democracy, Russia is, at least in theory. Both Putin and its Parliament are elected by Russian voters in multiparty elections

You do know that they have elections in North Korea too, right? There is a lot more to this whole democracy lark than having an election.

They don't not multi party elections all North Koreans can vote in

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

If only there was a powerful leader speaking out in defence of (hetero) family, the church and civilisation.

Theuniondivvie said:

..

northern_monkey said:

My opinion, for what it’s worth.

Putin, as uncomfortable as it is to admit it, has played a long game superbly.

Like a weed gradually cracking concrete, we have allowed Russian influence to fracture us here in the west. We have let Russian money grease our political systems. We have allowed ourselves to become dependent on Russian gas, on their other raw materials.

Putin has been doing this for decades, developing and implementing a long-term plan and using the short-termism of our political and industrial leaders, the inability to see beyond the next election, an unwillingness to invest in energy infrastructure and supply, against us.

They have sowed division. They have used bots and money to feed Trump and Brexit and any other division they can exploit in our societies - to deny that is laughable.

And Putin has waited for the moment when we are too dependent on them, and too divided amongst ourselves, to implement this part of his grand plan. America is gridlocked, the EU is weakened, we’re weakened. We’re coming out of Covid, prices are rising, people are exhausted and demoralised.

They will have watched our experiences in Iraq and Afghan, our unwillingness to take large casualties in far off countries of which we know little.

They have slowly, gradually, developed a plan, been patient, and are implementing it gradually, step-by-step. It’s masterful in a geopolitical sense and morally bankrupt.

Ukraine is probably finished. That’s a tragedy. The western populations won’t accept the deaths of their sons and daughters for Ukraine. What follows Ukraine is genuinely very scary. They seem to be very happy in threatening nuclear war. Hopefully that is just rhetoric.

I don’t know enough about what happened after the fall of the USSR about opportunities to get Russia into NATO. I’ve read that Putin was keen to join. How true that is I don’t know. But if that chance was missed, that could prove to be a high miscalculation.

Not sure where we go from here, but we need to wean ourself of the Russian teat, the gush of dirty money, the gas, as soon as we can. That won’t be quick.

To paraphrase Bob Monkhouse, people use to laugh at Vlad when he said he wanted to make Russia great again, they’re not laughing now.

Putin’s certainly played a blinder within the parameters of his dystopian ambitions. Perhaps his greatest achievement is to get a large number of people to vehemently deny that he has influenced politics in the west while they disseminate rumours about Hilary being a satanist paedo or that the EU was going to ban pork pies tweeted by Whitechick8665901463 from a basement in St Petersburg.

Worth also pointing out that 'sowing division' includes any amount of sock-puppetry. Bombarding British footballers with racist abuse after missing penalties is part of the 'sowing division' tactic. We have any amount of societal fractures, and it wouldn't be surprising to find Russian or Chinese influence on both sides.

I doubt very much that Erdogan is going to close the Bosphorous strait, as the Ukrainians are requesting. He still wants to work with Putin, and said yesterday that he wants to maintain his relationships with both Ukraine and Russia. He knows what that will mean in practice, if nothing changes.

HYUFD said:

It isn't when many of the most radical Woke leaders want to tear down statues of all the nation's historical figures, trash its past, trash capitalism etc.

Much of the West's history and traditions are digusting garbage that should be repudiated.

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

It isn't when many of the most radical Woke leaders want to tear down statues of all the nation's historical figures, trash its past, trash capitalism etc.

For communist leaders like Xi and Russian nationalist leaders like Putin they can smell weakness and watch the West tearing itself apart with self hate and know they can invade Ukraine, Taiwan etc with minimal response as the West has lost confidence in itself, its heritage and its values.

There is a difference between saying Black Lives Matter, which obviously they do and a radical anti West which the more extreme BLM and woke leaders have which only boosts anti western leaders

Engaging with the past is not the same as trashing it. Questioning the legacy of historical figures is not the same as trashing them. Xi and Putin may perceive wokeness as weakness but that is because they are authoritarian bullies who don't understand what it means to live in a free society. It seems there are plenty in the West who make the same mistake, sadly.

Yes but the most extreme woke leaders do not merely want to engage with the past. They want to tear down Churchill's statue, replace capitalism with socialism or even communism, destroy the nuclear family, abolish the military and police leading to anarchy and a complete lack of security and law and order etc.

Xi and Putin can see that, can see most western leaders are not that strong at present in producing a strong narrative to unite their nations in self confidence, wealth, freedom and patriotism, as say Reagan and Thatcher and Pope John Paul did in the 1980s to win the Cold War. Thus they will take advantage

So some extremist twats on Twitter have called for world revolution or something? I could go trawling social media and find all kinds of absurd far right bollocks and claim that that invalidates the political stance of everyone to the right of the Liberal Democrats. But I don't, because I don't want to insult your intelligence. So stop insulting mine.

WhisperingOracle said:

I doubt very much that Erdogan is going to close the Bosphorous strait, as the Ukrainians are requesting. He still wants to work with Putin, and said yesterday that he wants to maintain his relationships with both Ukraine and Russia. He knows what that will mean in practice, if nothing changes.

Putin's warning against other countries getting involved was probably mainly aimed at Turkey.

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

A classic example was all the alleged racist abuse by England fans, of the black players who missed penalties at the euro finals


‘Most of the racist trolling of England footballers has come from accounts based overseas, according to expert analysis.

Around 70% of the hateful posts, images and emojis posted after the Euro 2020 defeat are said to have been from social media users outside the UK.

The speed at which they were posted online after England’s defeat to Italy – and the way some of the accounts were set up – has led to suspicions that nefarious motives other than racism are at play.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/

So easy to do. Send fake racist tweets ‘by England fans’. Get the left all angry and sneery at thick racist English people, stir the roiling culture wars, sit back and watch a country hate itself

BLM in America is even worse, because there the Russians and Chinese can play on deep rooted and justifiable white guilt

williamglenn said:

WhisperingOracle said:

I doubt very much that Erdogan is going to close the Bosphorous strait, as the Ukrainians are requesting. He still wants to work with Putin, and said yesterday that he wants to maintain his relationships with both Ukraine and Russia. He knows what that will mean in practice, if nothing changes.

Putin's warning against other countries getting involved was probably mainly aimed at Turkey.

And also at Western public opinion, I think. He has much less convincing to do with Erdogan ; the relationship was already quite clearly closer than the Russian one with West was to begin with, I would say.

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

(Apologies for appearing to care more about the fish, than ww3. I’ll get to that in my next post..!)

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

It isn't when many of the most radical Woke leaders want to tear down statues of all the nation's historical figures, trash its past, trash capitalism etc.

For communist leaders like Xi and Russian nationalist leaders like Putin they can smell weakness and watch the West tearing itself apart with self hate and know they can invade Ukraine, Taiwan etc with minimal response as the West has lost confidence in itself, its heritage and its values.

There is a difference between saying Black Lives Matter, which obviously they do and a radical anti West which the more extreme BLM and woke leaders have which only boosts anti western leaders

Engaging with the past is not the same as trashing it. Questioning the legacy of historical figures is not the same as trashing them. Xi and Putin may perceive wokeness as weakness but that is because they are authoritarian bullies who don't understand what it means to live in a free society. It seems there are plenty in the West who make the same mistake, sadly.

It is not 'engaging with the past'. It is peddling a simple analysis of the past which casts Britain as evil based on certain specific things it has done, rather than taking on a more rounded view of good and bad. @HYUFD is correct, that those who peddle this stuff are serving the interests of our adversaries. Putin and Xi are laughing at us all.

In the end, perhaps statues and historic monuments should come down. However, in a mature, free society this would be achieved through due process; not mobs of people tearing them down as we saw in 2020. Yet it is the latter that you mistakenly see as virtuous.

noneoftheabove said:

Burgessian said:

noneoftheabove said:

Burgessian said:

noneoftheabove said:

Burgessian said:

noneoftheabove said:

Burgessian said:

IanB2 said:

LostPassword said:

another_richard said:

In a possibly 'good day to bury bad news' change student loans will now be paid back over 40 years and starting from lower earnings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-60498245

Although the reduction in the interest rate to RPI is certainly a good thing.

I would really recommend that any future students delay university for at least a year so as to get more experience of the world generally and possible careers specifically before accepting such lifetime debt servitude.

The reduction in interest rate is a curious change because it means more high earners will be able to repay the loans and escape the tax, while those on middle incomes still won't be able to, and so some will end up paying more tax than the higher earners.

It's the Tories undoing some of the changes the LibDems achieved in coalition to make it work, in practice, more like a graduate tax. They've shifted it back towards the loan system they always wanted.

I tend to see it as a form of extra income tax which people incur if they opt to go into Higher Education. The alternative is that everyone pays for the costs, including those who go into employment without enjoying the benefits of university. From their POV it must seem eminently fair.

You could argue that there is a greater unfairness for people with bad eyes or teeth who have to contribute to the costs of optometry and dentistry. Likewise folks whose savings are sucked dry by the costs of care. No-one volunteered for that, which is quite different to those who seek to better themselves through education.

So why not apply it to all with a degree rather than just the age groups who don't tend to vote Tory?

You mean retrospectively? Come off it! People who have got this liability signed up for it, like it or not. And I don't much as I have kids with a debt myself.

In any event, the need is because of the expansion of HE which has made it unaffordable to come from general taxation. Didn't apply in the past when far fewer went on to HE.

The changes are retrospective! It is not what they signed up for at all.....

That's why I see it, effectively, as an income tax.

Same sort of distinction as with state pension and private pension.

The Treasury decides what the rate is on an annual basis, depending on prevailing economic climate.

Your reason for not taxing older graduates was because it would be retrospective and not what they signed up for.

Yet you don't think it is unfair on younger graduates when it is retrospective and not what they signed up for because, err, it is effectively an income tax.

I think it probably is unfair. There's a lot of unfairness about. Such as the huge cost of care, for instance. My family is taking a big hit from both student debt and social care costs. Unfortunately, the money has to be raised somewhere. Someone has to pay the bills for welfare, defence, etc.

Agreed. Should that be the richest cohort of pensioners ever? Or the first generation of young people to end up poorer than their parents in many decades?

I don't know why it is controversial to suggest it is not the young people.

Today's generation of young people will inherit more than their parents or grandparents could ever dream of on average once they reach late middle age.

So it is not all bad for them

Aslan said:

Taz said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Agreed, but until we have that we should maximise our own oil and gas production and screw the green cranks.

Unless we have successful shale, which isn't economical in the UK, new production would take 20 years. There is no advantage over nuclear plants.

It's only non-economical in the UK because of the nonsense that production has to stop every time there's a seismic shock equivalent to somebody sitting down in a chair.

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

(Apologies for appearing to care more about the fish, than ww3. I’ll get to that in my next post..!)

I think the main problem is loss of feeding habitat for vast numbers of birds at low tide. Most tidal estuaries are highly protected (RAMSAR etc) for this reason.

https://www.ramsar.org/wetland/united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

Nope.

If you want that, look at the water intake for the cooling system at Hinkley C. That plant was given the go ahead strictly on the understanding that there would be a "fish scarer" to prevent them being sucked into the intake and killed.

But they haven't been able to build that. So let's just carry on building regardless, eh? Fuck the fish....

Dura_Ace said:

HYUFD said:

It isn't when many of the most radical Woke leaders want to tear down statues of all the nation's historical figures, trash its past, trash capitalism etc.

Much of the West's history and traditions are digusting garbage that should be repudiated.

Yes, well we know you are a Scottish Nationalist fan and the icon of Scottish Nationalism Alex Salmond is a RT paid Putin fan, so no surprise from you. You would happily have an independent Scotland even as a colony of Putin's Russia

Dura_Ace said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

You've been fucking this particular lifeless corpse up to the liver for years. It's not happening... get over it.

You think? We'll see....

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

(Apologies for appearing to care more about the fish, than ww3. I’ll get to that in my next post..!)

So does industrial trawling.

Leon said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

A classic example was all the alleged racist abuse by England fans, of the black players who missed penalties at the euro finals


‘Most of the racist trolling of England footballers has come from accounts based overseas, according to expert analysis.

Around 70% of the hateful posts, images and emojis posted after the Euro 2020 defeat are said to have been from social media users outside the UK.

The speed at which they were posted online after England’s defeat to Italy – and the way some of the accounts were set up – has led to suspicions that nefarious motives other than racism are at play.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/

So easy to do. Send fake racist tweets ‘by England fans’. Get the left all angry and sneery at thick racist English people, stir the roiling culture wars, sit back and watch a country hate itself

BLM in America is even worse, because there the Russians and Chinese can play on deep rooted and justifiable white guilt

One example I've noticed in recent years, again the political horsehoe, is the argument that there was really nothing to choose between the Allies and Axis in WWII is no longer restricted to Neo-Nazis. It's now quite a woke argument.

Confirmed by Ukrainian authorities. A large air assault operation with Mi-8 helicopters on Antonov International Airport in Hostomel. Interior Ministry says Russia has seized control. Very dangerous; it’s just 15 minutes west of the capital ring road.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1496809143738507264

rcs1000 said:

I do wonder if the Russian elite are suffering from the same delusions as the Chinese do wrt Taiwan.

Most Chinese think that the Taiwanese are anxious for reunification, and it's only their evil/duplicitous leaders who are opposed. They think that, if Chinese troops landed in Taipei, they would be welcomed with flowers and open arms.

Does Putin think that - once inside the bosom of Mother Russia - 44 million Ukrainians will finally find happiness?

The reality, of course, is that Russians only outnumber Ukrainians 3-to-1. That means a lot of the resources of the Russian state will be needed to occupy and pacify the country.

I don't see how that ends well for either Ukraine or Russia.

Though the Soviet Union managed to hold down an empire in Eastern Europe that totalled around 100 million people at the same time as holding down an empire of not-exactly-willing non-Russians within the Soviet Union. And some not-exactly-willing Russians, come to that.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Anybody who's genuinely* concerned with dirty money being funnelled into politics and who is also genuinely* concerned with anti-racism could support lowering the maximum donations any individual or organisation is allowed to give a political party. Make it wayyy more difficult for small numbers of people to disproportionately influence our politics.

Now I know that would probably hurt some parties more than others, but I'm sure that with a little time to adapt they are capable of generating a large base of small subscribers.

*I'm making no assumptions though

I could 100% support this, assuming that the cap for organisations includes bodies like Trade Unions too and they are not excluded.

There is a difference there, though - the Union money comes from many individuals choosing to donate (well pay membership fees) for that union and knowing (or at least being able to very easily find out) whether they in turn fund a political party. For wealthy individuals who got rich from companies, I'm not sure that the purchasers were endorsing the eventual political donation. I helped fund Brexit through buying a Dyson some years back and drinking in Wetherspoons during my student days, but I assure you that was not my intention

I would be up for Union donation reform - for example, make the political part an optional part of the membership: join for the protections and negotiation, pay a bit extra if you want to support the politics - just pointing out that it's not the same thing.

HYUFD said:

Aslan said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

I think HYUFD's point is that it doesn't matter how you or I see wokeness but how these rulers of other adversarial countries see it. But given they also see democracy as a weakness I think there comes a point where you have to say that you cannot decide your social and moral positions based on how they are viewed by potential enemies.

For the record I do not agree with either 'wokeness' nor BLM but those should be decisions made within our own societies not ones dictated by fear of adverse external impressions of us.

China may not be a democracy, Russia is, at least in theory. Both Putin and its Parliament are elected by Russian voters in multiparty elections

You do know that they have elections in North Korea too, right? There is a lot more to this whole democracy lark than having an election.

HYUFD is a right wing autocrat. He is doing everything on this thread to apologise for Russia and distract from the crimes of his fascist fellow travellers.

Rubbish.

It was me who advocated containing Russia was more relevant for us than containing China.

It is me who said NATO must remain the core of our self defence and we must send more NATO troops to defend NATO states Poland and the Baltic states.

However it is also undeniable Russians elect their Parliament and President

That's also true in Iran - provided of course the views of the candidate match what the President / Religious leadership allows.

I wouldn't call that a free election - more a token gesture / facade.

Flatlander said:

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

(Apologies for appearing to care more about the fish, than ww3. I’ll get to that in my next post..!)

I think the main problem is loss of feeding habitat for vast numbers of birds at low tide. Most tidal estuaries are highly protected (RAMSAR etc) for this reason.

https://www.ramsar.org/wetland/united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland

Except, there is provision made for this in the plans. Which is why Greenpeace and Wildlife and Wetland Trust were supporters....

Leon said:

And now the inevitably harrowing footage begins to emerge


‘"They're bombing homes," say the women in this video.’

https://twitter.com/idvck/status/1496802519292551172?s=21

The FT says US intel is estimating that 50,000 Ukrainians could die in the first week. It seems so hard to believe, but, my god. Dark dark times.

I’m not sure your post and posts like this is a good idea Leon.

To play our part, I think we need to be careful not hype the “bombing of civilians” as it could play into Putin’s strategy. I’m not saying it isn’t happening, but may be targeted to a purpose at this stage. Correct me where I’m wrong, but it is a tactic of warfare, such as how Isreal first took the levant, to start with terror, so people panic and flee out your way making it easier for you. This beginning bit could be of terror and fear could be targeted to achieve that, using us as useful idiots to hype it for the Kremlin, and then MSM to show the panicking refugees to complete the Kremlin’s work.

What Putin has done today makes him a war criminal. He should end up on trial and locked up like the Serb war criminals, the West should NEVER soften on that in the future.

OMG. To be honest I have to admit I was so wrong to half think he was sabre rattling for some sort of deal and not an insane demagogue. 🤦‍♀️

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

Quora is an absolute hotbed of Russian trolls.

Phil said:

Leon said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

A classic example was all the alleged racist abuse by England fans, of the black players who missed penalties at the euro finals


‘Most of the racist trolling of England footballers has come from accounts based overseas, according to expert analysis.

Around 70% of the hateful posts, images and emojis posted after the Euro 2020 defeat are said to have been from social media users outside the UK.

The speed at which they were posted online after England’s defeat to Italy – and the way some of the accounts were set up – has led to suspicions that nefarious motives other than racism are at play.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/

So easy to do. Send fake racist tweets ‘by England fans’. Get the left all angry and sneery at thick racist English people, stir the roiling culture wars, sit back and watch a country hate itself

BLM in America is even worse, because there the Russians and Chinese can play on deep rooted and justifiable white guilt

It’s very clear that the goal of Russian social media operations has been to find weak points in the polities of target countries and hammer wedges into them.

Split the people apart into islands of mutual distrust & you can manoevre at leisure against them because they won’t be able to come up with a coherent reponse to anything you do.

This goes for BLM, Brexit, Trans issues, any issue where the population is already or can be divided if sufficient encouragement is applied. In the UK they get to be aided & abetted by a tabloid press who are very happy to profit from the culture wars, regardless of who starts them.

As a nation, we need to wake up & start taking this threat seriously: somehow we need to eject Russian troll farms from the media we consume because they’re poisoning us drop by drop.

Good luck with that while, as with postal vote fraud, our rulers think foreign interference helps their side. All sides.

dixiedean said:

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

(Apologies for appearing to care more about the fish, than ww3. I’ll get to that in my next post..!)

So does industrial trawling.

If the past history of oil rigs and lagoons created round some in the Arctic to defend against ice, is anything to go by, tidal lagoons could be an oasis for fish

MarqueeMark said:

ping said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fairliered said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty's right.

If we'd not had a lockdown, then there'd have been a surge of deaths as the virus ripped through society, but the economic impact would have been vastly reduced. On a cold, unfeeling cash flow analysis it could possibly even perversely the pandemic could have been good for the Treasury had it been left to rip since those it would have killed are a drain on the Exchequer because of pensions and healthcare and the fact they're not working.

You might think the cost of lockdown was worth paying to save lives, that's fair enough, but the cost is lockdown. It is utterly dishonest to say otherwise.

PS there would have been some economic damage either way due to the fact people voluntarily shelter in a pandemic even without lockdown being mandatory, but it would have been greatly reduced.

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

We should be maximising our own oil and gas production as quickly as possible, and helping to supply the rest of Europe if possible. Time to ignore green squeals for the greater good.

Build a dozen tidal lagoon power stations around our coast and you can have a greater good and non-squealing greens....

Excuse my ignorance on this, but…

Don’t tidal lagoons really fuck with the fish?

Nope.

If you want that, look at the water intake for the cooling system at Hinkley C. That plant was given the go ahead strictly on the understanding that there would be a "fish scarer" to prevent them being sucked into the intake and killed.

But they haven't been able to build that. So let's just carry on building regardless, eh? Fuck the fish....

Unfortunately, lagoons can have a pretty devastating ecological impact on tidal mudflats etc. which are pretty crucial staging posts for migrating birds. The East Atlantic flyway, which runs through the British Isles, is very important for a host of species. Lagoons have to be developed with care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yisqHcI-AcA

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

I do wonder if the Russian elite are suffering from the same delusions as the Chinese do wrt Taiwan.

Most Chinese think that the Taiwanese are anxious for reunification, and it's only their evil/duplicitous leaders who are opposed. They think that, if Chinese troops landed in Taipei, they would be welcomed with flowers and open arms.

Does Putin think that - once inside the bosom of Mother Russia - 44 million Ukrainians will finally find happiness?

The reality, of course, is that Russians only outnumber Ukrainians 3-to-1. That means a lot of the resources of the Russian state will be needed to occupy and pacify the country.

I don't see how that ends well for either Ukraine or Russia.

Some people think Russia is much wealthier, and much more powerful than it really is.

The only reason Russia has any significant military is because Putin has been putting as much of its economy as it can into its Military Industrial Complex. The economy itself, besides commodities, is utterly and royally fucked.

The Russian economy is worth less than Italy's. We wouldn't think the whole of the western world should be afraid of Italy.

A hostile occupation of Ukraine will not end well, and Russia is screwed especially as the world moves away from hydrocarbons.

Putin's Russia is as doomed as his beloved USSR.

I shall 'like' that - not because I necessarily agree with it, but because I'm happy to hear plausible reasons not to be entirely pessimistic.

All this bluster from NATO, the west etc

Just meaningless bluster. Putin has won

Farooq said:

kinabalu said:

MISTY said:

glw said:

A couple of thoughts.

1. We already know Boris is not good in a crisis. I do not understand why Tory MPs are keeping him in place.

2. I think we are past the point where sanctions are going to resolve the crisis. I'd rather the government was talking about arming Ukraine, rearmament of UK forces, and NATO expansion. The last defence review can now be binned.

Except taxes are already at the highest in 70 years because of the damage of lockdown. Borrowing skyrocketed and we are soon to be told to give up our boilers and petrol cars and make other privations to achieve net zero.There are already shortages of oil and gas and these are set to get worse because of drilling bans.

Thanks to our government and opposition, we are in no fit state to fight Putin. He knows this. He may be evil personified, but like Trump says, stupid he is not. Know your enemy.

Note to young Misty,

Please replace the word highlighted with the pandemic and resubmit your work.

Cheers, Mr Chips.

Misty is a troll. Don't feed it.

I was feeding myself with that one. 🙂

But yes, know what you mean. He is rather.

eek said:

HYUFD said:

Aslan said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

I think HYUFD's point is that it doesn't matter how you or I see wokeness but how these rulers of other adversarial countries see it. But given they also see democracy as a weakness I think there comes a point where you have to say that you cannot decide your social and moral positions based on how they are viewed by potential enemies.

For the record I do not agree with either 'wokeness' nor BLM but those should be decisions made within our own societies not ones dictated by fear of adverse external impressions of us.

China may not be a democracy, Russia is, at least in theory. Both Putin and its Parliament are elected by Russian voters in multiparty elections

You do know that they have elections in North Korea too, right? There is a lot more to this whole democracy lark than having an election.

HYUFD is a right wing autocrat. He is doing everything on this thread to apologise for Russia and distract from the crimes of his fascist fellow travellers.

Rubbish.

It was me who advocated containing Russia was more relevant for us than containing China.

It is me who said NATO must remain the core of our self defence and we must send more NATO troops to defend NATO states Poland and the Baltic states.

However it is also undeniable Russians elect their Parliament and President

That's also true in Iran - provided of course the views of the candidate match what the President / Religious leadership allows.

I wouldn't call that a free election - more a token gesture / facade.

HYUFD tends to take a binary position in these matters, when the worthiness of elections is a sliding scale. Kim Jong Un is nominally elected but his status as effectively one of the God Kings by another name is more significant.

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

I do wonder if the Russian elite are suffering from the same delusions as the Chinese do wrt Taiwan.

Most Chinese think that the Taiwanese are anxious for reunification, and it's only their evil/duplicitous leaders who are opposed. They think that, if Chinese troops landed in Taipei, they would be welcomed with flowers and open arms.

Does Putin think that - once inside the bosom of Mother Russia - 44 million Ukrainians will finally find happiness?

The reality, of course, is that Russians only outnumber Ukrainians 3-to-1. That means a lot of the resources of the Russian state will be needed to occupy and pacify the country.

I don't see how that ends well for either Ukraine or Russia.

Some people think Russia is much wealthier, and much more powerful than it really is.

The only reason Russia has any significant military is because Putin has been putting as much of its economy as it can into its Military Industrial Complex. The economy itself, besides commodities, is utterly and royally fucked.

The Russian economy is worth less than Italy's. We wouldn't think the whole of the western world should be afraid of Italy.

A hostile occupation of Ukraine will not end well, and Russia is screwed especially as the world moves away from hydrocarbons.

Putin's Russia is as doomed as his beloved USSR.

Putin does however still have the biggest armed forces in Europe and the biggest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.

Russia's power is obviously not economic now but it is military still and Putin today has showed he is prepared to use it.

That is why NATO and the west must contain him with heavy economic sanctions and sending NATO troop reinforcements to Poland and the Baltic states

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Aslan said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Fwiw it is hard to see how freezing the assets of a few Russian plutocrats, no matter how corrupt, is likely to influence Putin in the slightest. It is just going through the motions.

Exactly. We need to hammer the pillars of the Russian economy: oil and gas exports, financial flows, foreign accounts and real estate.

Even then it will be hard to make a real impact, assuming the Telegraph's figures from last week are right, Russia, or at least its leader if not the people, can hold out for years.
Russia has amassed foreign exchange reserves of $635bn, the fifth highest in the world and rising. It has a national debt of 18pc of GDP, the sixth lowest in the world, and falling.

The country has cleaned up the banking system and has a well-run floating currency that lets the economy roll with the punches.

It has a budget surplus and does not rely on foreign investors to cover government spending. It has slashed its dependency on oil state revenues. The fiscal break-even cost of a barrel of oil fell to $52 last year, down from $115 before the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/15/putin-close-winning-ukraine/ (£££)

Cancelling Nordstream does nothing because its main purpose was to bypass Ukraine. Germany was already buying gas, and if Germany stops, China will buy Russian gas instead in order to reduce coal-burning which even President Xi can see is creating smog.

Re foreign reserves.

Cut Russia out of international currency transfers today.

Reconstitute USD/EUR/GBP/CHF etc overnight on a 1:1 basis as “New USD etc. automatically certified for all “non sanctioned” countries (so basically everyone apart from Russia).

Any cash amount over say 50,000 has to be proven non Russian source otherwise cannot be used in the financial system.

Freeze the use of the Rouble in international banking transactions.

Russian foreign currency reserves in their banking system worthless overnight.

Phil said:

Leon said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

A classic example was all the alleged racist abuse by England fans, of the black players who missed penalties at the euro finals


‘Most of the racist trolling of England footballers has come from accounts based overseas, according to expert analysis.

Around 70% of the hateful posts, images and emojis posted after the Euro 2020 defeat are said to have been from social media users outside the UK.

The speed at which they were posted online after England’s defeat to Italy – and the way some of the accounts were set up – has led to suspicions that nefarious motives other than racism are at play.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/

So easy to do. Send fake racist tweets ‘by England fans’. Get the left all angry and sneery at thick racist English people, stir the roiling culture wars, sit back and watch a country hate itself

BLM in America is even worse, because there the Russians and Chinese can play on deep rooted and justifiable white guilt

It’s very clear that the goal of Russian social media operations has been to find weak points in the polities of target countries and hammer wedges into them.

Split the people apart into islands of mutual distrust & you can manoevre at leisure against them because they won’t be able to come up with a coherent reponse to anything you do.

This goes for BLM, Brexit, Trans issues, any issue where the population is already or can be divided if sufficient encouragement is applied. In the UK they get to be aided & abetted by a tabloid press who are very happy to profit from the culture wars, regardless of who starts them.

As a nation, we need to wake up & start taking this threat seriously: somehow we need to eject Russian troll farms from the media we consume because they’re poisoning us drop by drop.

Indeed.
I do wonder whether Putin has begun to believe a lot of this though.
We squabble about those issues on here. But it doesn't mean the condemnation of Russia is any less.
We see disagreement as a strength not a weakness. It's an entirely different mindset.

Razedabode said:

All this bluster from NATO, the west etc

Just meaningless bluster. Putin has won

Ultimately Putin will lose, unless he dies of natural causes first. Maybe in weeks, maybe in years, but eventually. It probably won't be at the hands of the West.

dixiedean said:

Phil said:

Leon said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

darkage said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

Heathener said:

Applicant said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Pioneers, aye, the hypocrisy is fantastic in F1.

I'm not a fan of dragging politics into sport, but they collectively dived right into that pool and wallowed in the BLM/kneeling fad. Might still be happening (I've always avoided pre-race nonsense). But calendar regulars still include one red flag country with concentration camps and another that seems to be looking to annihilate a European nation-state.

We'll see what they do.

They announced earlier this month that they were cancelling the show of support for the BLM campaign from this season. Hopefuly the PL/EFL will do the same in the summer.

Wow the Nasty Party Alt-Right are out in force. What a revolting post.

It's great that we take the knee and we should.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Kneel-How-Rise/dp/1398503231

I am sure Putin will be quaking in his boots while we take the knee.

It is western obsession with wokeness Putin and Xi see as western weakness and self hate enabling them to take Ukraine and Taiwan with little response.

Yes everyone should be treated equally and fairly regardless of race but taking the knee should be voluntary not imposed

Wokeness is not a sign of weakness but of a society that has the self-confidence to examine and attempt to correct its flaws. You won't see Wokeness in Russia and China not because they are strong but because they are weak - countries ruled by fear whose leaders are brittle power-hungry despots terrified of free debate and the noisy mess of democratic self-government. The day that Western societies stop having thses kind of debates is the day that Putin wins.

Forcing people to take the knee or engage in other politicised gestures is the opposite of healthy and free debate. It is actually quite authoritarian, and would have been a laughable and alien idea to the British until very recently. That it has happened actually represents a failing of our system, and is something that actually drives people towards Putin and Trump - it is no coincidence that this is where Farage and Banks are at. The question becomes 'what type of tyranny would you rather live in', and it is easy to conclude that the Trump version doesn't look so bad.

Nobody should be forced to do it and as far as I know nobody has been. The England football team take the knee because they have chosen to. Whereas Colin Kaepernick was forced out of American football for taking the knee. And plenty of people have sought to ban it. So the tyranny and authoritarianism seems to lie more on the other side of the debate.

Much of the most incendiary social media surrounding Wokeness, the knee, BLM, identity politics, and all of this dribbling self-hating nonsense, has come from Russian and Chinese bots and trolls, stirring up both sides and eroding western cohesion and self-esteem

Whatever your personal views on Wokeness, our enemies see it as a weakness and are ruthlessly exploiting it

Yes. You can encounter them on Quora, and other social media platforms. People who combine extreme wokeness with support for the foreign policy aims of Russia and China.

A classic example was all the alleged racist abuse by England fans, of the black players who missed penalties at the euro finals


‘Most of the racist trolling of England footballers has come from accounts based overseas, according to expert analysis.

Around 70% of the hateful posts, images and emojis posted after the Euro 2020 defeat are said to have been from social media users outside the UK.

The speed at which they were posted online after England’s defeat to Italy – and the way some of the accounts were set up – has led to suspicions that nefarious motives other than racism are at play.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/

So easy to do. Send fake racist tweets ‘by England fans’. Get the left all angry and sneery at thick racist English people, stir the roiling culture wars, sit back and watch a country hate itself

BLM in America is even worse, because there the Russians and Chinese can play on deep rooted and justifiable white guilt

It’s very clear that the goal of Russian social media operations has been to find weak points in the polities of target countries and hammer wedges into them.

Split the people apart into islands of mutual distrust & you can manoevre at leisure against them because they won’t be able to come up with a coherent reponse to anything you do.

This goes for BLM, Brexit, Trans issues, any issue where the population is already or can be divided if sufficient encouragement is applied. In the UK they get to be aided & abetted by a tabloid press who are very happy to profit from the culture wars, regardless of who starts them.

As a nation, we need to wake up & start taking this threat seriously: somehow we need to eject Russian troll farms from the media we consume because they’re poisoning us drop by drop.

Indeed.
I do wonder whether Putin has begun to believe a lot of this though.
We squabble about those issues on here. But it doesn't mean the condemnation of Russia is any less.
We see disagreement as a strength not a weakness. It's an entirely different mindset.

Absolutely

This morning:

LibDems squirm as former leader appears on Salmond's Russian TV show

https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1496807897786949633