Lots of what looks suspiciously like sand there. I think that is footage of what was left of the Iraqi army when they fled from Kuwait City. The Z logos on the vehicles are interesting though. I remember reading the Russians were marking their vehicles that way. Maybe it is true after all.
No snow around, either.
I froze the clip at 23 seconds and took the below screenshot. Looks like Cyrillic lettering to me - certainly not Arabic
Yes, it’s Russian. And look at that Z
Question is: where? And who wiped them out?
It's in Kherson, and apparently they're engineering vehicles for bridging rivers.
Comments suggest they were taken out with Turkish donated Bayraktars
Reports 27 countries are actively providing weapons to Ukraine
Time for us to unite, stop sniping, and be proud of the response currently on its way from nations across the world
I'm sorry BigG. We in the West have done next to nothing. There is good reason why we have done next to nothing we don't want Putin to escalate this fiasco to involve the EU and the UK.
Clinton's biggest regret was he did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda. We are watching, not genocide, but the destruction of a nation. The upshot either way is thousands of innocents are slaughtered whilst we watch on.
Our declarations "but Ukraine is not in NATO" are sops to ourselves.They are a sovereign nation invaded by an aggressor and we (the West) have sanctioned 70% of Russian banks. Huh, 70%?
Now I don't want British troops involved, I don't want my children conscripted for a world war, but neither can I sit back with satisfaction and claim leaders representing me have done all they can on my behalf, they haven't. In some cases, their vested interests trump my horror.
I don't know how to counter Putin, that is not my job. But neither, it seems, do those whose job it is to deal with Putin.
I am not suggesting a party political or Remainer/ Leave bias here. Whoever they represent, Western leaders have been guilty of dereliction of duty for at least eight years and that includes Starmer and your beloved "Boris".
When I was calling for us to act against Russia in 2014, 2016 (I think), 2018, etc, etc, where was your voice? Were you in the "Russia's ambitions are detrimental to the world; we need to act hard" camp or the "You're a warmonger risking WWIII" camp?
Because actions then would have been a damned sight easier than they are now. And we still face a threat of WWIII.
Yes they would, which is why I have cited eight years of inaction and dereliction of duty by Western leaders.
And, don't you blame me. I was outraged that we in the West did nothing about a downed airliner. We begged for permission to recover our bodies. That single act was brushed under the carpet. That represents the West sitting on its hands while Putin toyed with us.
I was with Elwood weeks ago when he demanded NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. That is recorded here.
I'm talking about calling for action over the last eight years. This could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. It was predicted.
And yes, a Conservative / coalition government has been in place for that time. But remember Miliband's hideous backturn over the Syria vote? Remember Corbyn, Labour's leader, who pretended to be rather (ahem) anti-war?
Putin has gambled that the west's weaknesses would prevent us from stopping his territorial ambitions. The UK's negligence played into it - but the blame lies all over the west. It was too hard to do, so it wasn't done.
(I'd actually argue May did very well over Salisbury, although it could have been used as a catalyst for firmer actions.)
I think Putin thinks the West is a wet lettuce.
And morally bankrupt. He has been banging on about drugs and homosexuality and transgenderism etc.
Remember that next time those of you on the far right have a go about being woke. You may find yourself in bed with Vladimir Putin.
Still spending your time trying to create discord? Which country’s intelligence services did you say you worked in again?
If anyone is paying for the crap Heathener is coming out with, they should ask for their money back.
Ukrainian forces ‘repulsed’ a Russian air assault this morning - 60 Russian soldiers from 3 helicopters attacked near Brody, 1.5 hours outside Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Casualties unknown. Russian paratroopers have retreated into the forest: Lviv mayor https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
Given it's basically impossible to impose proper sanctions on Russia while NordStream1 continues to pump gas into Germany and cash to Putin, we might as well just go ahead with NS2.
I propose giving the pipeline itself to Ukraine.
The whole point of NordStream 2 is to bypass Ukraine.
I think that was his point. If Ukraine owns NS2 they still get the transit fees
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
I cannot understand why a conservative party leadership election taking upto 8 weeks at this time of war could be justified or indeed accepted by the voters
When the PM is an incompetent buffoon, I cannot understand why you would want him in post for a second longer
I agree with BigG that right now is not quite the time. This will have largely played out in a week or 2 and the key focus will have to be how to stop Putin going any further and Johnson needs to be got shot of right away because he won't bother putting in the hard work to achieve that objective.
In truth the Conservative Party should never have allowed the Brexit issue to blind it into choosing an incompetent, weak and dishonest leader. However we are where we are and at the end of the day Johnson is only a buffoon and is not in the same evil and dangerous category as Trump.
The Tories need to act sooner rather than later once this is over. We are stuck with Brexit now and If they cannot now see that he is not the right leader for a pandemic or an international crisis then they never will and any further disasters will be on their heads.
Reports 27 countries are actively providing weapons to Ukraine
Time for us to unite, stop sniping, and be proud of the response currently on its way from nations across the world
I'm sorry BigG. We in the West have done next to nothing. There is good reason why we have done next to nothing we don't want Putin to escalate this fiasco to involve the EU and the UK.
Clinton's biggest regret was he did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda. We are watching, not genocide, but the destruction of a nation. The upshot either way is thousands of innocents are slaughtered whilst we watch on.
Our declarations "but Ukraine is not in NATO" are sops to ourselves.They are a sovereign nation invaded by an aggressor and we (the West) have sanctioned 70% of Russian banks. Huh, 70%?
Now I don't want British troops involved, I don't want my children conscripted for a world war, but neither can I sit back with satisfaction and claim leaders representing me have done all they can on my behalf, they haven't. In some cases, their vested interests trump my horror.
I don't know how to counter Putin, that is not my job. But neither, it seems, do those whose job it is to deal with Putin.
I am not suggesting a party political or Remainer/ Leave bias here. Whoever they represent, Western leaders have been guilty of dereliction of duty for at least eight years and that includes Starmer and your beloved "Boris".
When I was calling for us to act against Russia in 2014, 2016 (I think), 2018, etc, etc, where was your voice? Were you in the "Russia's ambitions are detrimental to the world; we need to act hard" camp or the "You're a warmonger risking WWIII" camp?
Because actions then would have been a damned sight easier than they are now. And we still face a threat of WWIII.
Yes they would, which is why I have cited eight years of inaction and dereliction of duty by Western leaders.
And, don't you blame me. I was outraged that we in the West did nothing about a downed airliner. We begged for permission to recover our bodies. That single act was brushed under the carpet. That represents the West sitting on its hands while Putin toyed with us.
I was with Elwood weeks ago when he demanded NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. That is recorded here.
I'm talking about calling for action over the last eight years. This could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. It was predicted.
And yes, a Conservative / coalition government has been in place for that time. But remember Miliband's hideous backturn over the Syria vote? Remember Corbyn, Labour's leader, who pretended to be rather (ahem) anti-war?
Putin has gambled that the west's weaknesses would prevent us from stopping his territorial ambitions. The UK's negligence played into it - but the blame lies all over the west. It was too hard to do, so it wasn't done.
(I'd actually argue May did very well over Salisbury, although it could have been used as a catalyst for firmer actions.)
There are quite a few videos of Russian tanks that have run out of fuel or been abandoned. It seems the have problem with logistics and morale.
I have a colleague in my network who was a Royal Navy captain and really knows his onions.
He's adamant that Russian forces aren't as strong as they look on paper because their raw material, training, and staff work is highly variable, whereas British forces are tip-top.
Basically, his argument was that military effectiveness, just as in all other walks of life, comes down to people and organisational culture.
Except that the British military tends to have a hugely inflated perception of its own comparative effectiveness. Cf what we were saying about the Americans when we went in to replace them in Basra, brutally exposed as hubris by subsequent events
Yes, there was a bit of arrogance in there.
He also said that there comes a point where numbers absolutely matter, and the British Army is now tokenistic.
I'm afraid I think we now have to raise defence spending to the point where can deploy at least one fully armed heavy warfighting division on the continent, permanently. I suspect that will require us to expand the British army by 15-20,000 men back up to about 95-100k strong, and probably an extra £12-16bn per year in defence spending.
But I think we have to do it.
But I'm afraid that this comes back yet again to the incapability of this government (and quite possibly any government that replaces it) to take unpopular decisions.
Most of the public doesn't give a shit about defence. Much of the public has also been squeezed so hard by taxation, ridiculous housing costs, years of stagnant or negative wage growth and now steep inflation that it hasn't much left to give. So, in the end, a massive increase in defence spending can only be funded by soaking the elderly (through ditching automatic increases to the state pension, and extracting property wealth through large increases in IHT and/or the advent of land taxation,) or by taking an axe to core public service spending priorities.
So it won't happen.
We'll see. My perception is that public opinion is shifting, and the Government can shape it as well as reflect it.
Even if that is true, the public desire to spend money on anything extends only as far as that money is extracted from someone who isn't them. The nanosecond any Government goes after the gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing - which is the only way we're going to make serious progress on funding any of the mountain of priorities and disasters that we've somehow got to manage all at the same time - the violent tantrum from the grey vote will be so extreme that it will run away in fright.
All that will end up happening in the end is that working age voters will be bled absolutely white and the whole lot will be sunk into inflating the state pension and desperately trying to clear the backlog of hip operations. The more I contemplate the situation, the more hopeless it looks.
The gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing and the freedom to use it will be worth Jack Shit if the West ends up becoming hostage to global autarky because it decided to be impotent and didn't stand up to be counted when it mattered.
The electorate doesn't understand that. The electorate understands "Don't you dare touch my money!" It understands "But I paid my taxes?!" It understands "I am a special sunflower, let someone else pay all the bills." The electorate wants stuff for itself and it wants somebody else to pay for it. The electorate knows little of and cares nothing for geopolitics. The electorate cares about pensions, inheritances, hospitals and schools, in that order, and nothing else.
and jobs and wages and football and prices and bins and dog poo and
Yeah, OK, the last sentence was excessively simplistic. The general point, however, stands. The population (or so much of it as to render any argument to the contrary moot) only wants stuff for itself, paid for by other people. Weapons don't directly benefit anyone save for the people who make them and the people trained to use them. This does not encompass more than a fraction of 1% of the population, and doesn't include any of the old people whose interests now dominate politics. Frankly, its astonishing that the nation spends as much on its skeletal defences as it still does.
@KwasiKwarteng summoned BP chief Bernard Looney this afternoon to explain why it owns a 20% stake in Rosneft, which provides fuel to Russia army - Kwarteng also "uneasy" about the fact that Looney sits alongside Putin on the Russian Geographical Society board"
Crikey, that’s pretty pathetic from Kwarteng. This is all public knowledge.
He knows why. Emphasis is on the *explain*
I’m hearing BP has been told to sell
That's what all of the above really means. The explain is - why he hasn't dumped it already?
British Petroleum are literally Fuelling Putin’s attack.
Ukrainian forces ‘repulsed’ a Russian air assault this morning - 60 Russian soldiers from 3 helicopters attacked near Brody, 1.5 hours outside Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Casualties unknown. Russian paratroopers have retreated into the forest: Lviv mayor https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
What in god's name would they be doing there? Critical infrastructure?
Or are these the secret highways for the Ukrainian air force?
Given it's basically impossible to impose proper sanctions on Russia while NordStream1 continues to pump gas into Germany and cash to Putin, we might as well just go ahead with NS2.
I propose giving the pipeline itself to Ukraine.
The whole point of NordStream 2 is to bypass Ukraine.
I know. I'm saying don't let it bypass Ukraine; make Ukraine a partner in it.
It's a pipeline from Russia to Germany (largely) in the middle of the Baltic.
What exactly would you "give" to the Ukrainians? The control of the pumps?
Woke is when you travel in that direction, having a nation already achieved good things (such as racial/sexual equality enshrined in legislation) then keep going so far you start talking about reparations for slavery, for racial quotas in workplaces to discriminate against white people, when you stop considering Koreans to be an ethnic minority because they achieve too well in schooling and the workplace, when disagreement is not cause for debate but censure and censorship, when you think biological men competing in women's sports is a good thing and those who disagree are bigots.
You tear down statues then complain the right is starting a culture war because they don't literally get on their knees to approve of your self-absorbed vandalism. When violent, fiery protests are described as 'mostly peaceful' by the media, which is then astonished people take it less seriously as a neutral report of the truth.
As Israel’s experience has shown, the proportion of women in combat roles can rise very quickly indeed once attitudes change.
Israel have the most woke military in the world with an all female infantry battalion (117 Caracal) and you can have vegan boots if you want. Nobody would accuse them of a lack of competence or martial fervour.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
If it were just about politeness then it wouldn't be divisive.
It's divisive because one side insist it's just about politeness, whilst their more active members really use it as a cloak for cultural Marxism and hysterically object to anyone pointing this out as 'starting a culture war'.
To be fair, there are other extreme elements on the other side who don't particularly care for being polite or accomodating to those of a different background to them, but there's a far bigger number who object to it because they see some of what they're asked to belief in and advocate as unhinged, and don't they really don't like the high risk consequences of pointing that out.
The will still of course be massive fall-out if the Met decide to issue Boris Johnson a FPN over parties in the coming weeks, but many believe given the magnitude of the current crisis, the moment for a leadership challenge has passed... for now.
Reports 27 countries are actively providing weapons to Ukraine
Time for us to unite, stop sniping, and be proud of the response currently on its way from nations across the world
I'm sorry BigG. We in the West have done next to nothing. There is good reason why we have done next to nothing we don't want Putin to escalate this fiasco to involve the EU and the UK.
Clinton's biggest regret was he did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda. We are watching, not genocide, but the destruction of a nation. The upshot either way is thousands of innocents are slaughtered whilst we watch on.
Our declarations "but Ukraine is not in NATO" are sops to ourselves.They are a sovereign nation invaded by an aggressor and we (the West) have sanctioned 70% of Russian banks. Huh, 70%?
Now I don't want British troops involved, I don't want my children conscripted for a world war, but neither can I sit back with satisfaction and claim leaders representing me have done all they can on my behalf, they haven't. In some cases, their vested interests trump my horror.
I don't know how to counter Putin, that is not my job. But neither, it seems, do those whose job it is to deal with Putin.
I am not suggesting a party political or Remainer/ Leave bias here. Whoever they represent, Western leaders have been guilty of dereliction of duty for at least eight years and that includes Starmer and your beloved "Boris".
When I was calling for us to act against Russia in 2014, 2016 (I think), 2018, etc, etc, where was your voice? Were you in the "Russia's ambitions are detrimental to the world; we need to act hard" camp or the "You're a warmonger risking WWIII" camp?
Because actions then would have been a damned sight easier than they are now. And we still face a threat of WWIII.
Yes they would, which is why I have cited eight years of inaction and dereliction of duty by Western leaders.
And, don't you blame me. I was outraged that we in the West did nothing about a downed airliner. We begged for permission to recover our bodies. That single act was brushed under the carpet. That represents the West sitting on its hands while Putin toyed with us.
I was with Elwood weeks ago when he demanded NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. That is recorded here.
I'm talking about calling for action over the last eight years. This could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. It was predicted.
And yes, a Conservative / coalition government has been in place for that time. But remember Miliband's hideous backturn over the Syria vote? Remember Corbyn, Labour's leader, who pretended to be rather (ahem) anti-war?
Putin has gambled that the west's weaknesses would prevent us from stopping his territorial ambitions. The UK's negligence played into it - but the blame lies all over the west. It was too hard to do, so it wasn't done.
(I'd actually argue May did very well over Salisbury, although it could have been used as a catalyst for firmer actions.)
There are quite a few videos of Russian tanks that have run out of fuel or been abandoned. It seems the have problem with logistics and morale.
I have a colleague in my network who was a Royal Navy captain and really knows his onions.
He's adamant that Russian forces aren't as strong as they look on paper because their raw material, training, and staff work is highly variable, whereas British forces are tip-top.
Basically, his argument was that military effectiveness, just as in all other walks of life, comes down to people and organisational culture.
Except that the British military tends to have a hugely inflated perception of its own comparative effectiveness. Cf what we were saying about the Americans when we went in to replace them in Basra, brutally exposed as hubris by subsequent events
Yes, there was a bit of arrogance in there.
He also said that there comes a point where numbers absolutely matter, and the British Army is now tokenistic.
I'm afraid I think we now have to raise defence spending to the point where can deploy at least one fully armed heavy warfighting division on the continent, permanently. I suspect that will require us to expand the British army by 15-20,000 men back up to about 95-100k strong, and probably an extra £12-16bn per year in defence spending.
But I think we have to do it.
But I'm afraid that this comes back yet again to the incapability of this government (and quite possibly any government that replaces it) to take unpopular decisions.
Most of the public doesn't give a shit about defence. Much of the public has also been squeezed so hard by taxation, ridiculous housing costs, years of stagnant or negative wage growth and now steep inflation that it hasn't much left to give. So, in the end, a massive increase in defence spending can only be funded by soaking the elderly (through ditching automatic increases to the state pension, and extracting property wealth through large increases in IHT and/or the advent of land taxation,) or by taking an axe to core public service spending priorities.
So it won't happen.
We'll see. My perception is that public opinion is shifting, and the Government can shape it as well as reflect it.
Even if that is true, the public desire to spend money on anything extends only as far as that money is extracted from someone who isn't them. The nanosecond any Government goes after the gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing - which is the only way we're going to make serious progress on funding any of the mountain of priorities and disasters that we've somehow got to manage all at the same time - the violent tantrum from the grey vote will be so extreme that it will run away in fright.
All that will end up happening in the end is that working age voters will be bled absolutely white and the whole lot will be sunk into inflating the state pension and desperately trying to clear the backlog of hip operations. The more I contemplate the situation, the more hopeless it looks.
The gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing and the freedom to use it will be worth Jack Shit if the West ends up becoming hostage to global autarky because it decided to be impotent and didn't stand up to be counted when it mattered.
I'm hoping there will be a consensus that rearmament, at a minimum, is required. But I see no sign of this in statements from politicians.
What do we do, as citizens in a democracy, to make this happen?
Ukrainian forces ‘repulsed’ a Russian air assault this morning - 60 Russian soldiers from 3 helicopters attacked near Brody, 1.5 hours outside Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Casualties unknown. Russian paratroopers have retreated into the forest: Lviv mayor https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
What in god's name would they be doing there? Critical infrastructure?
Or are these the secret highways for the Ukrainian air force?
Trying to secure infrastructure to pave the way for a land advance?
Ukrainian forces ‘repulsed’ a Russian air assault this morning - 60 Russian soldiers from 3 helicopters attacked near Brody, 1.5 hours outside Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Casualties unknown. Russian paratroopers have retreated into the forest: Lviv mayor https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
⚡️ Ukrainian security forces in the Lviv region denied the information of the mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovoy about the landing of Russian troops near Brody.
Ukrainian forces ‘repulsed’ a Russian air assault this morning - 60 Russian soldiers from 3 helicopters attacked near Brody, 1.5 hours outside Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Casualties unknown. Russian paratroopers have retreated into the forest: Lviv mayor https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
What in god's name would they be doing there? Critical infrastructure?
Or are these the secret highways for the Ukrainian air force?
Spread the defenders? Sounds lihe the mayor might be a bit excited though.
Does Hungary have a say in SWIFT? If the US makes it illegal in the US is that not sufficient de facto?
The EU does, it’s based in Brussels, and the Hungarians are effectively vetoing action. The US the whole thing would collapse the global payments system. They’re only trying to kick Russia oit and that requires agreement.
Lots of what looks suspiciously like sand there. I think that is footage of what was left of the Iraqi army when they fled from Kuwait City. The Z logos on the vehicles are interesting though. I remember reading the Russians were marking their vehicles that way. Maybe it is true after all.
No snow around, either.
I froze the clip at 23 seconds and took the below screenshot. Looks like Cyrillic lettering to me - certainly not Arabic
Yes, it’s Russian. And look at that Z
Question is: where? And who wiped them out?
It's in Kherson, and apparently they're engineering vehicles for bridging rivers.
Comments suggest they were taken out with Turkish donated Bayraktars
There's definitely a couple of bridging units there. They're the ones with two long sections on the back; they unfold to produce a quick bridge. We have something similar in the Titan AVLB, although ours are based on a tank, not a truck. http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0062.html
As an aside, this is the sort of thing armies generally only have in smaller quantities compared to (say) tanks as they are so specialist. I wonder if losing three or four of these units will cause Russia some problems?
Does Hungary have a say in SWIFT? If the US makes it illegal in the US is that not sufficient de facto?
SWIFT is actually run as a Belgian registered company. In theory, the Belgians could simply pass a sanction law which would force SWIFT to cut off Russia.
In practice (the existing example is Iran) the Belgians waited until the EU passed a ruling as a unanimous group.
Given it's basically impossible to impose proper sanctions on Russia while NordStream1 continues to pump gas into Germany and cash to Putin, we might as well just go ahead with NS2.
I propose giving the pipeline itself to Ukraine.
The whole point of NordStream 2 is to bypass Ukraine.
I know. I'm saying don't let it bypass Ukraine; make Ukraine a partner in it.
It's a pipeline from Russia to Germany (largely) in the middle of the Baltic.
What exactly would you "give" to the Ukrainians? The control of the pumps?
The profits.
I'd call it the SchröderSchilling or the MuttiMoney.
There are quite a few videos of Russian tanks that have run out of fuel or been abandoned. It seems the have problem with logistics and morale.
I have a colleague in my network who was a Royal Navy captain and really knows his onions.
He's adamant that Russian forces aren't as strong as they look on paper because their raw material, training, and staff work is highly variable, whereas British forces are tip-top.
Basically, his argument was that military effectiveness, just as in all other walks of life, comes down to people and organisational culture.
Yep.
When I worked for a short while in intelligence (sorry that disappoints you MM) that was very much the prevailing view.
I admit I'm way out of touch these days, and left that behind long ago, but it did become something of a running joke.
Russian military might was vastly exaggerated. This may have changed and their intelligence and cyber warfare suggests they are a different entity now.
In a social media age it may be that the biggest variable in the use of arms in Europe, including Russia, is the willingness of mothers, wives and sisters to accept stoically the return of their men in body bags after dying for a worthless cause.
But for that the UK would have intervened in Syria in aid of Cameron's vain belief that there were coherent groups to fight with for a new liberal woke cool Syria. Parliament saved us form this, and this particular cat is now out of the bag. Afghanistan made 'Never Again In An Unwinnable Cause' permanent.
Which could be a complete disaster of course. A society that is not willing to fight for its own existence will not and does not deserve to survive. I think the government in this case was adamant that there will be no British troops on the ground because of the psychological humiliation of both Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot be scared into immobility. Our values are worth fighting for.
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't.
They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for
In fact, "civilised' (for which some people read, soft, decadent) peoples have a pretty impressive record of delivering violence effectively, even if it takes time to get them to the point that they're willing to do so.
I think it's a complete misreading of history to think that prosperous peoples lack the will to defend themselves and their way of life when they have to.
Reports 27 countries are actively providing weapons to Ukraine
Time for us to unite, stop sniping, and be proud of the response currently on its way from nations across the world
I'm sorry BigG. We in the West have done next to nothing. There is good reason why we have done next to nothing we don't want Putin to escalate this fiasco to involve the EU and the UK.
Clinton's biggest regret was he did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda. We are watching, not genocide, but the destruction of a nation. The upshot either way is thousands of innocents are slaughtered whilst we watch on.
Our declarations "but Ukraine is not in NATO" are sops to ourselves.They are a sovereign nation invaded by an aggressor and we (the West) have sanctioned 70% of Russian banks. Huh, 70%?
Now I don't want British troops involved, I don't want my children conscripted for a world war, but neither can I sit back with satisfaction and claim leaders representing me have done all they can on my behalf, they haven't. In some cases, their vested interests trump my horror.
I don't know how to counter Putin, that is not my job. But neither, it seems, do those whose job it is to deal with Putin.
I am not suggesting a party political or Remainer/ Leave bias here. Whoever they represent, Western leaders have been guilty of dereliction of duty for at least eight years and that includes Starmer and your beloved "Boris".
When I was calling for us to act against Russia in 2014, 2016 (I think), 2018, etc, etc, where was your voice? Were you in the "Russia's ambitions are detrimental to the world; we need to act hard" camp or the "You're a warmonger risking WWIII" camp?
Because actions then would have been a damned sight easier than they are now. And we still face a threat of WWIII.
Yes they would, which is why I have cited eight years of inaction and dereliction of duty by Western leaders.
And, don't you blame me. I was outraged that we in the West did nothing about a downed airliner. We begged for permission to recover our bodies. That single act was brushed under the carpet. That represents the West sitting on its hands while Putin toyed with us.
I was with Elwood weeks ago when he demanded NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine. That is recorded here.
I'm talking about calling for action over the last eight years. This could have been prevented. It should have been prevented. It was predicted.
And yes, a Conservative / coalition government has been in place for that time. But remember Miliband's hideous backturn over the Syria vote? Remember Corbyn, Labour's leader, who pretended to be rather (ahem) anti-war?
Putin has gambled that the west's weaknesses would prevent us from stopping his territorial ambitions. The UK's negligence played into it - but the blame lies all over the west. It was too hard to do, so it wasn't done.
(I'd actually argue May did very well over Salisbury, although it could have been used as a catalyst for firmer actions.)
There are quite a few videos of Russian tanks that have run out of fuel or been abandoned. It seems the have problem with logistics and morale.
I have a colleague in my network who was a Royal Navy captain and really knows his onions.
He's adamant that Russian forces aren't as strong as they look on paper because their raw material, training, and staff work is highly variable, whereas British forces are tip-top.
Basically, his argument was that military effectiveness, just as in all other walks of life, comes down to people and organisational culture.
Except that the British military tends to have a hugely inflated perception of its own comparative effectiveness. Cf what we were saying about the Americans when we went in to replace them in Basra, brutally exposed as hubris by subsequent events
Yes, there was a bit of arrogance in there.
He also said that there comes a point where numbers absolutely matter, and the British Army is now tokenistic.
I'm afraid I think we now have to raise defence spending to the point where can deploy at least one fully armed heavy warfighting division on the continent, permanently. I suspect that will require us to expand the British army by 15-20,000 men back up to about 95-100k strong, and probably an extra £12-16bn per year in defence spending.
But I think we have to do it.
But I'm afraid that this comes back yet again to the incapability of this government (and quite possibly any government that replaces it) to take unpopular decisions.
Most of the public doesn't give a shit about defence. Much of the public has also been squeezed so hard by taxation, ridiculous housing costs, years of stagnant or negative wage growth and now steep inflation that it hasn't much left to give. So, in the end, a massive increase in defence spending can only be funded by soaking the elderly (through ditching automatic increases to the state pension, and extracting property wealth through large increases in IHT and/or the advent of land taxation,) or by taking an axe to core public service spending priorities.
So it won't happen.
We'll see. My perception is that public opinion is shifting, and the Government can shape it as well as reflect it.
Even if that is true, the public desire to spend money on anything extends only as far as that money is extracted from someone who isn't them. The nanosecond any Government goes after the gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing - which is the only way we're going to make serious progress on funding any of the mountain of priorities and disasters that we've somehow got to manage all at the same time - the violent tantrum from the grey vote will be so extreme that it will run away in fright.
All that will end up happening in the end is that working age voters will be bled absolutely white and the whole lot will be sunk into inflating the state pension and desperately trying to clear the backlog of hip operations. The more I contemplate the situation, the more hopeless it looks.
The gigantic stock of wealth locked up in housing and the freedom to use it will be worth Jack Shit if the West ends up becoming hostage to global autarky because it decided to be impotent and didn't stand up to be counted when it mattered.
I'm hoping there will be a consensus that rearmament, at a minimum, is required. But I see no sign of this in statements from politicians.
What do we do, as citizens in a democracy, to make this happen?
This is an issue that has troubled me for years. People don't see the point. They won't, until something happens that scares the hell out of them.
This is one level on which Putin is perhaps useful to us. Unlike China, he is an active provocateur. Shooting down passenger planes, carrying out extra judicial murders on our land, starting unprovoked wars and bombing civilian populations that look much like us. Also, he comes across as irrational and not someone who can be reliably pacified or appeased. The contrast with the far away threat of China is significant.
Does Hungary have a say in SWIFT? If the US makes it illegal in the US is that not sufficient de facto?
The US stopping USD transactions is probably a bigger impact than SWIFT, but SWIFT is symbolically important - much like overflying rights, which is why it’s a pity so far it’s only the UK, Poland, Czechia and Bulgaria have banned it. The message has got to get to ordinary Russians.
Does Hungary have a say in SWIFT? If the US makes it illegal in the US is that not sufficient de facto?
The EU does, it’s based in Brussels, and the Hungarians are effectively vetoing action. The US the whole thing would collapse the global payments system. They’re only trying to kick Russia oit and that requires agreement.
Werent there disagreements between the US and EU over Iranian SWIFT sanctions, and the banks ended up fearing the US bans more than whatever the EU said?
It's based on data for voluntary forces. In the US it's less than 2% and in the UK under 0.5% at the moment.
In the IDF fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as tank commanders, infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots and don't forget they have universal conscription too.
Edit: this shouldn't surprise us. You need high levels of testosterone and aggression for close-quarters combat, and significant physical strength and endurance to deal with heavy weaponry and forced marches, so the numbers will always be heavily skewed by biological reality no matter how much we try to convince ourselves to the contrary with our weird present day social-political obsession with identity politics.
My anecdotal experience of friends kids joining the forces is that things are changing here, too.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but I think on this you’re on balance wrong. The numbers aren’t sufficiently skewed by biology to make much of a difference in a large number of roles - particularly when you’re talking about the very small percentage of the total population which makes up the military.
Woke is when you travel in that direction, having a nation already achieved good things (such as racial/sexual equality enshrined in legislation) then keep going so far you start talking about reparations for slavery, for racial quotas in workplaces to discriminate against white people, when you stop considering Koreans to be an ethnic minority because they achieve too well in schooling and the workplace, when disagreement is not cause for debate but censure and censorship, when you think biological men competing in women's sports is a good thing and those who disagree are bigots.
You tear down statues then complain the right is starting a culture war because they don't literally get on their knees to approve of your self-absorbed vandalism. When violent, fiery protests are described as 'mostly peaceful' by the media, which is then astonished people take it less seriously as a neutral report of the truth.
Woke is basically passive aggressive you goad people into a reaction then complain your feelings are hurt. The whole thing is pathetic. Its also the reason some on the right admire putin
The will still of course be massive fall-out if the Met decide to issue Boris Johnson a FPN over parties in the coming weeks, but many believe given the magnitude of the current crisis, the moment for a leadership challenge has passed... for now.
The system is set up so that if Brady receives the requisite number of letters, he phones the MPs to check they still want to proceed, suspend or withdraw their letters. It won't get the numbers needed to proceed during the current crisis.
Equally, I am told that the numbers will be there once the immediate crisis abates if the Met or Grey reports don't give the PM a clean bill of health.
As Israel’s experience has shown, the proportion of women in combat roles can rise very quickly indeed once attitudes change.
Israel have the most woke military in the world with an all female infantry battalion (117 Caracal) and you can have vegan boots if you want. Nobody would accuse them of a lack of competence or martial fervour.
I'm slow today.
I've just realised that with your pro-Corbyn, Putin-sympathising tendencies, and love for culture war, you were trying to draw me off the scent and provoke me into changing the subject.
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
As soon as I woke up I felt instantly forlorn. It’s supposed to be a fun day, sunny, racing, England Wales Rugby. But It don’t feel right to be happy and self indulgent with this ongoing crisis so unnecessary and sad.
But I have picked out four horses for a lucky 15. I would caution though, don’t leap on them just because three of last weeks four won, I had nothing for weeks before that, and quite possibly nothing for weeks to come.
Kempton - 1315 - Patroclus Specialises in the distance, first Chase win start of this month
Kempton - 1350 - Moka De Vassy 3 hurdles now in career, placed over 2m in last two,
Kempton - 1500 - Galore Desassences Yet again I am attracted to the long odds for a horse with a history of placing, likes distance and won the last two.
NEWCASTLE - 1515 - Eclair Surf Book spoilt by errors disguises the staying promise form good from last race too
Good luck, whatever you are on! 🙋♀️
Ah yes, the certainties of life roll on despite the darkening world picture.
The certainty of a glorious Saturday morning, some exciting racing and the Stodge Saturday Patent - the Norwich City of bets, Rarely wins and each time it loses, all you get is a shrug of the shoulders.
Anyway, it's Winter Derby day for those who like some proper racing instead of this jumping nonsense:
1.30 Lingfield: TONE THE BARONE 2.40 Lingfield: IMPERIAL SANDS 3.10 Lingfield: MARKS BEAR
Have a 1 point win patent on those three and appreciate the fact you can't buy a sunny day in February in the UK.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
I don't regard being forced to go on unconscious bias training courses as informed politeness but thats just me
The will still of course be massive fall-out if the Met decide to issue Boris Johnson a FPN over parties in the coming weeks, but many believe given the magnitude of the current crisis, the moment for a leadership challenge has passed... for now.
The system is set up so that if Brady receives the requisite number of letters, he phones the MPs to check they still want to proceed, suspend or withdraw their letters. It won't get the numbers needed to proceed during the current crisis.
Equally, I am told that the numbers will be there once the immediate crisis abates if the Met or Grey reports don't give the PM a clean bill of health.
Only if the PM is fined by the Met or the Tories face massive losses in the local elections in May will the PM face a VONC now.
Though if Sunak is also fined his leadership chances would be ended too and Hunt or Truss would likely become PM
Given it's basically impossible to impose proper sanctions on Russia while NordStream1 continues to pump gas into Germany and cash to Putin, we might as well just go ahead with NS2.
I propose giving the pipeline itself to Ukraine.
The whole point of NordStream 2 is to bypass Ukraine.
I know. I'm saying don't let it bypass Ukraine; make Ukraine a partner in it.
It's a pipeline from Russia to Germany (largely) in the middle of the Baltic.
What exactly would you "give" to the Ukrainians? The control of the pumps?
The profits.
I'd call it the SchröderSchilling or the MuttiMoney.
🙂 a welcome deposit from the The Smithsonian Institute.
Thanks for your quick thinking. first time I’v smiled today
Can I say The Smithsonian Institute and not get banned?
⚡️Russia banned the use of the following words: "invasion", "attack" and "war" when covering the war against Ukraine - official statement of the supervisory authority
I cannot understand why a conservative party leadership election taking upto 8 weeks at this time of war could be justified or indeed accepted by the voters
When the PM is an incompetent buffoon, I cannot understand why you would want him in post for a second longer
I agree with BigG that right now is not quite the time. This will have largely played out in a week or 2 and the key focus will have to be how to stop Putin going any further and Johnson needs to be got shot of right away because he won't bother putting in the hard work to achieve that objective.
In truth the Conservative Party should never have allowed the Brexit issue to blind it into choosing an incompetent, weak and dishonest leader. However we are where we are and at the end of the day Johnson is only a buffoon and is not in the same evil and dangerous category as Trump.
The Tories need to act sooner rather than later once this is over. We are stuck with Brexit now and If they cannot now see that he is not the right leader for a pandemic or an international crisis then they never will and any further disasters will be on their heads.
If the Tories had not picked Boris in 2019, the Brexit Party would still have stood candidates in Tory seats, the Tories would not have got a majority, Brexit would still not have got done and Corbyn would still be Labour leader
Woke is when you travel in that direction, having a nation already achieved good things (such as racial/sexual equality enshrined in legislation) then keep going so far you start talking about reparations for slavery, for racial quotas in workplaces to discriminate against white people, when you stop considering Koreans to be an ethnic minority because they achieve too well in schooling and the workplace, when disagreement is not cause for debate but censure and censorship, when you think biological men competing in women's sports is a good thing and those who disagree are bigots.
You tear down statues then complain the right is starting a culture war because they don't literally get on their knees to approve of your self-absorbed vandalism. When violent, fiery protests are described as 'mostly peaceful' by the media, which is then astonished people take it less seriously as a neutral report of the truth.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'. .
People can be a bit disingenuous about that, sometimes noting that woke is, now at least, primarily used pejoratively from the right, and sometimes going 'Well what is wrong with being awake to these issues' etc and thus buying into its original use.
I liked it too. For 2 reasons. Number 1, interesting and maybe a betting opp in due course. Number 2, US state switches to a system that makes life harder for a Trumper to get elected, this is a good news story. Not too many of them around atm.
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
about the size of Salisbury, you mean..
I was going by its Wikipedia page, which says 150,768.
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
As soon as I woke up I felt instantly forlorn. It’s supposed to be a fun day, sunny, racing, England Wales Rugby. But It don’t feel right to be happy and self indulgent with this ongoing crisis so unnecessary and sad.
But I have picked out four horses for a lucky 15. I would caution though, don’t leap on them just because three of last weeks four won, I had nothing for weeks before that, and quite possibly nothing for weeks to come.
Kempton - 1315 - Patroclus Specialises in the distance, first Chase win start of this month
Kempton - 1350 - Moka De Vassy 3 hurdles now in career, placed over 2m in last two,
Kempton - 1500 - Galore Desassences Yet again I am attracted to the long odds for a horse with a history of placing, likes distance and won the last two.
NEWCASTLE - 1515 - Eclair Surf Book spoilt by errors disguises the staying promise form good from last race too
Good luck, whatever you are on! 🙋♀️
Ah yes, the certainties of life roll on despite the darkening world picture.
The certainty of a glorious Saturday morning, some exciting racing and the Stodge Saturday Patent - the Norwich City of bets, Rarely wins and each time it loses, all you get is a shrug of the shoulders.
Anyway, it's Winter Derby day for those who like some proper racing instead of this jumping nonsense:
1.30 Lingfield: TONE THE BARONE 2.40 Lingfield: IMPERIAL SANDS 3.10 Lingfield: MARKS BEAR
Have a 1 point win patent on those three and appreciate the fact you can't buy a sunny day in February in the UK.
Nice post!
I’m working out you are a flat, short, (not to be too personal) Lingfield specialist.
⚡️Russia banned the use of the following words: "invasion", "attack" and "war" when covering the war against Ukraine - official statement of the supervisory authority
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
I think that's fairly fair. IMO Johnson is not as bad as his worst critics make out, but he is not good. Most damning IMO is that he has the raw material to be a good PM. His character flaws let him down, time after time.
As to be fair, most of ours would if we were made PM.
It's a bit awkward for Labour attacking Tories over Russian links, when this was the S Times headline less than a fortnight ago. (whoops.. was a year and a fortnight ago.. doh!)
"Starmer calls in Mandelson to inject a dose of New Labour's 'winning mentality'"
Mandy was on the board of a Russian company ffs. He's practically an oligarch himself.
Woke is when you travel in that direction, having a nation already achieved good things (such as racial/sexual equality enshrined in legislation) then keep going so far you start talking about reparations for slavery, for racial quotas in workplaces to discriminate against white people, when you stop considering Koreans to be an ethnic minority because they achieve too well in schooling and the workplace, when disagreement is not cause for debate but censure and censorship, when you think biological men competing in women's sports is a good thing and those who disagree are bigots.
You tear down statues then complain the right is starting a culture war because they don't literally get on their knees to approve of your self-absorbed vandalism. When violent, fiery protests are described as 'mostly peaceful' by the media, which is then astonished people take it less seriously as a neutral report of the truth.
Woke is basically passive aggressive you goad people into a reaction then complain your feelings are hurt. The whole thing is pathetic. Its also the reason some on the right admire putin
Ah, good to see you still trying to push the Putin line again today. It didn't go very well for you yesterday, but perhaps if you try exactly the same thing in the same way today, maybe it'll work this time?
I cannot understand why a conservative party leadership election taking upto 8 weeks at this time of war could be justified or indeed accepted by the voters
When the PM is an incompetent buffoon, I cannot understand why you would want him in post for a second longer
I agree with BigG that right now is not quite the time. This will have largely played out in a week or 2 and the key focus will have to be how to stop Putin going any further and Johnson needs to be got shot of right away because he won't bother putting in the hard work to achieve that objective.
In truth the Conservative Party should never have allowed the Brexit issue to blind it into choosing an incompetent, weak and dishonest leader. However we are where we are and at the end of the day Johnson is only a buffoon and is not in the same evil and dangerous category as Trump.
The Tories need to act sooner rather than later once this is over. We are stuck with Brexit now and If they cannot now see that he is not the right leader for a pandemic or an international crisis then they never will and any further disasters will be on their heads.
If the Tories had not picked Boris in 2019, the Brexit Party would still have stood candidates in Tory seats, the Tories would not have got a majority, Brexit would still not have got done and Corbyn would still be Labour leader
Covid would still have happened, though, and someone would have had to stand up and lead the management of it. And almost certainly wouldn't have wasted the money and time that Johnson did.
Soldiers say they are out of gas. Driver offers to tow them back to russia. Everyone laughs. Russian soldiers ask for news on how they are doing in war. Driver tell them that Ukraine is winning, russians are surrendering and impliest that they should too.
As Israel’s experience has shown, the proportion of women in combat roles can rise very quickly indeed once attitudes change.
Israel have the most woke military in the world with an all female infantry battalion (117 Caracal) and you can have vegan boots if you want. Nobody would accuse them of a lack of competence or martial fervour.
Go girls! Best deployed to artic warfare. There some bloke from the Olympics still whining his One eyed yogurt slinger hasn’t warmed up yet!!!
It's based on data for voluntary forces. In the US it's less than 2% and in the UK under 0.5% at the moment.
In the IDF fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as tank commanders, infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots and don't forget they have universal conscription too.
Edit: this shouldn't surprise us. You need high levels of testosterone and aggression for close-quarters combat, and significant physical strength and endurance to deal with heavy weaponry and forced marches, so the numbers will always be heavily skewed by biological reality no matter how much we try to convince ourselves to the contrary with our weird present day social-political obsession with identity politics.
My anecdotal experience of friends kids joining the forces is that things are changing here, too.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but I think on this you’re on balance wrong. The numbers aren’t sufficiently skewed by biology to make much of a difference in a large number of roles - particularly when you’re talking about the very small percentage of the total population which makes up the military.
I'm not wrong in the slightest. My numbers are factually accurate and absolutely verifiable - look up US numbers, UK numbers or Israel here:
"As of 2011, 88% of all roles in the IDF were open to female candidates, while women could actually be found in 69% of all positions.[8][9]
In 2014, the IDF said that fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as light infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots, etc. Rather, they are concentrated in "combat-support".[10]"
"The most notable combat option for women is the Caracal Battalion, which is a light infantry force that is made up of 70 percent female soldiers.[3] The unit undergoes combat infantry training."
If you conscript both men and women, as Israel does, you may well have sufficient numbers to be able to form a mixed combat battalion but numbers will otherwise remain small.
There's a difference between opening up all roles to either men or women and expecting this to result in 50:50 splits in all matters, everywhere, otherwise assuming this must be discrimination.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
Recently it has been used a lot more by the Right in that way, but it started on the Left, and the start wasn't great. You'd have people telling their story about what "awoke" them to the reality of injustice, with the explicit message that they were now of the Woke (i.e. the Elect) who could moralise at those who had not experienced such an epiphany.
It was tedious bollocks on the Left even before the Right picked up on it as a stick to beat them with.
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
about the size of Salisbury, you mean..
I was going by its Wikipedia page, which says 150,768.
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
Canterbury proper only has a population of about 55k. The City of Canterbury local authority district, which includes Whitstable, Herne Bay, and the surrounding villages, is about 150k.
⚡️Russia banned the use of the following words: "invasion", "attack" and "war" when covering the war against Ukraine - official statement of the supervisory authority
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
Sounds to me like he should have stuck to journalism.
If the Tories had not picked Boris in 2019, the Brexit Party would still have stood candidates in Tory seats, the Tories would not have got a majority, Brexit would still not have got done and Corbyn would still be Labour leader
One of these days I will have to do a counterfactual history over on alternatehistory.com about that.
How would this have worked? Would Conservative MPs have defected to the Brexit Party in the summer of 2019 assuming May doesn't quit? How many - 30, 40, 50? Would others have gone to Change UK?
May loses her majority but would there be enough votes for a Parliamentary No Confidence vote? Even if there were, that wouldn't mean confidence in an alternative Corbyn-led Labour Government unless he does a deal with the SNP to offer a second independence referendum in return for their support....
Let's say he doesn't - it's a complete deadlock - no one can obtain a majority in the Commons so the only option is an election.
Up to the point Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and Conservative leader in mid July, the four parties (Conservative, Labour, Brexit and LD) were all polling between 20-25%. We aren't used to a 4-party system and trying to imagine the result of such an election isn't easy.
Soldiers say they are out of gas. Driver offers to tow them back to russia. Everyone laughs. Russian soldiers ask for news on how they are doing in war. Driver tell them that Ukraine is winning, russians are surrendering and impliest that they should too.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
Recently it has been used a lot more by the Right in that way, but it started on the Left, and the start wasn't great. You'd have people telling their story about what "awoke" them to the reality of injustice, with the explicit message that they were now of the Woke (i.e. the Elect) who could moralise at those who had not experienced such an epiphany.
It was tedious bollocks on the Left even before the Right picked up on it as a stick to beat them with.
There's clearly worry the same thing is happening with Critical Race Theory, as John Oliver's piece on it last week was very much that while it is being inaccurately attacked by people with poor motivation and he is against that, that the attacks have been working not least because of some poor examples of it being employed.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
Recently it has been used a lot more by the Right in that way, but it started on the Left, and the start wasn't great. You'd have people telling their story about what "awoke" them to the reality of injustice, with the explicit message that they were now of the Woke (i.e. the Elect) who could moralise at those who had not experienced such an epiphany.
It was tedious bollocks on the Left even before the Right picked up on it as a stick to beat them with.
It's almost like both wings have more in common with each other, aggressively defining themselves in opposition, while the vast majority get on with trying to be decent people.
Meanwhile the odd idea from either end turns out not to be horrendous and gets absorbed into the mainstream.
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
about the size of Salisbury, you mean..
I was going by its Wikipedia page, which says 150,768.
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
Canterbury proper only has a population of about 55k. The City of Canterbury local authority district, which includes Whitstable, Herne Bay, and the surrounding villages, is about 150k.
Right. So as I said in the first place, about the size of Canterbury (city of).
Does Hungary have a say in SWIFT? If the US makes it illegal in the US is that not sufficient de facto?
The EU does, it’s based in Brussels, and the Hungarians are effectively vetoing action. The US the whole thing would collapse the global payments system. They’re only trying to kick Russia oit and that requires agreement.
Werent there disagreements between the US and EU over Iranian SWIFT sanctions, and the banks ended up fearing the US bans more than whatever the EU said?
Yes - because of the way that finance works, if you do business with a US sanctioned entity you are in a world of shit if you do anything that goes through the American financial system. And since most vaguely large banks have a US arm....
EDIT: So the US could force most in the SWIFT network to *not* deal with Russia. But that would be a pretty hard core move from the US.
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
about the size of Salisbury, you mean..
I was going by its Wikipedia page, which says 150,768.
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
Canterbury proper only has a population of about 55k. The City of Canterbury local authority district, which includes Whitstable, Herne Bay, and the surrounding villages, is about 150k.
Ms. Heathener, being against woke bullshit only equates to being far right in the fantastical imagination of the far left who are so love in with the woke stuff to start with.
It's just a regurgitation of "Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler".
It's more the staggering detachment from reality of the likes of SLeon to be thinking that gender-neutral toilets and the like should be high up the list of existential threats to the world
One interesting thing, and I am sure Putin disapproves, is that Ukraine is becoming more Woke. Sure, older attitudes persist, but culture change takes time.
Being Woke doesn't seem to be impairing their will to fight. Indeed it seems to be a powerful motivating factor. A freedom worth fighting for.
Maybe I am naive but I do not see any of that as being woke but something to be welcomed
We should probably stop using the word Woke. It makes it difficult to distinguish good social change from bad social change, and creates artificial divisions that frustrate meaningful debate and objective analysis. Some things that may be described as 'woke' are good, others are bad, some are neutral. It should be possible to value living in a free and equal society without regarding yourself as Woke.
I agree but it's generally only being used a term of insult by those on the right. None of the many people I know with left of centre views goes around proclaiming themselves to be 'Woke'.
It replaced 'political correctness' when that term lost its zing because most people adopted attitudes respecting the rights of others. 'Political correctness' and 'Woke' are really simply 'informed politeness' in most instances.
Recently it has been used a lot more by the Right in that way, but it started on the Left, and the start wasn't great. You'd have people telling their story about what "awoke" them to the reality of injustice, with the explicit message that they were now of the Woke (i.e. the Elect) who could moralise at those who had not experienced such an epiphany.
It was tedious bollocks on the Left even before the Right picked up on it as a stick to beat them with.
It's almost like both wings have more in common with each other, aggressively defining themselves in opposition, while the vast majority get on with trying to be decent people.
Meanwhile the odd idea from either end turns out not to be horrendous and gets absorbed into the mainstream.
(The media prefer the wings as they generate more clicks, and tend to portray these extremes as more mainstream, which makes things worse.)
It's rather odd. Russia has lots of fuel, and none of the vehicles have travelled that far. It may be mechanical faults rather than fuel. Its easy to have large headline numbers of fighting vehicles, but keeping them in fighting order is a more complex and expensive task.
I watched that video and it appears simply to show that the tanks are stopped. Maybe just waiting for orders?
Aren’t they securing the bridge? Infantry at one end and a tank at the other?
Soldiers say they are out of gas. Driver offers to tow them back to russia. Everyone laughs. Russian soldiers ask for news on how they are doing in war. Driver tell them that Ukraine is winning, russians are surrendering and impliest that they should too.
Thinking of positives for important positive thinking. I’ve never known the world so mad and United at one thing before like this. So I don’t feel alone at all, with all world feeling same. From Russian vodka being taken off shelves just about everywhere, Russian tennis player signing no to war on camera. China abstaining. Kazakhstan rejecting Russian pleas for help. Russia kicked off SWIFT - simple, tell the Hun the votes 1245 and vote at noon. Put Vaseline on the rooms outside door handles for good measure.
It’s a Putin meltdown. He has taken his country to somewhere it doesn’t have a single friend. Even in that country it doesn’t look like he has much friends. And why should he? There’s actually no rational sense to it. Just unhinged evilness. I asked God to make it stop, and put things good between everyone. I can’t ask for something bad to happen to Putin, but I have it in my mind he realised what a terrible mess he’s made and can’t live with it
PS enjoyed header by Pip Moss again. The coastline in picture looks like it was designed by Slartibartfast.
It's a bit awkward for Labour attacking Tories over Russian links, when this was the S Times headline less than a fortnight ago. (whoops.. was a year and a fortnight ago.. doh!)
"Starmer calls in Mandelson to inject a dose of New Labour's 'winning mentality'"
Mandy was on the board of a Russian company ffs. He's practically an oligarch himself.
If everyone who has been entertained on an oligarch's yacht was banned from office, we'd probably be down to Prime Minister Iain Duncan Smith.....
So we are on the fourth day of the liberation of Ukraine, a country with a population two thirds that of the UK, and so far apparently the Russians have captured only one city, about the size of Canterbury?
about the size of Salisbury, you mean..
I was going by its Wikipedia page, which says 150,768.
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
Canterbury proper only has a population of about 55k. The City of Canterbury local authority district, which includes Whitstable, Herne Bay, and the surrounding villages, is about 150k.
I’m here for your Kent facts all day folks.
It's a lovely city. I had a beautiful weekend there once with the children, we hired bikes and cycled the Crab and Winkle way to Whitstable and back, visited the excellent town museum as well as the kitsch Canterbury Tales Experience and the magnificent cathedral. The sun shone, and it was brilliant.
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
I think that's fairly fair. IMO Johnson is not as bad as his worst critics make out, but he is not good. Most damning IMO is that he has the raw material to be a good PM. His character flaws let him down, time after time.
As to be fair, most of ours would if we were made PM.
When all this is over- really over- there's an interesting "What if" alternate history to be written.
What if Alexander Johnson had tried to do public life with all his talents but without the character flaws?
Doubt he would have been PM (Dave or May would have got in his way), but EU President?
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
I think that's fairly fair. IMO Johnson is not as bad as his worst critics make out, but he is not good. Most damning IMO is that he has the raw material to be a good PM. His character flaws let him down, time after time.
As to be fair, most of ours would if we were made PM.
When all this is over- really over- there's an interesting "What if" alternate history to be written.
What if Alexander Johnson had tried to do public life with all his talents but without the character flaws?
Doubt he would have been PM (Dave or May would have got in his way), but EU President?
He'd have done something more valuable with his life than politics.
A fascinating reminder of the psychology of our prime minister by @RSylvesterTimes. “I’ve never met anyone who believes their own lies so much,” one interviewee says. Inside the mind of Boris Johnson — by his friends and enemies
[he] can be lazy, manipulative, dishonest and ruthless. Many of those who have worked most closely with the prime minister are among his staunchest critics. Dominic Cummings, his former senior strategist, is only the most high-profile and dangerous example. Another former No 10 aide says, “David Cameron and Tony Blair still have a team of advisers who remain loyal to them. People who have worked for Boris just have horror stories about how appallingly they were treated.” Sir Max Hastings, who was Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph, puts it even more bluntly: “The only people who like Boris Johnson are those who don’t know him.”
MPs who are watching the polls and recent by-election results are starting to wonder whether the prime minister is becoming a liability rather than an asset. With Shakespearean symmetry, the strengths that got Johnson to the very top have become the weaknesses that may drive him from power.
The constitutional historian Lord Hennessy...suggests the traditional reliance on decency has been suspended under Johnson, he hopes temporarily. “He’s not a man driven by public service; he is the most dramatic example we have ever had of a vanity prime minister. His great project is himself, which is very dangerous for a country... No prime minister in the 100 years since Lloyd George has had such a disregard for convention and norms of behaviour in their personal and political life. But Lloyd George was a genius and Johnson is not.”
A former Downing Street aide believes that Johnson has been fatally wounded by his own character flaws. “He believes the worst of everybody, then behaves in such a way to ensure that that will happen. He betrays people and then they do turn on him. It’s a self-fulfilling self-destructive pattern. Behind this persona of the jolly clown, Boris is a deeply scarred, deeply cynical individual.”
That's quite a devastating piece. Just to be contrarian, I'll offer one anecdote in his favour. When he was campaigning for Brexit, he wanted to do a piece on a ban on live exports of animals which he (correctly) said would only be possible outside the EU. He rang me at home to ask me (as I work for Compassion in World Farming) for the exact details of the issue, for a newspaper column. During the call, I said I'd initially thought it was a hoax, as I'd not expected a private call from him - he laughed unpretentiously and said yes, he could see that, he'd have thought the same. No idea how he got my number.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
I think that's fairly fair. IMO Johnson is not as bad as his worst critics make out, but he is not good. Most damning IMO is that he has the raw material to be a good PM. His character flaws let him down, time after time.
As to be fair, most of ours would if we were made PM.
When all this is over- really over- there's an interesting "What if" alternate history to be written.
What if Alexander Johnson had tried to do public life with all his talents but without the character flaws?
Doubt he would have been PM (Dave or May would have got in his way), but EU President?
It's his character flaws that make him special. His shamelessness and willingness to lie are virtually a superpower. He is very intelligent but so are many people in public life. He couldn't have got to the top without being Bad Boris.
Absolutely fascinating peice from Friedman in NY Times:
"Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world."
"Our world is not going to be the same again because this war has no historical parallel. It is a raw, 18th-century-style land grab by a superpower — but in a 21st-century globalized world. This is the first war that will be covered on TikTok by super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones, so acts of brutality will be documented and broadcast worldwide without any editors or filters."
Thinking of positives for important positive thinking. I’ve never known the world so mad and United at one thing before like this. So I don’t feel alone at all, with all world feeling same. From Russian vodka being taken off shelves just about everywhere, Russian tennis player signing no to war on camera. China abstaining. Kazakhstan rejecting Russian pleas for help. Russia kicked off SWIFT - simple, tell the Hun the votes 1245 and vote at noon. Put Vaseline on the rooms outside door handles for good measure.
It’s a Putin meltdown. He has taken his country to somewhere it doesn’t have a single friend. Even in that country it doesn’t look like he has much friends. And why should he? There’s actually no rational sense to it. Just unhinged evilness. I asked God to make it stop, and put things good between everyone. I can’t ask for something bad to happen to Putin, but I have it in my mind he realised what a terrible mess he’s made and can’t live with it
PS enjoyed header by Pip Moss again. The coastline in picture looks like it was designed by Slartibartfast.
"Russia kicked off SWIFT - simple, tell the Hun the votes 1245 and vote at noon. Put Vaseline on the rooms outside door handles for good measure. "
The scene in the film Elizabeth when Walsingham locks some Bishops in the basement so the Act of Uniformity passes?
From BBC, is sacked really the right word? He seems to still be a central figure given he is deputy to Putin on that security council. Mr Medvedev, who was sacked as prime minister by Vladimir Putin in 2020 and now serves as deputy chair of Moscow's security council,
I don't regard being forced to go on unconscious bias training courses as informed politeness but thats just me
Yes, maybe it is? I'm aware of semi-conscious biases in myself (if a burly job applicant told me he was a keen rugby player I'd instinctively think he maybe had a thuggish streak - but I realise that's because I don't know anything about rugby or people who play it) and can believe in unconscious ones. I went on one of those courses and found it helpful in getting to the bottom of them. You don't suddenly become unbiased as a result, but you become more aware of them and try not to let them influence you.
Apparently French border forces have seized a Russian cargo ship which was en route to St Petersburg . They suspect it belongs to a company targeted by EU sanctions .
The will still of course be massive fall-out if the Met decide to issue Boris Johnson a FPN over parties in the coming weeks, but many believe given the magnitude of the current crisis, the moment for a leadership challenge has passed... for now.
The system is set up so that if Brady receives the requisite number of letters, he phones the MPs to check they still want to proceed, suspend or withdraw their letters. It won't get the numbers needed to proceed during the current crisis.
Equally, I am told that the numbers will be there once the immediate crisis abates if the Met or Grey reports don't give the PM a clean bill of health.
Only if the PM is fined by the Met or the Tories face massive losses in the local elections in May will the PM face a VONC now.
Though if Sunak is also fined his leadership chances would be ended too and Hunt or Truss would likely become PM
Fck me, I immediately thought this was a piece from years ago, but last week. The Spikedtator..
Putin's pals in the West are a disgrace. I don't know about Spikedtator, Spectraitor might be more appropriate.
I disagree with Rod Liddle (strongly) and that very same issue - I'm a subscriber - contained articles and contributors making precisely the opposite point.
What are people arguing for? That no British publication should ever publish a contrary article? How would that help people identify all the arguments on an issue or what's right?
I agree with Andrew Neil. (For the record I absolutely hate Putin and all his works)
Thinking of positives for important positive thinking. I’ve never known the world so mad and United at one thing before like this. So I don’t feel alone at all, with all world feeling same. From Russian vodka being taken off shelves just about everywhere, Russian tennis player signing no to war on camera. China abstaining. Kazakhstan rejecting Russian pleas for help. Russia kicked off SWIFT - simple, tell the Hun the votes 1245 and vote at noon. Put Vaseline on the rooms outside door handles for good measure.
It’s a Putin meltdown. He has taken his country to somewhere it doesn’t have a single friend. Even in that country it doesn’t look like he has much friends. And why should he? There’s actually no rational sense to it. Just unhinged evilness. I asked God to make it stop, and put things good between everyone. I can’t ask for something bad to happen to Putin, but I have it in my mind he realised what a terrible mess he’s made and can’t live with it
PS enjoyed header by Pip Moss again. The coastline in picture looks like it was designed by Slartibartfast.
"Russia kicked off SWIFT - simple, tell the Hun the votes 1245 and vote at noon. Put Vaseline on the rooms outside door handles for good measure. "
The scene in the film Elizabeth when Walsingham locks some Bishops in the basement so the Act of Uniformity passes?
EDIT: +1 for Slartibartfast.
That’s it. But EU need another 110 years to evolve to such straightforward competence.
It's rather odd. Russia has lots of fuel, and none of the vehicles have travelled that far. It may be mechanical faults rather than fuel. Its easy to have large headline numbers of fighting vehicles, but keeping them in fighting order is a more complex and expensive task.
I watched that video and it appears simply to show that the tanks are stopped. Maybe just waiting for orders?
Aren’t they securing the bridge? Infantry at one end and a tank at the other?
Fck me, I immediately thought this was a piece from years ago, but last week. The Spikedtator..
The Spectator prints all sorts of rubbish. Indeed more rubbish than sensible content, as a rule.
Its fans including Neil and some PBers are always going on about how successful it is. Interesting to speculate how much the rubbish has contributed to that success.
From BBC, is sacked really the right word? He seems to still be a central figure given he is deputy to Putin on that security council. Mr Medvedev, who was sacked as prime minister by Vladimir Putin in 2020 and now serves as deputy chair of Moscow's security council,
Russians of my aquitance have referred to him as Putin's puppet in very vulgar terms - Putins hand is up his arse etc....
Edward N Luttwak @ELuttwak Abstract sanctions have delayed, vague and sometimes feeble effects. But if Poland stops traffic from Western Europe to Russia, as it should, the impact would be immediate. The bypass via Czechia and Slovakia from Kosice across the Ukraine would require total tranquility....
Fck me, I immediately thought this was a piece from years ago, but last week. The Spikedtator..
It’s a perfectly legitimate view. One held by Emmanuel Macron, I believe
The Putin of 10 years ago was a very different beast. Lucid, clever, sane. A ruthless patriot, a brutal soldier, but amenable to logic. Perhaps we could have handled him better; certainly our rapid expansion of NATO right up to his borders, immediately after the humiliating collapse of the USSR now appears questionable
Does any of this excuse Putin’s satanic and pointless assault on Ukraine? Of course not. It’s pure evil. It’s also pointless even for mad dog Putin, it might well backfire quickly and even if he “wins” in the short term he loses in the end. What’s the endgame for him? I can’t see a good one
Comments
Comments suggest they were taken out with Turkish donated Bayraktars
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayraktar_TB2
https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1497514404505538561
In truth the Conservative Party should never have allowed the Brexit issue to blind it into choosing an incompetent, weak and dishonest leader. However we are where we are and at the end of the day Johnson is only a buffoon and is not in the same evil and dangerous category as Trump.
The Tories need to act sooner rather than later once this is over. We are stuck with Brexit now and If they cannot now see that he is not the right leader for a pandemic or an international crisis then they never will and any further disasters will be on their heads.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1497520313013309447
Or are these the secret highways for the Ukrainian air force?
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1497520235179556864?
Woke is when you travel in that direction, having a nation already achieved good things (such as racial/sexual equality enshrined in legislation) then keep going so far you start talking about reparations for slavery, for racial quotas in workplaces to discriminate against white people, when you stop considering Koreans to be an ethnic minority because they achieve too well in schooling and the workplace, when disagreement is not cause for debate but censure and censorship, when you think biological men competing in women's sports is a good thing and those who disagree are bigots.
You tear down statues then complain the right is starting a culture war because they don't literally get on their knees to approve of your self-absorbed vandalism. When violent, fiery protests are described as 'mostly peaceful' by the media, which is then astonished people take it less seriously as a neutral report of the truth.
This fundraiser for Ukraine is doing well. They have hit £375k. I think they will need all the money they can get.
It's divisive because one side insist it's just about politeness, whilst their more active members really use it as a cloak for cultural Marxism and hysterically object to anyone pointing this out as 'starting a culture war'.
To be fair, there are other extreme elements on the other side who don't particularly care for being polite or accomodating to those of a different background to them, but there's a far bigger number who object to it because they see some of what they're asked to belief in and advocate as unhinged, and don't they really don't like the high risk consequences of pointing that out.
There has unsurprisingly been a mood-shift in Westminster this week.
"Whether the PM was truthful about the parties is obviously important, but [the Ukraine-Russia crisis] is really, really fucking important,” a former cabinet minister told @adampayne26.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/russia-ukraine-westminster-unite
The will still of course be massive fall-out if the Met decide to issue Boris Johnson a FPN over parties in the coming weeks, but many believe given the magnitude of the current crisis, the moment for a leadership challenge has passed... for now.
Story: https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/russia-ukraine-westminster-unite
Trying to secure infrastructure to pave the way for a land advance?
EDIT : Is there an airbase there?
UPDATE:
⚡️ Ukrainian security forces in the Lviv region denied the information of the mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovoy about the landing of Russian troops near Brody.
They say that it was Ukrainian aviation.
https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1497507322251210755
http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0062.html
As an aside, this is the sort of thing armies generally only have in smaller quantities compared to (say) tanks as they are so specialist. I wonder if losing three or four of these units will cause Russia some problems?
In practice (the existing example is Iran) the Belgians waited until the EU passed a ruling as a unanimous group.
I think it's a complete misreading of history to think that prosperous peoples lack the will to defend themselves and their way of life when they have to.
This is one level on which Putin is perhaps useful to us. Unlike China, he is an active provocateur. Shooting down passenger planes, carrying out extra judicial murders on our land, starting unprovoked wars and bombing civilian populations that look much like us. Also, he comes across as irrational and not someone who can be reliably pacified or appeased. The contrast with the far away threat of China is significant.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/1637001832-israel-military-a-record-year-for-women-in-combat-units
My anecdotal experience of friends kids joining the forces is that things are changing here, too.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but I think on this you’re on balance wrong. The numbers aren’t sufficiently skewed by biology to make much of a difference in a large number of roles - particularly when you’re talking about the very small percentage of the total population which makes up the military.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/special-bets/market/1.186353923
Equally, I am told that the numbers will be there once the immediate crisis abates if the Met or Grey reports don't give the PM a clean bill of health.
I've just realised that with your pro-Corbyn, Putin-sympathising tendencies, and love for culture war, you were trying to draw me off the scent and provoke me into changing the subject.
I fell right into your trap. More fool me.
Anyway, back to Ukraine.
I told him what he wanted to know, and a few days later the article appeared, correct in every detail but nonetheless written with his trademark panache. He acknowledged my comments in the article fairly. Overall I felt the encounter reflected well on him - he wanted to get the details right, and was taking the trouble to make sure. (A footnote is that although the ban has now been promised and the Bill introduced, there are rumours that it's being successfully blocked by opposition from Mr Rees-Mogg and other Cabinet ministers. If that proves to be the case, many of us will not be amused.)
By contrast, when we served on a Bill committee together, he could barely be bothered to turn up a lot of the time, and his contribution to the discussion was pretty much zero. So my overall impression - politics, Brexit and partygate aside - is that he's got a good brain and uses it properly when he chooses to apply it.
The certainty of a glorious Saturday morning, some exciting racing and the Stodge Saturday Patent - the Norwich City of bets, Rarely wins and each time it loses, all you get is a shrug of the shoulders.
Anyway, it's Winter Derby day for those who like some proper racing instead of this jumping nonsense:
1.30 Lingfield: TONE THE BARONE
2.40 Lingfield: IMPERIAL SANDS
3.10 Lingfield: MARKS BEAR
Have a 1 point win patent on those three and appreciate the fact you can't buy a sunny day in February in the UK.
Though if Sunak is also fined his leadership chances would be ended too and Hunt or Truss would likely become PM
Thanks for your quick thinking. first time I’v smiled today
Can I say The Smithsonian Institute and not get banned?
⚡️Russia banned the use of the following words: "invasion", "attack" and "war" when covering the war against Ukraine - official statement of the supervisory authority
https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1497524118912221189
But I should have added that the UK has expressed scepticism even about that claim. But even if it's true, that would mean the Russians are in control of only a tiny percentage of urban Ukraine. Even when they get to the stage of being able to drive tanks around all the main roads of Kiev, that's nothing like being in control of a country of 44 million people.
I’m working out you are a flat, short, (not to be too personal) Lingfield specialist.
Well. If some of them won occasionally. 🤣
As to be fair, most of ours would if we were made PM.
"Starmer calls in Mandelson to inject a dose of New Labour's 'winning mentality'"
Mandy was on the board of a Russian company ffs. He's practically an oligarch himself.
And almost certainly wouldn't have wasted the money and time that Johnson did.
https://twitter.com/WilmerDAB/status/1497489855781212160
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces#:~:text=As of 2011, 88% of,helicopter or fighter pilots, etc.
"As of 2011, 88% of all roles in the IDF were open to female candidates, while women could actually be found in 69% of all positions.[8][9]
In 2014, the IDF said that fewer than 4 percent of women are in combat positions such as light infantry, helicopter or fighter pilots, etc. Rather, they are concentrated in "combat-support".[10]"
"The most notable combat option for women is the Caracal Battalion, which is a light infantry force that is made up of 70 percent female soldiers.[3] The unit undergoes combat infantry training."
If you conscript both men and women, as Israel does, you may well have sufficient numbers to be able to form a mixed combat battalion but numbers will otherwise remain small.
There's a difference between opening up all roles to either men or women and expecting this to result in 50:50 splits in all matters, everywhere, otherwise assuming this must be discrimination.
Down that path madness lies.
It was tedious bollocks on the Left even before the Right picked up on it as a stick to beat them with.
I’m here for your Kent facts all day folks.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/jan/30/harrypotter.news
How would this have worked? Would Conservative MPs have defected to the Brexit Party in the summer of 2019 assuming May doesn't quit? How many - 30, 40, 50? Would others have gone to Change UK?
May loses her majority but would there be enough votes for a Parliamentary No Confidence vote? Even if there were, that wouldn't mean confidence in an alternative Corbyn-led Labour Government unless he does a deal with the SNP to offer a second independence referendum in return for their support....
Let's say he doesn't - it's a complete deadlock - no one can obtain a majority in the Commons so the only option is an election.
Up to the point Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and Conservative leader in mid July, the four parties (Conservative, Labour, Brexit and LD) were all polling between 20-25%. We aren't used to a 4-party system and trying to imagine the result of such an election isn't easy.
Putin is so screwed.....
Meanwhile the odd idea from either end turns out not to be horrendous and gets absorbed into the mainstream.
EDIT: So the US could force most in the SWIFT network to *not* deal with Russia. But that would be a pretty hard core move from the US.
It’s a Putin meltdown. He has taken his country to somewhere it doesn’t have a single friend. Even in that country it doesn’t look like he has much friends. And why should he? There’s actually no rational sense to it. Just unhinged evilness. I asked God to make it stop, and put things good between everyone. I can’t ask for something bad to happen to Putin, but I have it in my mind he realised what a terrible mess he’s made and can’t live with it
PS enjoyed header by Pip Moss again. The coastline in picture looks like it was designed by Slartibartfast.
What if Alexander Johnson had tried to do public life with all his talents but without the character flaws?
Doubt he would have been PM (Dave or May would have got in his way), but EU President?
"Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world."
"Our world is not going to be the same again because this war has no historical parallel. It is a raw, 18th-century-style land grab by a superpower — but in a 21st-century globalized world. This is the first war that will be covered on TikTok by super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones, so acts of brutality will be documented and broadcast worldwide without any editors or filters."
https://twitter.com/ELuttwak/status/1496957112651763713
Apparently China uses rather a lot of Ukr barley and corn.
The scene in the film Elizabeth when Walsingham locks some Bishops in the basement so the Act of Uniformity passes?
EDIT: +1 for Slartibartfast.
Mr Medvedev, who was sacked as prime minister by Vladimir Putin in 2020 and now serves as deputy chair of Moscow's security council,
What are people arguing for? That no British publication should ever publish a contrary article? How would that help people identify all the arguments on an issue or what's right?
I agree with Andrew Neil. (For the record I absolutely hate Putin and all his works)
Subtitles
Edward N Luttwak
@ELuttwak
Abstract sanctions have delayed, vague and sometimes feeble effects. But if Poland stops traffic from Western Europe to Russia, as it should, the impact would be immediate. The bypass via Czechia and Slovakia from Kosice across the Ukraine would require total tranquility....
https://twitter.com/ELuttwak/status/1496957112651763713
The Putin of 10 years ago was a very different beast. Lucid, clever, sane. A ruthless patriot, a brutal soldier, but amenable to logic. Perhaps we could have handled him better; certainly our rapid expansion of NATO right up to his borders, immediately after the humiliating collapse of the USSR now appears questionable
Does any of this excuse Putin’s satanic and pointless assault on Ukraine? Of course not. It’s pure evil. It’s also pointless even for mad dog Putin, it might well backfire quickly and even if he “wins” in the short term he loses in the end. What’s the endgame for him? I can’t see a good one