Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
Switzerland has nothing to do with it, we are talking about IF the vote THEN what do you do about it?
The Athenian assembly explicitly voted for the genocide of Mitylene, so if you are suggesting that highly educated democracies don't do that kind of shit, you are wrong
Is that the one where they slept on it and changed their mind the next day? Must have been a boozy debate.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
Switzerland has nothing to do with it, we are talking about IF the vote THEN what do you do about it?
The Athenian assembly explicitly voted for the genocide of Mitylene, so if you are suggesting that highly educated democracies don't do that kind of shit, you are wrong
Switzerland is an example of the most extreme form of vote-for-anything-you-want that I believe exists among the advanced democracies.
The difference between now and then, is that back then, slaughtering the inhabitants of a city state was a conceivable action in war. Conceivable, as in the sense of "some barbarians would do this".
The reason we don't do Mitylene is because the common, accepted norms of war have moved vastly away from that kind of action.
Russia has signed up to all the human rights treaties. Russian law is full of human rights, legal protections... and they are busy creating "facts on the ground" as we type.
The protection for human rights, in a democracy, is not laws.
It is, for instance, that for the vast majority of the UK population, gay bashing is a horrible thing done by knuts. The laws are the expression of that view.
It is not 'my' Conservative Party. I have never been a member, and often do not vote for them. I therefore find it hard to see how you can call it 'my' Conservative Party.
Did you vote for them in 2019? If so, you get own a piece of all this, good or bad. If not, you don't.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
I think you are being unfair there. It’s always a bit silly to personalise things, but the UK government and diplomatic machine has been very active rounding up and chivvying people along. There is no way Ukraine would have gathered such a coalition of support without a major player cheerleading for them.
Boris, as PM, deserves credit for that but (a) it was the path of least resistance for him; (b) it plays to his self image and strengths; (c) it is very much a team sport
Your final paragraph is unadultersted Johnsonian propaganda.
I am not critical of much of the effort, just how it is being sold, and by whom.
I think you misunderstand my last paragraph. Let me rephrase:
Boris is supporting Ukraine because (a) he’s a lazy shit and anything else would be hard work to change settled government policy; (b) he thinks he’s Churchill and he is good at running around making enthusiastic speeches but not doing much that is practical; and (c) all the real work was done by other people.
Which bit is the “unadulterated Johnsonian propaganda”?
Thank you for your explanation. I couldn't disagree
I’m sure you could if you put a bit of effort into it 😉
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Bo Jo has two faults. He's lazy, and when he does something, he's looking after number one. That's not uncommon with MPs. It's why he prefers the Conservative whip.
The other bloc is those with a mission to force through their own opinions. Facts are to be interpeted to that mission. Corbyn was a prime example, receiving his politics at age seven and never deviating. Some of the Greens come into that category too.
The LDs are too busy apologising for existing to be relevant
There are a few MPs with noble intentions, but they seldom climb the greasy pole.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
And if the Swiss people want to change bits of it, they can.
Indeed, one of the arguments about Switzerland going the EU, is that the EU requires that the various laws be enacted in a way that can't easily be repealed. Which goes against the Swiss idea of a vote-to-repeal anything. To change that would require a.... vote. Which would be very, very unlikely to pass.
The question we are asking here, is this (I think) - should some laws be Sacred Truths that the people cannot touch?
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need gp care? Sounds disgraceful.
I wonder how many surgeries are like the one next to mine - they vanished for the pandemic. And are now so used to doing nothing that they've laid off the staff!
Two things can be true at the same time . No 10 have shown outstanding military support for Ukraine and Johnson is a pathological liar not fit for office .
Two things can be true at the same time . No 10 have shown outstanding military support for Ukraine and Johnson is a pathological liar not fit for office .
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need gp care? Sounds disgraceful.
Effectively people are told to suck it up, and become a diagnostician themselves so they can describe it all over the phone. Sone get pretty angry at the idea people might need to be physically seen.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
That's fine if you include unions as well. But then we get onto the issue of how to fund political parties...
Two things can be true at the same time . No 10 have shown outstanding military support for Ukraine and Johnson is a pathological liar not fit for office .
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
Switzerland has nothing to do with it, we are talking about IF the vote THEN what do you do about it?
The Athenian assembly explicitly voted for the genocide of Mitylene, so if you are suggesting that highly educated democracies don't do that kind of shit, you are wrong
That’s where you have the constitution - actions requiring a higher threshold to pass
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need gp care? Sounds disgraceful.
I wonder how many surgeries are like the one next to mine - they vanished for the pandemic. And are now so used to doing nothing that they've laid off the staff!
Ours was stretched before the pandemic (one surgery for 18,000 folk). They didn’t do bad through the last two years, but now have had two GPs retire. I am nervous for the future. Ultimately they are trying to find different ways to be more efficient. Email requests seem to work well. Ultimately we have too few GPs, too many work part time (why wouldn’t you if it makes sense financially?) Until we get more we will be struggling.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
It is not 'my' Conservative Party. I have never been a member, and often do not vote for them. I therefore find it hard to see how you can call it 'my' Conservative Party.
Did you vote for them in 2019? If so, you get own a piece of all this, good or bad. If not, you don't.
Nope. Although because of the LD/Green stitch-up in this constituency, we did not have much choice.
Regular PBers may remember me excoriating Boris over the Garden Bridge debacle. I am not a fan (tm).
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
I think you are being unfair there. It’s always a bit silly to personalise things, but the UK government and diplomatic machine has been very active rounding up and chivvying people along. There is no way Ukraine would have gathered such a coalition of support without a major player cheerleading for them.
Boris, as PM, deserves credit for that but (a) it was the path of least resistance for him; (b) it plays to his self image and strengths; (c) it is very much a team sport
Your final paragraph is unadultersted Johnsonian propaganda.
I am not critical of much of the effort, just how it is being sold, and by whom.
I think you misunderstand my last paragraph. Let me rephrase:
Boris is supporting Ukraine because (a) he’s a lazy shit and anything else would be hard work to change settled government policy; (b) he thinks he’s Churchill and he is good at running around making enthusiastic speeches but not doing much that is practical; and (c) all the real work was done by other people.
Which bit is the “unadulterated Johnsonian propaganda”?
He also hasn't thought through the issues around Russian oligarchs money in the Tory Party vs a (current) anti Putin position.
Although to be fair there's one example of him weighing up the pros and cons of something. Of course the pros and cons in that case were his own best interests.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Taken aback this morning by Radio 4 blasting out the National Anthem at 6.58 am. The Queen's birthday, apparently, but there's no excuse for that. I was ok, just stayed tucked up under the duvet, but very unfair on the likes of Hyufd.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Two points to make about that: 1) When did the US start sending those weapons? Before or after us? 2) The US has a lot more 'fat' in spare weaponry than we do. Their military budget is well over ten times ours; it is therefore 'easier' for them to send a vast amount of material.
After the brief chat wrt the Notre Dame restoration last night, I did a little check up on renovation costs.
It seems they have spent 165m Euro stabilising the structure, and are recreating the spire that was there before as close as possible rather than trying to create something 'modern'. Very sensible.
Comparing to the Palace of Westminster. In floor areas, Notre Dame is about 5000 sqm. PoW is about 20 times larger at 110k sqm, which is the same size as the whole Ile St Louis.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
That’s a completely different argument and one I have a lot of sympathy for.
Labour always opposes it because they think they should continue to get money from the unions while no one else can get large sums
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Absolutely and I stand by every single word I wrote. Someone who has British citizenship is a British citizen regardless of where they were born and it is thoroughly repugnant and racist to say otherwise. Let alone to say that their wife/husband/children etc are otherwise.
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
I have a (private.... NHS sub-contract) hospital appointment later today. I suspect everything will be screened, although the consultant won't be masked.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
Are you saying that’s racist? David L may need some smelling salts.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
A great many Russian oligarchs spent money like water in the UK so that they would (they hoped) have some protection if they fell out of favour with Putin.
Exactly right. That's the main reason they bring their money to the UK*.
If you are rich in Russia your fortune can disappear at the whim of Putin and his closest cronies, but if you move your money to places like the UK you get the protection of UK courts. The corrupt system in Russia that enables them to get filthy rich essentially stealing the nation's wealth is only good for getting rich, it's a terrible system for staying rich because a more powerful crook can easily steal your treasure.
Even Putin does it, he, or those who are believed to act as proxies for him, holds a lot of his wealth in other countries so that if he was replaced he wouldn't lose everything. He's probably at more risk of losing his life than all of his money.
* And other countries, but the UK is popular as it is, or was, seen as a particularly safe place to stash the loot.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
And if the Swiss people want to change bits of it, they can.
Indeed, one of the arguments about Switzerland going the EU, is that the EU requires that the various laws be enacted in a way that can't easily be repealed. Which goes against the Swiss idea of a vote-to-repeal anything. To change that would require a.... vote. Which would be very, very unlikely to pass.
The question we are asking here, is this (I think) - should some laws be Sacred Truths that the people cannot touch?
Some elements of constitutions should require supermajorities to change.
Your concept of democracy appears to embrace the tyranny of bare majorities.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
Are you saying that’s racist? David L may need some smelling salts.
Emotive terms like “racist” create more heat than light
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Yes leading the charge and the Ukrainians have themselves said as much.
The USA is also leading the charge, the UK and USA have been working together in tandem throughout this but the UK has normally been one step ahead of the USA and Biden has had to be convinced to be as forceful as he has - though not as much as European nations who have been even further behind.
Incidentally as a proportion of GDP £350mn from the UK is more than $3bn from the USA.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Absolutely and I stand by every single word I wrote. Someone who has British citizenship is a British citizen regardless of where they were born and it is thoroughly repugnant and racist to say otherwise. Let alone to say that their wife/husband/children etc are otherwise.
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
Thanks for standing by the comments and I actually have some sympathy with your view, although I don't think I am being racist or xenophobic by posting about funding links between Putin and the Tories. People don't seem to have the same mental block about citing funding links between Putin and Le Pen.
A £1000 per year funding limit per person, company or organisation would take away the need for any of this and that is by the far the best solution.
But it is simply not tenable for our political parties to be heavily funded by connections of Putin, whatever their current or past nationality.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
After the brief chat wrt the Notre Dame restoration last night, I did a little check up on renovation costs.
It seems they have spent 165m Euro stabilising the structure, and are recreating the spire that was there before as close as possible rather than trying to create something 'modern'. Very sensible.
Comparing to the Palace of Westminster. In floor areas, Notre Dame is about 5000 sqm. PoW is about 20 times larger at 110k sqm, which is the same size as the whole Ile St Louis.
A rebuild from bare walls is much cheaper and easier than trying to gradually undo x layers of renovations over the years.
Hence the growing popularity of the keep-three-walls-only style of house renovation.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
On HYUFD's point there have always been a high proportion of privately educated students at the Uni's he quotes. Fashionable.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
But without the UK’s active encouragement they would have done far less than they have
I'm perfectly happy to give Johnson credit for doing the right thing with respect to Ukraine. The enduring obsession with labelling either him or Britain as world leading is simply bizarre, though.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Absolutely and I stand by every single word I wrote. Someone who has British citizenship is a British citizen regardless of where they were born and it is thoroughly repugnant and racist to say otherwise. Let alone to say that their wife/husband/children etc are otherwise.
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
I agree with you but I think the issue isn't that they are Russian by birth but that there is evidence of strong past and possibly continuing links to the Russian state, which raises the question of whether their significant donations to the Tory party may in effect amount to the party selling access to agents of a hostile foreign power. I think as long as there is the potential for that to be the case then their donations are a legitimate public concern.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
Are you saying that’s racist? David L may need some smelling salts.
Emotive terms like “racist” create more heat than light
Feel free to apply your own light infused term. I can’t recall if you were one of them but there were certainly PBers in BJ gimp masks screeching racist at anyone mentioning the dubiety of ‘oligarchs of Russian birth and heritage’ contributing millions to the Tory party.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Absolutely and I stand by every single word I wrote. Someone who has British citizenship is a British citizen regardless of where they were born and it is thoroughly repugnant and racist to say otherwise. Let alone to say that their wife/husband/children etc are otherwise.
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
Thanks for standing by the comments and I actually have some sympathy with your view, although I don't think I am being racist or xenophobic by posting about funding links between Putin and the Tories. People don't seem to have the same mental block about citing funding links between Putin and Le Pen.
A £1000 per year funding limit per person, company or organisation would take away the need for any of this and that is by the far the best solution.
But it is simply not tenable for our political parties to be heavily funded by connections of Putin, whatever their current or past nationality.
I have no qualms about people positing links, which is what David responded to.
What I have qualms with, which Scott did in the post I objected to, is referring to Britons as anything other than British.
Le Pen has links, that is fair to say. Le Pen is Russian is not fair to say, Le Pen is French. Corbyn has sympathies for Russia, Corbyn is British. Trump has links, Trump is American.
I have no idea if Chernukov is a wrong'un like Le Pen, Corbyn, Trump and others - but what I do know is he is British. If he is a wrong'un he is a British wrong'un. To call him Russian instead of British is blood and soil racism.
A great many Russian oligarchs spent money like water in the UK so that they would (they hoped) have some protection if they fell out of favour with Putin.
Exactly right. That's the main reason they bring their money to the UK*.
If you are rich in Russia your fortune can disappear at the whim of Putin and his closest cronies, but if you move your money to places like the UK you get the protection of UK courts. The corrupt system in Russia that enables them to get filthy rich essentially stealing the nation's wealth is only good for getting rich, it's a terrible system for staying rich because a more powerful crook can easily steal your treasure.
Even Putin does it, he, or those who are believed to act as proxies for him, holds a lot of his wealth in other countries so that if he was replaced he wouldn't lose everything. He's probably at more risk of losing his life than all of his money.
* And other countries, but the UK is popular as it is, or was, seen as a particularly safe place to stash the loot.
Famously, after Putin really grabbed power, he imprisoned and robbed a couple of oligarchs. The others asked him what he wanted to leave them alone. He said "half"......
It is, also, the reason that the Chinese invest in property around the world.
A friend knows a nice young lady, who manages her families investment in London - several floors of flats in a new built building. She lives in one of them - a huge apartment with plenty of spare rooms, in case the rest of the family want to... er... visit.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
So, on one side of the discussion we have both Russia and Ukraine saying that Boris Johnson and the UK are right at the top of Ukraine's supporters.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need go care? Sounds disgraceful.
Phone appointments instead. Talk to a receptionist through the window. But the physical building is closed. Do Not Come To The Surgery.
I regularly get texts from my surgery along those lines.
I see - I misunderstood. ISTR reading that the nhs has scrapped social distancing now, so there is no justification for what you surgery is doing. I’d suggest contacting the practice manager as a first step, and maybe copy your MP in?
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
So, on one side of the discussion we have both Russia and Ukraine saying that Boris Johnson and the UK are right at the top of Ukraine's supporters.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The sour grapes are just because some Remainers still don't understand why they lost the vote, since they think all sensible people must have voted like them, and so therefore there must be some nefarious explanation - despite no evidence for such being found despite nearly a decade of the most ardent Remainers digging and looking for that non-existent evidence.
As often in modern times the existence of Twitter has helped to further reinforce and radicalise those with these delusions.
And how do you account for the continuing sour grapes on the part of the Brexiteers?
Speaking personally I have no sour grapes because I think Brexit is going well. I think by and large we have what I voted for now.
However there are definite elements of sour grapes within some people who voted for Brexit:
1: There is a perpetually-sour element of society (stereotypical "grumpy old man") that Brexit appealed to. These people are never happier than when complaining, so they're never going to be happy.
2: An element of society ( @RochdalePioneers may fall in this category) that voted for it because it was contrarian to the Tory government policy and they could give the government a kicking. Now the Tory government is doing Brexit, they're appalled at what the Tory government is doing (as they always are) so are unhappy.
3: People who had a specific vision in mind for Brexit and its not "this" Brexit. I personally fell under this category when Theresa May was in charge and was trying to force through the Backstop, I think but am not certain that @Richard_Tyndall may fall in this category now.
I voted for Brexit because I could see the logic that as we did not want to participate in the currency or Schengen or the Army that we would be spun to the outer edges at some point anyway so best do it ourselves than be pushed.
As for Brexit going well, clearly. M20 car park, best in the world.
If you multiply the history since start of 2020, and the IMF predictions out this week, there is hardly any difference between Ge, Fr and the UK over the whole Covid period.
I'm ignoring that they under forecast us last year by 2%.
It remains unclear what happened to the impending collapse of our economy, rather like the collapse of house prices and the soaring unemployment.
I don't believe Boris is, in any way, a secret fan of Putin and I can't point to weakness in response to specific events, for instance he was FS when Salisbury happened and is comparatively strong on Ukraine now. That much is good.
But, in common with many Western populists, including those of left and right, whether with direct links or somewhat detached from Russia, his political playbook of how to habitually lie and confuse in the information age, does lean heavily on the playbook that Putin developed for Russia. This aspect of Putinism in the West is very damaging and Boris is a fully signed up adherent.
Boris, in terms of Conservative party funding, has stripped out a lot of the protections and gone full in on getting cash by any means possible, including from Russian expats with varying degrees of connection to and historical support for Putin. The extent of my suspicion, based on Cakeism, is that Boris would seek to protect these sources of income even in an environment hostile to Russian investment, and may not be too careful about how he does it. The warning to PB Tories that this could very easily end up playing in much the same way as Partygate, on something far harder to dismiss as fluff, is an argument to get rid now.
In as much as this influences Ukraine policy, it may make the UK more friendly to Ukraine, to counteract any criticism of funding. This, of course, can be 2 way: principled support for Ukraine could be a good cover for dodgy funding, just as wishing to keep that funding could drive self-interested support for Ukraine. That the twin elements can play against each other does not say which way round this works.
That PB Tories are already parroting the argument, "look, he's strong on Ukraine" as if that fully negates and excuses all Boris's fundraising proclivities shows they have been well groomed by Partygate.
Amd, to note, in common with many of the PB left, my record in opposing Corbynism does not grant that attack line.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
That's fine if you include unions as well. But then we get onto the issue of how to fund political parties...
Personally, I think direct donations by individuals up to, say £1,000 in a year should be the max. An individual constituency association could separate attract direct donations from individuals up to £,1000 (so max of £2,000 for an individual). No corporate or organizational donations. Donations can be covered by gift-aid, if you like.
No party political campaigning by organizations not registered as a political party, either, though I would be completely happy for them to campaign on issues (which could have a natural political alliance) - just not exhortations to vote for a particular party or individual. Then the Unions or the CBI would, for example, be campaigning on specific policy issues, to which politicians of various stripes could nail their colours if they wished.
I would also suggest that any constituency organizations that achieved some threshold of the vote in a local election could get central government funding to top their funding up to some given level until they fail to hit that threshold for e.g. 2 cycles. Likewise, at a National Level, parties could receive top-up funding based on their share of the vote through 2 electoral cycles. This would be like the cash boost for sports teams that break through to a higher league, and it would encourage people to vote for minor parties of independents that they like as there is a direct benefit to doing so.
This would *significantly* reduce spending for the bigger parties, and offer some possibility of smaller parties breaking through, at least at a local level (and building from there).
It would also refocus Unions back on direct campaigning for their members interests, which I think would be a good thing.
But that's a bit of a ramble for a Thursday morning, and no party would cut their own throat like this.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
Ray Mawby, an electrician and TU officer, wasTory MP for Totnes from the mid 50's to the 80's and was regularly trotted out as an example of the wide range of people who supported the Conservative party. IIRC he later got into trouble for working for Czech Communist Government.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I'm sorry, I can't have you misrepresenting @Leon's posts like that. Unless you can provide concrete evidence of anything "fact based" or "interesting" in his posts I think you should withdraw those outrageous slurs immediately!
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
That's fine if you include unions as well. But then we get onto the issue of how to fund political parties...
Personally, I think direct donations by individuals up to, say £1,000 in a year should be the max. An individual constituency association could separate attract direct donations from individuals up to £,1000 (so max of £2,000 for an individual). No corporate or organizational donations. Donations can be covered by gift-aid, if you like.
No party political campaigning by organizations not registered as a political party, either, though I would be completely happy for them to campaign on issues (which could have a natural political alliance) - just not exhortations to vote for a particular party or individual. Then the Unions or the CBI would, for example, be campaigning on specific policy issues, to which politicians of various stripes could nail their colours if they wished.
I would also suggest that any constituency organizations that achieved some threshold of the vote in a local election could get central government funding to top their funding up to some given level until they fail to hit that threshold for e.g. 2 cycles. Likewise, at a National Level, parties could receive top-up funding based on their share of the vote through 2 electoral cycles. This would be like the cash boost for sports teams that break through to a higher league, and it would encourage people to vote for minor parties of independents that they like as there is a direct benefit to doing so.
This would *significantly* reduce spending for the bigger parties, and offer some possibility of smaller parties breaking through, at least at a local level (and building from there).
It would also refocus Unions back on direct campaigning for their members interests, which I think would be a good thing.
But that's a bit of a ramble for a Thursday morning, and no party would cut their own throat like this.
IIRC something like that was, at one time at least, Liberal Party policy.
And I also seem to recall that somewhere does something like that. Anyone know?
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need gp care? Sounds disgraceful.
I wonder how many surgeries are like the one next to mine - they vanished for the pandemic. And are now so used to doing nothing that they've laid off the staff!
Ours was stretched before the pandemic (one surgery for 18,000 folk). They didn’t do bad through the last two years, but now have had two GPs retire. I am nervous for the future. Ultimately they are trying to find different ways to be more efficient. Email requests seem to work well. Ultimately we have too few GPs, too many work part time (why wouldn’t you if it makes sense financially?) Until we get more we will be struggling.
One of my brothers-in-law was a GP. Retired at 58. Before that he only worked 3 days a week.
There's the problem. Plenty of GPs, but spending their time playing golf, rather than in the surgery.
Pay them less, and they'd have to put a proper shift in, and not be able to pack it in early.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
Sounds like you should resign from the party in disgust!
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need go care? Sounds disgraceful.
Phone appointments instead. Talk to a receptionist through the window. But the physical building is closed. Do Not Come To The Surgery.
I regularly get texts from my surgery along those lines.
The sight and sound of patients describing their symptoms to the receptionist on the surgery entryphone was one of the few entertaining consequences of lockdown. We'll miss it when it's gone.
This spring I set up a birdbox with a camera in it. Yesterday I noticed a couple of blue tits flying in an out, so I turned the camera on today. We have a nest! And I can watch them in real time!
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The sour grapes are just because some Remainers still don't understand why they lost the vote, since they think all sensible people must have voted like them, and so therefore there must be some nefarious explanation - despite no evidence for such being found despite nearly a decade of the most ardent Remainers digging and looking for that non-existent evidence.
As often in modern times the existence of Twitter has helped to further reinforce and radicalise those with these delusions.
And how do you account for the continuing sour grapes on the part of the Brexiteers?
Speaking personally I have no sour grapes because I think Brexit is going well. I think by and large we have what I voted for now.
However there are definite elements of sour grapes within some people who voted for Brexit:
1: There is a perpetually-sour element of society (stereotypical "grumpy old man") that Brexit appealed to. These people are never happier than when complaining, so they're never going to be happy.
2: An element of society ( @RochdalePioneers may fall in this category) that voted for it because it was contrarian to the Tory government policy and they could give the government a kicking. Now the Tory government is doing Brexit, they're appalled at what the Tory government is doing (as they always are) so are unhappy.
3: People who had a specific vision in mind for Brexit and its not "this" Brexit. I personally fell under this category when Theresa May was in charge and was trying to force through the Backstop, I think but am not certain that @Richard_Tyndall may fall in this category now.
I voted for Brexit because I could see the logic that as we did not want to participate in the currency or Schengen or the Army that we would be spun to the outer edges at some point anyway so best do it ourselves than be pushed.
As for Brexit going well, clearly. M20 car park, best in the world.
Yeah its going well. The M20 has long been an on-again, off-again car park even pre-Brexit, that didn't stop the voters of Kent voting for it.
IANAE but it seems to me that the fact that it is once again a car park, not for the first time and not just post-Brexit, might just have something to do with the fact that P&O recently sacked all their staff and now all their ferries are grounded.
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
Or it presages a chemical attack with, er, fly spray.....
IIf you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons. … https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-is-becoming-putin-s-most-valuable-ally
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
I'd restrict any citicen or group from being able to donate huge sums. There's no need for it and it leads to perceptions of apparent bias, as well as the unedifying situation of parties grovelling before interest groups and sugar daddies.
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
That's fine if you include unions as well. But then we get onto the issue of how to fund political parties...
Individual small donations, reasonable membership fees (no 'super member' tier at high cost), and volunteers. If they cannot survive so be it.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
Bought and paid for several times over David, corrupt to the core.
With a show on RT like…..Eck?
You don't seem to understanddifference from a business payment for a product from a backhander, surely you are at the jesting.
This spring I set up a birdbox with a camera in it. Yesterday I noticed a couple of blue tits flying in an out, so I turned the camera on today. We have a nest! And I can watch them in real time!
This is going to be addictive...
Watching tits is addictive? You sound like SeanT...
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
Ray Mawby, an electrician and TU officer, wasTory MP for Totnes from the mid 50's to the 80's and was regularly trotted out as an example of the wide range of people who supported the Conservative party. IIRC he later got into trouble for working for Czech Communist Government.
He passed on nuggets to the Czech military security through the Cold War.
The only Conservative MP known to have spied on behalf of a Communist Govt.
This spring I set up a birdbox with a camera in it. Yesterday I noticed a couple of blue tits flying in an out, so I turned the camera on today. We have a nest! And I can watch them in real time!
This is going to be addictive...
We've got one of those Mr J. It was a present to my wife from our family, a present which fortunately included them setting it up! And you're right; it IS addictive. Last year our birds got confused by some early spring weather and got going early; as a result, when the weather turned there wasn't enough food for the chicks and IIRC they only fledged one. Very sad.
This year they've only just got started, so all should be well.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The sour grapes are just because some Remainers still don't understand why they lost the vote, since they think all sensible people must have voted like them, and so therefore there must be some nefarious explanation - despite no evidence for such being found despite nearly a decade of the most ardent Remainers digging and looking for that non-existent evidence.
As often in modern times the existence of Twitter has helped to further reinforce and radicalise those with these delusions.
And how do you account for the continuing sour grapes on the part of the Brexiteers?
Speaking personally I have no sour grapes because I think Brexit is going well. I think by and large we have what I voted for now.
However there are definite elements of sour grapes within some people who voted for Brexit:
1: There is a perpetually-sour element of society (stereotypical "grumpy old man") that Brexit appealed to. These people are never happier than when complaining, so they're never going to be happy.
2: An element of society ( @RochdalePioneers may fall in this category) that voted for it because it was contrarian to the Tory government policy and they could give the government a kicking. Now the Tory government is doing Brexit, they're appalled at what the Tory government is doing (as they always are) so are unhappy.
3: People who had a specific vision in mind for Brexit and its not "this" Brexit. I personally fell under this category when Theresa May was in charge and was trying to force through the Backstop, I think but am not certain that @Richard_Tyndall may fall in this category now.
I voted for Brexit because I could see the logic that as we did not want to participate in the currency or Schengen or the Army that we would be spun to the outer edges at some point anyway so best do it ourselves than be pushed.
As for Brexit going well, clearly. M20 car park, best in the world.
Yeah its going well. The M20 has long been an on-again, off-again car park even pre-Brexit, that didn't stop the voters of Kent voting for it.
IANAE but it seems to me that the fact that it is once again a car park, not for the first time and not just post-Brexit, might just have something to do with the fact that P&O recently sacked all their staff and now all their ferries are grounded.
Question: if it was. P&O issue why did queues not build when they stopped sailing and then dissipate now whilst they are not sailing?
The queues were only there on that scale when the broken customs computer was offline
After the brief chat wrt the Notre Dame restoration last night, I did a little check up on renovation costs.
It seems they have spent 165m Euro stabilising the structure, and are recreating the spire that was there before as close as possible rather than trying to create something 'modern'. Very sensible.
Comparing to the Palace of Westminster. In floor areas, Notre Dame is about 5000 sqm. PoW is about 20 times larger at 110k sqm, which is the same size as the whole Ile St Louis.
Very interesting. Will be useful when PoW burns down too.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
Sounds like you should resign from the party in disgust!
In the Blair years we even had a privately educated Labour PM and state educated Tory leaders in Hague, IDS and Howard. I still campaigned for the Tories
After the brief chat wrt the Notre Dame restoration last night, I did a little check up on renovation costs.
It seems they have spent 165m Euro stabilising the structure, and are recreating the spire that was there before as close as possible rather than trying to create something 'modern'. Very sensible.
Comparing to the Palace of Westminster. In floor areas, Notre Dame is about 5000 sqm. PoW is about 20 times larger at 110k sqm, which is the same size as the whole Ile St Louis.
A rebuild from bare walls is much cheaper and easier than trying to gradually undo x layers of renovations over the years.
Hence the growing popularity of the keep-three-walls-only style of house renovation.
The problem coming in houses when the middle layer (insulation) is left out, so the overall quality is dire and it all has to be redone.
(Don't ask me how many of those I have declined to buy.)
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
Comments
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
The difference between now and then, is that back then, slaughtering the inhabitants of a city state was a conceivable action in war. Conceivable, as in the sense of "some barbarians would do this".
The reason we don't do Mitylene is because the common, accepted norms of war have moved vastly away from that kind of action.
Russia has signed up to all the human rights treaties. Russian law is full of human rights, legal protections... and they are busy creating "facts on the ground" as we type.
The protection for human rights, in a democracy, is not laws.
It is, for instance, that for the vast majority of the UK population, gay bashing is a horrible thing done by knuts. The laws are the expression of that view.
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
Switzerland, of course, has a bill of rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Constitution#Title_2_Fundamental_Rights,_Citizenship_and_Social_Goals
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1517011147223977985?s=20&t=Y0J4UtxcLFW1hxQtyIwuNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjR7K78CqBY
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said:
.@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
https://twitter.com/DavidLammy/status/1495139138194087941
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1495098477948325892
Bo Jo has two faults. He's lazy, and when he does something, he's looking after number one. That's not uncommon with MPs. It's why he prefers the Conservative whip.
The other bloc is those with a mission to force through their own opinions. Facts are to be interpeted to that mission. Corbyn was a prime example, receiving his politics at age seven and never deviating. Some of the Greens come into that category too.
The LDs are too busy apologising for existing to be relevant
There are a few MPs with noble intentions, but they seldom climb the greasy pole.
Who does least damage?
They can get small donations and have to cut back substantially on their outflow rather than give out knighthood for those bringing in the dosh.
Indeed, one of the arguments about Switzerland going the EU, is that the EU requires that the various laws be enacted in a way that can't easily be repealed. Which goes against the Swiss idea of a vote-to-repeal anything. To change that would require a.... vote. Which would be very, very unlikely to pass.
The question we are asking here, is this (I think) - should some laws be Sacred Truths that the people cannot touch?
Are you sure it "did not go that well"?
Ultimately they are trying to find different ways to be more efficient. Email requests seem to work well.
Ultimately we have too few GPs, too many work part time (why wouldn’t you if it makes sense financially?) Until we get more we will be struggling.
UK: $350m in weapons
USA: $3bn in weapons
"leading the charge"
Regular PBers may remember me excoriating Boris over the Garden Bridge debacle. I am not a fan (tm).
Although to be fair there's one example of him weighing up the pros and cons of something. Of course the pros and cons in that case were his own best interests.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
US GDP = 20.94 trillion dollars
UK GDP = 2.708 trillion dollars
UK economy is 12.94%, on this measure, of the size of the US
UK contribution to Ukraine on the above figures, 11.67% of the US contribution.
No, I have no idea what that proves.
EDIT: just noticed that according to that source, UK contribution was $456 million. The 350 is in GBP. This gives us 15.20% of the US contribution.
1) When did the US start sending those weapons? Before or after us?
2) The US has a lot more 'fat' in spare weaponry than we do. Their military budget is well over ten times ours; it is therefore 'easier' for them to send a vast amount of material.
After the brief chat wrt the Notre Dame restoration last night, I did a little check up on renovation costs.
It seems they have spent 165m Euro stabilising the structure, and are recreating the spire that was there before as close as possible rather than trying to create something 'modern'. Very sensible.
Comparing to the Palace of Westminster. In floor areas, Notre Dame is about 5000 sqm. PoW is about 20 times larger at 110k sqm, which is the same size as the whole Ile St Louis.
Labour always opposes it because they think they should continue to get money from the unions while no one else can get large sums
America is bigger and richer than the UK.
But without the UK’s active encouragement they would have done far less than they have
"Putin orders troops to block off steel plant so 'not even a fly can escape'"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61157670
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
David L may need some smelling salts.
There's a rallying cry we can all get behind. See you in Moscow for tea and medals.
She also says New Zealand and China will work together on areas of 'natural mutual interest'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61160207
If you are rich in Russia your fortune can disappear at the whim of Putin and his closest cronies, but if you move your money to places like the UK you get the protection of UK courts. The corrupt system in Russia that enables them to get filthy rich essentially stealing the nation's wealth is only good for getting rich, it's a terrible system for staying rich because a more powerful crook can easily steal your treasure.
Even Putin does it, he, or those who are believed to act as proxies for him, holds a lot of his wealth in other countries so that if he was replaced he wouldn't lose everything. He's probably at more risk of losing his life than all of his money.
* And other countries, but the UK is popular as it is, or was, seen as a particularly safe place to stash the loot.
Your concept of democracy appears to embrace the tyranny of bare majorities.
The USA is also leading the charge, the UK and USA have been working together in tandem throughout this but the UK has normally been one step ahead of the USA and Biden has had to be convinced to be as forceful as he has - though not as much as European nations who have been even further behind.
Incidentally as a proportion of GDP £350mn from the UK is more than $3bn from the USA.
A £1000 per year funding limit per person, company or organisation would take away the need for any of this and that is by the far the best solution.
But it is simply not tenable for our political parties to be heavily funded by connections of Putin, whatever their current or past nationality.
Hence the growing popularity of the keep-three-walls-only style of house renovation.
Fashionable.
The enduring obsession with labelling either him or Britain as world leading is simply bizarre, though.
I can’t recall if you were one of them but there were certainly PBers in BJ gimp masks screeching racist at anyone mentioning the dubiety of ‘oligarchs of Russian birth and heritage’ contributing millions to the Tory party.
Edit: I see one of them has even owned up.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
What I have qualms with, which Scott did in the post I objected to, is referring to Britons as anything other than British.
Le Pen has links, that is fair to say. Le Pen is Russian is not fair to say, Le Pen is French. Corbyn has sympathies for Russia, Corbyn is British. Trump has links, Trump is American.
I have no idea if Chernukov is a wrong'un like Le Pen, Corbyn, Trump and others - but what I do know is he is British. If he is a wrong'un he is a British wrong'un. To call him Russian instead of British is blood and soil racism.
It is, also, the reason that the Chinese invest in property around the world.
A friend knows a nice young lady, who manages her families investment in London - several floors of flats in a new built building. She lives in one of them - a huge apartment with plenty of spare rooms, in case the rest of the family want to... er... visit.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Hmm, I wonder who to believe.
I'm ignoring that they under forecast us last year by 2%.
It remains unclear what happened to the impending collapse of our economy, rather like the collapse of house prices and the soaring unemployment.
But, in common with many Western populists, including those of left and right, whether with direct links or somewhat detached from Russia, his political playbook of how to habitually lie and confuse in the information age, does lean heavily on the playbook that Putin developed for Russia. This aspect of Putinism in the West is very damaging and Boris is a fully signed up adherent.
Boris, in terms of Conservative party funding, has stripped out a lot of the protections and gone full in on getting cash by any means possible, including from Russian expats with varying degrees of connection to and historical support for Putin. The extent of my suspicion, based on Cakeism, is that Boris would seek to protect these sources of income even in an environment hostile to Russian investment, and may not be too careful about how he does it. The warning to PB Tories that this could very easily end up playing in much the same way as Partygate, on something far harder to dismiss as fluff, is an argument to get rid now.
In as much as this influences Ukraine policy, it may make the UK more friendly to Ukraine, to counteract any criticism of funding. This, of course, can be 2 way: principled support for Ukraine could be a good cover for dodgy funding, just as wishing to keep that funding could drive self-interested support for Ukraine. That the twin elements can play against each other does not say which way round this works.
That PB Tories are already parroting the argument, "look, he's strong on Ukraine" as if that fully negates and excuses all Boris's fundraising proclivities shows they have been well groomed by Partygate.
Amd, to note, in common with many of the PB left, my record in opposing Corbynism does not grant that attack line.
No party political campaigning by organizations not registered as a political party, either, though I would be completely happy for them to campaign on issues (which could have a natural political alliance) - just not exhortations to vote for a particular party or individual. Then the Unions or the CBI would, for example, be campaigning on specific policy issues, to which politicians of various stripes could nail their colours if they wished.
I would also suggest that any constituency organizations that achieved some threshold of the vote in a local election could get central government funding to top their funding up to some given level until they fail to hit that threshold for e.g. 2 cycles. Likewise, at a National Level, parties could receive top-up funding based on their share of the vote through 2 electoral cycles. This would be like the cash boost for sports teams that break through to a higher league, and it would encourage people to vote for minor parties of independents that they like as there is a direct benefit to doing so.
This would *significantly* reduce spending for the bigger parties, and offer some possibility of smaller parties breaking through, at least at a local level (and building from there).
It would also refocus Unions back on direct campaigning for their members interests, which I think would be a good thing.
But that's a bit of a ramble for a Thursday morning, and no party would cut their own throat like this.
IIRC he later got into trouble for working for Czech Communist Government.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61154106
It may well be that the GP surgery can no longer be staffed, with the former staff doing other things now.
And I also seem to recall that somewhere does something like that. Anyone know?
There's the problem. Plenty of GPs, but spending their time playing golf, rather than in the surgery.
Pay them less, and they'd have to put a proper shift in, and not be able to pack it in early.
WTF IS GOING ON
This spring I set up a birdbox with a camera in it. Yesterday I noticed a couple of blue tits flying in an out, so I turned the camera on today. We have a nest! And I can watch them in real time!
This is going to be addictive...
IANAE but it seems to me that the fact that it is once again a car park, not for the first time and not just post-Brexit, might just have something to do with the fact that P&O recently sacked all their staff and now all their ferries are grounded.
Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons.
…
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-is-becoming-putin-s-most-valuable-ally
The only Conservative MP known to have spied on behalf of a Communist Govt.
So somewhat atypical!
And you're right; it IS addictive. Last year our birds got confused by some early spring weather and got going early; as a result, when the weather turned there wasn't enough food for the chicks and IIRC they only fledged one. Very sad.
This year they've only just got started, so all should be well.
The queues were only there on that scale when the broken customs computer was offline
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
(Don't ask me how many of those I have declined to buy.)
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...