Pretty devastating analysis of why Dems lost, focussing on the failure to engage with younger voters:
"The vote shift from blue to red in college towns like Ann Arbor is staggering; in some University of Michigan precincts, the vote shifted 20 points toward Mr. Trump in four years."
"When young women finally made their choice in the campaign’s final weeks, many reluctantly chose their pocketbooks over reproductive rights."
"While Ms. Harris fought valiantly for the 107 days of her campaign, the party’s systematic disconnection from its base’s most urgent moral and economic concerns cost them the election."
Re: Budget employer NI changes - my wife, who is clerk for two Parish Councils, says her small salaries will now, from April, be caught in the NI changes and this cost will fall on Parish Council funds.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
No it couldn't, either you stand up to aggressors or your don't. I don't support even missile attacks on Russia, just self defence support for Ukraine
Pretty devastating analysis of why Dems lost, focussing on the failure to engage with younger voters:
"The vote shift from blue to red in college towns like Ann Arbor is staggering; in some University of Michigan precincts, the vote shifted 20 points toward Mr. Trump in four years."
"When young women finally made their choice in the campaign’s final weeks, many reluctantly chose their pocketbooks over reproductive rights."
"While Ms. Harris fought valiantly for the 107 days of her campaign, the party’s systematic disconnection from its base’s most urgent moral and economic concerns cost them the election."
An important (and I assumed ignored) paragraph from that page is:
"...I’ve watched with growing concern as the Democratic Party has increasingly replaced the art of listening to and polling voters with an almost religious devotion to data analytics. This approach combines voter file data, consumer databases, short surveys, social media insights and information from canvassing and events to create detailed profiles and models of potential voters. While this can certainly aid in deciding where and how to spend campaign money and resources, it often results in outreach that feels to voters like inauthentic, overly tailored messaging that lacks genuine connection or depth..."
During the RSS conference I recommended a book ("Escape From Model Land") which points out the problems that trip you up when you treat models as fact. We need to take a step back from relying on them as gospel and remember that statistics is done in the streets, not at the desk
(narrator. Viewcode is ranting again. Oh, Gallego is widening his lead with 92/3% reporting. Yum)
She's struggling a bit. Bet she'd sooner be facing Starmer at PMQs than Beer in front of Sir NiceOldThing!
Kemi seems to have been on the side of the angels in urging prompt payment of compensation, even if not effective.
Yes, she's doing a good job of dissing Hunt and his team!
I think this all has to be understood in the context of the near certainty that the mess would be handed on for Labour to deal with soon.
Interestingly, Kemi is also contrasting JFDI against full process, as PB was discussing over the weekend in connection with infrastructure projects and bats.
This has the potential to be genuine cross party consensus. Labour has been making very similar noises (as, incidentally did Harris during the campaign).
The days of Brown (and sometimes his successors) brushing aside all cost objections with "the fourth richest country in the world" nonsense, are long gone. Though the attitude survives among the various lobbyists - the £100m for a bat tunnel was a "price worth paying", for example.
It's one of the few ways for government to get the economy heading in the right direction, without having to spray large amounts of money around,
When you look at the list of rice bowls that the bat tunnel filled, you'll understand why there's about £100 million of resistance to doing away with bat tunnels.
Ob Ref: Diane Feinstein complaining that the Commercial Cargo project by NASA for the space station wasn't generating enough paperwork to keep her staff busy.
Clearly.
But the voting public's own rice bowl is sufficiently empty for governments to be rather more assiduous in looking for ways of not doling it out uselessly.
We have a decent mechanism (NICE) to look at cost/benefit when approving healthcare spending. We should try harder with regulation.
NICE took some serious pushing to establish.
I recall my father inviting for diner senior medical consultants (my father was involved in the moral and ethical philosophy side of this and QALYS) who were utterly sure that senior medics making guesses was the only way to make medical decisions.
IIRC Thatcher put her bulldozer behind a bunch of that stuff..
I think its a huge part of it. I know people hate Johnson and there are plenty of reasons to. But he can honestly say that he didn't get a chance to implement his vision as everything was overtaken by Covid and then the inflationary shock of the invasion of Ukraine. We've seen on PB how people have tried to say how bad Brexit has been for the UK (I think with some justification, but only to a limited extent). The effects of Covid and the war have been far more impactful. And so yes, being an incumbent when the Covid bill hit and then the inflation ary effects kicked in too was always going to send incumbents out of incumbency.
Not only do the incumbents get the blame for events outside of their control they also get no credit for the interventions. So many times I've heard "the government did nothing to help with my bills" about energy costs, in reality the government spent/borrowed about £51 BILLION for 2022-2023* to subsidise energy and stop the sector and wider economy from keeling over. Every household has had about £2,000 to keep the bills at merely very high levels rather than edging into catastrophic levels. People might argue that the government should have done even more, but everyone who uses energy has had a significant amount of support.
* With another £11 billion or so for 2023-2024.
Which is why Jim Hacker managed the Emulsified High Fat Offal Tube crisis the way he did. Stop a problem happening in adavance, nobody cares. Solve a problem that everyone is up in arms about, you're a hero.
In Ireland the government have given and continue to give huge wads of cash to the energy companies that shows up as credits on people's electricity bills. Another €150 will be credited to every bill on November 15th, one fortnight before the election. Convenient timing!
In Britain the government gave huge wads of cash to the energy companies so that the amount charged to customers was lower than it otherwise would have been. The net effect was very similar (albeit the British support I think reduced the unit rate, and so would have given most money to the heaviest users, while the Irish method allowed unit rates to be set by the market and so left the incentive to reduce energy usage) but the Irish method was much more visible and may well win more votes.
UPDATE THE ARCHBISHOP HASN’T RESIGNED, WAS GIVEN DUFF INFO
Indeed, I was somewhat surprised an atheist republican from a Muslim family had first hand access to the position of the Archbishop ahead of the BBC and other news networks
Now you say it, it is quite possible that @TheScreamingEagles will be appointed to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
@TheScreamingEagles what is your position on tea? How strong do you like it?
There is some very flashy clothing involved....
I hate tea, I am teetotaller who doesn't drink too.
UPDATE THE ARCHBISHOP HASN’T RESIGNED, WAS GIVEN DUFF INFO
Indeed, I was somewhat surprised an atheist republican from a Muslim family had first hand access to the position of the Archbishop ahead of the BBC and other news networks
Now you say it, it is quite possible that @TheScreamingEagles will be appointed to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
@TheScreamingEagles what is your position on tea? How strong do you like it?
There is some very flashy clothing involved....
I hate tea, I am teetotaller who doesn't drink too.
She's struggling a bit. Bet she'd sooner be facing Starmer at PMQs than Beer in front of Sir NiceOldThing!
Kemi seems to have been on the side of the angels in urging prompt payment of compensation, even if not effective.
Yes, she's doing a good job of dissing Hunt and his team!
I think this all has to be understood in the context of the near certainty that the mess would be handed on for Labour to deal with soon.
Interestingly, Kemi is also contrasting JFDI against full process, as PB was discussing over the weekend in connection with infrastructure projects and bats.
This has the potential to be genuine cross party consensus. Labour has been making very similar noises (as, incidentally did Harris during the campaign).
The days of Brown (and sometimes his successors) brushing aside all cost objections with "the fourth richest country in the world" nonsense, are long gone. Though the attitude survives among the various lobbyists - the £100m for a bat tunnel was a "price worth paying", for example.
It's one of the few ways for government to get the economy heading in the right direction, without having to spray large amounts of money around,
When you look at the list of rice bowls that the bat tunnel filled, you'll understand why there's about £100 million of resistance to doing away with bat tunnels.
Ob Ref: Diane Feinstein complaining that the Commercial Cargo project by NASA for the space station wasn't generating enough paperwork to keep her staff busy.
Clearly.
But the voting public's own rice bowl is sufficiently empty for governments to be rather more assiduous in looking for ways of not doling it out uselessly.
We have a decent mechanism (NICE) to look at cost/benefit when approving healthcare spending. We should try harder with regulation.
NICE took some serious pushing to establish.
I recall my father inviting for dinner senior medical consultants (my father was involved in the moral and ethical philosophy side of this and QALYS) who were utterly sure that senior medics making guesses was the only way to make medical decisions.
IIRC Thatcher put her bulldozer behind a bunch of that stuff..
The time for serious pushing is here again. A political consensus on that could be valuable.
MPs and people with a political platform have been complaining about the inability to build anything for what seems forever. However they soon get trapped into the knot of overhauling the system will often mean weakening / removing things they also value, while also of course being sucked into the vortex of NIMBYs in their seat and labyrinthian planning system officials.
I agree. It's interesting how there didn't seem to be anyone overseeing things who could state the obvious and say that spending £100m on a bat tunnel just wasn't an appropriate use of money.
Note that according to the MP the requirement was that “not one bat would be killed”
Which is an insane and incompetent requirement.
HS2 isn’t *human” death proof. No platform doors at every station, for a start. Why? Because making it 100% safe for humans in basically impossible. Trying would take infinite money.
The same goes for bats.
If correct, this is primary evidence that the Enquiry Industrial Complex is out of control.
What Starmer does will be interesting. If he doesn't manage to reform the process, how long before a political party uses primary legislation to eliminate planning and appeals - to get projects going within a single term.
"The party that can *build* the trains on time" - eh?
Single issue pressure groups always take this attitude to their particular interest. They take the most extreme position on everything to begin with, because they don't trust most other people/organisations and expect what they want to be watered down. It's a type of conspiratorial thinking imo.
COP29 is about to start. With demands for money. Of course it does. With Oxfam happily provided a poll showing overwhelming support for taxes on the super rich to raise funds which they will then help to manage.
With the Trumpdozer being elected though all bets are surely off.
"Some countries at COP29, including France, are pushing for innovative financing to help pay for the $1 trillion funding, including taxes on flying and fossil fuel extraction.
A poll published by Oxfam on Monday found that four in five Brits support increasing taxes on luxury transport such as private jets and superyachts to raise funds to tackle climate change.
“The Prime Minister urgently needs to do more to provide support to communities already facing the devastating consequences of the climate crisis. The money is there,” Chiara Liguori from Oxfam GB said."
I did some stats advice on a study ~ 5 years back that looked at willingness to pay to avert negative effects of climate change in the UK. Showed a mean of £20/month and median of £15/month, I think. Used a referendum type poll - would you pay X/month, where X was assigned randomly to find those values, which is better than e.g. a sliding scale where people gravitate towards the middle (we tested this too and found that we got a mean response near the middle on two different scales with two different middles).
Still a hypothetical, so I wouldn't put too much weight on it, but runs to £7.2 billion per year if you apply only to working population. Or £6.8 billion if you use £20/month/household. That's based on mean, which is the right way to do those sums, but looking at the median, over half the population would be pissed off with such a measure so it could be politically courageous. Making it progressive, so that the mean was £20, but >1/2 paid under £15/month could work. Anyway, some idea of scale, five years out of date. I'm sure many other estimates are available!
The big problem with that approach is you are effectively offering the status quo as an option. It is not, there are costs both ways.
A more realistic question would be more along the lines of:
If we continue as is climate change will cost Uk households £1,000 a year by 2050 and £2500 by 2100 in addition to damaging the planet and creating global instability. How much extra (or less) should we pay now to reduce those future costs and protect the planet?
Trouble is, I'm not sure there's any evidence whatsoever that these costs would occur under a "business as usual" scenario in the UK.
There's also the problem that the UK on its own is powerless to do anything about it, other than spend loads of money and make us all poor.
If China and the US don't care, and the evidence to date is that they don't, we're just a rounding error in the calculation.
There is evidence, you may disagree with it, but its absurd to say there is no evidence whatsoever, just because you disagree.
Sure - climate change costs us 7.4% of GDP by 2100. Seems a plausible estimate. The question is - how much of that is mitigated by a Net Zero target for the UK, rather than say a 50% reduction? How much do we pay for Net Zero vs -50% for the UK. Our efforts are a rounding error on the global impact.
I am not an expert on the trade offs, for some geeky reason more intrigued by the far less important matter of getting the hypothetical question framed correctly.
MPs and people with a political platform have been complaining about the inability to build anything for what seems forever. However they soon get trapped into the knot of overhauling the system will often mean weakening / removing things they also value, while also of course being sucked into the vortex of NIMBYs in their seat and labyrinthian planning system officials.
I agree. It's interesting how there didn't seem to be anyone overseeing things who could state the obvious and say that spending £100m on a bat tunnel just wasn't an appropriate use of money.
Note that according to the MP the requirement was that “not one bat would be killed”
Which is an insane and incompetent requirement.
HS2 isn’t *human” death proof. No platform doors at every station, for a start. Why? Because making it 100% safe for humans in basically impossible. Trying would take infinite money.
The same goes for bats.
If correct, this is primary evidence that the Enquiry Industrial Complex is out of control.
What Starmer does will be interesting. If he doesn't manage to reform the process, how long before a political party uses primary legislation to eliminate planning and appeals - to get projects going within a single term.
"The party that can *build* the trains on time" - eh?
Single issue pressure groups always take this attitude to their particular interest. They take the most extreme position on everything to begin with, because they don't trust most other people/organisations and expect what they want to be watered down. It's a type of conspiratorial thinking imo.
Not really a conspiracy. You should expect any interest group to try and get the maximum. Simply saying yes to every such request is the insane bit.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Surely this would always have been the case? How would Ukraine 'win'? They would never be strong enough to defeat Russia, certainly with the limitations on weapons use and supply that they have. Russia conceivably could win in the conventional sense but at what cost?
And if you think it through, almost all wars end up in political settlements.
There could be a negotiated settlement where Ukraine withdraws from the border regions of Russia (Kursk, Belgorod, etc) and Russia agrees not to shell Ukraine from those regions.
Saying there "must be a negotiated settlement" is kinda meaningless. What matters is the context under which negotiations take place. If they take place now, in the context of the US withdrawing all support and Europe unwilling to make up the difference, then the context is one of Western weakness implying major Ukrainian concessions.
Other contexts for negotiation are available should we choose to create them.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Reading the headlines this morning, it seems pretty clear that Trump will try to enact his policy platform in full.
Objectively these policies are likely to fail. Not fail at the margin, but systemically implode with unknowable political and economic consequences, and major ramifications around the world.
The implications of moving 5 million people out of the US at short notice will be extraordinarily disruptive to the domestic economy, while the tariffs now being proposed will force the EU and the UK to engage with China, whether they wish to or not.
My point is that Trump is unpopular in Britain now, so those choosing to follow his lead into irresponsible populist policy failures may be making a fatal mistake. The Conservatives would almost certainly split further under such circumstances. It is going to be a very interesting year.
plus if there is any move towards Trumpism in the UK, surely Farage is better placed than the Tories in their current state? There was an interesting R4 radio documentary over the weekend on how Reform is at least trying to turn itself into a broad-based political party/movement and away from the owned-business model that Farage went for on the back of his experience with UKIP. And there just the earliest of signs that they may be able to make a bigger impact in local government than heretofore.
Perhaps a big space is going to open up for the LibDems as a sensible centre party?
It's a good documentary, with interesting comments from eg Gawain Towler who ran the Farage Party (life is too short to list all of them) press operations for 20 years.
I would have liked to see some comments from a Lib Dem or two on how they reckon Reform are doing.
Gladiator II review — are you not entertained? No, not really
Paul Mescal disappoints in this dreary, Marvel-esque sequel, which only ignites when Denzel Washington’s brilliant, bisexual slave manager is on screen
COP29 is about to start. With demands for money. Of course it does. With Oxfam happily provided a poll showing overwhelming support for taxes on the super rich to raise funds which they will then help to manage.
With the Trumpdozer being elected though all bets are surely off.
"Some countries at COP29, including France, are pushing for innovative financing to help pay for the $1 trillion funding, including taxes on flying and fossil fuel extraction.
A poll published by Oxfam on Monday found that four in five Brits support increasing taxes on luxury transport such as private jets and superyachts to raise funds to tackle climate change.
“The Prime Minister urgently needs to do more to provide support to communities already facing the devastating consequences of the climate crisis. The money is there,” Chiara Liguori from Oxfam GB said."
I'm surprised Oxfam didnt go the way of the News of The World when it came out what its staff had been doing to children and women in the countries it was supposed to be helping. But maybe churning for donations on social media is a less harmful activity.
"There is an absence of common sense in a lot of Whitehall, because people are afraid to trust themselves, and trust their judgement, follow principles and do the right thing."
COP29 is about to start. With demands for money. Of course it does. With Oxfam happily provided a poll showing overwhelming support for taxes on the super rich to raise funds which they will then help to manage.
With the Trumpdozer being elected though all bets are surely off.
"Some countries at COP29, including France, are pushing for innovative financing to help pay for the $1 trillion funding, including taxes on flying and fossil fuel extraction.
A poll published by Oxfam on Monday found that four in five Brits support increasing taxes on luxury transport such as private jets and superyachts to raise funds to tackle climate change.
“The Prime Minister urgently needs to do more to provide support to communities already facing the devastating consequences of the climate crisis. The money is there,” Chiara Liguori from Oxfam GB said."
I'm surprised Oxfam didnt go the way of the News of The World when it came out what its staff had been doing to children and women in the countries it was supposed to be helping. But maybe churning for donations on social media is a less harmful activity.
Weren't they, at the time in the face of lots of people cancelling their donations, lucky to get a large legacy from someones estate. I did a quick google and couldnt find it but I am sure they did.
They deserved to go the same way but it was the usual "lessons will be learned" stuff and a few heads rolled and here they are grifting for cash.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Don't blame Trump and the United States, blame European governments who didn't take defence seriously over the last 20 or 30 years. Matthew Syed wrote an excellent article about this in yesterday's Sunday Times.
"There is an absence of common sense in a lot of Whitehall, because people are afraid to trust themselves, and trust their judgement, follow principles and do the right thing."
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
Its interesting at the enquiry. Arguing against Whitehall checks and balances to expedite compensation payments to remedy a failed commercial IT system which appears to have lacked necessary checks and balances.
The compensation payments have been decided upon. The enquiries have proven the matter. The convictions are being quashed. All that remains is Aberfan style dickery.
On the subject of the poor benighted management who might feel hurt by this - I want to hurt their feelings. Really, really fucking badly.
This inquiry into what went wrong at the Post Office is part of the problem though. Amusing as it is to watch Kemi and other important people squirm, this is just more displacement activity. We know in broad terms what went wrong so forget the hunt for the guilty and just pay the compensation!
The one voting thing that genuinely is super tight atm - will Trump get 50% of the votes or not (including all candidates). That's down to an absolute knife edge. If you're interested, it's "Trump Vote Percentage 2" on Betfair. Also includes possibility of a fun argument with Betfair if you lay stuff, because the markets are 45.00-49.99 and 50.00-54.99 and 49.997 (for example) is perfectly possible (I think this *should* count on the 50.00 but it's arguable imo, unless anyone can see specific rules about that)
"There is an absence of common sense in a lot of Whitehall, because people are afraid to trust themselves, and trust their judgement, follow principles and do the right thing."
UPDATE THE ARCHBISHOP HASN’T RESIGNED, WAS GIVEN DUFF INFO
Indeed, I was somewhat surprised an atheist republican from a Muslim family had first hand access to the position of the Archbishop ahead of the BBC and other news networks
Now you say it, it is quite possible that @TheScreamingEagles will be appointed to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
@TheScreamingEagles what is your position on tea? How strong do you like it?
There is some very flashy clothing involved....
We know your interest in cricket. Where do you stand on steam trains, Fr Eagles?
(Moving in fairly clergy-heavy circles, it is striking how many are seriously into locomotives powered by gaseous H2O.)
Indeed. And What is your view on the Sacred Trinity?
The one voting thing that genuinely is super tight atm - will Trump get 50% of the votes or not (including all candidates). That's down to an absolute knife edge. If you're interested, it's "Trump Vote Percentage 2" on Betfair. Also includes possibility of a fun argument with Betfair if you lay stuff, because the markets are 45.00-49.99 and 50.00-54.99 and 49.997 (for example) is perfectly possible (I think this *should* count on the 50.00 but it's arguable imo, unless anyone can see specific rules about that)
I think definitely not. There are still several million votes to come from California, plus a fair number from Washington and Oregon.
I was just about to post this when I read your comment.
"Trump is down to 50.3%. Maybe he'll go below 50% in the next day or so."
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
The US has stationed troops in S Korea since the Panmunjom armistice in the 50s. It still has over 28,000 there.
To deter invasion from a country of similar size.
The comparison with Russia/Ukraine is absurd. Any "armistice" will not be "Korean style".
Its interesting at the enquiry. Arguing against Whitehall checks and balances to expedite compensation payments to remedy a failed commercial IT system which appears to have lacked necessary checks and balances.
The compensation payments have been decided upon. The enquiries have proven the matter. The convictions are being quashed. All that remains is Aberfan style dickery.
On the subject of the poor benighted management who might feel hurt by this - I want to hurt their feelings. Really, really fucking badly.
This inquiry into what went wrong at the Post Office is part of the problem though. Amusing as it is to watch Kemi and other important people squirm, this is just more displacement activity. We know in broad terms what went wrong so forget the hunt for the guilty and just pay the compensation!
No. First we pay the compensation.
Then we hunt down the guilty.
Crawl from the wreckage one more time Horrific memory twists the mind Dark, rutted, cold and hard to turn Path of destruction, feel and burn Still life, incarnation Still life, infamy Hallucination, heresy Still, you run, what's to come? What's to be?
'Cause we hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long Feel us breathe upon your face Feel us shift, every move we trace Hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long, yeah Luck runs out You crawl back in, but your luck runs out
The one voting thing that genuinely is super tight atm - will Trump get 50% of the votes or not (including all candidates). That's down to an absolute knife edge. If you're interested, it's "Trump Vote Percentage 2" on Betfair. Also includes possibility of a fun argument with Betfair if you lay stuff, because the markets are 45.00-49.99 and 50.00-54.99 and 49.997 (for example) is perfectly possible (I think this *should* count on the 50.00 but it's arguable imo, unless anyone can see specific rules about that)
And because there is no constitutional meaning to the aggregate popular vote, it is possible for states not to count all the votes, especially edge cases whose validity is only provisionally accepted, once the electoral college delegates have been chosen.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
Europe needs to put up the cash to buy American weapons at least for the next 12 months. If Trump says no and he's all about $$$ then he needs to explain why. That won't be easy for him. Putin is battered and bruised after nearly three years of war. He's struggling to go on much longer. Grandpa Joe refused to stick the knife in and it seems Trump might want to offer him a hand up.
If Trump refuses to sell weapons to Europe and removes sanctions on Russia we'll know where we are and that he can't be trusted. We'll have to recalibrate our alliances in turn.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
"There is an absence of common sense in a lot of Whitehall, because people are afraid to trust themselves, and trust their judgement, follow principles and do the right thing."
What has died is the cakeism where you can have something for nothing. Whether that was Lawson cutting taxes without doing too much harm to public services, or Brown increasing public spending without increasing tax that much, or Osborne doing a version of austerity that didn't hurt anyone important for quite a while.
To govern is to choose. Lawson said it, even if his choice was to treat family silver as recurring income. But now there is a choice that Labour has made- increase taxes to fund ongoing spending. The Conservatives have hinted at their direction- cut spending to reduce taxes. But until they spell out what that looks like in terms of things, not pounds, it's still a slogan not a choice.
The problem with your statement is that the Tories didn’t cut spending - they talked about cutting spending, pocketed the savings (by reducing taxes) but didn’t actually make the cuts.
The problem with the budget is that it made a bad situation worse by increasing spending by more than the increase in taxes. Given that the world is going to spin into considerable uncertainty and very possibly a recession because of Trump's stupidity that is not a good place to start.
But I agree that both major parties are both refusing to face the realities of dangerously high borrowing and a state that consumes an excessive quantity of the cake, the Tories almost as much as Labour. The fact that the State thinks it is acceptable to produce less and less for more and more is one of the major challenges for any government of any stripe going forward.
Well we are about to see in the US, what happens when there is a considerable actual reduction in state spending.
The difference between the US and UK though, is that the UK is much more efficient at getting the money spent to where it is needed. We may all have many examples of UK gov waste and inefficiency, but in the US it’s a lot worse.
I'd love to see a number for how much of the US Defence Budget goes on waste and corruption (=pork barrels such as "my local airbase").
Corruption which way round? From the Pentagon's point of view, spreading bases around makes it hard for Russia to knock them all out, and hard for politicians to cut spending. From the states' point of view, it means prestige and hidden government subsidy even to states that rail against Washington (see Michael Moore).
UPDATE THE ARCHBISHOP HASN’T RESIGNED, WAS GIVEN DUFF INFO
Indeed, I was somewhat surprised an atheist republican from a Muslim family had first hand access to the position of the Archbishop ahead of the BBC and other news networks
Now you say it, it is quite possible that @TheScreamingEagles will be appointed to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
@TheScreamingEagles what is your position on tea? How strong do you like it?
There is some very flashy clothing involved....
We know your interest in cricket. Where do you stand on steam trains, Fr Eagles?
(Moving in fairly clergy-heavy circles, it is striking how many are seriously into locomotives powered by gaseous H2O.)
Indeed. And What is your view on the Sacred Trinity?
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
The thing I don't get is that Justin Welby will be retiring in January 2026 anyway.
So I'm not sure what the +Newcastle is playing at because it feels like schoolyard politics
Just letting Welby walk away into retirement as if nothing happened would be to condone his failings and send entirely the wrong message about how the Church is supposed to treat accusations and those who fail to act upon them. Welby is accused not only of a cover up but of lying about what he knew. He should not be allowed to just walk away.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
There are lots of things going on though, like advances in technology, and instability in NATO. There are many scenarios. Propoganda / psychological warfare, of which the Russians are brilliant at, could make the western powers lose the resolve to defend themselves. The Russian state can also invent narratives to explain defeat or abandonment of the conflict, already it has the narrative that it is single handedly fighting NATO; something that has a lot of traction outside of the west. So it just may not work out the way we expect it will based on past experience.
The real problem I have with what a lot of people are saying is that if the 'strategic goal' is to inflict a defeat on Russia, why hasn't it happened to date? The western countries apparently have the means to do it but they don't. So if you aren't going to do that, then just get on with doing something else, why do 4 more years of the same non strategy? This is why I think Trump is an opportunity rather than the threat assumed by others.
Klopp was right, the referees were biased against him and Liverpool. #CorruptAsFuck.
The Premier League referee David Coote has been accused of calling Jürgen Klopp a “German c*nt” and Liverpool “shit” after video footage emerged apparently showing the official explaining his disdain for the former manager.
According to the clip that surfaced on social media on Monday, Coote claimed that Klopp was “arrogant” and accused him of lying after a match between Liverpool and Burnley during Project Restart in 2020. Coote took charge of Liverpool’s 2-0 win against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Professional Game Match Officials Ltd is aware of a video circulating on social media and is investigating.
Mattel apologises after Wicked movie dolls mistakenly link to pornography website on packaging
The toy company Mattel says it is taking “immediate action” after mistakenly printing a pornographic website address on the packaging for dolls released to tie in with the upcoming Wicked film.
Over the weekend, individuals began sharing photos online of the dolls’ packaging, which showed a link to wicked.com, instead of wickedmovie.com. The address was printed on boxes for Glinda and Elphaba dolls, the main characters in Wicked, played in the film adaptation by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo respectively.
Mattel released a statement on Sunday addressing the error.
“Mattel was made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls, primarily sold in the US, which intended to direct consumers to the official WickedMovie.com landing page,” the statement read.
“We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children. Consumers who already have the product are advised to discard the product packaging or obscure the link and may contact Mattel customer service for further information.”
The thing I don't get is that Justin Welby will be retiring in January 2026 anyway.
So I'm not sure what the +Newcastle is playing at because it feels like schoolyard politics
Just letting Welby walk away into retirement as if nothing happened would be to condone his failings and send entirely the wrong message about how the Church is supposed to treat accusations and those who fail to act upon them. Welby is accused not only of a cover up but of lying about what he knew. He should not be allowed to just walk away.
Did he and Paula Vennells study at the same seminary?
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
There are lots of things going on though, like advances in technology, and instability in NATO. There are many scenarios. Propoganda / psychological warfare, of which the Russians are brilliant at, could make the western powers lose the resolve to defend themselves. The Russian state can also invent narratives to explain defeat or abandonment of the conflict, already it has the narrative that it is single handedly fighting NATO; something that has a lot of traction outside of the west. So it just may not work out the way we expect it will based on past experience.
The real problem I have with what a lot of people are saying is that if the 'strategic goal' is to inflict a defeat on Russia, why hasn't it happened to date? The western countries apparently have the means to do it but they don't. So if you aren't going to do that, then just get on with doing something else, why do 4 more years of the same non strategy? This is why I think Trump is an opportunity rather than the threat assumed by others.
It was Putin who invaded Ukraine, a nation not even in NATO, he will continue to face the consequences of his action
The thing I don't get is that Justin Welby will be retiring in January 2026 anyway.
So I'm not sure what the +Newcastle is playing at because it feels like schoolyard politics
Just letting Welby walk away into retirement as if nothing happened would be to condone his failings and send entirely the wrong message about how the Church is supposed to treat accusations and those who fail to act upon them. Welby is accused not only of a cover up but of lying about what he knew. He should not be allowed to just walk away.
"It's too late to matter, at this point"
"Recriminations are not in the public interest"
"Everyone is deeply sorry, and lesson will be learned."
The one voting thing that genuinely is super tight atm - will Trump get 50% of the votes or not (including all candidates). That's down to an absolute knife edge. If you're interested, it's "Trump Vote Percentage 2" on Betfair. Also includes possibility of a fun argument with Betfair if you lay stuff, because the markets are 45.00-49.99 and 50.00-54.99 and 49.997 (for example) is perfectly possible (I think this *should* count on the 50.00 but it's arguable imo, unless anyone can see specific rules about that)
I think definitely not. There are still several million votes to come from California, plus a fair number from Washington and Oregon.
I was just about to post this when I read your comment.
"Trump is down to 50.3%. Maybe he'll go below 50% in the next day or so."
Disclosure - I've backed that he won't make 50% at odds between 2.7 and 2.8. But that market is still having >50% is making me nervous of something I've missed. Or indeed the 49.996% thing!
BTW subject to above caveats, there is plenty more liquidity in that market than the market depth seems to suggest so if anyone wants to agree with Andy and I's view, now is time to go for it!
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
And who should be forced to be part of a country they don't want to be part of?
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Ukraine has occupied much of the Kursk area - why should they give it up?
If the moral debate is handing territory and people over to one side so that they will be OK with peace, why does that not work the other way?
Mission Impossible: the Final Reckoning (formerly Dead Reckoning pt 2) trailer is out. It doesn't look too good, with a trailer packed with cliches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOhDyUmT9z0
Shrewd demonstration of willingness to mend bridges with Europe at a time of uncertainty, or crude over-reaction to Rishi's curtailed D Day attendance?
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
So instead of referring to Ukraine's 'eastern provinces', which Russia sees as *all* those provinces, you should perhaps refer to 'line of control' or 'occupied territories'.
Russia is the bad guy in this Nick. Putin is a fascist and imperialist, and he has insisted on the 'impossible' all along.
At least, it's impossible if you believe in democracy and self-determination. Hopefully you do.
Gladiator II review — are you not entertained? No, not really
Paul Mescal disappoints in this dreary, Marvel-esque sequel, which only ignites when Denzel Washington’s brilliant, bisexual slave manager is on screen
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
So instead of referring to Ukraine's 'eastern provinces', which Russia sees as *all* those provinces, you should perhaps refer to 'line of control' or 'occupied territories'.
Russia is the bad guy in this Nick. Putin is a fascist and imperialist, and he has insisted on the 'impossible' all along.
At least, it's impossible if you believe in democracy and self-determination. Hopefully you do.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Don't blame Trump and the United States, blame European governments who didn't take defence seriously over the last 20 or 30 years. Matthew Syed wrote an excellent article about this in yesterday's Sunday Times.
Thanks for telling me who to blame.
Did Syed managed to crowbar in some reference to him being the 819th best ping pong player in the world for 5 minutes? I’m as likely to take you as an authority on the matter as him.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
So instead of referring to Ukraine's 'eastern provinces', which Russia sees as *all* those provinces, you should perhaps refer to 'line of control' or 'occupied territories'.
Russia is the bad guy in this Nick. Putin is a fascist and imperialist, and he has insisted on the 'impossible' all along.
At least, it's impossible if you believe in democracy and self-determination. Hopefully you do.
There are different kinds of deal. A ceasefire with no sovereign transfer of territory is quite different to a land for peace agreement. Removing sanctions will help Putin rebuild his economy, keeping them will not. Zelensky talks of a just peace, there can also be a bad peace across a whole spectrum. Let's at least be in the strongest position possible.
It is worth reflecting that a significant reason why Russia has so much support outside the west is rooted in frustration with the invasion of Iraq in 2003; an action that had particularly poor disregard for the 'rules based international order', a massive human tragedy with enormous loss of life. In a lot of ways this situation in Ukraine is a delayed consequence of that.
For the past 20+ years I have every year bought a (red, leather) Economist Pocket Diary which today would set me back $£59 (+ engraving).
That's sixty quid for something undoubtedly I use but not half as much as I used to, what with all the digital bits & bobs around to record stuff on.
Do I go ahead for the sake of tradition or do I buy a £8.99 one from Smiths.
Reminds me a bit of the Times Guide to the House of Commons. Used to be £30, £40, £50, now it's around £70 which means it isn't worth buying it first-hand. Might get it second hand in a couple of years' time.
The thing I don't get is that Justin Welby will be retiring in January 2026 anyway.
So I'm not sure what the +Newcastle is playing at because it feels like schoolyard politics
Just letting Welby walk away into retirement as if nothing happened would be to condone his failings and send entirely the wrong message about how the Church is supposed to treat accusations and those who fail to act upon them. Welby is accused not only of a cover up but of lying about what he knew. He should not be allowed to just walk away.
"It's too late to matter, at this point"
"Recriminations are not in the public interest"
"Everyone is deeply sorry, and lesson will be learned."
NU10K
And, don't forget "I believe I'm the real victim, here."
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Ukraine has occupied much of the Kursk area - why should they give it up?
If the moral debate is handing territory and people over to one side so that they will be OK with peace, why does that not work the other way?
Occupied Ukraine territory is 120725 km^2 (20% of Ukraine give or take), occupied Russian territory is ~ 1200 km^2. The sensible solution would be to switch it back for similar territory. The Russian occupied bulge between Kharkiv and Belgorod looks like an obvious swap for some of the Kursk territory. That and Russia exiting the Kharkiv region (The bit around Synkivka) entirely looks broadly a wash.
It is worth reflecting that a significant reason why Russia has so much support outside the west is rooted in frustration with the invasion of Iraq in 2003; an action that had particularly poor disregard for the 'rules based international order', a massive human tragedy with enormous loss of life. In a lot of ways this situation in Ukraine is a delayed consequence of that.
Albeit Saddam would almost certainly be supporting Putin now
It is worth reflecting that a significant reason why Russia has so much support outside the west is rooted in frustration with the invasion of Iraq in 2003; an action that had particularly poor disregard for the 'rules based international order', a massive human tragedy with enormous loss of life. In a lot of ways this situation in Ukraine is a delayed consequence of that.
For the past 20+ years I have every year bought a (red, leather) Economist Pocket Diary which today would set me back $£59 (+ engraving).
That's sixty quid for something undoubtedly I use but not half as much as I used to, what with all the digital bits & bobs around to record stuff on.
Do I go ahead for the sake of tradition or do I buy a £8.99 one from Smiths.
Reminds me a bit of the Times Guide to the House of Commons. Used to be £30, £40, £50, now it's around £70 which means it isn't worth buying it first-hand. Might get it second hand in a couple of years' time.
Though without the first hand market, the second hand one dies as well. Things like slightly out of date copies Crockfords Clerical Directory used to be both useful and a bargain second hand, but now they cost a fortune as well.
And it looks like Whitaker's Almanack didn't make it out of the pandemic. For all the information is available free and online, this makes me sad.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Ukraine have made efforts to negotiate a mutual end to attacks on civilian energy infrastructure. This could be seen as a confidence-building measure that could lead to wider negotiations over ending the conflict as a whole.
Russia has made very clear that it isn't interested.
All the commentary from the pro-negotiation aside is based on the premise that it is Ukraine and the West who are preventing negotiations from starting. But it isn't. Russia is still pushing its maximalist goals of seizing the entire Black Sea coast and the eastern provinces, including Kharkiv, with rump Ukraine not in NATO or the EU and disarming.
Given Russia's maximalist demands what do we do?
I agree that the Biden strategy of providing the least amount of support to prevent Ukrainian defeat, in the hope that Russia will voluntarily stop the war, has failed. We have the choice then between a total defeat for Ukraine, or providing more support in the hope of either a Ukrainian victory, or at least creating the pressure on Russia to start more realistic negotiations.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Ukraine have made efforts to negotiate a mutual end to attacks on civilian energy infrastructure. This could be seen as a confidence-building measure that could lead to wider negotiations over ending the conflict as a whole.
Russia has made very clear that it isn't interested.
All the commentary from the pro-negotiation aside is based on the premise that it is Ukraine and the West who are preventing negotiations from starting. But it isn't. Russia is still pushing its maximalist goals of seizing the entire Black Sea coast and the eastern provinces, including Kharkiv, with rump Ukraine not in NATO or the EU and disarming.
Given Russia's maximalist demands what do we do?
I agree that the Biden strategy of providing the least amount of support to prevent Ukrainian defeat, in the hope that Russia will voluntarily stop the war, has failed. We have the choice then between a total defeat for Ukraine, or providing more support in the hope of either a Ukrainian victory, or at least creating the pressure on Russia to start more realistic negotiations.
There's this idea that Russian aggression towards its neighbours is a given; and that resistance to Russia is a provocation.
Bloody hell, the mood music has gone sombre even more quickly than I expected.
Lord Dannatt: there is going to have to be some sort of a negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
Macron and Starmer have just jointly reiterated their support for Zelensky and Ukraine in Paris, together after the US they lead the strongest militaries in NATO.
Dannatt is not even a serving general now
If you think NATO will take on Russia without US full support than you have not taken on board the full implications of what has just happened
If NATO is not willing to contain Putin because the US has a more isolationist President then it is redundant and if Russian troops are in Warsaw, Talinn, Helsinki and Berlin by the end of the decade we have nobody to blame but ourselves
The problem is that what you are fearing could happen anyway even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine. No one knows. There are just too many variables/unknowns.
While I appreciate your point re variables and unknowns I seriously doubt Russia could then invade all those Nato countries if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia. Ukraine has inflicted huge damage on Russia's forces with only a fraction of the firepower and manpower of that list of Nato powers and you are actually talking about a scenario where Ukraine actually wins.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
Invasion isn't Russia's full aim.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
Which is where the Korean analogy rather breaks down. If the price of Western Ukraine being free to orient towards Europe is Crimea etc.. That sucks and all that, but there might be something to talk about with a very heavy heart. If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
AFAIK the Russians haven't been pressing to reincorporate Kyiv and Western Ukraine, where the population is overwhlemingly hostile - their claim is Crimea plus the eastern provinces. If they were offered that in return for giving the bulk of Ukraine a free hand to join NATO, it might be tempting, especially if linked to the dropping of the current punitive measures. I don't see any Russian attempt to take on a NATO member.
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
I have to ask again: by "eastern provinces", do you mean just the territory of them that Russia currently controls, or all of them, including territory (and people!) that are Ukrainian.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
I doubt if Kursk is up for grabs - the Ukrainian move there is tactical. Conversely I don't think that Ukraine should be expected to yield Ukrainian terrain that it's not already lost. But my main point is that these issues should be explored in negotiations, instead of simply assuming that each side will insist on something impossible. +
Ukraine have made efforts to negotiate a mutual end to attacks on civilian energy infrastructure. This could be seen as a confidence-building measure that could lead to wider negotiations over ending the conflict as a whole.
Russia has made very clear that it isn't interested.
All the commentary from the pro-negotiation aside is based on the premise that it is Ukraine and the West who are preventing negotiations from starting. But it isn't. Russia is still pushing its maximalist goals of seizing the entire Black Sea coast and the eastern provinces, including Kharkiv, with rump Ukraine not in NATO or the EU and disarming.
Given Russia's maximalist demands what do we do?
I agree that the Biden strategy of providing the least amount of support to prevent Ukrainian defeat, in the hope that Russia will voluntarily stop the war, has failed. We have the choice then between a total defeat for Ukraine, or providing more support in the hope of either a Ukrainian victory, or at least creating the pressure on Russia to start more realistic negotiations.
Comments
@The_Fence_Mag
Before she became an MP, Kemi Badenoch worked as digital director at the Spectator from 2015-16. She did not endear herself to her colleagues."
https://x.com/The_Fence_Mag/status/1549399368146591745
Wasn't the public sector supposed to be shielded?
"...I’ve watched with growing concern as the Democratic Party has increasingly replaced the art of listening to and polling voters with an almost religious devotion to data analytics. This approach combines voter file data, consumer databases, short surveys, social media insights and information from canvassing and events to create detailed profiles and models of potential voters. While this can certainly aid in deciding where and how to spend campaign money and resources, it often results in outreach that feels to voters like inauthentic, overly tailored messaging that lacks genuine connection or depth..."
During the RSS conference I recommended a book ("Escape From Model Land") which points out the problems that trip you up when you treat models as fact. We need to take a step back from relying on them as gospel and remember that statistics is done in the streets, not at the desk
(narrator. Viewcode is ranting again. Oh, Gallego is widening his lead with 92/3% reporting. Yum)
I recall my father inviting for diner senior medical consultants (my father was involved in the moral and ethical philosophy side of this and QALYS) who were utterly sure that senior medics making guesses was the only way to make medical decisions.
IIRC Thatcher put her bulldozer behind a bunch of that stuff..
In Britain the government gave huge wads of cash to the energy companies so that the amount charged to customers was lower than it otherwise would have been. The net effect was very similar (albeit the British support I think reduced the unit rate, and so would have given most money to the heaviest users, while the Irish method allowed unit rates to be set by the market and so left the incentive to reduce energy usage) but the Irish method was much more visible and may well win more votes.
https://bishopspalace.org.uk/#:~:text=The Bishop's Palace & Gardens in,open for all to enjoy.
Sadly, tea drinking is mandatory for the role.
A political consensus on that could be valuable.
Saying there "must be a negotiated settlement" is kinda meaningless. What matters is the context under which negotiations take place. If they take place now, in the context of the US withdrawing all support and Europe unwilling to make up the difference, then the context is one of Western weakness implying major Ukrainian concessions.
Other contexts for negotiation are available should we choose to create them.
If Ukraine wins then Russia will be completely broken. I would be amazed if there aren't subsequent uprisings in Belarus and other places for Russia to deal with let alone worrying about Nato.
I would have liked to see some comments from a Lib Dem or two on how they reckon Reform are doing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024vyr
So I'm not sure what the +Newcastle is playing at because it feels like schoolyard politics
Gladiator II review — are you not entertained? No, not really
Paul Mescal disappoints in this dreary, Marvel-esque sequel, which only ignites when Denzel Washington’s brilliant, bisexual slave manager is on screen
https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/gladiator-2-review-paul-mescal-gpnp9w08c
"There is an absence of common sense in a lot of Whitehall, because people are afraid to trust themselves, and trust their judgement, follow principles and do the right thing."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdBxkEXV4n0
3:22:08
They deserved to go the same way but it was the usual "lessons will be learned" stuff and a few heads rolled and here they are grifting for cash.
Russia has two ways of gaining 'control' over a territory. Its first is political: to get into place a leadership, and preferably population, that is to a large degree pro-Russian, and which will do Putin's bidding. New media is a very handy weapon in its arsenal. Putin has been successful in places like Belarus and Hungary.
When that fails, Putin considers limited invasions. Georgia in 2008; Ukraine in 2014. Some argue that Ukraine in 2022 was not an attempt to take over the whole country directly (aside from the eastern territories); it was an attempt to defenestrate the pro-western leadership and install a proxy pro-Russian government.
If the price of an end to the war is division and Western Ukraine being a Russian satellite... That's rather different and much harder to swallow.
No, I don't have a good answer.
Hartley is just stating the inevitable and Welby's resignation will follow in due course
ie Voluntary scapegoat.
The District Hospital taking measures to make sure that people with poor eyesight can find the poor eyesight clinic. It's nearly 2m high.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/sixth-form-college-teachers-back-strike-action-in-pay-dispute/ar-AA1tSICE?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=16bd22c58ef947c29912a777d53815f0&ei=10
I was just about to post this when I read your comment.
"Trump is down to 50.3%. Maybe he'll go below 50% in the next day or so."
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election-data-id=2024-PG&election-painting-mode=projection-with-lead&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false&filter-remaining=false
To deter invasion from a country of similar size.
The comparison with Russia/Ukraine is absurd. Any "armistice" will not be "Korean style".
Then we hunt down the guilty.
Crawl from the wreckage one more time
Horrific memory twists the mind
Dark, rutted, cold and hard to turn
Path of destruction, feel and burn
Still life, incarnation
Still life, infamy
Hallucination, heresy
Still, you run, what's to come? What's to be?
'Cause we hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Feel us breathe upon your face
Feel us shift, every move we trace
Hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long, yeah
Luck runs out
You crawl back in, but your luck runs out
If Trump refuses to sell weapons to Europe and removes sanctions on Russia we'll know where we are and that he can't be trusted. We'll have to recalibrate our alliances in turn.
Fail it, and you should have opted for the Low Vision Clinic instead...
But what's needed is some negotiations. We're all speculating and it's not clear if a viable deal is possible.
And what about Kursk? Does Ukraine get to keep that territory?
It'd be good if you'd answer that, as it might make what seems to be a reasonable proposition on your part rather more pro-Russian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/10/donald-trump-the-left-social-media-rightwing-propaganda-progressives-woke
The real problem I have with what a lot of people are saying is that if the 'strategic goal' is to inflict a defeat on Russia, why hasn't it happened to date? The western countries apparently have the means to do it but they don't. So if you aren't going to do that, then just get on with doing something else, why do 4 more years of the same non strategy? This is why I think Trump is an opportunity rather than the threat assumed by others.
The Premier League referee David Coote has been accused of calling Jürgen Klopp a “German c*nt” and Liverpool “shit” after video footage emerged apparently showing the official explaining his disdain for the former manager.
According to the clip that surfaced on social media on Monday, Coote claimed that Klopp was “arrogant” and accused him of lying after a match between Liverpool and Burnley during Project Restart in 2020. Coote took charge of Liverpool’s 2-0 win against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Professional Game Match Officials Ltd is aware of a video circulating on social media and is investigating.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/nov/11/referee-david-coote-video-jurgen-klopp-liverpool-pgmol-premier-league
"Recriminations are not in the public interest"
"Everyone is deeply sorry, and lesson will be learned."
NU10K
BTW subject to above caveats, there is plenty more liquidity in that market than the market depth seems to suggest so if anyone wants to agree with Andy and I's view, now is time to go for it!
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html
If the moral debate is handing territory and people over to one side so that they will be OK with peace, why does that not work the other way?
For the past 20+ years I have every year bought a (red, leather) Economist Pocket Diary which today would set me back $£59 (+ engraving).
That's sixty quid for something undoubtedly I use but not half as much as I used to, what with all the digital bits & bobs around to record stuff on.
Do I go ahead for the sake of tradition or do I buy a £8.99 one from Smiths.
Edit - I see I was not first to spot this. Need an eye check
Shrewd demonstration of willingness to mend bridges with Europe at a time of uncertainty, or crude over-reaction to Rishi's curtailed D Day attendance?
I'd love to know who first suggested it.
Russia is the bad guy in this Nick. Putin is a fascist and imperialist, and he has insisted on the 'impossible' all along.
At least, it's impossible if you believe in democracy and self-determination. Hopefully you do.
Jeremy Jahns: good time, no alcohol required: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs3iTFrhjm4
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diary-Pocket-Small-Metal-Black/dp/B07V6YRN24/
Might not last the year, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_temporary_administrative_agencies_in_occupied_Ukraine
Did Syed managed to crowbar in some reference to him being the 819th best ping pong player in the world for 5 minutes? I’m as likely to take you as an authority on the matter as him.
https://x.com/rnaudbertrand/status/1855804917103124893
And it looks like Whitaker's Almanack didn't make it out of the pandemic. For all the information is available free and online, this makes me sad.
Russia has made very clear that it isn't interested.
All the commentary from the pro-negotiation aside is based on the premise that it is Ukraine and the West who are preventing negotiations from starting. But it isn't. Russia is still pushing its maximalist goals of seizing the entire Black Sea coast and the eastern provinces, including Kharkiv, with rump Ukraine not in NATO or the EU and disarming.
Given Russia's maximalist demands what do we do?
I agree that the Biden strategy of providing the least amount of support to prevent Ukrainian defeat, in the hope that Russia will voluntarily stop the war, has failed. We have the choice then between a total defeat for Ukraine, or providing more support in the hope of either a Ukrainian victory, or at least creating the pressure on Russia to start more realistic negotiations.
IFES U.S. Election Program 2024 Keynote Address: Anne Applebaum "Turning the Tide to Democracy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa2IpQJ7Goc (13 mins)
Gladiator II review – Paul Mescal slays in Ridley Scott’s gobsmacking reboot
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/nov/11/gladiator-2-review-paul-mescal-ridley-scott
Proper bombs for a proper war.