A few Labour controlled councils, Tamworth and Wirral, have joined Tory and Reform controlled councils in seeking legal challenges against hotels housing asylum seekers, following Tory controlled EFDC's successful injunction this week.
Pity the Tories screwed up the apprenticeship system - decades ago, admittedly, but still. My father, who had professional involvement, was not happy about it at the time.
But a sinner that repenteth, and all that.
If you think the Tories screwed up the apprenticeship system, then the SNP completely blew it up in Scotland to the detriment of so many young people including those with disabilities or special needs.
It was the Tories that did the major damage to industry generally where apprenticeships were concerned.
Been looking at the news item which must have prompted this (there is hardly anything in the news on the theme). It's a Slab MSP's SNP BAD SNP HAS FAILED opinion piece in the DR. But looking elsewhere the apprenticeships stats seem to be holding up. Not a collapse at all, though a small drop over the years, even using his selected startying point.
If it is London Tories or labour bumping their gums then you can be certain they are lying, the craven Scottish branch members are even worse than the London toadies, subservient reptiles of the lowest order.
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
Excellent. This sort of post is amongst the nicest and most cheerful-making on PB (as are the A-level, university and - of course - apprenticeships results).
Changes from 13th August [Find Out Now, 20th August, N=2,615]
Good morning
Astonishing poll with Reform 15% ahead of labour who are 1% ahead of the conservatives
If it is to be believed, the populace simply have had enough of all the parties and Reform represents NOA
I have no idea how UKPLC is governable
The "governable" bit is easy - if a party has a majority in the Commons it can govern. Mid term poll ratings don't (or shouldn't) make any difference.
It's a poor poll for Labour AND the Conservatives - 35% for the old duopoly is probably an all time low.
Reform, as you say, continue to ride the tiger of disillusionment and are currently all things to all people (much as the Alliance was in its early days). Farage currently doesn't need to have the answers (he just has to say he does) but as we approach the election, it will be reasonable for us to ask the searching questions about what a Reform Government would do if it still looks a possibility.
I have to say I am a little cynical of the idea that the scales will fall from people’s eyes once they start properly “scrutinising” Reform before a GE.
People are so fed up that I wonder how much they’ll really think twice. We often thought American voters would think twice before electing you-know-who, and that simply wasn’t borne out.
I’m not saying it won’t happen - I’m just saying it feels to me very uncertain that this will make much difference.
“Something that goes totally underdiscussed in the very bizarre story of the United Kingdom is its completely fucked financial situation. I struggle to think of a western nation with such a disastrous set of fiscal issues.”
Simple and disturbing thread on the YooKay’s fiscal fucked-ness
Leaving aside the insanity of his sig[1], here is a substack from the same author that seems to cover the same points you make, only with links and sources
[1] "Mr. S.T.A.R. @youngtroon Prof @ BBU, PhD Wumbology from the University of Rock Bottom, Bikini Bottom City Councillor for Jellyfish Fields". Dude be weird.
I linked to this earlier, you ninny
Your profile is private so there's no way for me to easily see your past posts.
Well, I've just Baxtered the Find Out Now numbers and Reform will have an even bigger majority than Labour currently enjoys.
The map makes fascinating reading - apparently Reform would win East Ham from fifth place and 3.5% of the vote.
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Find Out now are also the pollster with whom Reform scores highest. (they have scored 34% on a couple of occasions). With YouGov, however, Reform have never polled above 30%.
"Target CEO steps down as company faces weak sales and customer boycott Brian Cornell to be replaced next year as retailer navigates boycott over its scaling back of DEI initiatives"
Er, wasn't Target's problem that it stopped being Woke? Conservatives had long abandoned the brand but it was still successful, then rolling back all the DEI stuff caused Liberals to stop shopping there too. Alienating both sides isn't a good business strategy.
I guess this shows how politically divided the States is. It doesn't generally occur to me to look at suppliers' HR policies or the political views of their executives when deciding where to shop. (Although I did boycott Marathon for a while in 2022 as it continued to trade with Russia)
I know people who refuse to drink at Wetherspoons though, due to Tim Martin's politicak views, and how he allegedly treated staff during Covid (which in fact was as well as any hospitality employer). I keep telling them that the Chairman of Greene King or Stonegate are likely to have right-wing political views too but for some reason that doesn't interest them
A few Labour controlled councils, Tamworth and Wirral, have joined Tory and Reform controlled councils in seeking legal challenges against hotels housing asylum seekers, following Tory controlled EFDC's successful injunction this week.
Pity the Tories screwed up the apprenticeship system - decades ago, admittedly, but still. My father, who had professional involvement, was not happy about it at the time.
But a sinner that repenteth, and all that.
The biggest advocates of the ending of apprenticeships were the Trade Unions. Who regarded them as cut price indentured servitude.
Which they often were, back in the day.
Depends in what. Taz (perhaps) and I tend to think in terms of skilled stuff such as engineering. But in any case the employers didn't want to pay the cvosts in case the trainee moved on. That was why they had the levy and that was what the Tories dismantled.
Yes mine was mechanical and production engineering. Also have to say the unions, back then, were most supportive of the apprenticeships in Lucas. They opposed YTS’s as it was a govt funded scheme that may not lead to employment
Changes from 13th August [Find Out Now, 20th August, N=2,615]
Labour plus LDs plus Greens on 40% combined though, 7% more than Reform's 33%, so Labour MPs and Tory MPs in marginal seats will clearly hope for tactical voting from them to keep out Reform
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Target CEO steps down as company faces weak sales and customer boycott Brian Cornell to be replaced next year as retailer navigates boycott over its scaling back of DEI initiatives"
Er, wasn't Target's problem that it stopped being Woke? Conservatives had long abandoned the brand but it was still successful, then rolling back all the DEI stuff caused Liberals to stop shopping there too. Alienating both sides isn't a good business strategy.
The CEO can have a few Bud Light to drown their sorrows
Best not have too many if planning to drive off in their pink Jag concept car.
Though I note that joining in on the other side of the culture wars hasn't done Tesla any favours. Best tactics for CEOs and marketing is a low profile on these things.
Indeed. I see those halfwits from ‘Best for Britain’ are organising a mail in campaign opposing Tesla getting further involved in our electrical grid
If supporting liberal democracy is important to you… As they say, the clue is in the name.
Yes, and LDs are strong on internationalism. I wonder what the Greens think.
From my comrades in the party, I'd say opposed, possibly more than the Fukkers. Largely driven by an instinctive revulsion toward imperialism and a probably well founded concern that it'll turn into an incompetently managed bloodbath that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose of record.
You'd think they'd want to do something to oppose that SMO, then.
No no, not THAT imperialism.
Literally the only imperialist nation anxious to send their troops into Ukraine is Russia. Oh, and N Korea, if they count (Joseon did after all style itself as an empire).
The includes the modern "imperialists" of the US, and the old style European imperialists - the UK; France; Germany and even Poland.
Dura's comment is either his usual high grade satire, or delusional. Genuinely hard to distinguish.
Interesting, according to the latest poll in Germany, Green party voters are the only ones who support German peacekeeping troops in Ukraine (53% vs 31%). Overall the majority are against (56% vs 28%). Though this is a poll conducted for dodgy 'news' outlet NiUS. They claim it was done by genuine pollsters INSA, but I can't find any details.
Of course the German Green party isn't very similar to the UK Green parties.
Germany has Linke for starters
For sure the Green Party has lost many of its traditional more pacifist-ish voters to the Left with its stance of being the strongest supporter of supplying arms to Ukraine of all the German parties.
I note that Germany seems not to have supplied Taurus missiles to Ukraine (which the Green Party supports) despite the promises made by Merz before the election.
The SPD defence minister has said Patriot missiles will be brought from the US instead
“Something that goes totally underdiscussed in the very bizarre story of the United Kingdom is its completely fucked financial situation. I struggle to think of a western nation with such a disastrous set of fiscal issues.”
Simple and disturbing thread on the YooKay’s fiscal fucked-ness
Leaving aside the insanity of his sig[1], here is a substack from the same author that seems to cover the same points you make, only with links and sources
[1] "Mr. S.T.A.R. @youngtroon Prof @ BBU, PhD Wumbology from the University of Rock Bottom, Bikini Bottom City Councillor for Jellyfish Fields". Dude be weird.
I linked to this earlier, you ninny
Your profile is private so there's no way for me to easily see your past posts.
It’s on this thread right after I posted the tweet
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Well, I've just Baxtered the Find Out Now numbers and Reform will have an even bigger majority than Labour currently enjoys.
The map makes fascinating reading - apparently Reform would win East Ham from fifth place and 3.5% of the vote.
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Find Out now are also the pollster with whom Reform scores highest. (they have scored 34% on a couple of occasions). With YouGov, however, Reform have never polled above 30%.
And we should remember Labour had a 30 point lead with YG 2 weeks before the last election was called and an average lead of over 20 points. Poll records are fun but we are not in Kansas. The registration of heavy discontent should be landing with the duopoly loud and clear
If supporting liberal democracy is important to you… As they say, the clue is in the name.
Yes, and LDs are strong on internationalism. I wonder what the Greens think.
From my comrades in the party, I'd say opposed, possibly more than the Fukkers. Largely driven by an instinctive revulsion toward imperialism and a probably well founded concern that it'll turn into an incompetently managed bloodbath that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose of record.
You'd think they'd want to do something to oppose that SMO, then.
No no, not THAT imperialism.
Literally the only imperialist nation anxious to send their troops into Ukraine is Russia. Oh, and N Korea, if they count (Joseon did after all style itself as an empire).
The includes the modern "imperialists" of the US, and the old style European imperialists - the UK; France; Germany and even Poland.
Dura's comment is either his usual high grade satire, or delusional. Genuinely hard to distinguish.
Interesting, according to the latest poll in Germany, Green party voters are the only ones who support German peacekeeping troops in Ukraine (53% vs 31%). Overall the majority are against (56% vs 28%). Though this is a poll conducted for dodgy 'news' outlet NiUS. They claim it was done by genuine pollsters INSA, but I can't find any details.
Of course the German Green party isn't very similar to the UK Green parties.
Germany has Linke for starters
For sure the Green Party has lost many of its traditional more pacifist-ish voters to the Left with its stance of being the strongest supporter of supplying arms to Ukraine of all the German parties.
I note that Germany seems not to have supplied Taurus missiles to Ukraine (which the Green Party supports) despite the promises made by Merz before the election.
The SPD defence minister has said Patriot missiles will be brought from the US instead
That's not exactly an "instead" although it's possible that Patriots should be the higher priority, especially now that Ukraine has Flamingo. Also not sure if they are getting a supply of Stormshadow/SCALP, they were supposed to no longer be in production but that might have changed
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
Reform's poll lead is now longer lived than the Alliance lead of 80/81 (Though Reform hasn't hit the polling heights the Alliance did).
Comparisons with Alliance are flawed. The dangers facing the UK now are much more serious than the late 1970s-early 80s
Yes the economic malaise is similar but now we have an absolutely poisonous migration crisis - we didn’t then - and all the associated culture wars. So Reform are fuelled by two kinds of voter - the impoverished and the angry
Politically it’s also entirely different. The Alliance had heavyweight mainstream politicians. Reform absolutely does not. But that’s because Reform are radicals promising major change and the Alliance offered more cuddly social democracy with a different brand
Finally, Reform have Farage. A proven election winner and brilliant campaigner. Alliance did not have that
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
At last some realism . You'd think after our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan all the armchair fighters on here would have a clue. The cause, a free and independent Ukraine is impossible not to support but watch the polling if any European/British troops are killed.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the [edit] RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
Usual Nimby story - but one interesting thing: an argument is that it will drive up future leccy charges locally. So some people are taking the idea of regional charging on the basis of supply vs consumptiopn seriously.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
The "front line" is over 1,000km long in the SMO.
You can see why SKS will do it though. UK bestrides the global stage. Nice distraction from whatever the fuck. It'll probably be popular until the 200s start. The deepthinkers at OF-8+ will desperately gaslighting him into thinking it's a fine idea.
These unfortunates have, it seems, only made a gain of £836,219 compared with what they paid.
Will discourage downsizing though
+1 even the pressure group PricedOut pointed out the massive flaw in the plan.
I don’t get the leaks unless someone in the Treasury really hates Reeves or Reeves is a complete idiot and the Treasury are leaking to stop the insanity.
But the problem is it’s being leaked (as with a lot of things) without the message of why are thru doing this - I.e. a truthful statement saying we need to cut things and or raise taxes - and in reality both.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
It would be easier if the largest army in the EU were willing to supply soldiers.
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
That's great, well done to her! My son also did well today, and plans to do maths and further maths, economics and politics. Although, with his eye on the main chance as ever, he is suggesting we should also reward him with cash... the boy will go far.
“Something that goes totally underdiscussed in the very bizarre story of the United Kingdom is its completely fucked financial situation. I struggle to think of a western nation with such a disastrous set of fiscal issues.”
Simple and disturbing thread on the YooKay’s fiscal fucked-ness
The thing about Victor Meldrew is the older you get the more you realise he’s correct
Not just one of the great comic creations, but one who is widely miss-characterised. Victor's problem was that he cared too much about everything. He gets angry about stuff because he cares. Take the classic litter in the sportscar ep - he sees an idiot emptying rubbish out of his car and just leaving it in the street. Takes revenge, but sadly has failed to spot that the car he litters is not the correct one...
All through the series its the fact that he cares that gets him into the scrapes.
Add in the touch of the surreal and you have genius. Thirty minutes of superb comedy.
In a way, a bit like Alf Garnett. Perhaps the hero for Reform? But in reality the comedy is at his expense.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
I think the reason that there was so little mutiny by British and Imperial troops compared to other combatants was because of the policy of troop rotations, so rarely spending more than 2 weeks at a time in the front line trenches, with regular breaks in the back areas, good food, sports and entertainments etc.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
It would be easier if the largest army in the EU were willing to supply soldiers.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Reform's poll lead is now longer lived than the Alliance lead of 80/81 (Though Reform hasn't hit the polling heights the Alliance did).
Problem for reform is that the next election is four years away. Just as Thatcher had turned the corner by 1982 and had the patriotic boost of slaughtering some Argentine conscripts, who knows what will happen betwixt now and then?
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
Featured quite heavily in The Monocled Mutineer I think. Wouldn’t mind seeing that again.
IIRC it was a replacement depot - exactly the sort of place where mutinies tend(ed) to happen. People being bullshitted around despite being experienced, away from their comrades, bullied by corrupt barrack stanchions, etc. etc. Cf, the Salerno MUtiny of 1943 where the Scots and Geordie soldiers were complaining about not being returned to their regiments but sent piecemeal elsewhere.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
It would be easier if the largest army in the EU were willing to supply soldiers.
Italy? Slightly mystified as to why it’s so big.
The size doesn't matter if they dont want a pizza the action.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
I think the reason that there was so little mutiny by British and Imperial troops compared to other combatants was because of the policy of troop rotations, so rarely spending more than 2 weeks at a time in the front line trenches, with regular breaks in the back areas, good food, sports and entertainments etc.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
Didn’t the western forces have significant problems with troops mutinying in 1917?
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
That's great, well done to her! My son also did well today, and plans to do maths and further maths, economics and politics. Although, with his eye on the main chance as ever, he is suggesting we should also reward him with cash... the boy will go far.
Definitely a thing. Maybe it's one of the new yoof culture memes on their social media networks.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
It would be easier if the largest army in the EU were willing to supply soldiers.
A Muslim friend of mine at school had a toasted sandwich maker in his room. I once took in a can of baked beans and sausage from home, along with some cheese. My friend gave me the sausages and some beans out of the can, and I made toasties out of that, whilst he just had beans and cheese.
I asked him if the beans had been tainted by the sausages, and he shrugged and said something like: "It's all we've got."
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
Its Poland which needs to step up.
Aside from being in its own interests Poland needs to learn the lesson from and make amends for 1938.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
I think the reason that there was so little mutiny by British and Imperial troops compared to other combatants was because of the policy of troop rotations, so rarely spending more than 2 weeks at a time in the front line trenches, with regular breaks in the back areas, good food, sports and entertainments etc.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
Didn’t the western forces have significant problems with troops mutinying in 1917?
French. The poilus had had enough of brainless and bloody-handed generals and just refused. Amazingly the Germans never found out and the markedly saner Petain had to take over and isntitute a somewhat less slaughterhousey approach - hence the respect in which he was held that ultimately led him to rule the Vichy state and a final prison.
Meanwhile the British and Dominion troops had to attack and hold the Germans, as I understand it.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
These unfortunates have, it seems, only made a gain of £836,219 compared with what they paid.
Will discourage downsizing though
+1 even the pressure group PricedOut pointed out the massive flaw in the plan.
I don’t get the leaks unless someone in the Treasury really hates Reeves or Reeves is a complete idiot and the Treasury are leaking to stop the insanity.
But the problem is it’s being leaked (as with a lot of things) without the message of why are thru doing this - I.e. a truthful statement saying we need to cut things and or raise taxes - and in reality both.
Presumably down to infighting going on in the Treasury over the autumn statement. Leaks from supporters / opponents (who knows which?) of two different property taxes is just the start.
The UK finances are in a very difficult position & realistically the Treasury needs to raise one of the big taxes - probably income tax - or cut sending. But the government promised not to impose a rise in any major tax at the election & so is extremely reluctant to do so, they can’t cut expenditure either thanks to a mutinous MP cohort who are delusional about the state of the UK finances & think there’s a pot of “rich people” gold at the end of the rainbow that will solve everything, if only they can get at it.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
We spent a billion to deport zero people to Rwanda, although four did go voluntarily, so a cost of £250m each. How much are those pontins chalets again?
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
The British (and Empire troops) never came close to a significant mutiny. The French mutinied after the Nivelle offensive. Nivelle believed he had worked out how to win (and to be fair the French performance on July 1st 1916 did indeed show the way, or at least part of it.) He promised a crushing victory in 48 hours and when it failed morale collapsed. Add in that by then 1 in 20 French men (of all ages) was dead by then (more than a million men) and you can see why.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
I think the reason that there was so little mutiny by British and Imperial troops compared to other combatants was because of the policy of troop rotations, so rarely spending more than 2 weeks at a time in the front line trenches, with regular breaks in the back areas, good food, sports and entertainments etc.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
Didn’t the western forces have significant problems with troops mutinying in 1917?
The French, yes. The British and Empire armies, no.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
There was a British Army mutiny in 1917, but more about conditions than refusing to fight.
And of course the final German collapse in 1918 was partly caused/mediated by the IMperial Navy's seamen not being keen to salve their officers' self-perceived honour by a final and suicidal battle with the middle of the RN Grand Fleet. But bad treatment was part of it as well.
I think the reason that there was so little mutiny by British and Imperial troops compared to other combatants was because of the policy of troop rotations, so rarely spending more than 2 weeks at a time in the front line trenches, with regular breaks in the back areas, good food, sports and entertainments etc.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
Didn’t the western forces have significant problems with troops mutinying in 1917?
French. The poilus had had enough of brainless and bloody-handed generals and just refused. Amazingly the Germans never found out and the markedly saner Petain had to take over and isntitute a somewhat less slaughterhousey approach - hence the respect in which he was held that ultimately led him to rule the Vichy state and a final prison.
Meanwhile the British and Dominion troops had to attack and hold the Germans, as I understand it.
The pressure on Haig to do something to relieve both Verdun in 1916 and the mutinies in 1917 was certainly there. I also think the mutinies can be overplayed - most of the French troops would have held the line and fought against a German attack - they were against more attacks themselves (not without reason).
Paywalled so I can't check the DT piece, but there are quotes from it on the net, to the effect that Ms Oakeshott herself [edit] refers to the bacon-mentioning as 'if true', ie. something that might or might not have happened. Maybe someone could check the DT piece?
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
Its Poland which needs to step up.
Aside from being in its own interests Poland needs to learn the lesson from and make amends for 1938.
Poland is sufficiently close to Russia that they want the troops in Poland protecting Poland.
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
That's great, well done to her! My son also did well today, and plans to do maths and further maths, economics and politics. Although, with his eye on the main chance as ever, he is suggesting we should also reward him with cash... the boy will go far.
Definitely a thing. Maybe it's one of the new yoof culture memes on their social media networks.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Deliberate incompetence worked in raising asylum as an issue, and had helped deliver previous electoral success. What they didn't understand was that eventually voters wanted it fixed, not just to read about it in the papers. Hence the shift to the Refukkers.
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
That's great, well done to her! My son also did well today, and plans to do maths and further maths, economics and politics. Although, with his eye on the main chance as ever, he is suggesting we should also reward him with cash... the boy will go far.
Definitely a thing. Maybe it's one of the new yoof culture memes on their social media networks.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Missing the point entirely.
The Rwanda plan could have worked, it worked in Australia where it was done.
The numbers though would have to, and could, change.
Trialling a new policy the numbers are generally low. Labor's Rudd in Australia changed their Rwanda equivalent from low numbers to everyone once the policy was operational.
The biggest hurdle is on our side, not their side, that we via our courts etc don't want to send people. Rwanda will take as many as we pay them for, and initially there's no point paying for more than small numbers but if we can sort out our side, that can change.
Never judge a policy based on trial numbers. Object to its ethics, sure, but it could and has worked elsewhere.
A Muslim friend of mine at school had a toasted sandwich maker in his room. I once took in a can of baked beans and sausage from home, along with some cheese. My friend gave me the sausages and some beans out of the can, and I made toasties out of that, whilst he just had beans and cheese.
I asked him if the beans had been tainted by the sausages, and he shrugged and said something like: "It's all we've got."
A friend's husband came over from Pakistan as a naive young lad to Glasgow. He was in a boarding house with breakfast provided. The landlady served bacon for breaktfast. "Is this pork?" he asked, having not encountered bacon before. The landlady replied that, no, it was bacon. Being a polite boy who knew you should accept hospitality, he accepted the offered bacon. A week of bacon passed before he discovered the sad truth, from which point he declined the bacon. He acted with good intention, so Allah forgives.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
The British (and Empire troops) never came close to a significant mutiny. The French mutinied after the Nivelle offensive. Nivelle believed he had worked out how to win (and to be fair the French performance on July 1st 1916 did indeed show the way, or at least part of it.) He promised a crushing victory in 48 hours and when it failed morale collapsed. Add in that by then 1 in 20 French men (of all ages) was dead by then (more than a million men) and you can see why.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
That's rather what I thought. I've a copy of a WWI diary, that of my wife's grandfather, and while he reports conditions as being bad at times he didn't record anything to suggest he wouldn't, or couldn't go on. And he was in NE France and Belgium and if not always in the front line, close to it. One of my uncles served in both wars and while he had one or two unpleasant tales a) he volunteered for WWII and b) encouraged, so far as I can tell, his son to join the Services. Which didn't turn out well, as the son was killed in an air crash off Malta.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
The British (and Empire troops) never came close to a significant mutiny. The French mutinied after the Nivelle offensive. Nivelle believed he had worked out how to win (and to be fair the French performance on July 1st 1916 did indeed show the way, or at least part of it.) He promised a crushing victory in 48 hours and when it failed morale collapsed. Add in that by then 1 in 20 French men (of all ages) was dead by then (more than a million men) and you can see why.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
Owen, Rosenberg and Gurney (among others) weren’t posh. I’m sure as in every war there were some who enjoyed it and others who hated it but were proud to have done their bit. However I don’t think it would have become a semi religious act of remembrance (unfortunately now turned into a fetish) if the war hadn’t represented a psychic scar on a generation, or several generations if you count parents and children.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Missing the point entirely.
The Rwanda plan could have worked, it worked in Australia where it was done.
The numbers though would have to, and could, change.
Trialling a new policy the numbers are generally low. Labor's Rudd in Australia changed their Rwanda equivalent from low numbers to everyone once the policy was operational.
The biggest hurdle is on our side, not their side, that we via our courts etc don't want to send people. Rwanda will take as many as we pay them for, and initially there's no point paying for more than small numbers but if we can sort out our side, that can change.
Never judge a policy based on trial numbers. Object to its ethics, sure, but it could and has worked elsewhere.
Then it is up to the government of the day to change the law in advance of spending a billion quid on a doomed trial!
Thing One got her GCSE results, and they're more than enough to do maths, further maths, physics and French A Levels where she wants to do them.
This is good.
That's great, well done to her! My son also did well today, and plans to do maths and further maths, economics and politics. Although, with his eye on the main chance as ever, he is suggesting we should also reward him with cash... the boy will go far.
Definitely a thing. Maybe it's one of the new yoof culture memes on their social media networks.
A couple of years of free board and lodging to support further study seems a good reward for decent GCSE grades. That's what I got. The cash equivalent value is quite high!
ETA: One thing that hadn't occurred to me (colleague with about to go to uni daughter mentoned it) is that students are posting on social media as soon as they know which hall at which uni will be their accommodation, forming groups for those halls and checking out their flatmates before arrival. That seems a bit sad as it probably closes some of the open mindedness of arriving at start of term to find out who your flatmates are and taking them as they are with no knowledge of their history, likes, friends, background etc.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Paywalled so I can't check the DT piece, but there are quotes from it on the net, to the effect that Ms Oakeshott herself [edit] refers to the bacon-mentioning as 'if true', ie. something that might or might not have happened. Maybe someone could check the DT piece?
Ah - found a way in. She said:
'The man was part of a group demonstrating at the site of a proposed mosque on the edge of the Lake District, when he got into trouble.
He was arrested for allegedly saying “We love bacon” in a singsong voice. If true, then this was certainly provocative in this particular setting.'
This makes more sense though it's not quite clear if the gentleman has been charged.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
But those numbers are fighting a war. You don't need the same numbers if you are monitoring a ceasefire line.
Depends on who is doing the stats. Guardian says grade 7 or above have risen. BBC draws the line at 4.
Perhaps a senior LibDem can help!
Both are true but grade 4 or above is probably most important as that is what is seen as a pass, grade 7 or above is for the more academic anyway
What's a pass anyway? If it means anything, it's what opens the next door. A grade 1 still shows some achievement, sometimes a grade 8 isn't enough.
As for the grade 7/4, thing, it is a bit of a worry. More students flying is nice, but more falling off the bottom of what is a useful grade isn't. Fear it's an ongoing COVID effect (this cohort had lockdowns in years 6 and 7). For some the experience was managed-to-positive, but for others, it wasn't.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Missing the point entirely.
The Rwanda plan could have worked, it worked in Australia where it was done.
The numbers though would have to, and could, change.
Trialling a new policy the numbers are generally low. Labor's Rudd in Australia changed their Rwanda equivalent from low numbers to everyone once the policy was operational.
The biggest hurdle is on our side, not their side, that we via our courts etc don't want to send people. Rwanda will take as many as we pay them for, and initially there's no point paying for more than small numbers but if we can sort out our side, that can change.
Never judge a policy based on trial numbers. Object to its ethics, sure, but it could and has worked elsewhere.
They would have had to have plans in place to radically increase the scope of the Rwanda plan after setting it up.
They didn’t have those plans, nor could we have afforded them at the prices the Rwandan’s were charging us IIRC. Ergo the Conservatives were not serious. I agree entirely that they could have made something like the Rwanda plan work, but they don’t appear to have wanted i to work - they just wanted it to exist so they could point to it whenever anyone asked them what they were doing about the boats.
Changes from 13th August [Find Out Now, 20th August, N=2,615]
Good morning
Astonishing poll with Reform 15% ahead of labour who are 1% ahead of the conservatives
If it is to be believed, the populace simply have had enough of all the parties and Reform represents NOA
I have no idea how UKPLC is governable
The "governable" bit is easy - if a party has a majority in the Commons it can govern. Mid term poll ratings don't (or shouldn't) make any difference.
It's a poor poll for Labour AND the Conservatives - 35% for the old duopoly is probably an all time low.
Reform, as you say, continue to ride the tiger of disillusionment and are currently all things to all people (much as the Alliance was in its early days). Farage currently doesn't need to have the answers (he just has to say he does) but as we approach the election, it will be reasonable for us to ask the searching questions about what a Reform Government would do if it still looks a possibility.
I have to say I am a little cynical of the idea that the scales will fall from people’s eyes once they start properly “scrutinising” Reform before a GE.
People are so fed up that I wonder how much they’ll really think twice. We often thought American voters would think twice before electing you-know-who, and that simply wasn’t borne out.
I’m not saying it won’t happen - I’m just saying it feels to me very uncertain that this will make much difference.
Agreed.
Now, sure, it's a long time until the next general election and a lot could change between now and then, but I think something would have to change to prevent Farage becoming PM.
The people who are taking it for granted that it will do so likely face a big shock come GE2029.
Asylum applications hit record high for 12-month period
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
The number is up 14% from 97,107 in the year to June 2024, according to new figures published by the Home Office.
The previous record for a 12-month period was 109,343 in the year to March 2025.
Migrants who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats accounted for 39% of the total number of people claiming asylum in the year to June.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Missing the point entirely.
The Rwanda plan could have worked, it worked in Australia where it was done.
The numbers though would have to, and could, change.
Trialling a new policy the numbers are generally low. Labor's Rudd in Australia changed their Rwanda equivalent from low numbers to everyone once the policy was operational.
The biggest hurdle is on our side, not their side, that we via our courts etc don't want to send people. Rwanda will take as many as we pay them for, and initially there's no point paying for more than small numbers but if we can sort out our side, that can change.
Never judge a policy based on trial numbers. Object to its ethics, sure, but it could and has worked elsewhere.
They would have had to have plans in place to radically increase the scope of the Rwanda plan after setting it up.
They didn’t have those plans, nor could we have afforded them at the prices the Rwandan’s were charging us IIRC. Ergo the Conservatives were not serious. I agree entirely that they could have made something like the Rwanda plan work, but they don’t appear to have wanted i to work - they just wanted it to exist so they could point to it whenever anyone asked them what they were doing about the boats.
Yes, that's fair. It was largely gestural
It's one reason the Tories deserve to be destroyed
Also, I am pretty sure the Blob in the Home Office (and the courts) were determined from the outset to make it non-workable
That's why the next government has to clear out half the civil service and sack all the judges. And put the worst miscreants on trial
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
The British (and Empire troops) never came close to a significant mutiny. The French mutinied after the Nivelle offensive. Nivelle believed he had worked out how to win (and to be fair the French performance on July 1st 1916 did indeed show the way, or at least part of it.) He promised a crushing victory in 48 hours and when it failed morale collapsed. Add in that by then 1 in 20 French men (of all ages) was dead by then (more than a million men) and you can see why.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
Owen, Rosenberg and Gurney (among others) weren’t posh. I’m sure as in every war there were some who enjoyed it and others who hated it but were proud to have done their bit. However I don’t think it would have turned into a semi religious act of remembrance (unfortunately now turned into a fetish) if the war hadn’t represented a psychic scar on a generation, or several generations if you count parents and children.
I agree with that, but we forget that for many soldiers and much of the public Haig was a hero. Commemoration in the 20s and 30s was about remembering but also pride in a job well done. Of course in Britain our leaders in the late 30's didn't want their children to have to go through what they had (unlike Germany where too many wanted a rematch). In France it was even worse, and that partly explains why their army performed so poorly in 1940, despite having more guns and tanks than the invading Germans. That spirit of Elan was no longer there, hollowed out by the horror of Vimy Ridge and Verdun.
“Something that goes totally underdiscussed in the very bizarre story of the United Kingdom is its completely fucked financial situation. I struggle to think of a western nation with such a disastrous set of fiscal issues.”
Simple and disturbing thread on the YooKay’s fiscal fucked-ness
I'm not quite sure what "totally underdiscussed" means - we talk about it on here on a daily basis. Is it the main topic of conversation on the street? Inasmuch as people complain about the cost of everything but they have done for at least the last 50 years. and probably longer.
My grandmother always claimed inflation began with decimalisation.
As to the "living beyond our means" question, what would be the point of debate? Most people would argue for paying less tax for themselves (everyone else can pay more) and cutting everyone else's services and benefits - human nature. If you can get past that motivated self interest, you may find some of the answers not what your politics would prefer.
I think he means this: the looming crisis is so bad - equivalent to the approach of a potentially calamitous war - it should absolutely dominate our media and political discourse, in the form of an honest and fervent debate. And it does not
How often does Starmer make a speech saying “this is really bad, we have to cut borrowing, cut spending, it’s going to hurt - but the alternative is bankruptcy”
(Yes yes fiat money blah blah)
How often does he do that? Never. He never levels with us. Nor does Reeves, really
Instead she cries like a child in Parliament
They all have to go
Nice to agree with Leon about something. The political class underdiscuss it.
However, only two outfits can lead the next government, Labour or Reform. Labour have so far failed to tackle the issues and communicate well with us. I suspect the October budget is the last chance to put that right. So the next question is: How well is Reform, putative next government, doing in putting to us its conclusions and solutions on these big questions. It is very good at using the immediate situation (hotels etc) for good propaganda, but if it is going to govern better than the current outfit it needs to tell us the plan about the complicated hard stuff as well as putting up some loonies to offer to sink the boats or whatever.
OT - Its pretty simple isn't it? Reform UK voters just like GB News and associated (insert appropriate term here) are anti-British interests if they are in any way opposed to the interests of A) Russia or B ) Trump's America (see A). We can debate why but that fact is undeniable.
Changes from 13th August [Find Out Now, 20th August, N=2,615]
Good morning
Astonishing poll with Reform 15% ahead of labour who are 1% ahead of the conservatives
If it is to be believed, the populace simply have had enough of all the parties and Reform represents NOA
I have no idea how UKPLC is governable
The "governable" bit is easy - if a party has a majority in the Commons it can govern. Mid term poll ratings don't (or shouldn't) make any difference.
It's a poor poll for Labour AND the Conservatives - 35% for the old duopoly is probably an all time low.
Reform, as you say, continue to ride the tiger of disillusionment and are currently all things to all people (much as the Alliance was in its early days). Farage currently doesn't need to have the answers (he just has to say he does) but as we approach the election, it will be reasonable for us to ask the searching questions about what a Reform Government would do if it still looks a possibility.
I have to say I am a little cynical of the idea that the scales will fall from people’s eyes once they start properly “scrutinising” Reform before a GE.
People are so fed up that I wonder how much they’ll really think twice. We often thought American voters would think twice before electing you-know-who, and that simply wasn’t borne out.
I’m not saying it won’t happen - I’m just saying it feels to me very uncertain that this will make much difference.
Agreed.
Now, sure, it's a long time until the next general election and a lot could change between now and then, but I think something would have to change to prevent Farage becoming PM.
The people who are taking it for granted that it will do so likely face a big shock come GE2029.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
The French returns program seems just as half arsed as the Rwanda plan. Yes the gov't says they can scale it but any plan is, in theory, scalable - even the Rwanda one. We will never know if the Rwanda plan would have worked because there were too many vested interests in stopping it and Rishi didn't do what needed to be done in Parliament to make it work. Will Keir's "returns agreement" fare any better ? I have my doubts.
Changes from 13th August [Find Out Now, 20th August, N=2,615]
Good morning
Astonishing poll with Reform 15% ahead of labour who are 1% ahead of the conservatives
If it is to be believed, the populace simply have had enough of all the parties and Reform represents NOA
I have no idea how UKPLC is governable
The "governable" bit is easy - if a party has a majority in the Commons it can govern. Mid term poll ratings don't (or shouldn't) make any difference.
It's a poor poll for Labour AND the Conservatives - 35% for the old duopoly is probably an all time low.
Reform, as you say, continue to ride the tiger of disillusionment and are currently all things to all people (much as the Alliance was in its early days). Farage currently doesn't need to have the answers (he just has to say he does) but as we approach the election, it will be reasonable for us to ask the searching questions about what a Reform Government would do if it still looks a possibility.
I have to say I am a little cynical of the idea that the scales will fall from people’s eyes once they start properly “scrutinising” Reform before a GE.
People are so fed up that I wonder how much they’ll really think twice. We often thought American voters would think twice before electing you-know-who, and that simply wasn’t borne out.
I’m not saying it won’t happen - I’m just saying it feels to me very uncertain that this will make much difference.
Agreed.
Now, sure, it's a long time until the next general election and a lot could change between now and then, but I think something would have to change to prevent Farage becoming PM.
The people who are taking it for granted that it will do so likely face a big shock come GE2029.
I think it's wishful thinking, to imagine that Reform will just disappear.
I could see them having the same trajectory as Sinn Fein in the last Dail, getting into the mid thirties, before subsiding into the twenties as the election approaches.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Surely Nato would be a trip wire force, you would station a relatively small contingent on the front line so that Russia would have to kill Nato soldiers to advance
There must be a point at which 'ordinary' soldiers rebel against being sent forward to certain death, surely. What were the reasons behind the French mutiny in 1917 or thereabouts and how close were German and British troops at the time to similar action? Anyone know?
The British (and Empire troops) never came close to a significant mutiny. The French mutinied after the Nivelle offensive. Nivelle believed he had worked out how to win (and to be fair the French performance on July 1st 1916 did indeed show the way, or at least part of it.) He promised a crushing victory in 48 hours and when it failed morale collapsed. Add in that by then 1 in 20 French men (of all ages) was dead by then (more than a million men) and you can see why.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
Owen, Rosenberg and Gurney (among others) weren’t posh. I’m sure as in every war there were some who enjoyed it and others who hated it but were proud to have done their bit. However I don’t think it would have turned into a semi religious act of remembrance (unfortunately now turned into a fetish) if the war hadn’t represented a psychic scar on a generation, or several generations if you count parents and children.
I agree with that, but we forget that for many soldiers and much of the public Haig was a hero. Commemoration in the 20s and 30s was about remembering but also pride in a job well done. Of course in Britain our leaders in the late 30's didn't want their children to have to go through what they had (unlike Germany where too many wanted a rematch). In France it was even worse, and that partly explains why their army performed so poorly in 1940, despite having more guns and tanks than the invading Germans. That spirit of Elan was no longer there, hollowed out by the horror of Vimy Ridge and Verdun.
They wouldn't have put his name on the Haig Fund if he hadn't been generally, on balance, respected. .
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
lol
Labour are serious about being a government??? You what?
Why then did they not come up with a single solid idea for reforming the country during their 14 years in Opposition? Not one? Nothing? Why is their big plan for social care "oh we'll do a review and report back in 2028". What? What have they been doing for the last decade?
Where are the actual ideas to SMASH THE GANGS? What's the plan for sorting out debt? How can they grow the country and not drive away rich people who pay the tax? They don't know
Apparently when Starmer entered Number 10 he was appalled to discover THERE WAS NO PLAN - like he thought that all this time the Civil Service had brilliant ideas for sorting everything and all they had to do was Not Be Tory and then implement them
These unfortunates have, it seems, only made a gain of £836,219 compared with what they paid.
Will discourage downsizing though
+1 even the pressure group PricedOut pointed out the massive flaw in the plan.
I don’t get the leaks unless someone in the Treasury really hates Reeves or Reeves is a complete idiot and the Treasury are leaking to stop the insanity.
But the problem is it’s being leaked (as with a lot of things) without the message of why are thru doing this - I.e. a truthful statement saying we need to cut things and or raise taxes - and in reality both.
Presumably the treasury would rather shift to an annual property tax from SDLT as it would be a relatively constant income stream, not subject to lulls in transactions, and easy to up the rate when needed. I don't expect they care whether Reeves' career is sacrificed to achieve that.
I quite like seeing flags flying. You notice it quite a lot in European countries on public buildings. Here the flying of the Union Jack and Cross of St George became a negative thing after the use of it by the BNP and football thugs in the 70s onwards. Sometime ago that stain finally disappeared. I hope it isn't going to return by making this political. I want to see the flags without thinking those flying them are racists.
Interestingly a couple of years ago while in New England we met a Californian couple who were surprised by the number of Stars and Stripes on houses. This surprised me because I thought it was common in the USA. They said it had been, but in California less now so because of Trump embracing the flag. Obviously a California thing because New England isn't exactly Trump territory and there were loads there still. I was however surprised by the level of pride flags and black lives matter signs on shops. It was very common.
I was interested in Norway to see the number of properties flying either national flags or pennants; clearly more common there than anywhere else I've been in Europe, almost close to US levels. So I asked GPT why this might be, as one does, and its answer was that domestic flag-flying is more common in those countries that have won their independence from another power - Norway from Sweden, the US from the UK.
It did also add that in remote rural areas of Norway there's a practice of flying a pennant when you're at home, like British royals, to let neighbours and passers by know that the home is currently inhabited.
You’d be unsurprised to hear that there were an awful lot of Ukranian flags there. Pretty much US levels, flying not only from public buildings but also private businesses and homes.
GPT is right if that was the case before the conflict, I guess..
There was an amount of flag flying before the war, but it’s definitely increased since it started. Which makes perfect sense, everyone quite literally rallying around the flag when under attack.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
Why didn't Big Rish launch a Rwanda flight after he passed his fucking daft legislation but before the election? Why did he prefer to campaign on the notion of Rwanda rather than the actuality?
People who compare Rwanda to Australia's OSB operation understand neither.
1. The RAN did tow backs to Indonesia. Neither Big Rish nor SKS have a tithe of the fortitude it would take to do that. 2. Australia had Christmas Island. The asylos could be taken there directly off their boats without ever setting foot in the Australian Migration Zone and therefore having access to the Australian Courts. No such place exists for the UK.
On topic, I am very much in favour of our commitment to Ukraine with UK continuing to supply training, technical and security support, and military hardware
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
"Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide"
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Currently Russia~ 750k, Ukraine ~ 880k according to Wiki/AI. Combined UK/France/Germany forces would be much less than that. So we will need to be in addition to Ukr troops, not replacing. Needs some sort of N Korea armistice line first as we're not going to be wanting to stick our troops actively against Russians.
Its Poland which needs to step up.
Aside from being in its own interests Poland needs to learn the lesson from and make amends for 1938.
Poland is sufficiently close to Russia that they want the troops in Poland protecting Poland.
A question which sharpens the issue, and is by no means irrelevant to the possible future is: What is the current 'Euronato' plan for the eventuality that Russia militarily enters NATO territory, such as Latvia, and the USA offers only to assist by selling weaponry to Euronato countries and no further?
Newsom's media interns are living their best lives at the moment.
WOW! FOX NEWS CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT ME (GAVIN C. NEWSOM), AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR!!! TONIGHT THEIR ENTIRE PRIMETIME LINEUP WAS ABOUT ME! JESSE WATTERS KEPT CALLING ME “DADDY” (VERY WEIRD, NOT INTERESTED, BUT THANK YOU!). SEAN HANNITY (VERY NICE GUY) NEARLY CRIED BECAUSE I WON’T TAKE HIS “ADVICE.” SORRY SEAN!!!! THEN THEY DRAGGED OUT THE B-TEAM OF DUMB DUMBS: “MEATBALL RON,” TOMI “TOILET” LAHREN, AND TEDDY “CANCUN” CRUZ (HE EVEN FLEW BACK SPECIAL FROM MEXICO!) ALL WHINING ABOUT ME, GCN! THEY HAD TO “PLAY THE MUSIC” TO SHUT TED UP ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR (I GET IT! SO JEALOUS!). TOTAL DISASTER. MAGA HATES ME BECAUSE THEY HATE YOU. THEY HATE THAT CALIFORNIA IS THE 4TH BIGGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD. THEY HATE THAT CRIME IS DOWN, THAT WE’RE #1 IN FARMING (I LOVE THE FARMERS!), MANUFACTURING, TOURISM & TECH… ALL WHILE WE GIVE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE, FREE SCHOOL MEALS (MAKE AMERICA PREGNANT AGAIN!), PAID “BABY LEAVE” FOR MOMS (THEY SHOULD NOT RETURN ANYWAYS!!), $20 MINIMUM WAGE & SO MUCH MORE FOR THE PEOPLE!!! THEY HATE THAT DEMOCRATS ARE WINNING. FOX & MAGA HAVE NEWSOM DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!!! THEY SHOULD CRY HARDER! SAD!!! — GCN https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1958357487180194071
Reform are clueless about how to tackle the small boats and ignore the fact that you have to have returns agreements . You can’t just put people on a plane and force a country to take them . Zia Yusufs embarrassing performance on Newsnight won’t of course move those who live in la la land .
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
Why didn't Big Rish launch a Rwanda flight after he passed his fucking daft legislation but before the election? Why did he prefer to campaign on the notion of Rwanda rather than the actuality?
People who compare Rwanda to Australia's OSB operation understand neither.
1. The RAN did tow backs to Indonesia. Neither Big Rish nor SKS have a tithe of the fortitude it would take to do that. 2. Australia had Christmas Island. The asylos could be taken their directly off their boats without ever setting foot in the Australian Migration Zone and therefore having access to the Australian Courts. No such place exists for the UK.
Asylum applications hit record high for 12-month period
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
The number is up 14% from 97,107 in the year to June 2024, according to new figures published by the Home Office.
The previous record for a 12-month period was 109,343 in the year to March 2025.
Migrants who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats accounted for 39% of the total number of people claiming asylum in the year to June.
Just tell them all no. We can't accommodate everyone from every shithole on earth and its daft that we're even trying.
We need to stop spending money on hotels and instead spend more money on judges and lawyers to get through the backlog and either (a) permit asylum so they can start working, or (b) deport.
Isn't that essentially this government's policy ?
Yes. They seem to have been steadily churning through the backlog left them by the incompetence of the Conservative government. Not that you’d ever learn this from hysterical DM headlines.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
Labour also abandoned the Rwanda plan for the boat people, which was arguably working (hence the Irish shrieking about it) and replaced it with their brilliant new plan to SMASH THE GANGS
How's that going?
The Rwanda Plan would never have worked - the agreed numbers were, what, in the low 100s? When you have 10,000s a year crossing the Channel, a 1% chance of being sent to Rwanda is no deterrant at all.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Yes and No. I agree the Rwanda plan was horribly incoherent and almost built-to-fail. It's almost as if the politicians and civil servants tasked with enacting it WANTED it to fail because they are all woke wankers at heart, and it was just a gesture. But maybe that's the cynic in me
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
My assertion is that the Rwanda plan was half arsed because the Conservatives were not serious about it. Just like they weren’t serious about anything else.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
lol
Labour are serious about being a government??? You what?
Why then did they not come up with a single solid idea for reforming the country during their 14 years in Opposition? Not one? Nothing? Why is their big plan for social care "oh we'll do a review and report back in 2028". What? What have they been doing for the last decade?
Where are the actual ideas to SMASH THE GANGS? What's the plan for sorting out debt? How can they grow the country and not drive away rich people who pay the tax? They don't know
Apparently when Starmer entered Number 10 he was appalled to discover THERE WAS NO PLAN - like he thought that all this time the Civil Service had brilliant ideas for sorting everything and all they had to do was Not Be Tory and then implement them
"Serious about being a government"
lol
Very good point, which lends urgency to knowing the plans of the putative next government, Reform,on the hard questions not only migration, but debt, deficit, tax and spend.
Comments
No LD controlled councils included amongst those considering court action, if any have asylum hotels that is
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy0j9n4qzwo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy08y5zxe0lt
People are so fed up that I wonder how much they’ll really think twice. We often thought American voters would think twice before electing you-know-who, and that simply wasn’t borne out.
I’m not saying it won’t happen - I’m just saying it feels to me very uncertain that this will make much difference.
The map makes fascinating reading - apparently Reform would win East Ham from fifth place and 3.5% of the vote.
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
Find Out now are also the pollster with whom Reform scores highest. (they have scored 34% on a couple of occasions). With YouGov, however, Reform have never polled above 30%.
I know people who refuse to drink at Wetherspoons though, due to Tim Martin's politicak views, and how he allegedly treated staff during Covid (which in fact was as well as any hospitality employer). I keep telling them that the Chairman of Greene King or Stonegate are likely to have right-wing political views too but for some reason that doesn't interest them
However, ‘boots on the ground’ is not a simple question and there are many nuances and conditions that would need to be resolved
Sky’s defense analyst said that an Anglo UK, French, German force would not be nearly sufficient and questioned just how many troops UK could provide
Other questions are how long the commitment would be, how much would it cost, and how much would it deplete UK’s other defence commitments?
Furthermore, who acts as military support for this force, and will the US come fully on board?
In any peace settlement it would not be unreasonable for the UN to act as a peacekeeping force as it is unlikely NATO without the US could fulfil that role
The question may well be premature and academic anyway, as Putin is simply not going to agree for western troops to be deployed in Ukraine and I understand, ironically, he suggested yesterday Russia could be part of a peacekeeping force!!!!!!!
I would just say that you do not have to be a pro Putin Reform supporter to have concerns about UK boots on the ground in Ukraine
It may happen someday, but there are legitimate questions to ask
Wouldn't it be fair to say Ukraine alone has been "nearly sufficient"? Adding in other European troops in numbers is clearly going to move it to sufficient.
Poll records are fun but we are not in Kansas. The registration of heavy discontent should be landing with the duopoly loud and clear
Perhaps a senior LibDem can help!
Yes the economic malaise is similar but now we have an absolutely poisonous migration crisis - we didn’t then - and all the associated culture wars. So Reform are fuelled by two kinds of voter - the impoverished and the angry
Politically it’s also entirely different. The Alliance had heavyweight mainstream politicians. Reform absolutely does not. But that’s because Reform are radicals promising major change and the Alliance offered more cuddly social democracy with a different brand
Finally, Reform have Farage. A proven election winner and brilliant campaigner. Alliance did not have that
Anyone know?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étaples_mutiny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xJ3TDDsUIg
Usual Nimby story - but one interesting thing: an argument is that it will drive up future leccy charges locally. So some people are taking the idea of regional charging on the basis of supply vs consumptiopn seriously.
https://x.com/bellacaledonia/status/1958465612339884336?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
You can see why SKS will do it though. UK bestrides the global stage. Nice distraction from whatever the fuck. It'll probably be popular until the 200s start. The deepthinkers at OF-8+ will desperately gaslighting him into thinking it's a fine idea.
I don’t get the leaks unless someone in the Treasury really hates Reeves or Reeves is a complete idiot and the Treasury are leaking to stop the insanity.
But the problem is it’s being leaked (as with a lot of things) without the message of why are thru doing this - I.e. a truthful statement saying we need to cut things and or raise taxes - and in reality both.
All through the series its the fact that he cares that gets him into the scrapes.
Add in the touch of the surreal and you have genius. Thirty minutes of superb comedy.
In a way, a bit like Alf Garnett. Perhaps the hero for Reform? But in reality the comedy is at his expense.
Morale wasn't the only reason for this. The high command didn't want the troops getting so comfortable that they wouldn't want to attack.
Sometimes competent government is just getting the job that’s in front of you done, to the best of the adminstration’s ability.
That’s not going to be enough to draw the sting of the immigration figures by the next GE I suspect, because (again) the previous government f’ed things up so completely that the population has lost all trust in any current government & the continued drumbeat of headlines only reinforces that loss of faith. But Labour appear to be doing the right thing here at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salerno_mutiny
BTW those folk the WFA should know ...
https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/why-the-british-army-did-not-mutiny-en-masse-on-the-western-front-during-the-first-world-war
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgqnzy9ej0do
I asked him if the beans had been tainted by the sausages, and he shrugged and said something like: "It's all we've got."
Aside from being in its own interests Poland needs to learn the lesson from and make amends for 1938.
Meanwhile the British and Dominion troops had to attack and hold the Germans, as I understand it.
How's that going?
The UK finances are in a very difficult position & realistically the Treasury needs to raise one of the big taxes - probably income tax - or cut sending. But the government promised not to impose a rise in any major tax at the election & so is extremely reluctant to do so, they can’t cut expenditure either thanks to a mutinous MP cohort who are delusional about the state of the UK finances & think there’s a pot of “rich people” gold at the end of the rainbow that will solve everything, if only they can get at it.
Arguably the British and Empire avoided losses on that scale (or had by that point in the war - the Somme was bad, and third Ypres would be bad too) but I think in general, despite revisionist bollocks in the 60's, the troops were well looked after, rotated in and and out on a regular basis. Many if not most were better fed in khaki than in civilian life.
Significantly, despite the horrors of the Somme and Paschendale, both were battles that the British and Empire armies won. Germany was shattered by the Somme fighting and knew it could not sustain it forever. The French had a rather different experience in 1916 - fighting the defensive battle of Verdun. Quite whether the historiography of that battle is true, at any event fighting to avoid losing ground was truly terrible, and I think led to 1917.
The Germans fought tenaciously almost to the end, but had started to give up for more easily during the 'hundred days'*. And the German Navy did indeed mutiny at the end of the war.
We have a very skewed perspective on WW1 - much of our official education about it comes from reading a small handful of poems by posh boys. Many, many soldiers did their bit with pride and a fair few enjoyed the war, on the whole.
If the Conservatives had credibly set up a program to move all Channel crossers into Rwanda, then I would agree with you - that would probably have had the desired effect, if they were actually capable of mopping up all of them. Once established you’d then only need a small program “pour encourager les autres”.
But the program as actually established & funded was pitifully small compared to the size required for it to ever actually work. The Conservatives were not a serious government & the Rwanda program is just another exemplar of their fundamental failure to actually govern effectively. You either do something like that properly or not at all if you want it to be effective. The actual program as implemented was guaranteed to be woefully ineffective, therefore we must conclude that the government was not actually interested in making it succeed - they just wanted the headlines that would give the impression that they were doing something until the next GE rolled around.
Decided sometime ago not to go to Uni but make his own career pathway without any student debt
The Rwanda plan could have worked, it worked in Australia where it was done.
The numbers though would have to, and could, change.
Trialling a new policy the numbers are generally low. Labor's Rudd in Australia changed their Rwanda equivalent from low numbers to everyone once the policy was operational.
The biggest hurdle is on our side, not their side, that we via our courts etc don't want to send people. Rwanda will take as many as we pay them for, and initially there's no point paying for more than small numbers but if we can sort out our side, that can change.
Never judge a policy based on trial numbers. Object to its ethics, sure, but it could and has worked elsewhere.
One of my uncles served in both wars and while he had one or two unpleasant tales a) he volunteered for WWII and b) encouraged, so far as I can tell, his son to join the Services. Which didn't turn out well, as the son was killed in an air crash off Malta.
I’m sure as in every war there were some who enjoyed it and others who hated it but were proud to have done their bit. However I don’t think it would have become a semi religious act of remembrance (unfortunately now turned into a fetish) if the war hadn’t represented a psychic scar on a generation, or several generations if you count parents and children.
ETA: One thing that hadn't occurred to me (colleague with about to go to uni daughter mentoned it) is that students are posting on social media as soon as they know which hall at which uni will be their accommodation, forming groups for those halls and checking out their flatmates before arrival. That seems a bit sad as it probably closes some of the open mindedness of arriving at start of term to find out who your flatmates are and taking them as they are with no knowledge of their history, likes, friends, background etc.
However there is evidence that even in its chaotic, half-formed and unconvincing state, the Rwanda Plan was still having a deterrent effect. The Irish certainly thought so, and said so
"Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says"
https://news.sky.com/story/rwanda-bill-causing-migrants-to-opt-for-ireland-deputy-pm-says-13123078
Imagine what a non half-arsed Rwanda Plan could have done, in this light. It would have probably stopped the boats
'The man was part of a group demonstrating at the site of a proposed mosque on the edge of the Lake District, when he got into trouble.
He was arrested for allegedly saying “We love bacon” in a singsong voice. If true, then this was certainly provocative in this particular setting.'
This makes more sense though it's not quite clear if the gentleman has been charged.
As for the grade 7/4, thing, it is a bit of a worry. More students flying is nice, but more falling off the bottom of what is a useful grade isn't. Fear it's an ongoing COVID effect (this cohort had lockdowns in years 6 and 7). For some the experience was managed-to-positive, but for others, it wasn't.
They didn’t have those plans, nor could we have afforded them at the prices the Rwandan’s were charging us IIRC. Ergo the Conservatives were not serious. I agree entirely that they could have made something like the Rwanda plan work, but they don’t appear to have wanted i to work - they just wanted it to exist so they could point to it whenever anyone asked them what they were doing about the boats.
Now, sure, it's a long time until the next general election and a lot could change between now and then, but I think something would have to change to prevent Farage becoming PM.
The people who are taking it for granted that it will do so likely face a big shock come GE2029.
Asylum applications hit record high for 12-month period
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
The number is up 14% from 97,107 in the year to June 2024, according to new figures published by the Home Office.
The previous record for a 12-month period was 109,343 in the year to March 2025.
Migrants who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats accounted for 39% of the total number of people claiming asylum in the year to June.
Now the current government is left trying to pick up the pieces. Labour have their flaws, but at least they’re serious about being a government.
It's one reason the Tories deserve to be destroyed
Also, I am pretty sure the Blob in the Home Office (and the courts) were determined from the outset to make it non-workable
That's why the next government has to clear out half the civil service and sack all the judges. And put the worst miscreants on trial
However, only two outfits can lead the next government, Labour or Reform. Labour have so far failed to tackle the issues and communicate well with us. I suspect the October budget is the last chance to put that right. So the next question is: How well is Reform, putative next government, doing in putting to us its conclusions and solutions on these big questions. It is very good at using the immediate situation (hotels etc) for good propaganda, but if it is going to govern better than the current outfit it needs to tell us the plan about the complicated hard stuff as well as putting up some loonies to offer to sink the boats or whatever.
Will Keir's "returns agreement" fare any better ? I have my doubts.
I could see them having the same trajectory as Sinn Fein in the last Dail, getting into the mid thirties, before subsiding into the twenties as the election approaches.
Labour are serious about being a government??? You what?
Why then did they not come up with a single solid idea for reforming the country during their 14 years in Opposition? Not one? Nothing? Why is their big plan for social care "oh we'll do a review and report back in 2028". What? What have they been doing for the last decade?
Where are the actual ideas to SMASH THE GANGS? What's the plan for sorting out debt? How can they grow the country and not drive away rich people who pay the tax? They don't know
Apparently when Starmer entered Number 10 he was appalled to discover THERE WAS NO PLAN - like he thought that all this time the Civil Service had brilliant ideas for sorting everything and all they had to do was Not Be Tory and then implement them
"Serious about being a government"
lol
People who compare Rwanda to Australia's OSB operation understand neither.
1. The RAN did tow backs to Indonesia. Neither Big Rish nor SKS have a tithe of the fortitude it would take to do that.
2. Australia had Christmas Island. The asylos could be taken there directly off their boats without ever setting foot in the Australian Migration Zone and therefore having access to the Australian Courts. No such place exists for the UK.
WOW! FOX NEWS CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT ME (GAVIN C. NEWSOM), AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR!!! TONIGHT THEIR ENTIRE PRIMETIME LINEUP WAS ABOUT ME! JESSE WATTERS KEPT CALLING ME “DADDY” (VERY WEIRD, NOT INTERESTED, BUT THANK YOU!). SEAN HANNITY (VERY NICE GUY) NEARLY CRIED BECAUSE I WON’T TAKE HIS “ADVICE.” SORRY SEAN!!!! THEN THEY DRAGGED OUT THE B-TEAM OF DUMB DUMBS: “MEATBALL RON,” TOMI “TOILET” LAHREN, AND TEDDY “CANCUN” CRUZ (HE EVEN FLEW BACK SPECIAL FROM MEXICO!) ALL WHINING ABOUT ME, GCN! THEY HAD TO “PLAY THE MUSIC” TO SHUT TED UP ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR (I GET IT! SO JEALOUS!). TOTAL DISASTER. MAGA HATES ME BECAUSE THEY HATE YOU. THEY HATE THAT CALIFORNIA IS THE 4TH BIGGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD. THEY HATE THAT CRIME IS DOWN, THAT WE’RE #1 IN FARMING (I LOVE THE FARMERS!), MANUFACTURING, TOURISM & TECH… ALL WHILE WE GIVE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE, FREE SCHOOL MEALS (MAKE AMERICA PREGNANT AGAIN!), PAID “BABY LEAVE” FOR MOMS (THEY SHOULD NOT RETURN ANYWAYS!!), $20 MINIMUM WAGE & SO MUCH MORE FOR THE PEOPLE!!! THEY HATE THAT DEMOCRATS ARE WINNING. FOX & MAGA HAVE NEWSOM DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!!! THEY SHOULD CRY HARDER! SAD!!! — GCN
https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1958357487180194071