The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
We are where we are. We face common threats in Russia, and the Trump-led USA.
2015, Marco Rubio: “As soon as I take office, I will move quickly to increase pressure on Moscow, under my administration, there will be no pleadings for meetings with Vladimir Putin. He will be treated for what he is – a gangster and a thug.”
If the Conservative Party is the scorpion, and Badenoch the frog, it would follow that getting rid of Kemi is an act of self harm that would kill the Tory Party wouldn’t it?
Seems to me the frog needs to be a dependable organisation, and the scorpion an individual that always lets people down or plays a snide move. Boris as the scorpion to the Tory Party Frog? Farage doing a deal with the Conservatives, then it blowing up once they’re in Downing St might be a better example
It's less to do with scorpions and frogs in all honesty.
The Conservatives are not in control of their own destiny - IF Reform prospers, they will end up the fourth or fifth party in the next Commons. They need Reform to fail and for the bulk of that vote to come to them and that's two areas about which they can do very little.
I suspect Badenoch would like to see Labour doing a little better as well to blunt the Reform threat in Labour seats and the LDs doing worse so they can regain some or all of the 50-60 seast lost in that direction last time.
Again, little of that in the Conservative purview - the big question (as an outsider) is the Conservative relationship to Reform. It's clear Farage wants no kind of pact, deal or alliance at this time - that might change - but do the Tories try to be Reform-lite in the hope Farage departs and they can get a big share of the Reform vote or do they mark out a distinctive niche and hope the voters see them as a viable alternative to Labour and Reform?
I disagree.
Look at the Lib Dems and Labour. For from growing fat off the other's polling misery, their success or failure usually go together.
The Tories do need give people reasons to vote for them in preference to Reform, but they shouldn't wish for Reform's failure or disappearance - Reform has revived the right. The Tories and Reform look like being the one and two parties in polls soon.
Not surprisingly, I don't wholly agree.
Yes, Conservative Governments in 1970, 1979 and the 2015 majority came about because of the collapse of the Liberals and clearly the Conservatives would like to win back all or most of the seats lost to the LDs last time but that won't get them anywhere near a Commons majority. They need to win seats off Labour and in many of those Reform are the nearest challengers and this is the Reform Party which won't, at least under Farage, countenance any pact or deal with the Tories so it's possible we'll see dozens of seats where Reform wins, the Conservatives are second and Labour collapse to third.
The fundamental is whether the next election is going to be Labour versus Not Labour or Reform versus Not Reform just as 2024 was Conservative versus Not Conservative.
A final thought - this obsession with "left" versus "right" is just sloppy anachronistic thinking. Reform are not a "right wing" party by many measures - they are a populist party which incorporates both socially conservative elements (which is where the Conservatives went wrong arguably) and considerable State interventionism (in other words, the "you can have your cake and eat it" party which brings in the Labour supporters). They are as fiscally incoherent and illiterate as all the other parties including the Conservatives.
Personally, I see Reform as a right wing party, responding to desperate times. They want to lift the benefit cap (though now in a very partial way) as a response to the demographic crisis. They want to nationalise bits of key industry to ensure their very survival, not as an ideological choice.
Right and left wing are not useful enough descriptions, for two great reasons. The centre left and right, despite the rhetoric, have much more in common with each other than they have with the outer extreme edges. Between them they have run a stable state since 1945, though of course not well enough but we aren't North Korea.
Secondly, right and left doesn't capture the whole at all. For example it doesn't capture social conservatism + big state intervention and dirigisme + nationalism. Which is where, I think, Reform is going to pitch itself.
Most of the Labour/Tory debate post Thatcher has been arguing about whether the % of GDP spent by the state should be 1% higher or lower, and also how politicians speak, rather than what they do. Fans of both parties will deny that but it is fairly obvious that plenty of our cabinet ministers over that time would have been happy enough in the opposite party, or indeed the LDs.
This is all true but even true of Thatcher and the entire post 1945 UK world. It is best described as social democracy. No government has undone the fabric of regulated capitalism + welfare state. They have tinkered with the balance of it, run it sometimes well, sometimes less well, all have tried to make progress in prosperity, some better than others.
The idea that Reform intend to change this basic pattern is, IMHO, not correct. Your Party and Greens do so intend. Which makes them interesting.
Reform are interesting because they are also ethno-nationalists and appear to lack the most basic tools of judgment and competence. But they are nationalist social democrats (as are SNP and PC). Greens and Your Party are not.
You frequently use this argument that Reform don't intend to overturn the post-war settlement of regulated capitalism + welfare state, and I agree with you to an extent. But Reform are different. Part of the post-war consensus has been an acceptance, or even a welcoming, of (controlled) immigration, coupled with an acceptance of the UK's role as a refuge for those fleeing unconscionable regimes. Reform are going to blow that consensus out of the water, in respect of both immigration and legitimate refugees/asylum seekers. Given that these policies are a, if not the, major plank of Reform's appeal, I'd argue that they are seeking to upend the post-war consensus in an important way.
Yes. I think we are agreed on the likely Reform trajectory. And yes they may well upend some of the post war consensus. Interpretations will vary. My view of them is unremitting hostility. Ethno-nationalist social democracy run by incompetents is not my idea of fun.
The point I too regularly make is that Reform are not planning to be transformational WRT the post 1945 consensus except in the area of closed borders ethno-nationalism, while many expect they will be. They will be high spend, and therefore high tax.
I have genuinely no idea whether they are a big government or a small government party, and I don't think they do either. Their voter coalition straddles a wide range of preferences on this topic and they have espoused a range of views. I do expect incompetence though, that has been strongly signalled. Also high levels of racism, both dog whistled and more explicit. Most likely we will see widespread civil strife.
IMO the route to the answer is to contemplate the voters of Clacton and Skegness, and ask what sort of Reform government would encourage them to vote for them again. Don't ask what they want for others, ask what they want for themselves and multiply by 70 million. What those voters will want for themselves includes: pensions, a welfare safety net, social housing, defence, NATO membership, NHS - preferably acting a lot quicker than now -, free education to 18, a thriving jobs market, transport and roads, social care, bins emptying, an effective police force and law and order.
They want a big government, high spend (therefore high tax) state. Wait and see.
(BTW, they will also discover that they don't want to deport my eye specialist who has ILR and a brown skin, and is a great man.)
I made precisely this point when I met a senior Reform figure and he told me that his voters (in one of these kinds of areas) wanted welfare cuts. He suggested the triple lock would be open to review. So I don't know how this plays out. But if the Reform coalition is split on economics they are united on "cultural" issues so I think that's where they will go large. It won't be pretty and will likely be highly divisive. Think large scale immigration raids that quickly descend into civil unrest, the BBC dismantled, government ministers using openly racist language. Plus capitulation to Russia, obvs.
Yes, think that will be the case. The Trump/MAGA approach to a tee. Distract with culture wars which will dominate media and provide helpful wedge issues. Divisiveness is the point.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
IMHO, enough of Europe is willing to back Ukraine so as to enable them to keep fighting. Of course, we need to do more than that. Just turn on the taps, in terms of supplying money and munitions.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
With those four plus Reform standing in 2026, what would you expect the result to be?
That depends on the nature of the seat, If it's in Kensington, Westminster, Barnet, or in similarly prosperous districts, I would expect a Conservative hold, with an increased majority, as the Labour vote collapses.
In a town like Darlington, or Stockton, I'd expect a comfortable win for Reform.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
My Bosniak tour guide at Srebrenica said that the Serbs only agreed to the Drayton process once they were on the back foot and being pushed back. The Bosniaks and Croats didn't feel they could turn down a deal though, but would have preferred to keep on winning the war at that point. The upshot is that the Srpska Republika is comprised partly of areas ethnically cleansed by the Serbs, including Srebrenica.
Putin will only offer a ceasefire when he is losing, at which point the correct response is idi na khuy and keep on killing Russians.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
Eh? Starmer and Macron and Carney have recognised Palestine as a state and Trump's plan for Gaza was backed by the UNSC.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
If the Conservative Party is the scorpion, and Badenoch the frog, it would follow that getting rid of Kemi is an act of self harm that would kill the Tory Party wouldn’t it?
Seems to me the frog needs to be a dependable organisation, and the scorpion an individual that always lets people down or plays a snide move. Boris as the scorpion to the Tory Party Frog? Farage doing a deal with the Conservatives, then it blowing up once they’re in Downing St might be a better example
It's less to do with scorpions and frogs in all honesty.
The Conservatives are not in control of their own destiny - IF Reform prospers, they will end up the fourth or fifth party in the next Commons. They need Reform to fail and for the bulk of that vote to come to them and that's two areas about which they can do very little.
I suspect Badenoch would like to see Labour doing a little better as well to blunt the Reform threat in Labour seats and the LDs doing worse so they can regain some or all of the 50-60 seast lost in that direction last time.
Again, little of that in the Conservative purview - the big question (as an outsider) is the Conservative relationship to Reform. It's clear Farage wants no kind of pact, deal or alliance at this time - that might change - but do the Tories try to be Reform-lite in the hope Farage departs and they can get a big share of the Reform vote or do they mark out a distinctive niche and hope the voters see them as a viable alternative to Labour and Reform?
I disagree.
Look at the Lib Dems and Labour. For from growing fat off the other's polling misery, their success or failure usually go together.
The Tories do need give people reasons to vote for them in preference to Reform, but they shouldn't wish for Reform's failure or disappearance - Reform has revived the right. The Tories and Reform look like being the one and two parties in polls soon.
Not surprisingly, I don't wholly agree.
Yes, Conservative Governments in 1970, 1979 and the 2015 majority came about because of the collapse of the Liberals and clearly the Conservatives would like to win back all or most of the seats lost to the LDs last time but that won't get them anywhere near a Commons majority. They need to win seats off Labour and in many of those Reform are the nearest challengers and this is the Reform Party which won't, at least under Farage, countenance any pact or deal with the Tories so it's possible we'll see dozens of seats where Reform wins, the Conservatives are second and Labour collapse to third.
The fundamental is whether the next election is going to be Labour versus Not Labour or Reform versus Not Reform just as 2024 was Conservative versus Not Conservative.
A final thought - this obsession with "left" versus "right" is just sloppy anachronistic thinking. Reform are not a "right wing" party by many measures - they are a populist party which incorporates both socially conservative elements (which is where the Conservatives went wrong arguably) and considerable State interventionism (in other words, the "you can have your cake and eat it" party which brings in the Labour supporters). They are as fiscally incoherent and illiterate as all the other parties including the Conservatives.
Personally, I see Reform as a right wing party, responding to desperate times. They want to lift the benefit cap (though now in a very partial way) as a response to the demographic crisis. They want to nationalise bits of key industry to ensure their very survival, not as an ideological choice.
Right and left wing are not useful enough descriptions, for two great reasons. The centre left and right, despite the rhetoric, have much more in common with each other than they have with the outer extreme edges. Between them they have run a stable state since 1945, though of course not well enough but we aren't North Korea.
Secondly, right and left doesn't capture the whole at all. For example it doesn't capture social conservatism + big state intervention and dirigisme + nationalism. Which is where, I think, Reform is going to pitch itself.
Most of the Labour/Tory debate post Thatcher has been arguing about whether the % of GDP spent by the state should be 1% higher or lower, and also how politicians speak, rather than what they do. Fans of both parties will deny that but it is fairly obvious that plenty of our cabinet ministers over that time would have been happy enough in the opposite party, or indeed the LDs.
This is all true but even true of Thatcher and the entire post 1945 UK world. It is best described as social democracy. No government has undone the fabric of regulated capitalism + welfare state. They have tinkered with the balance of it, run it sometimes well, sometimes less well, all have tried to make progress in prosperity, some better than others.
The idea that Reform intend to change this basic pattern is, IMHO, not correct. Your Party and Greens do so intend. Which makes them interesting.
Reform are interesting because they are also ethno-nationalists and appear to lack the most basic tools of judgment and competence. But they are nationalist social democrats (as are SNP and PC). Greens and Your Party are not.
You frequently use this argument that Reform don't intend to overturn the post-war settlement of regulated capitalism + welfare state, and I agree with you to an extent. But Reform are different. Part of the post-war consensus has been an acceptance, or even a welcoming, of (controlled) immigration, coupled with an acceptance of the UK's role as a refuge for those fleeing unconscionable regimes. Reform are going to blow that consensus out of the water, in respect of both immigration and legitimate refugees/asylum seekers. Given that these policies are a, if not the, major plank of Reform's appeal, I'd argue that they are seeking to upend the post-war consensus in an important way.
Yes. I think we are agreed on the likely Reform trajectory. And yes they may well upend some of the post war consensus. Interpretations will vary. My view of them is unremitting hostility. Ethno-nationalist social democracy run by incompetents is not my idea of fun.
The point I too regularly make is that Reform are not planning to be transformational WRT the post 1945 consensus except in the area of closed borders ethno-nationalism, while many expect they will be. They will be high spend, and therefore high tax.
I have genuinely no idea whether they are a big government or a small government party, and I don't think they do either. Their voter coalition straddles a wide range of preferences on this topic and they have espoused a range of views. I do expect incompetence though, that has been strongly signalled. Also high levels of racism, both dog whistled and more explicit. Most likely we will see widespread civil strife.
IMO the route to the answer is to contemplate the voters of Clacton and Skegness, and ask what sort of Reform government would encourage them to vote for them again. Don't ask what they want for others, ask what they want for themselves and multiply by 70 million. What those voters will want for themselves includes: pensions, a welfare safety net, social housing, defence, NATO membership, NHS - preferably acting a lot quicker than now -, free education to 18, a thriving jobs market, transport and roads, social care, bins emptying, an effective police force and law and order.
They want a big government, high spend (therefore high tax) state. Wait and see.
(BTW, they will also discover that they don't want to deport my eye specialist who has ILR and a brown skin, and is a great man.)
I made precisely this point when I met a senior Reform figure and he told me that his voters (in one of these kinds of areas) wanted welfare cuts. He suggested the triple lock would be open to review. So I don't know how this plays out. But if the Reform coalition is split on economics they are united on "cultural" issues so I think that's where they will go large. It won't be pretty and will likely be highly divisive. Think large scale immigration raids that quickly descend into civil unrest, the BBC dismantled, government ministers using openly racist language. Plus capitulation to Russia, obvs.
Yes, think that will be the case. The Trump/MAGA approach to a tee. Distract with culture wars which will dominate media and provide helpful wedge issues. Divisiveness is the point.
Also worth noting that Trump's economic policies have hurt his MAGA base and enriched his rich friends and family. That might be a leading indicator of where the Reform economic agenda will fall. Screw your supporters and distract them with performative cruelty and phoney patriotism, while delivering for the donor class. The crypto bro donation is another straw in the wind of course.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
I can't think of a leader better placed to drive what remaining support the Tories have left to Reform than the empty suit James Cleverly. Even I'd have second thoughts about voting Tory with Cleverly, he's got absolutely nothing about him, a complete wet wipe like Starmer, charisma and idea void.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
My view is that the European (by which I mean the continent, rather than the EU) response to Putin has been better with Britain outside the EU. With Britain outside the EU, an imperfect coalition of the willing was able to be built. With Britain inside the EU, the institutions of the EU would have taken over, and been hamstrung by the small number of pro-Putin states e.g. Hungary.
Like you. I'd very much like a strong European response to Putin. I just don't think the EU was ever functionally capable of being that. My heart is federalist - my head does not believe it's realistic.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Nobody, it could have been Rishi had he let Boris stay in post and lose the last GE so he was heir apparent with a Tory Party still not really challenged by Reform but he didn't and blew his own chances of being a long serving leader in the process
Meanwhile I am supposed to be in Cambodia in 2 weeks and my bright idea of spending Christmas and New Year somewhere warmer is stating to look questionable. Hopefully it will blow over again.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
Eh? Starmer and Macron and Carney have recognised Palestine as a state and Trump's plan for Gaza was backed by the UNSC.
The UN has also passed numerous resolutions calling on Israel to end its occupation and settlements, of which Israel takes no notice whatsoever and which nobody attempts to enforce. So one can understand a certain lack of enthusiasm by those sympathetic to the Palestinians to enforce resolutions against Russia at cost to themselves.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
I think that's unduly pessimistic. I think Britain has shown that - regardless of what else is going on wrt Brexit - when the chips are down the British will be there. I think that sort of practical action can go a long way to mend bridges, and practical action is much more effective than words.
Now is perhaps another time to take the lead with practical action. Britain should take the lead on frozen Russian assets and send those frozen in Britain to Ukraine as soon as possible, rather than waiting for the EU to sort itself out.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
So there was a Commons debate about the 28 point Ukraine peace/surrender plan. A time surely for all sides of the House to come together. And in response Kemi Badenoch sounded off about Starmer surrendering fishing rights to the EU. She is a deeply unserious politician. That she is not as bad as the even-worse Farage and Jenrick doesn't change that.
With those four plus Reform standing in 2026, what would you expect the result to be?
That depends on the nature of the seat, If it's in Kensington, Westminster, Barnet, or in similarly prosperous districts, I would expect a Conservative hold, with an increased majority, as the Labour vote collapses.
In a town like Darlington, or Stockton, I'd expect a comfortable win for Reform.
Thanks. I'm thinking Tory wards in West Yorkshire and my finger in the air is:
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
I can't think of a leader better placed to drive what remaining support the Tories have left to Reform than the empty suit James Cleverly. Even I'd have second thoughts about voting Tory with Cleverly, he's got absolutely nothing about him, a complete wet wipe like Starmer, charisma and idea void.
Really? According to a summer Ipsos poll Cleverly was the preferred successor to Kemi (absent Boris) of 2024 Conservative voters with 14% to 12% for Sunak and just 10% for Jenrick. Though Jenrick led with 2024 Reform voters with Braverman second and Patel third (even a returned Boris was beaten by Jenrick with 2024 Reform voters)
Ipsos last year during the leadership election found Cleverly polled better with 2024 Labour and LD voters than Jenrick too, especially with LD voters where Cleverly had a +2% rating as to who would be a good Tory leader compared to -6% for Jenrick and -22% for Kemi
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
So there was a Commons debate about the 28 point Ukraine peace/surrender plan. A time surely for all sides of the House to come together. And in response Kemi Badenoch sounded off about Starmer surrendering fishing rights to the EU. She is a deeply unserious politician. That she is not as bad as the even-worse Farage and Jenrick doesn't change that.
Ugh. There's plenty to criticise Starmer on in terms of being unserious about defence, and of lacking a strategy to win the war. Why would Kemi waste her time with fish?
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around...
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
So there was a Commons debate about the 28 point Ukraine peace/surrender plan. A time surely for all sides of the House to come together. And in response Kemi Badenoch sounded off about Starmer surrendering fishing rights to the EU. She is a deeply unserious politician. That she is not as bad as the even-worse Farage and Jenrick doesn't change that.
Ugh. There's plenty to criticise Starmer on in terms of being unserious about defence, and of lacking a strategy to win the war. Why would Kemi waste her time with fish?
"Countries including France are said to want to tie a new post-Brexit security deal to more beneficial access to British waters, potentially holding up military cooperation."
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
I am regularly surprised by @Luckyguy1983's utterly bizarre but usually politely well-argued take on the world.
His latest idea that Putin's Russia can ever be part of a harmonious EU is very weird... and given the Russian population's seemingly unwavering support for rampant nationalism, even after Putin this looks a non-starter to me.
I am not sure that 'Putin's' Russia will ever join the EU. I'm suggesting it is an interesting long term goal for both parties.
Well, I'd be very happy for you to tell me 'I told you so' in 25 years.
Happy to do it, and God willing we will both be in the best of health and able to laugh about it.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
My view is that the European (by which I mean the continent, rather than the EU) response to Putin has been better with Britain outside the EU. With Britain outside the EU, an imperfect coalition of the willing was able to be built. With Britain inside the EU, the institutions of the EU would have taken over, and been hamstrung by the small number of pro-Putin states e.g. Hungary.
Like you. I'd very much like a strong European response to Putin. I just don't think the EU was ever functionally capable of being that. My heart is federalist - my head does not believe it's realistic.
I think that is wishful thinking. The EU and NATO are the decision making mechanisms for Europe. NATO has been weakened by Trump and the EU by Brexit. Unsurprising when you consider Putin's support for both disruptions. I don't know if federalism is realistic or not but I am sure that without it Europe will be carved up by larger and more assertive powers.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
'President Donald Trump has flagged potential concerns over Netflix's planned $72bn (£54bn) deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery's movie studio and popular HBO streaming networks.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
'President Donald Trump has flagged potential concerns over Netflix's planned $72bn (£54bn) deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery's movie studio and popular HBO streaming networks.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
So there was a Commons debate about the 28 point Ukraine peace/surrender plan. A time surely for all sides of the House to come together. And in response Kemi Badenoch sounded off about Starmer surrendering fishing rights to the EU. She is a deeply unserious politician. That she is not as bad as the even-worse Farage and Jenrick doesn't change that.
Ugh. There's plenty to criticise Starmer on in terms of being unserious about defence, and of lacking a strategy to win the war. Why would Kemi waste her time with fish?
"Countries including France are said to want to tie a new post-Brexit security deal to more beneficial access to British waters, potentially holding up military cooperation."
Speaking of the scorpion and the frog, France can never resist the opportunity to poke this country in the eye, even when it is clearly not in their interest to do so.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
'President Donald Trump has flagged potential concerns over Netflix's planned $72bn (£54bn) deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery's movie studio and popular HBO streaming networks.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
easy when you have a supine boot licker like Starmer
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Nobody, it could have been Rishi had he let Boris stay in post and lose the last GE so he was heir apparent with a Tory Party still not really challenged by Reform but he didn't and blew his own chances of being a long serving leader in the process
If you mean who is Cameron in being the leader who will pretend to be something he is not in order to get elected, then Jenrick is Cameron, even though the cos-play is in the opposite direction.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
German aid to Ukraine now greatly exceeds what we're giving - and their defence budget for next year will be over 4% of GDP. That's also proper practical stuff.
Part of the problem is perhaps the mutual reflexive denigration, as opposed to mutual encouragement between the European allies.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
Which is what has fried the Conservative Party. For centuries, it was a deeply cynical pragmatic organisation, because the point was to win and keep power. Which worked quite well for the country, because it had to govern well enough for enough people, in order to keep winning.
At some point (Thatcher?) it started attracting idealists- small-staters, Eurosceptics and so on. It hasn't been well since.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Nobody, it could have been Rishi had he let Boris stay in post and lose the last GE so he was heir apparent with a Tory Party still not really challenged by Reform but he didn't and blew his own chances of being a long serving leader in the process
If you mean who is Cameron in being the leader who will pretend to be something he is not in order to get elected, then Jenrick is Cameron, even though the cos-play is in the opposite direction.
Jenrick may like to think he is Cameron, in reality he is David Davis with better speechmaking ability
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The age of the Cameron has passed. The fruitcake faction of the Party could then be brow-beaten and persuaded that a moderniser in charge was a prerequsite for being elected, and then governing capably. That theory has been well and truly exploded, given the Governments of May and Sunak, and now that a completely batty party (from the Cameronite perspective) leads in the polls.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
It is more of a friend than China though and not an enemy like Putin's Russia.
Though I agree it comes down the list of UK allies now, after Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, Japan, S Korea, Singapore and even Trump's US
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
I think we also need to recognise that India under anyone has many citizens with a very deep resentment of Britain based on history, and kept very much alive by Bollywood storytelling. It would be good to focus on building an alternative, forward-looking narrative of co-operation with India, but it cannot be one based on giving in, because then we will get neither respect nor friendship.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The age of the Cameron has passed. The fruitcake faction of the Party could then be brow-beaten and persuaded that a moderniser in charge was a prerequsite for being elected, and then governing capably. That theory has been well and truly exploded, given the Governments of May and Sunak, and now that a completely batty party (from the Cameronite perspective) leads in the polls.
If Cameron was back as Tory leader though I suspect the Tories would be near tied with Reform for first. Plenty of centrist Labour and LD voters who voted Tory in 2015 would vote for Cameron again over Farage and Starmer but they won't vote for Kemi sadly or Jenrick either for that matter
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
You raise an interesting comparison and I take the point you are making, but I’d also note that our economy today, while not firing on all cylinders, is way stronger than it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression. So I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
PBers will be amused to learn that autocorrect repeatedly tried to turn the headline into 'The Tory Scorpion and Kermit the Frog.
It's not easy being Green.
(I've got some sympathy for the current batch of Green MPs. They've gone to all the trouble of getting elected, only to be lumbered an opportunist gob on a stick as leader.)
A Gob on a stick that has doubled their polling and had the overwhelming backing of the party.
Badenoch and astarmer could be forgiven a bit of jelousy.
Like a party where everyone is happily listening to Chopin, and then a bunch of gatecrashers arrive and start playing Metallica.
The Green Party as we knew it is no more.
I don't think that Polanski has changed much party policy. Leaving NATO and open borders are longstanding positions for example.
While your sympathies seem increasingly Faragist, I don't think it is the Green Party that has changed much.
Leaving NATO and open borders are insane policy positions in the current climate…
Both are long term ambitions rather than short term ones, but clearly set out an agenda against militarism and pro-immigration.
I don't expect majority appeal for such policies, but nice to have an alternative voice out there.
A voice that will fortunately never come anywhere near to running the country. A party playing into Putin's hands is the last thing this country needs right. Same applies to Reform and the Fruit & Nuts.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
Sweden invaded *us*, however. (Well, Vikings did.)
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
1% of Eurozone GDP would be about $160bn. Total support committed to Ukraine in the nearly 4 years so far has been about $385bn (US and Europe combined, so about $100bn per year). So just 1% of GDP would represent a large increase in support for Ukraine (particularly when you add in non-Eurozone countries like Britain, Poland, Norway, etc) and you could cover that without resorting to massive austerity. Even 2% wouldn't require slashing of health budgets, etc.
I'm not saying it would necessarily be trivially easy, but it's definitely achievable. And then you can add the frozen Russian assets on top.
We are not talking about a WWII scale of commitment. This is one of the frustrating things. Russia is not strong. Europe is simply choosing to be exceptionally weak.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The age of the Cameron has passed. The fruitcake faction of the Party could then be brow-beaten and persuaded that a moderniser in charge was a prerequsite for being elected, and then governing capably. That theory has been well and truly exploded, given the Governments of May and Sunak, and now that a completely batty party (from the Cameronite perspective) leads in the polls.
If Cameron was back as Tory leader though I suspect the Tories would be near tied with Reform for first. Plenty of centrist Labour and LD voters would vote for Cameron again over Farage and Starmer but they won't vote for Kemi sadly or Jenrick either for that matter
Cameron was never 'liked' by centrist Labour and Lib Dem voters. They would have voted with noses held, thinking of their bank accounts. Kemi is quite capable of attracting votes for the same reason.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
You raise an interesting comparison and I take the point you are making, but I’d also note that our economy today, while not firing on all cylinders, is way stronger than it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression. So I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
The Indian economy was doing well when Modi came to power, as was the US both times when Trump took over.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
You raise an interesting comparison and I take the point you are making, but I’d also note that our economy today, while not firing on all cylinders, is way stronger than it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression. So I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
Though the 2008 Crash was the biggest since 1929 and that legacy still lingers
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
You raise an interesting comparison and I take the point you are making, but I’d also note that our economy today, while not firing on all cylinders, is way stronger than it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression. So I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
Our economy is absolutely not stronger than it was in the 1930s. Unless you are using absolute measures, which wouldn't make sense given that it was nearly a century ago.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
Sweden invaded *us*, however. (Well, Vikings did.)
Swedish Vikings went east, and it was the Norse and Danes who came here to take our jobs, women and houses.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
I would rather there were more safe routes for refugees but the fact is that there aren't.
India is about to start producing drones for Russia's war in Ukraine. Europeans are desperately talking about peace to keep in with Trump, but the peace talks seem to be only a diversion to stop Europe from using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's fight for survival.
The situation feels really bleak, and reportedly Starmer was the driving force behind pushing the target data for NATO's new 5% spending target out to 2035, so the British PM is a main component in the axis of denial in Europe that is holding it back from grasping the reality of the precarious position Europe is in and of taking decisive action to turn things around.
What's the good news?
Starmer should take a leaf out of President Trump's book and warn Modi that any drones will trigger the immediate cancellation of all Indian visas. He won't, of course. Something something international law.
Partly, but mostly realpolitik that we aren't the USA and even the USA struggles with its demands from countries the size of India.
Actually Britain and America are equally important for the Indian diaspora. Russia, on the other hand, is not.
Good luck convincing Modi to take orders from Starmer.....
Modi depends on a lot of NRI money and the UK has a huge and fairly enthusiastic support base for Modi. Banning all types of work and student visas as well as suspending the new trade deal would be appropriate IMO. Maybe even putting up restrictions on visitor visas. I say this as a British Indian so it brings me little joy to suggest such measures but supplying Russia with drones that will be used to kill people in Ukraine is beyond acceptable and we shouldn't accept it. Even if it means our tourist and education sectors suffer for a while.
Modhi is another of those pieces of shit that have come to rule big nations in recent times.
Social media makes it a lot easier for those types to consolidate power. It is a trend that will sadly continue. Probably worse to come.
Does it? There was no social media in the 1930s when Nationalists nearly swept the board. Modi's BJP party also lost its majority at the last Indian general election
It does. Politicians and oligarchs can pay to deliver their own tailored news channels to viewers and readers. Consensus in society breaks down and sets the scene to make the strong man, who might be a shit, but at least he is our shit, the only one who can fix things.
They only send their news channels to their own supporters anyway.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
You raise an interesting comparison and I take the point you are making, but I’d also note that our economy today, while not firing on all cylinders, is way stronger than it was in the 1930s during the Great Depression. So I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
Our economy is absolutely not stronger than it was in the 1930s. Unless you are using absolute measures, which wouldn't make sense given that it was nearly a century ago.
It absolutely most definitely is, in real measures.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
I would rather there were more safe routes for refugees but the fact is that there aren't.
Which does not justify enabling the drowning of people in the Channel.
And there are safe routes, most people who apply for asylum in this country did not get here on small boats.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
In fact, the financial commitment would not need to be huge. Poland has shown that it can be done.
I know people scream and shout about trivial things, but leadership means you sometimes have to say "piss off. There are bigger fish to fry."
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
In fact, the financial commitment would not need to be huge. Poland has shown that it can be done.
I know people scream and shout about trivial things, but leadership means you sometimes have to say "piss off. There are bigger fish to fry."
Poland spends far less on welfare especially than western Europe and also less on healthcare.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
You missed off Mongolia.
It's ironic the two nations behind the biggest empires in history have never had a war.
Today’s Russian papers are loving America's new national security strategy. One Russian paper on implications for Europe: “Trump isn’t their Daddy any more.” Kremlin spokesman is quoted as saying: “The adjustments in the updated strategy correspond in many ways to our vision” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EX0a9yNUw
Three minutes. Russian newspaper review by Steve Rosenberg.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The age of the Cameron has passed. The fruitcake faction of the Party could then be brow-beaten and persuaded that a moderniser in charge was a prerequsite for being elected, and then governing capably. That theory has been well and truly exploded, given the Governments of May and Sunak, and now that a completely batty party (from the Cameronite perspective) leads in the polls.
If Cameron was back as Tory leader though I suspect the Tories would be near tied with Reform for first. Plenty of centrist Labour and LD voters would vote for Cameron again over Farage and Starmer but they won't vote for Kemi sadly or Jenrick either for that matter
Cameron was never 'liked' by centrist Labour and Lib Dem voters. They would have voted with noses held, thinking of their bank accounts. Kemi is quite capable of attracting votes for the same reason.
Yes and would hold their noses and do the same again given the alternative of Farage, Starmer and Reeves and Polanski.
Kemi however isn't attracting those liberal centrist voters as she was too associated with Brexit and is too anti woke for them
Today’s Russian papers are loving America's new national security strategy. One Russian paper on implications for Europe: “Trump isn’t their Daddy any more.” Kremlin spokesman is quoted as saying: “The adjustments in the updated strategy correspond in many ways to our vision” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EX0a9yNUw
Three minutes. Russian newspaper review by Steve Rosenberg.
Lincoln has been turning in his grave for decades over what has happened to his party.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
1% of Eurozone GDP would be about $160bn. Total support committed to Ukraine in the nearly 4 years so far has been about $385bn (US and Europe combined, so about $100bn per year). So just 1% of GDP would represent a large increase in support for Ukraine (particularly when you add in non-Eurozone countries like Britain, Poland, Norway, etc) and you could cover that without resorting to massive austerity. Even 2% wouldn't require slashing of health budgets, etc.
I'm not saying it would necessarily be trivially easy, but it's definitely achievable. And then you can add the frozen Russian assets on top.
We are not talking about a WWII scale of commitment. This is one of the frustrating things. Russia is not strong. Europe is simply choosing to be exceptionally weak.
Try telling Labour backbenchers and socialists in the French Parliament to slash 1% of spending on welfare to fund increased arms
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
Sweden invaded *us*, however. (Well, Vikings did.)
Swedish Vikings went east, and it was the Norse and Danes who came here to take our jobs, women and houses.
That's what the Swedes like to think, in fact they like to think that Swedish Vikings just did a bit of trading.
However there were certainly Swedish vikings in the British Isles.
In the national museum in Stockholm there is a Swedish grave monument that boasts how many times the deceased took Danegeld
NEW on CNN: In several old videos we found, Pete Hegseth blasted Trump in 2016 warning he could issue unlawful orders that troops should refuse, calling him an “armchair tough guy” with five draft deferments.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
The way African friends have expressed it is that they understand the Great Power zone of influence thing. As in they think that Russia is expected to try and control Ukraine. Not that it’s nice, but it is to be expected.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
One of my fears is that Ukraine cannot keep up this intensity of warfare indefinitely, and that as the support from Europe falters, they may reach a breaking point before Russia does. And then, when Russia wants to have another go at Europe, they will benefit from Ukrainian industry and the Ukrainian people that they have coerced into fighting for them.
Europe reeks of a desperation for peace. It only emboldens Russia to push for more.
Zelensky has already said he would agree to a ceasefire on current lines, as has Europe but Putin wants more than that which they reject
Russia can keep on pushing for more because Putin has the security of knowing that he can offer a ceasefire at any time, and there is no question that it will be accepted. There is thus no risk for him that in pushing for more he might risk Russian becoming overextended and losing some of what he has. The European desperation for peace thus encourages Putin to prolong the war.
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
If Europe were that desperate for peace they would already have accepted Putin's preferred peace terms.
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
That's just not true. While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping. I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
It would need massive austerity and slashing of welfare states and health budgets or massive tax rises to fund massive increases in European arms manufacturing to send to Ukraine which European electorates just aren't willing to do. The slight increase in defence budgets already approved is all they will back but that can at best ensure stalemate, not victory without US support as well
1% of Eurozone GDP would be about $160bn. Total support committed to Ukraine in the nearly 4 years so far has been about $385bn (US and Europe combined, so about $100bn per year). So just 1% of GDP would represent a large increase in support for Ukraine (particularly when you add in non-Eurozone countries like Britain, Poland, Norway, etc) and you could cover that without resorting to massive austerity. Even 2% wouldn't require slashing of health budgets, etc.
I'm not saying it would necessarily be trivially easy, but it's definitely achievable. And then you can add the frozen Russian assets on top.
We are not talking about a WWII scale of commitment. This is one of the frustrating things. Russia is not strong. Europe is simply choosing to be exceptionally weak.
Try telling Labour backbenchers and socialists in the French Parliament to slash 1% of spending on welfare to fund increased arms
It doesn't need to entirely or even primarily come from welfare.
The best way we could spend our defence budget is to be able to develop munitions which we can send to Ukraine.
Logistics and throughput of weaponry wins wars more than stockpiles which can be drained do, we should be building the capacity to build munitions, then send what we have built to Ukraine.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
Thanks for the reply. The Tory MPs need to realise this is not 2003. Badenoch is not IDS. Jenrick is not Howard.
No, Cleverly is Howard even if Kemi is IDS, Jenrick is David Davis
Who then is Cameron?
Aucune.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
The age of the Cameron has passed. The fruitcake faction of the Party could then be brow-beaten and persuaded that a moderniser in charge was a prerequsite for being elected, and then governing capably. That theory has been well and truly exploded, given the Governments of May and Sunak, and now that a completely batty party (from the Cameronite perspective) leads in the polls.
If Cameron was back as Tory leader though I suspect the Tories would be near tied with Reform for first. Plenty of centrist Labour and LD voters would vote for Cameron again over Farage and Starmer but they won't vote for Kemi sadly or Jenrick either for that matter
Cameron was never 'liked' by centrist Labour and Lib Dem voters. They would have voted with noses held, thinking of their bank accounts. Kemi is quite capable of attracting votes for the same reason.
Yes and would hold their noses and do the same again given the alternative of Farage, Starmer and Reeves and Polanski.
Kemi however isn't attracting those liberal centrist voters as she was too associated with Brexit and is too anti woke for them
It's more likely to happen in the privacy of the polling booth.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
You missed off Mongolia.
It's ironic the two nations behind the biggest empires in history have never had a war.
Our empire didn't really start until Elizabeth I, other than the Angevins.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
We have invaded almost every country on earth. I think we haven't yet done Andorra, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kyrgyztan, Liechtenstein, Sao Tome and Principe and Sweden. Perhaps we could find some friends amongst those.
You missed off Mongolia.
It's ironic the two nations behind the biggest empires in history have never had a war.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
Today’s Russian papers are loving America's new national security strategy. One Russian paper on implications for Europe: “Trump isn’t their Daddy any more.” Kremlin spokesman is quoted as saying: “The adjustments in the updated strategy correspond in many ways to our vision” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EX0a9yNUw
Three minutes. Russian newspaper review by Steve Rosenberg.
Isn't the new US foreign policy to dominate the 'Western Hemisphere' which is London to Hawaii. So excludes Russia and China and almost all of Europe. So essentially they've withdrawn from the world in order to bomb a few fishing boats in the Caribbean.
Comments
Take a seat that in 2024 was:
Con 50%
Lab 35%
Green 10%
LD 5%
With those four plus Reform standing in 2026, what would you expect the result to be?
The only way to break out of this dynamic is to commit to a strategy for victory.
In a town like Darlington, or Stockton, I'd expect a comfortable win for Reform.
Putin will only offer a ceasefire when he is losing, at which point the correct response is idi na khuy and keep on killing Russians.
And some of that will be spent on Ajax.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpkgq4wllo
The UN General Assembly meanwhile voted by 141 to 5 demanding that Russia withdraw its troops from Ukraine (though India was one of 35 nations abstaining)
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/un-general-assembly-demands-russian-federation-withdraw-all-military-forces-territory-ukraine_und_en
There is zero chance of forcing Russia out of Ukraine until Trump leaves office and a new Democrat President might give the extra funds and arms needed for Zelensky to be able to do so, at best a ceasefire on current lines is all that can be done for now
Like you. I'd very much like a strong European response to Putin. I just don't think the EU was ever functionally capable of being that. My heart is federalist - my head does not believe it's realistic.
Now is perhaps another time to take the lead with practical action. Britain should take the lead on frozen Russian assets and send those frozen in Britain to Ukraine as soon as possible, rather than waiting for the EU to sort itself out.
Ref 30%
Con 25%
Green 20%
Lab 15%
LD 10%
Or maybe swap the Labour and Green figures.
https://conservativehome.com/2025/08/07/the-return-of-boris-tory-voters-are-looking-back-to-the-future/
Ipsos last year during the leadership election found Cleverly polled better with 2024 Labour and LD voters than Jenrick too, especially with LD voters where Cleverly had a +2% rating as to who would be a good Tory leader compared to -6% for Jenrick and -22% for Kemi
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/james-cleverly-tops-list-who-would-make-good-tory-leader-3-in-5-say-they-dont-care
"Poverty champion ran secret hate mail campaign"
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-eu-defense-pact-really-does-depend-on-fish-european-minister-warns/
"Countries including France are said to want to tie a new post-Brexit security deal to more beneficial access to British waters, potentially holding up military cooperation."
I don't know if federalism is realistic or not but I am sure that without it Europe will be carved up by larger and more assertive powers.
*Yes, of course I looked that word up.
Con 30.1%
Ref 29.6%
Grn 18.6%
Lab 16.8%
LD 5.2%
If Green can show it's in with a chance, and squeezes Lab and LD, it could just win, with Con and Ref splitting the vote. But unlikely.
While I acknowledge it's unlikely, since their various leaders are just too cautious, Europe has the capacity on its own to defeat Putin. But it would require a serious collective commitment which isn't yet there.
It's not impossible that the Trump overreach and outright hostility towards Europe leads to the penny dropping.
I'm not betting on it but it's considerably more than a non zero chance.
(Certainly not right now. And given that one of Cameron's skills was to throw everyone the odd bone to keep them onboard, it's going to be tricky, because I'm not sure that the left or right fringes on the old Conservative family want to be kept on board. Just because there's a gap in the market doesn't mean that anyone is going to fill it.)
That's also proper practical stuff.
Part of the problem is perhaps the mutual reflexive denigration, as opposed to mutual encouragement between the European allies.
At some point (Thatcher?) it started attracting idealists- small-staters, Eurosceptics and so on. It hasn't been well since.
If we had much stronger economies and less immigration strongmen would be less of an issue, it is weaker economies that produce nationalist strongmen or the hard left as in the 1930s more than social media
Though I agree it comes down the list of UK allies now, after Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the EU, Japan, S Korea, Singapore and even Trump's US
I'm not saying it would necessarily be trivially easy, but it's definitely achievable. And then you can add the frozen Russian assets on top.
We are not talking about a WWII scale of commitment. This is one of the frustrating things. Russia is not strong. Europe is simply choosing to be exceptionally weak.
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
And there are safe routes, most people who apply for asylum in this country did not get here on small boats.
I know people scream and shout about trivial things, but leadership means you sometimes have to say "piss off. There are bigger fish to fry."
Governments also need to get re elected
It's ironic the two nations behind the biggest empires in history have never had a war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EX0a9yNUw
Three minutes. Russian newspaper review by Steve Rosenberg.
Kemi however isn't attracting those liberal centrist voters as she was too associated with Brexit and is too anti woke for them
Now Reagan is too.
However there were certainly Swedish vikings in the British Isles.
In the national museum in Stockholm there is a Swedish grave monument that boasts how many times the deceased took Danegeld
NEW on CNN: In several old videos we found, Pete Hegseth blasted Trump in 2016 warning he could issue unlawful orders that troops should refuse, calling him an “armchair tough guy” with five draft deferments.
Now he’s attacking Democrats for saying same.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/08/politics/hegseth-trump-warned-unlawful-orders-kfile
The best way we could spend our defence budget is to be able to develop munitions which we can send to Ukraine.
Logistics and throughput of weaponry wins wars more than stockpiles which can be drained do, we should be building the capacity to build munitions, then send what we have built to Ukraine.
But we took India off the Moghuls.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
A total of 109,142 people applied for asylum in the UK from July 2024 to June 2025.
The top three countries with the most people claiming asylum were Germany with 190,000, France with 158,000 and Spain with 155,000.
The UK ranked at number five for asylum claims when compared alongside 26 other European countries, with populations over one million.
When adjusted for population size, the UK ranks at number 11 for asylum applications per 100,000 people.
They then give a graph for European countries with the highest asylum applicants per 100,000 residents:
Greece: 686
Belgium: 332
Spain: 321
Switzerland: 280
Ireland: 262
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2
France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2
Germany: 357,114 km2
Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45
France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29
Germany: 0.53
Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.