I take HL's point about civilians in arms factories being the same as soldiers in terms of military significance. Indeed I would view it as the converse with soldiers just being civilians in uniform.
In the Falklands and Iraq many of the enemy soldiers were conscripts, and this is also true of many contemporary wars too, including the various factions in Syria.
Those who start the wars are generally the war criminals, those that finish them are very rarely so. War brutalises people, and by the tail end of wars even the best disciplined armed forces will slip over the line. The real criminals are those that set up the war that put them there.
Yes, oh, very yes. That is why I thought that GW2 was just totally wrong from the outset. Saddam was a very nasty piece of work, and had no doubt tried to manipulate his way around UN sanctions. However, neither he nor his country were any threat to the UK. Nevermind the lies that Blair came up with, nevermind his betrayal of the armed forces by not allowing essential kit to be ordered in time, starting that war was just plain wrong. It was of and in itself a crime.
'Extreme manoeuvres' is relative. A loop need not pull too many g's if it is a long loop.
AIUI, it depends on many things, including the airframe's fatigue life. If the aircraft is properly maintained, and fatigue life has not been reached (and you do not mind the aerobatics eating up the remaining fatigue life), why not?
A much bigger problem might be giving pilots enough airtime to keep really familiar with the aircraft; although there are several Hunters still flying, so it would not be as bad as it could be for some types.
An 80-year-old relative who is a retired pilot was given a flight on a Spitfire as a birthday present (through one of the commercial operations still offering them) and said that he'd not looped the loop for decades and it was wonderful. I was pleased for him but a bit surprised that he was allowed to do it. I wonder if the regulations for those flying experiences need to be reviewed (though I'm speaking as someone who's just enjoyed one myself - I don't want to spoil anyone's fun).
That's interesting. But are you sure he was actually 'flying' the plane? I would have thought that such experiences are given in a two seater, even if there are dual controls. At least one Spitfire at Duxford was controversially rebuilt as a two-seater for this reason ...
In the same way, steam railway footplate experiences are always given by experienced crews (or should be).
One of my staff had a flight in a two seater spitfire at Duxford a few weeks ago. Options included victory roll and loop.
I had great fun flying a Tiger Moth, OK it was dual control,but I sat up front and flew it, sometimes the stick was a bit stiff when the pilot thought I was pushing it a bit. A bit like when you learned to drive with "He man dual controls"
I listened to AQ today, and AA, I find it hard to believe Corbynmania,according to the Beeb, is for real,am I so far behind the curve? Yes we all want better wages ,better public services etc, but barely a word about how to pay for it, .do we really want to spend what limited resources we have on renationalisation. Yes I am conservative, but I am staggered that a large number of people still want to follow a 1970s Messiah. Has Labour gone mad?
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I take HL's point about civilians in arms factories being the same as soldiers in terms of military significance. Indeed I would view it as the converse with soldiers just being civilians in uniform.
In the Falklands and Iraq many of the enemy soldiers were conscripts, and this is also true of many contemporary wars too, including the various factions in Syria.
Those who start the wars are generally the war criminals, those that finish them are very rarely so. War brutalises people, and by the tail end of wars even the best disciplined armed forces will slip over the line. The real criminals are those that set up the war that put them there.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
You can, in theory, if you intend to completely dismantle the existing political and legal system. I think there might be a word for it... revolution?
Kezia Dugdale obviously doesn't follow PB.com as she is still on about making it a legal requirement for 50-50 Holyrood gender balance. To further upset the chaps she is moving the policy up a gear - now at least 50% of the candidates will be women:
" And she said that at least half of Scottish Labour’s new candidates for next year’s Holyrood election will be women. But she told the GMB event: “We need more than that. "
I can commend the "how to drink Scotch whisky" video on the Scotsman link. It is a hoot as a pretentious load of twaddle unless it's a double bluff. It must call into question The Scotsman's ability to investigate anything other than comedy. Hold on ....
It's kind of outrageous. She's fighting a fight that was won a long time ago, all she is doing now is stacking the pack against men. Young men are not 'advantaged' in todays society like they might have been many decades ago, but they will be disadvantaged by this.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
I think that Corbynomics will be very good for those with assets. He seems to be propsing printing money via QE and spending it on goodies. This devalues the currency, causes inflation and rewards those with assets, particularly as debts get wiped out by hyperinflation (provided the owner survives the high interest rates).
Wiping out my mortgage and increasing the value of my stocks may even outstrip the higher taxes.
Printing money via QE and spending it on ... private assets!
Somebody was filming the Hunter from a distance as it went thru its manouvres, and captured the whole thing. The footage has found it's way onto YouTube: you can find it here: h t t p s : / / w w w .youtube.com/watch?v=vw75lBTZO2E . In deference to those posters here who (entirely understandably) find this distasteful, I have spaced out the link so it won't autodisplay. Reassemble the link if you want to see it.
My worst nightmare. I recently went to the RAF Fairford airshow, to pay my respects to the last Vulcan flying, it will be retired this year. I was always on edge hoping the pilots would all be OK, and admiring their skills, it is a delicate balance, showing the limits of the aircraft, but no more. Feel for the family.
I've seen enough Vulcans not to feel the need (of course I'll regret saying that when XH558 is grounded and it's too late) but my immediate thought is that I thought, post Farnborough and Ramstein, that we wouldn't see things like this again...and now we have. Damn, damn...
Whenever I hear about the Vulcan, I'm reminded of the Hawker Hunter, the E.E. Lightning, the Canberra, the Blackburn Buccaneer, the TSR2.......but above all the Vulcan reminds me of Thunderball.
God don't get me started, I'll start banging on about the Buccaneer's rotary bombbay, the Lightning's amazing ability to fly very fast to intercept without actually carrying enough weaponry to make the trip worthwhile (and the fact that to maintain the top engine you had to take the bottom one out), Tony Benn ordering the burning of the TSR2 plans in the carpark, the tendency of the Tornado to fly into sanddunes ("We can do airfield denial! Er, no we can't. Whoops"), why the hell can't they get Merlins to fly in Afghanistan, what do you mean you bought Chinooks without the software, why did we buy the A400M Grizzly/Atlas/Whatever when we could have gotten Super Herculeses, can we have some more Globemasters please, are we ever going to get F35's or is it just quicker to buy the Harriers back from the Marine Corps, why are we still buying planes with pilots at all...
...don't mention AEW Nimrods. Just...don't.
Speaking of Nimrods.....
When I was at boarding school in the UK in the 60s, and my folks lived in the Canary Islands, I was a regular flyer on Iberia and BEA.
Flying to or from Madrid to the UK, the plane BEA would use was the Comet. I still remember hearing the windows creak while in flight. At the time I didn't know the history of the plane.
Square or round windows?
Oval I think, but it has been 50 years. I remember loving Iberia and hating BEA.
Got the weirdest letter from the Scottish Conservatives today. It doesn't in any way exhort me to vote Conservative - the only thing it encourages me to do is to ensure that the SNP be the best government possible.
Then there's a survey on the back.
What did it say?
The survey was a boring details harvesting exercise asking if you agreed or disagreed with a bunch of feel good policies that anyone from any party would agree were a good thing (except for the one where the promised to use the new Scotland Bill tax powers to cut taxes).
They asked Voting Intention for Holyrood and had Conservative , Probably Conservative , Don't Know (If Don't Know have you ever voted Conservative Before) a some of the options
I meant the bit on the front where they were telling you to 'ensure that the SNP be the best government possible'.
''It is the nature of war to become more extreme as time goes on. War turns the best of men into killers, and the slope is quite a slippery one. The Tamils invented suicide explosive vests, and certainly performed acts of terrorism.
Wars sometimes fizzle out, sometimes they end with negotiations, sometimes they end by one side obliterating the other and preventing them from rising again.
The same RAF that fought the Battle of Britain ended the war by firebombing a Dresden filled with refugees. It is the nature of war.
What, in your view, was the difference in WWII between an 19 year old working in a factory or office and a 19 year old who had been conscripted into the armed forces and given a weapon? One appears to have been an innocent civilian whose death, agonising or otherwise, was a war crime and the other was a what exactly?
I ask purely in the spirit of seeking enlightenment as in a time of total war with conscripted armies the philosophy of who was a combatant and who was a civilian is unclear to me. ''
Answer--- The nazis did not need courts they were taking captured British soldiers into barns and throwing in hand grenades on the way to Dunkirk. There were no conventions about bombing cities in 39-45 (check lout the Red Cross). Something the Germans first took advantage of whilst we started by dropping leaflets. On 17/18 Aug 1943 we bombed Peenemunde. It was from 7000 feet and targeted at the offices and living quarters of the scientists. They were designing V2 rockets which could drop the atom bomb as well as HE. Its sole purpose was to kill civilians. The crews were told that if they did not do a good job they would have to go back the following night. Such raids were perfectly justified.
It's a strange supposed 'war crime' where the perpetrators suffer 60% casualties.
As for Dresden - these were typical raids compared to others. Because by 2008 neo nazis were claiming inflated figures the civil authorities commissioned detailed research and assessed the death toll at 25,000. This is not insignificant of course and the success of the raids were due to ideal conditions and expert bombing. Hamburg suffered 45,000 killed in an earlier raid. Of course everyone can take David Irving's word as gospel.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
Plus the coal mines, railways, steel works, car companies etc were private to begin with.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
Plus the coal mines, railways, steel works, car companies etc were private to begin with.
The point is that you can say anything you like when you also know you are never going to be in a position to do anything about it.
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I take HL's point about civilians in arms factories being the same as soldiers in terms of military significance. Indeed I would view it as the converse with soldiers just being civilians in uniform.
In the Falklands and Iraq many of the enemy soldiers were conscripts, and this is also true of many contemporary wars too, including the various factions in Syria.
Those who start the wars are generally the war criminals, those that finish them are very rarely so. War brutalises people, and by the tail end of wars even the best disciplined armed forces will slip over the line. The real criminals are those that set up the war that put them there.
Hence the importance of Chilcott. Corbyn is like the spectre at the feast for this election, until the Gulf War issue is closed the party cannot recover. Repentance is required, which is one reason I favoured the new generation of Kendall and Creasy. The others were involved, and Corbyn will be redundant once the repentance has occurred.
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I don't think I am as sanguine about the absence of islamic extremism if GW2 had not taken place. 9/11 had, let us remember, and that genie was well out of the bottle.
However, the really big failure and the danger that has yet to work its way through was what the process leading up to GW2 taught the rest of the world about the new world order that had supposedly been put in place posts 1991. The lesson everyone else took, and especially Russia and China, was that if you have the power you can get away with anything and the UN matters not. No wonder Iran and North Korea want their own nukes, if I was them I would to.
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
You can, in theory, if you intend to completely dismantle the existing political and legal system. I think there might be a word for it... revolution?
We dont do that sort of thing here. Except during the civil war and glorious revolution, which wasnt very revolutionary.
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I don't think I am as sanguine about the absence of islamic extremism if GW2 had not taken place. 9/11 had, let us remember, and that genie was well out of the bottle.
However, the really big failure and the danger that has yet to work its way through was what the process leading up to GW2 taught the rest of the world about the new world order that had supposedly been put in place posts 1991. The lesson everyone else took, and especially Russia and China, was that if you have the power you can get away with anything and the UN matters not. No wonder Iran and North Korea want their own nukes, if I was them I would to.
The two big failures was starting it in the first place but the bigger failure was not knowing what to do when it was won and what would fill the void.
It then took a particularly twisted sense of humour in the aftermath to then appoint Blair as a Middle East peace envoy.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
You can, in theory, if you intend to completely dismantle the existing political and legal system. I think there might be a word for it... revolution?
We dont do that sort of thing here. Except during the civil war and glorious revolution, which wasnt very revolutionary.
We don't usually let revolutionaries get anywhere near positions of power. How we would stop them if they got there is generally untested!
Got the weirdest letter from the Scottish Conservatives today. It doesn't in any way exhort me to vote Conservative - the only thing it encourages me to do is to ensure that the SNP be the best government possible.
Then there's a survey on the back.
What did it say?
The survey was a boring details harvesting exercise asking if you agreed or disagreed with a bunch of feel good policies that anyone from any party would agree were a good thing (except for the one where the promised to use the new Scotland Bill tax powers to cut taxes).
They asked Voting Intention for Holyrood and had Conservative , Probably Conservative , Don't Know (If Don't Know have you ever voted Conservative Before) a some of the options
I meant the bit on the front where they were telling you to 'ensure that the SNP be the best government possible'.
Thanks! For imaging hosting I use imgur.com, which is a free service. Interesting letter, you'd have thought a 'vote baby eating Tories in 2016' would have been at the bottom...
I don't want to labour my point but the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians is a criminal act. Those who did it knew it and lived with it. Those who planned it knew and lived with it. If the war had been lost, those who committed these acts would have been held to account- and executed.
But thankfully we won. So its all a bit immaterial what the red cross conventions were in 1939. But the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians is a crime and a horrible one at that.
We can talk about whether these crimes were justified until we are blue in the face- and sometimes some crimes are justified.
''It is the nature of war to become more extreme as time goes on. War turns the best of men into killers, and the slope is quite a slippery one. The Tamils invented suicide explosive vests, and certainly performed acts of terrorism.
Wars sometimes fizzle out, sometimes they end with negotiations, sometimes they end by one side obliterating the other and preventing them from rising again.
The same RAF that fought the Battle of Britain ended the war by firebombing a Dresden filled with refugees. It is the nature of war.
Answer--- The nazis did not need courts they were taking captured British soldiers into barns and throwing in hand grenades on the way to Dunkirk. There were no conventions about bombing cities in 39-45 (check lout the Red Cross). Something the Germans first took advantage of whilst we started by dropping leaflets. On 17/18 Aug 1943 we bombed Peenemunde. It was from 7000 feet and targeted at the offices and living quarters of the scientists. They were designing V2 rockets which could drop the atom bomb as well as HE. Its sole purpose was to kill civilians. The crews were told that if they did not do a good job they would have to go back the following night. Such raids were perfectly justified.
It's a strange supposed 'war crime' where the perpetrators suffer 60% casualties.
As for Dresden - these were typical raids compared to others. Because by 2008 neo nazis were claiming inflated figures the civil authorities commissioned detailed research and assessed the death toll at 25,000. This is not insignificant of course and the success of the raids were due to ideal conditions and expert bombing. Hamburg suffered 45,000 killed in an earlier raid. Of course everyone can take David Irving's word as gospel.
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
Not if your relatives are in the cars being eviscerated. Would you like to see footage of the bin lorry crashing into prams? Its a call, I grant you. But not unreasonable.
"In defence of the Corbyn camp’s plans to renationalise privatised industries, John McDonnell MP, who is the candidate’s campaign agent, said that privatisation had been “a confidence trick”. He said: “Privatisation over the last four decades has been a history of the British people being robbed and the spivs snatching up the public assets being given the licence to print money. From the earliest privatisations of water, energy and rail to the PFI schemes from the last decade, it has been one long confidence trick.
“Under a Corbyn Labour government this shameful era of governments and ministers colluding in the picking of the taxpayers’ pockets will be brought to an abrupt end.
“Let’s also make it absolutely clear to any speculators in the City looking to make a fast buck at the taxpayers’ expense that if any of these assets are sold by Osborne under their value, a future Corbyn-led Labour government will reserve the right to bring them back into public ownership with either no compensation or with any undervaluation deducted from any compensation for renationalisation.”"
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation. What if the value had dropped? Is he offering to make up the difference?
You can, in theory, if you intend to completely dismantle the existing political and legal system. I think there might be a word for it... revolution?
We dont do that sort of thing here. Except during the civil war and glorious revolution, which wasnt very revolutionary.
We don't usually let revolutionaries get anywhere near positions of power. How we would stop them if they got there is generally untested!
Untested in recent years perhaps, but historically we were quite good at it. The process usually involved an axe at some point, which would set today's human rights crowd into a swoon but needs must.
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I don't think I am as sanguine about the absence of islamic extremism if GW2 had not taken place. 9/11 had, let us remember, and that genie was well out of the bottle.
However, the really big failure and the danger that has yet to work its way through was what the process leading up to GW2 taught the rest of the world about the new world order that had supposedly been put in place posts 1991. The lesson everyone else took, and especially Russia and China, was that if you have the power you can get away with anything and the UN matters not. No wonder Iran and North Korea want their own nukes, if I was them I would to.
The two big failures was starting it in the first place but the bigger failure was not knowing what to do when it was won and what would fill the void.
It then took a particularly twisted sense of humour in the aftermath to then appoint Blair as a Middle East peace envoy.
If there had been a better plan for after the war was won there wouldn't have been much of a problem.
A real cri de cœur there, Mr. Code. If we could ever get you and Andy Cooke, gent sometimes of this parish, is a pub together we could sell tickets.
Anyway in light of your sensibilities, I promise I will never again make any comment about Crabs and Crab Air or make the obviously sensible suggestion that when the F35s do come they all be assigned to the FAA.
Thank you. Although to deflect accusations of status-snatching, I have to point out that I am not in the RAF: my gush comes from being a fan who had a teenage bedroom plastered with more plane pictures than the RAF yearbook and thinks the only thing wrong with airshows is that they end. Spiritually if not factually (no time!) I am the person who will park under the glidepath just to get a better view...
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
I don't think I am as sanguine about the absence of islamic extremism if GW2 had not taken place. 9/11 had, let us remember, and that genie was well out of the bottle.
However, the really big failure and the danger that has yet to work its way through was what the process leading up to GW2 taught the rest of the world about the new world order that had supposedly been put in place posts 1991. The lesson everyone else took, and especially Russia and China, was that if you have the power you can get away with anything and the UN matters not. No wonder Iran and North Korea want their own nukes, if I was them I would to.
The two big failures was starting it in the first place but the bigger failure was not knowing what to do when it was won and what would fill the void.
It then took a particularly twisted sense of humour in the aftermath to then appoint Blair as a Middle East peace envoy.
If there had been a better plan for after the war was won there wouldn't have been much of a problem.
There might have been less of a problem if the aftermath of the war somehow been a peaceful Iraq. However, there would still have been this massive issue of starting a war of aggression in the first place.
Where is the successful track record for this kind of tosh? There's plenty of precedent for failure. How will any funds be raised by a government (for anything at all) that is prepared to steal from past investors, whose reputations are trashed in the process as if they are the criminals? This really is the economics of the playground, one in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Danny Blanchflower's signature tells you all we need to know.
Nationalisation without full compensation is specifically banned under EU law. playing games to crash the price of a business before the country buys it is also banned. Similar protection for individuals assets.
The Greeks fell afoul of the last one a few years back when the family of the last King of Greece got a ruling that the Greeks had to give *everything* back they had taken.
IIRC they played nice and only asked for a relatively small amount of property back.
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
The full video is on YouTube if you want it.
Not really, I just think the BBC should have either shown the whole thing or not at all — assuming it was a long distance shot, which it looks like it was.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
Where is the successful track record for this kind of tosh? There's plenty of precedent for failure. How will any funds be raised by a government (for anything at all) that is prepared to steal from past investors, whose reputations are trashed in the process as if they are the criminals? This really is the economics of the playground, one in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
And by just saying this he has immediately increased the risk in purchasing these assets by investors. Therefore he has just reduced the value of them.
International investors have always invested in nations with dodgy records of confiscating property, but they do so on a much bigger profit margin, as they factor this in.
Danny Blanchflower's signature tells you all we need to know.
Nationalisation without full compensation is specifically banned under EU law. playing games to crash the price of a business before the country buys it is also banned. Similar protection for individuals assets.
The Greeks fell afoul of the last one a few years back when the family of the last King of Greece got a ruling that the Greeks had to give *everything* back they had taken.
IIRC they played nice and only asked for a relatively small amount of property back.
That's why Corbyn needs to engineer a vote to leave the EU...
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
Germany was only fighting on two fronts because we didn't give in despite being 3-nil down at the end of the first half. However, whilst the UK was never going to beat them on our own the Russians would have even if the Anglo-US armies had not landed at Normandy.
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
Bah. How dare someone have the utter nerve to mention 'walking in the Peak District' when I can't do it?
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
I was alluding to that.
For me one of the ironies of Triple Entente was we signed it because we, yes we, were worried about imperialism (by Germany)
Where is the successful track record for this kind of tosh? There's plenty of precedent for failure. How will any funds be raised by a government (for anything at all) that is prepared to steal from past investors, whose reputations are trashed in the process as if they are the criminals? This really is the economics of the playground, one in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
And by just saying this he has immediately increased the risk in purchasing these assets by investors. Therefore he has just reduced the value of them.
International investors have always invested in nations with dodgy records of confiscating property, but they do so on a much bigger profit margin, as they factor this in.
I think our "investment" requirements might be substantially more than the dodgy nations you refer to and if you come up short you're as fxxked as if you got nothing because that's what you'll actually get, vide Greece.
The Tory Outers are doing well judging from the Sunday Times piece.
Leading donors have been told that the first phase of the campaign will focus on the dangers of a “yes” vote rather than campaigning on issues such as immigration.
The campaign will argue:
• That Britain can still trade with the EU if it leaves because 190 out of 192 countries in the world have trade agreements with the EU
• Whatever deal Cameron gets, EU leaders are committed to continuing EU integration
• The UK’s £10bn net annual contribution to the EU would be better spent on the NHS
• Britain’s biggest business group, the pro-EU CBI, should be disqualified from participating in the campaign.
One of those closely involved said: “We need to talk to the one-third of the country who don’t like the EU and would like to leave, are frightened of the consequences and are not persuaded by Ukip.
“We need to explain a ‘yes’ vote means giving away more power and money.”
Just heard about the air crash on BBC news, (been walking in the Peak Distrct). I see they showed the plane just before and after the crash but not the actual crash. Seems a bit ridiculous and nannyish.
Bah. How dare someone have the utter nerve to mention 'walking in the Peak District' when I can't do it?
Look on the bright side - once the car is fixed they won't have to walk any more.
The seminal event of our age was the fall of Communism and the collapse of the USSR from 1989-91. Everything that has happened since then has been a consequence of those events which continue to reverberate to this day and have fundamentally and drastically changed the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of our country.
It was the greatest political re-ordering of Europe since the US and Red Armies met at Torgau in April 1945.
It was also arguably the most inconceivable of events - the end of the Cold War had widely been seen as either coming through nuclear annihilation or via the political and economic collapse of the West. To imagine Communism falling so completely and with such a small loss of life was to imagine the impossible.
Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev and others may rightly be credited with causing these events but no one had imagined their outcome or had prepared for it. The equally inadequate responses of conservatives, socialists and liberals to the fall of Communism were so conditioned by the Cold War psyche as to squander an invaluable opportunity to re-shape a new global world order and we live with the consequences of that collective failure.
Imagine, if you like, how our politics, society and economy would look if the Cold War were celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, if the Berlin Wall still existed and the BAOR still enjoyed the hospitality of the West German Government.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
I have been reading this interesting book recently that makes a convincing case that Britain and Germany fell out in 1864 over Schwelsig-Holstein, and that the seeds of war were planted then:
I listened to AQ today, and AA, I find it hard to believe Corbynmania,according to the Beeb, is for real,am I so far behind the curve? Yes we all want better wages ,better public services etc, but barely a word about how to pay for it, .do we really want to spend what limited resources we have on renationalisation. Yes I am conservative, but I am staggered that a large number of people still want to follow a 1970s Messiah. Has Labour gone mad?
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
I was alluding to that.
For me one of the ironies of Triple Entente was we signed it because we, yes we, were worried about imperialism (by Germany)
We were never going to willingly offer any one country hegemony over Europe or grant an enemy control of the channel. Go and look over HMS Warrior if anyone wonders about the importance of the Channel to the Victorians.
So imagine when the Kaiser sacked Bismark and embarked on Weltpolitik and then started building a Fleet!!
"Imagine, if you like, how our politics, society and economy would look if the Cold War were celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, if the Berlin Wall still existed and the BAOR still enjoyed the hospitality of the West German Government."
Well our politics, society and economy managed to progress reasonably well when the cold war was running, I don't suppose progress would have been much different if the the Sovs had stayed in business for another 25 years.
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
There's an old saying which, whilst a massive broad brush, seems as reasonable summation as you can have of the respective countries roles:
"The Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood, and the British provided the time."
...• Britain’s biggest business group, the pro-EU CBI, should be disqualified from participating in the campaign...
In order to widen the debate we must disqualify people from speaking. People who are biased in the wrong way must be marked that we do not hear them, lest they confuse the faithful...
That's interesting. But are you sure he was actually 'flying' the plane? I would have thought that such experiences are given in a two seater, even if there are dual controls. At least one Spitfire at Duxford was controversially rebuilt as a two-seater for this reason ...
In the same way, steam railway footplate experiences are always given by experienced crews (or should be).
You're probably right. It seems a shame to spoil his fun by asking him. Certainly I had a co-pilot with dual controls (the other side of which was that he let me take off and land, just tweaking the controls marginally as needed).
Got the weirdest letter from the Scottish Conservatives today. It doesn't in any way exhort me to vote Conservative - the only thing it encourages me to do is to ensure that the SNP be the best government possible.
Then there's a survey on the back.
That's called data harvesting. They don't necessarily much care what you say in the survey, they're after your contact details. Look for the fine print saying that they reserve the right to use your data in order to send you interesting information etc.
Sunday Times - Betty Boothroyd warns Labour is "galloping towards the precipice" if Corbyn becomes leader
Most of the votes are probably cast already, but these warnings from the great and good do make me think that there is value in Shadsys 5/2 on Corbyn 40-50% on first prefs.
Personally I'm reacting against all this stuff. If the great and good had spent half the time helping the other candidates develop some interesting proposals, they'd have done a lot more good - as it is, they come across as bullying the selectorate.
Isn't this the stuff that let the Tories win the Election?
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
Germany was only fighting on two fronts because we didn't give in despite being 3-nil down at the end of the first half. However, whilst the UK was never going to beat them on our own the Russians would have even if the Anglo-US armies had not landed at Normandy.
Really? Without the need to defend the Atlantic Wall and Norway and prop up Italy and to beat off the allied bombing attacks?
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
The fighting on the Eastern front certainly dwarfed both the casualties on other fronts and the ferocity. But of course via the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Stalin permitted Germany to start the war by invading Poland. Many of the 30 million "Soviet" citizens who died only became "Soviet" in Eastern Poland, the Baltics, Bessarabia and Bukovina because of the pact. Should they be counted as Soviet casualties or as victims of the Soviets?
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
I have been reading this interesting book recently that makes a convincing case that Britain and Germany fell out in 1864 over Schwelsig-Holstein, and that the seeds of war were planted then:
The infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question of which Plamestton is supposed to have said,
“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”
Thanks for the link, Doc, it does look a very interesting book and one which I would very much like to read. Alas, it is about the 19th century and I really am up to my armpits in the 14th, with Atlee's administration as light relief. So I shall add the book to my christmas list and hopefully get to it next year.
P.S. As an aside, Have you ever read "Three men on a Bummel" by Jerome? It is, as you would expect, a light comedy but valuable I think for the insight it gives into how the Victorian English middle class thought about the Germans.
Danny Blanchflower's signature tells you all we need to know.
Nationalisation without full compensation is specifically banned under EU law. playing games to crash the price of a business before the country buys it is also banned. Similar protection for individuals assets.
The Greeks fell afoul of the last one a few years back when the family of the last King of Greece got a ruling that the Greeks had to give *everything* back they had taken.
IIRC they played nice and only asked for a relatively small amount of property back.
That's why Corbyn needs to engineer a vote to leave the EU...
Corbyn would love to be UK PM in the EU.
But lets not start worrying about Corbyn this that and the other. Leave that to Labour. Let them worry about the reality of a nationalised socialised bank. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Corbynomics. The attitude of children in a toyshop comes to mind. The tories should just get on with the business of govt and where that involves returning RBS to public ownership so be it. That is Scottish based RBS of course. I expect the public and staff will be included in future offers.
"Imagine, if you like, how our politics, society and economy would look if the Cold War were celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, if the Berlin Wall still existed and the BAOR still enjoyed the hospitality of the West German Government."
Well our politics, society and economy managed to progress reasonably well when the cold war was running, I don't suppose progress would have been much different if the the Sovs had stayed in business for another 25 years.
Interesting argument, well in the late 80's the soviets had just developed their own PC's and their own space shuttle which was actually more advanced than the american one, the russians had designed theirs as a space bomber and had actually build experimental space fighters as they had Reagan's SDI in mind, also they had just created their own internet.
On both sides there was a lot of investment in technology as both superpowers competed each other. So I would imagine if the USSR and the berlin wall had survived till today, then the west would be 10-20 years ahead in development and the east would be stuck in a 1990's timewarp.
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
Most highly rated of the four candidates. High praise...
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
You're misrepresenting the polling. Out of the four, he's the equivalent of choosing to have a paper cut on your eye, not your todger, or choosing your favourite STD.
If he was as good as you make out, David Miliband or Alan Johnson wouldn't be doing much better with the public.
The Tory Outers are doing well judging from the Sunday Times piece.
Leading donors have been told that the first phase of the campaign will focus on the dangers of a “yes” vote rather than campaigning on issues such as immigration.
The campaign will argue:
• That Britain can still trade with the EU if it leaves because 190 out of 192 countries in the world have trade agreements with the EU
• Whatever deal Cameron gets, EU leaders are committed to continuing EU integration
• The UK’s £10bn net annual contribution to the EU would be better spent on the NHS
• Britain’s biggest business group, the pro-EU CBI, should be disqualified from participating in the campaign.
One of those closely involved said: “We need to talk to the one-third of the country who don’t like the EU and would like to leave, are frightened of the consequences and are not persuaded by Ukip.
“We need to explain a ‘yes’ vote means giving away more power and money.”
They are following the right approach, if we leave the EU we can spend all the money that we give to them on domestic issues instead.
Sixth form nonsense. You cannot confiscate peoples property without the necessary compensation.
Lucky that there are specific European rules to prevent that happening, isn't it? Of course there could be people who say that those restrictions be lifted so that the UK government may return as unto the liege lords of old, with all powers of high and low justice. Then they can take property as it pleases them, and none may gainsay them...
...but that couldn't happen here, right. Right? Er...
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
Polling? You really think the public are engaged and have meaningful knowledge of the candidates?
Just in the last few days we have seen Burnham opposing Corbyn, when he is not sucking-up to Corbyn, and now offering some sort of continuity-Miliband pitch. The guy is all over the place.
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
You seem to forget the non- aggression pact with the Third reich and the partition of Poland in an unprovoked attack. The unprovoked attack on Finland and the succession of the Baltic States by force etc etc..... Given all of that that it's Interesting that they do not receive your criticism for all that aggression and raping and killing civilians.
Given your earlier post I guess your anger is specifically reserved only for the Brits and Americans then heh?
I am fully aware of Stalingrad. A single battle . The Germans lost due to poor preparation and bad timing. The eastern front was appalling no doubt. Probably less life wouLD have been lost if Stalin had not shot all his commanders but still.
Perhaps you should also read up on another Stalingrad known as "little Stalingrad" . Smaller but no less bravery was shown The cemetery is full of the young allied soldiers and is particularly moving. Lovely monument in the village square. It's in your neck of the woods
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Alan Johnson or David Miliband or Dan Jarvis would have done better than all 4, but none are running so you have to go with what there is. Chuka Umunna also might have been good, but clearly his personal life seems to be too much of a concern for him which is why he pulled out
I think that quote is very clever. But I cannot think of any country in the history of mankind putting up the kind of fierce resistance that the Soviets did in WW2 against all the odds. It is beyond imagination what they were prepared to do to resist the Nazis.
The UK's only real experience of Nazi occupation was Jersey and Guernsey and the less said the better. The Guerns celebrate liberation day (or a better fit collaboration day)- I'm sure there are plenty of blonde headed Guerns still roaming the Island- a legacy of the war. Jersey was quite helpful in deporting its small population of Jews too. That is how resistant our kindred folk were to the Nazis.
The Soviets would think nothing of sacrificing an entire village for a Nazi officer. I doubt we would have had quite the same fight in Tunbridge Wells if push came to shove.
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
There's an old saying which, whilst a massive broad brush, seems as reasonable summation as you can have of the respective countries roles:
"The Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood, and the British provided the time."
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
Polling? You really think the public are engaged and have meaningful knowledge of the candidates?
Just in the last few days we have seen Burnham opposing Corbyn, when he is not sucking-up to Corbyn, and now offering some sort of continuity-Miliband pitch. The guy is all over the place.
When do the public ever devote more than a few minutes of their time a week to politics? Yet, of the polling there has been, yougov, ORB, Mori and Comres all 4 polls have had Burnham doing best with the public of the 4. Corbyn's rise cannot be ignored, and if he does not win clearly a significant proportion of the Labour Party backed him and you need to keep them onboard while also winning floating voters, it is a difficult balancing act
I think that quote is very clever. But I cannot think of any country in the history of mankind putting up the kind of fierce resistance that the Soviets did in WW2 against all the odds. It is beyond imagination what they were prepared to do to resist the Nazis.
The UK's only real experience of Nazi occupation was Jersey and Guernsey and the less said the better. The Guerns celebrate liberation day (or a better fit collaboration day)- I'm sure there are plenty of blonde headed Guerns still roaming the Island- a legacy of the war. Jersey was quite helpful in deporting its small population of Jews too. That is how resistant our kindred folk were to the Nazis.
The Soviets would think nothing of sacrificing an entire village for a Nazi officer. I doubt we would have had quite the same fight in Tunbridge Wells if push came to shove.
Perhaps the 30 million or so of Soviets who were killed in WW2 might have had some small effect on the outcome of the war.
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished. This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
I dont know, it took most of the world to beat them last time. Was there any single nation alone other than the US, comforted by a blanket of oceans either side, that could have withstood their might?
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
To a point the Uk and the few brave pilots of fighter command withstood the aerial onslaught and the British Merchant Navy U boat attacks for quite a while. I agree though without the industrial might of the U.S. It may have been considerably different.
There's an old saying which, whilst a massive broad brush, seems as reasonable summation as you can have of the respective countries roles:
"The Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood, and the British provided the time."
You could say that WW2 was primary a German-Soviet war with others as guest stars, however a dead solder is not worth less than another dead soldier, as there is one thing that is equal in life, it is death.
Are you coming along to the Andy shindig near Euston on Monday that Sunil flagged upon here?
Alas no
I'll give you a full report on the adoring crowds etc.
TSE will be working on his magnum opus on AV which we have all been promised. Isn't that right, TSE?
I'm knackered by putting the finishing touches on the morning piece, which maybe my most controversial ever thread header.
A high bar to set for yourself indeed. Excellent.
It'll annoy the Nats. I've possibly insulted Her Majesty, The Queen. I've called Sir John Major a liar. I've defended Corbyn meeting with some interesting people.
Let's be honest. The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Germans were unlucky, had fate been different, we might have been on the same side as them as World War One.
Have you been on the mango juice again, Mr. Eagles? Without a completely different European history in the second half of the 19th century there is no way we could have been on the side of Germany during their first crack at the world title.
I have been reading this interesting book recently that makes a convincing case that Britain and Germany fell out in 1864 over Schwelsig-Holstein, and that the seeds of war were planted then:
The infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question of which Plamestton is supposed to have said,
“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”
Thanks for the link, Doc, it does look a very interesting book and one which I would very much like to read. Alas, it is about the 19th century and I really am up to my armpits in the 14th, with Atlee's administration as light relief. So I shall add the book to my christmas list and hopefully get to it next year.
P.S. As an aside, Have you ever read "Three men on a Bummel" by Jerome? It is, as you would expect, a light comedy but valuable I think for the insight it gives into how the Victorian English middle class thought about the Germans.
I have indeed read the little known sequel to the more famous "Three Men in a Boat". I can also recommend Jerome's "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow".
Corbyn's rise cannot be ignored, and if he does not win clearly a significant proportion of the Labour Party backed him and you need to keep them onboard while also winning floating voters, it is a difficult balancing act
It is more than difficult, much of it is contradictory. I genuinely can not fathom how anyone thinks they can appeal to both Corbynistas and centre-left voters, never mind floating voters. Not that Burnham seems to care, he seems desperate to sweep up votes no matter how silly his pronouncements will get.
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
You're misrepresenting the polling. Out of the four, he's the equivalent of choosing to have a paper cut on your eye, not your todger, or choosing your favourite STD.
If he was as good as you make out, David Miliband or Alan Johnson wouldn't be doing much better with the public.
As I posted below TSE David Miliband or Alan Johnson would indeed be better than all 4, but none are running, so Burnham is the best of those who are. Indeed, the best bet for Labour may now be for Corbyn to narrowly win and then get replaced by Alan Johnson in 2 or 3 years time after failing to perform in the polls, however if Corbyn wins there is also the risk he stays for the full 5 years which would probably be the worst result for Labour
Yep the Tories have nothing to fear from Burnham, judging him by his campaign he seems to be an even bigger berk than Miliband.
Even IDS would defeat him in a general election. That's how bad Burnham's been.
It is hard to believe that there were people who seriously rated Burnham. He has been behaving almost like a caricature of himself.
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate. 2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running. 3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour. 4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
Yet again a complete ignorance of the polling. ALL the polling so far has shown Burnham the most highly rated of the 4 candidates with the public. IDS is the Tories equivalent of Corbyn, Cameron the Tories equivalent of Blair, 12 years ago was a totally different time
Most highly rated of the four candidates. High praise...
Comments
I was trying to talk through the implications today of the Iraq war 2003 with a friend- supposing it hadn't of happened. We arrived at no ISISS, no Syria civil war, no mass exodus to Turkey, no traction for Islamic extremism, no 7/7, no Arab spring, no migrant crisis, no millions of deaths. There might well be some dictators around that themselves killed, but maybe not quite in the same number.
It is not surprising that the psyche of the Labour party is still blunted by the Iraq war.
It's kind of outrageous. She's fighting a fight that was won a long time ago, all she is doing now is stacking the pack against men. Young men are not 'advantaged' in todays society like they might have been many decades ago, but they will be disadvantaged by this.
Wars sometimes fizzle out, sometimes they end with negotiations, sometimes they end by one side obliterating the other and preventing them from rising again.
The same RAF that fought the Battle of Britain ended the war by firebombing a Dresden filled with refugees. It is the nature of war.
What, in your view, was the difference in WWII between an 19 year old working in a factory or office and a 19 year old who had been conscripted into the armed forces and given a weapon? One appears to have been an innocent civilian whose death, agonising or otherwise, was a war crime and the other was a what exactly?
I ask purely in the spirit of seeking enlightenment as in a time of total war with conscripted armies the philosophy of who was a combatant and who was a civilian is unclear to me. ''
Answer---
The nazis did not need courts they were taking captured British soldiers into barns and throwing in hand grenades on the way to Dunkirk.
There were no conventions about bombing cities in 39-45 (check lout the Red Cross). Something the Germans first took advantage of whilst we started by dropping leaflets.
On 17/18 Aug 1943 we bombed Peenemunde. It was from 7000 feet and targeted at the offices and living quarters of the scientists. They were designing V2 rockets which could drop the atom bomb as well as HE. Its sole purpose was to kill civilians.
The crews were told that if they did not do a good job they would have to go back the following night. Such raids were perfectly justified.
It's a strange supposed 'war crime' where the perpetrators suffer 60% casualties.
As for Dresden - these were typical raids compared to others. Because by 2008 neo nazis were claiming inflated figures the civil authorities commissioned detailed research and assessed the death toll at 25,000. This is not insignificant of course and the success of the raids were due to ideal conditions and expert bombing. Hamburg suffered 45,000 killed in an earlier raid.
Of course everyone can take David Irving's word as gospel.
However, the really big failure and the danger that has yet to work its way through was what the process leading up to GW2 taught the rest of the world about the new world order that had supposedly been put in place posts 1991. The lesson everyone else took, and especially Russia and China, was that if you have the power you can get away with anything and the UN matters not. No wonder Iran and North Korea want their own nukes, if I was them I would to.
It then took a particularly twisted sense of humour in the aftermath to then appoint Blair as a Middle East peace envoy.
But thankfully we won. So its all a bit immaterial what the red cross conventions were in 1939. But the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians is a crime and a horrible one at that.
We can talk about whether these crimes were justified until we are blue in the face- and sometimes some crimes are justified.
Answer---
The nazis did not need courts they were taking captured British soldiers into barns and throwing in hand grenades on the way to Dunkirk.
There were no conventions about bombing cities in 39-45 (check lout the Red Cross). Something the Germans first took advantage of whilst we started by dropping leaflets.
On 17/18 Aug 1943 we bombed Peenemunde. It was from 7000 feet and targeted at the offices and living quarters of the scientists. They were designing V2 rockets which could drop the atom bomb as well as HE. Its sole purpose was to kill civilians.
The crews were told that if they did not do a good job they would have to go back the following night. Such raids were perfectly justified.
It's a strange supposed 'war crime' where the perpetrators suffer 60% casualties.
As for Dresden - these were typical raids compared to others. Because by 2008 neo nazis were claiming inflated figures the civil authorities commissioned detailed research and assessed the death toll at 25,000. This is not insignificant of course and the success of the raids were due to ideal conditions and expert bombing. Hamburg suffered 45,000 killed in an earlier raid.
Of course everyone can take David Irving's word as gospel.
Its a call, I grant you. But not unreasonable.
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: I will bring Miliband in says Burnham
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNCrpqsW8AAQK8P.jpg
The full video is on YouTube if you want it.
The Germans are good at football and making cars. They are totally crap at world wars.
The Greeks fell afoul of the last one a few years back when the family of the last King of Greece got a ruling that the Greeks had to give *everything* back they had taken.
IIRC they played nice and only asked for a relatively small amount of property back.
International investors have always invested in nations with dodgy records of confiscating property, but they do so on a much bigger profit margin, as they factor this in.
We were touch and go, and Germany was fighting a nasty war on its other front.
For me one of the ironies of Triple Entente was we signed it because we, yes we, were worried about imperialism (by Germany)
Leading donors have been told that the first phase of the campaign will focus on the dangers of a “yes” vote rather than campaigning on issues such as immigration.
The campaign will argue:
• That Britain can still trade with the EU if it leaves because 190 out of 192 countries in the world have trade agreements with the EU
• Whatever deal Cameron gets, EU leaders are committed to continuing EU integration
• The UK’s £10bn net annual contribution to the EU would be better spent on the NHS
• Britain’s biggest business group, the pro-EU CBI, should be disqualified from participating in the campaign.
One of those closely involved said: “We need to talk to the one-third of the country who don’t like the EU and would like to leave, are frightened of the consequences and are not persuaded by Ukip.
“We need to explain a ‘yes’ vote means giving away more power and money.”
The seminal event of our age was the fall of Communism and the collapse of the USSR from 1989-91. Everything that has happened since then has been a consequence of those events which continue to reverberate to this day and have fundamentally and drastically changed the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of our country.
It was the greatest political re-ordering of Europe since the US and Red Armies met at Torgau in April 1945.
It was also arguably the most inconceivable of events - the end of the Cold War had widely been seen as either coming through nuclear annihilation or via the political and economic collapse of the West. To imagine Communism falling so completely and with such a small loss of life was to imagine the impossible.
Reagan, Thatcher, Gorbachev and others may rightly be credited with causing these events but no one had imagined their outcome or had prepared for it. The equally inadequate responses of conservatives, socialists and liberals to the fall of Communism were so conditioned by the Cold War psyche as to squander an invaluable opportunity to re-shape a new global world order and we live with the consequences of that collective failure.
Imagine, if you like, how our politics, society and economy would look if the Cold War were celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, if the Berlin Wall still existed and the BAOR still enjoyed the hospitality of the West German Government.
Nighty night.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/review/0857205293/R1Z1MT9MIY6SBG/ref=cm_cr_dp_aw_rw1?cursor=1&qid=&sort=rd&sr=
Have you read Stalingrad? The bravery of the Russians in the second world war was astonishing. No country in the history of the world has paid such a price for winning a war. And the Russians did win the war- not the British pilots, or the Americans (who played a bit part), but the tens of millions of Russians that perished.
This was the reason that we ceded the East European countries to them.
So imagine when the Kaiser sacked Bismark and embarked on Weltpolitik and then started building a Fleet!!
Well our politics, society and economy managed to progress reasonably well when the cold war was running, I don't suppose progress would have been much different if the the Sovs had stayed in business for another 25 years.
"The Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood, and the British provided the time."
How on Earth did these four end up as the candidates?
1. A man who makes Ken Livingstone look like a moderate.
2. A woman who appears competent, but charisma-less, and frankly looks like she wishes she wasn't running.
3. A man who manages to say nothing, but simultaneously will say almost anything to curry favour.
4. A woman who has made the terrible mistake of articulating some of the reasons Labour may have lost the general election, and as a result is likely to end up in last place.
I think Labour can do better than this, and I really deeply hate the Labour Party.
But looking at their parliamentary ranks, who stands out as being of real leadership quality?
“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”
Thanks for the link, Doc, it does look a very interesting book and one which I would very much like to read. Alas, it is about the 19th century and I really am up to my armpits in the 14th, with Atlee's administration as light relief. So I shall add the book to my christmas list and hopefully get to it next year.
P.S. As an aside, Have you ever read "Three men on a Bummel" by Jerome? It is, as you would expect, a light comedy but valuable I think for the insight it gives into how the Victorian English middle class thought about the Germans.
But lets not start worrying about Corbyn this that and the other. Leave that to Labour. Let them worry about the reality of a nationalised socialised bank. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Corbynomics. The attitude of children in a toyshop comes to mind.
The tories should just get on with the business of govt and where that involves returning RBS to public ownership so be it.
That is Scottish based RBS of course. I expect the public and staff will be included in future offers.
On both sides there was a lot of investment in technology as both superpowers competed each other.
So I would imagine if the USSR and the berlin wall had survived till today, then the west would be 10-20 years ahead in development and the east would be stuck in a 1990's timewarp.
If he was as good as you make out, David Miliband or Alan Johnson wouldn't be doing much better with the public.
...but that couldn't happen here, right. Right? Er...
Just in the last few days we have seen Burnham opposing Corbyn, when he is not sucking-up to Corbyn, and now offering some sort of continuity-Miliband pitch. The guy is all over the place.
Given your earlier post I guess your anger is specifically reserved only for the Brits and Americans then heh?
I am fully aware of Stalingrad. A single battle . The Germans lost due to poor preparation and bad timing. The eastern front was appalling no doubt. Probably less life wouLD have been lost if Stalin had not shot all his commanders but still.
Perhaps you should also read up on another Stalingrad known as "little Stalingrad" . Smaller but no less bravery was shown The cemetery is full of the young allied soldiers and is particularly moving. Lovely monument in the village square. It's in your neck of the woods
The UK's only real experience of Nazi occupation was Jersey and Guernsey and the less said the better. The Guerns celebrate liberation day (or a better fit collaboration day)- I'm sure there are plenty of blonde headed Guerns still roaming the Island- a legacy of the war. Jersey was quite helpful in deporting its small population of Jews too. That is how resistant our kindred folk were to the Nazis.
The Soviets would think nothing of sacrificing an entire village for a Nazi officer. I doubt we would have had quite the same fight in Tunbridge Wells if push came to shove.
That's some of the less controversial parts.
'Ken Clarke was beaten by IDS, had Clarke led the Tories in 2005 he may well have deprived Blair of his majority'
The centre voters Clarke may have picked up would have been negated by the loss of anti EU voters.
' if we leave the EU we can spend all the money that we give to them on domestic issues instead.'
And take back control of our borders.
Jeb Bush has sent mail with his hand being black from a poor photoshop job to 86000 Iowans:
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/634869691887022080/photo/1
Goodnight.
@ShippersUnbound: Betty Boothroyd says Ed Miliband's "decision to abandon the leadership...started the rot” and was an “act of self-indulgence”.