Off Topic Politics Thread

[Libby]

I've never got the Sturgeon love in on here anyway as it seems at odds with the political leanings of those people. Is it just because she opposed Brexit and hates the Tories that people love her?

Ultimately she's a nationalist who is preying on people's hate to try and achieve her political aims - the Scottish Farage.

 

[thereisonlyoneno7]

I've never got the Sturgeon love in on here anyway as it seems at odds with the political leanings of those people. Is it just because she opposed Brexit and hates the Tories that people love her?

Ultimately she's a nationalist who is preying on people's hate to try and achieve her political aims - the Scottish Farage.

I think it is just she is everything that our leader isn’t. Strong, with conviction and doesn’t dither. No bluster. I don’t agree with a lot she stands for, but admire her as a leader.

 

[ChilcoSaint]

I've never got the Sturgeon love in on here anyway as it seems at odds with the political leanings of those people. Is it just because she opposed Brexit and hates the Tories that people love her?

Ultimately she's a nationalist who is preying on people's hate to try and achieve her political aims - the Scottish Farage.

She’s about as far from Farage as it’s possible to be. The SNP are pro-immigration apart from anything else.

 

[Romsey_Saint]

I used to work with someone who was ex-Tank Regiment and I spoke to him around the time the film "Fury" came out which described a tank battle in World War Two. His comment was that tanks were considered to be highlt vulnerable in modenr warfare and quoted some statstic regarding the anticipated "life expectancy" of a tank in combat. The figure he quoted was extremely short - something like a matter of hours because of the efficacy of modern missiles. The performance of the Russian armoured divisions would appear to be corroborating this fact and maybe suggests that tanks are now probably quite obsolete. The kind of military success the Russian acheived at Kursk under Zhukov is probably unlikely in the 21st century.

The other comment I read a few weeks ago was the effectiveness of the Russian paratroop regiments. I found this interesting too as the Russian units appear to have failed just as German paratroopers failed in Crete and the allied failed at Arnham. The success rate of using paratroopers is pretty woeful - both Crete and Arnham were catastrophic failures.

In the years to come, you can envisage the Russian offensive being a textbook example of how not to do things. The Russians appear to be quite shocked how poorly their services have preformed against organised opposition and you suspect that NATO will feel quite confident now that the Russians military structure has been so poor. I would say that the Russians have been consderably worse than the Americans and British in Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe it is the case that military offensives have a propensity to go wrong or do not achieve their original objectives and it is very rare for them to be comprehensive. The Desert Storm operation int he early 1990s is probably the best example of a Western coalition out-performing the enemy. I do not think anyone anticipated the Russians to be quite so incompetent albeit I am still of this opinion that this is a proxy war on the part of NATO who will be keen to witness the superiority of the equipment they have provided to Ukraine. The worrying thing for me will be what will happen to all this equipment once the conflct is over and in whose hands it will ultimately appear.

Corrupt regimes breed lack of responsibility and ownership within all levels of government and society. I was always brought up to believe that corruption is bad but l never appreciated the impact at every level of society until l worked and lived in Africa. Promotions and positions are not awarded to the most competent, but to whom they are aquainted and they, in turn, appoint incompetent persons to protect their position. Its like a cancer that permeates through society and l believe the general poor performance of the FSB and the Russian military is a result of the 20+ years of Putins corruption.

The Russian paratroopers were landed behind Ukrainian lines by helicopter with light support vehicles slung beneath, they were relying on rapid advance of battle groups to support them, as at Arnhem. However, the Russian battle groups rely heavily on their vehicles and carry a proportionally low number of infantry. The Ukrainian Army exploited this weakness supported by use of anti tank weapons.

Russian military uses outdated command structure, a throwback to the Soviet Era. After the 2014 war, Ukraine turned to NATO for guidance and one of the first issues wes the reorganisation of their command structure that improved lines of communication and reporting, allowed more flexibility on the battlefield to strike and more mobility to respond. These NATO structures were designed to maximise the effectiveness of NATO units facing off against Russia, which is why Ukraine has been so effective.

On the effectiveness of tanks, the UK has adopted quality of product over quantity. The performance of the Challenger is quite exceptional, there are accounts of Challenger tanks taking multiple RPG and anti missiles hits and still being fighting effective. There is only one case of a Challenger being destroyed and that was, sadly, on 'blue on blue' incident with another Challenger. They are extremely effective and durable. I wish we could provide some to bolster their defensive and offensive capabilities.

 

[Bob's mate]

I've never got the Sturgeon love in on here anyway as it seems at odds with the political leanings of those people. Is it just because she opposed Brexit and hates the Tories that people love her?

Ultimately she's a nationalist who is preying on people's hate to try and achieve her political aims - the Scottish Farage.

I'm at a loss as to why Nicola Sturgeon is held in such high esteem too- well apart from her 'I hate Boris Grrrr' stance which might appeal to some.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, she catastrophically failed to protect the lives of residents in care homes. According to Labour MSP Jackie Baillie the First Minister should have 'learned lessons from the C.Diff outbreak in Scottish hospitals while she was health secretary and said it was “unacceptable and offensive” for the SNP leader to claim there was “no alternative”' Meanwhile, for the seventh year in a row, Scotland continues to have the highest number of drug related deaths in Europe

During her tenure, she was found to have mislead the Scottish Parliament over the Alex Salmond inquiry, has made disastrous financial decisions and wasted millions around Cal Mac and Prestwick Airport and of course there is the issue of the missing £600,000, raised for the independence campaign that is still being investigated by Police Scotland.

Far from being whiter than white, I tend to see her as a shadowy grey colour.

 

[It'sOnlyAGame]

I'm at a loss as to why Nicola Sturgeon is held in such high esteem too- well apart from her 'I hate Boris Grrrr' stance which might appeal to some.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, she catastrophically failed to protect the lives of residents in care homes. According to Labour MSP Jackie Baillie the First Minister should have 'learned lessons from the C.Diff outbreak in Scottish hospitals while she was health secretary and said it was “unacceptable and offensive” for the SNP leader to claim there was “no alternative”' Meanwhile, for the seventh year in a row, Scotland continues to have the highest number of drug related deaths in Europe

During her tenure, she was found to have mislead the Scottish Parliament over the Alex Salmond inquiry, has made disastrous financial decisions and wasted millions around Cal Mac and Prestwick Airport and of course there is the issue of the missing £600,000, raised for the independence campaign that is still being investigated by Police Scotland.

Far from being whiter than white, I tend to see her as a shadowy grey colour.

Well, this post seems to have stopped the "Isn't Nicola great?" brigade in their tracks.

 

[San Tejón]

Some won’t like this post, but it is very accurate.

https://rachaelswindon.blogspot.com...cadAkDzPI5tiFuTPd4L4QkELoxBoqeAfettFj2b9xFcII

 

[Gregm1988]

Some won’t like this post, but it is very accurate.

https://rachaelswindon.blogspot.com...cadAkDzPI5tiFuTPd4L4QkELoxBoqeAfettFj2b9xFcII

There are several reasonable points in there and I broadly agree with the general theme

But.

There are also some big problems with this piece. The ones that immediately jump out:

- Talk of the royal yacht for £250m juxtaposed with £15 for hungry children. With no effort made to add the multiplier in there to actually show how much this would actually cost by comparison. I’m sure we could get our calculators out to work out how many would get fed if they yacht was scrapped. But how much does the overall program cost. It just seemed to be a poorly pitched point

- the multiple instances of the word “racist” to describe the government and it’s policies - without explanation. It is said multiple times and not backed up once. Are we supposed
to take it at face value? Make no mistake - I am not saying they definitely aren’t racist. Just that this piece makes no effort to justify this point. Because sending asylum seekers / refugees to Rwanda is many things. But it isn’t racist. And that seems to be the focus / trigger for this piece

- Winston Churchill , Margaret Thatcher and Jim Davidson?! One of these is not like the other. Was the author making an awful attempt at the comedy rule of three?

 

[San Tejón]

There are several reasonable points in there and I broadly agree with the general theme

But.

There are also some big problems with this piece. The ones that immediately jump out:

- Talk of the royal yacht for £250m juxtaposed with £15 for hungry children. With no effort made to add the multiplier in there to actually show how much this would actually cost by comparison. I’m sure we could get our calculators out to work out how many would get fed if they yacht was scrapped. But how much does the overall program cost. It just seemed to be a poorly pitched point

- the multiple instances of the word “racist” to describe the government and it’s policies - without explanation. It is said multiple times and not backed up once. Are we supposed
to take it at face value? Make no mistake - I am not saying they definitely aren’t racist. Just that this piece makes no effort to justify this point. Because sending asylum seekers / refugees to Rwanda is many things. But it isn’t racist. And that seems to be the focus / trigger for this piece

- Winston Churchill , Margaret Thatcher and Jim Davidson?! One of these is not like the other. Was the author making an awful attempt at the comedy rule of three?

You don’t think this government is racist? Really?

 

[Billy Bates]

Hi dog, meet bone.

 

[AberdeenSaint]

I'm at a loss as to why Nicola Sturgeon is held in such high esteem too- well apart from her 'I hate Boris Grrrr' stance which might appeal to some.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, she catastrophically failed to protect the lives of residents in care homes. According to Labour MSP Jackie Baillie the First Minister should have 'learned lessons from the C.Diff outbreak in Scottish hospitals while she was health secretary and said it was “unacceptable and offensive” for the SNP leader to claim there was “no alternative”' Meanwhile, for the seventh year in a row, Scotland continues to have the highest number of drug related deaths in Europe

During her tenure, she was found to have mislead the Scottish Parliament over the Alex Salmond inquiry, has made disastrous financial decisions and wasted millions around Cal Mac and Prestwick Airport and of course there is the issue of the missing £600,000, raised for the independence campaign that is still being investigated by Police Scotland.

Far from being whiter than white, I tend to see her as a shadowy grey colour.

`According to Labour MSP` ...... Please!
I won`t go through all this, as I`ll be here all night - suffice to say, I`ll keep Nicola (with all her nuances) all day long, you have Boris and his entourage.

 

[Gregm1988]

You don’t think this government is racist? Really?

You didn’t read what I wrote did you? Like - at all. Indeed *specifically* said that I wasn’t saying they weren’t. Did you need me to put that in bold?

So that reply of yours is full Cathy Newman. “So you are saying…” - No. I am not.

My point was that rant offered no evidence to support that claim. We are just expected to take it at face value? Not for me I’m afraid

I’d want to know in what context that claim was being made in

 

[San Tejón]

You didn’t read what I wrote did you? Like - at all. Indeed *specifically* said that I wasn’t saying they weren’t. Did you need me to put that in bold?

So that reply of yours is full Cathy Newman. “So you are saying…” - No. I am not.

My point was that rant offered no evidence to support that claim. We are just expected to take it at face value? Not for me I’m afraid

I’d want to know in what context that claim was being made in

Surprisingly I did read your post. I just find it inconceivable that someone would feel the need to have the government’s racism spelt out in capital letters.
Feel free to disprove her comments.

 

[Bob's mate]

`According to Labour MSP` ...... Please!
I won`t go through all this, as I`ll be here all night - suffice to say, I`ll keep Nicola (with all her nuances) all day long, you have Boris and his entourage.

No worries, I'll go through it for you

£600, 000 still missing

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snps-missing-600k-still-being-26104089

On the Cal Mac Ferry scandal 'The [Scottish] government is limping from crisis to crisis in their attempts to deliver these boats and shipbuilding experts suggest the final cost may reach over £400m, far outstripping the original £97m “fixed-price" contract. SNP ministers and the spin doctors around them have sought to blame figures like disgraced former Finance Secretary Derek Mackay and others for the debacle. But in Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland, nothing that big happens without her say so'

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....litical-career-alex-cole-hamilton-msp-3631412

Costing tax payers £43 million since 2013, is this the third attempt to sell off Prestwick Airport ?

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-ministers-third-attempt-sell-26281359

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2021/drug-related-deaths-rise

Nicola Sturgeon passed Care Home deaths off as a 'mistake' as the SNP health secretary Jeane Freeman told the BBC's Nick Robinson: "...we didn't take the right precautions to make sure that older people leaving hospital going into care homes were as safe as they could be and that was a mistake.We know older people were moved out of hospital into care homes without COVID tests, and that some had the virus'.

And care home residents are still being failed:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/polit...s-still-failed-by-scottish-government-3638676

Nicola Sturgeon mislead parliament as the report found that the 'First minister’s evidence about what she said to Salmond, her predecessor as SNP leader, when they met at her home in April 2018 to discuss the confidential government inquiry into sexual harassment claims against him was incorrect.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rliament-alex-salmond-inquiry-committee-finds

'Nuances' hmmm, some may say corrupt and inept but if that's the price you are willing to pay for 'Freedom' and Independence...

 

[Archers Road]

I've never got the Sturgeon love in on here anyway as it seems at odds with the political leanings of those people. Is it just because she opposed Brexit and hates the Tories that people love her?

Ultimately she's a nationalist who is preying on people's hate to try and achieve her political aims - the Scottish Farage.

Agreed. Nationalism is a ******ed philosophy.

 

[StJabbo1]

`According to Labour MSP` ...... Please!
I won`t go through all this, as I`ll be here all night - suffice to say, I`ll keep Nicola (with all her nuances) all day long, you have Boris and his entourage.

And so you should Abs. Spaffer & Co are south of the border ****bags. Doesn't matter who you vote for you still get a politician in charge.

 

[Ian Thumwood]

The perception of Nicola Sturgeon in England seems either to be that of one of Macbeth's witches or outright admiration. A recet pole in England outlined the trustworhtyness of the principle British politicians including minister and leaders of political parties. Nicola Sturgeon was the only politician that had a significant positive perception amongst the English on this basis.

I was not aware of all the incidents mentioned by Bob although I have to admit she dodged the bullet with regards to Alex Salmond, surely a politician whose relationship with the truth is on a bar with Johnson's and, added to which, he is perceived by many to be a sex pest. Quite how Nicola Sturgeon managed to writh away from this scandal was staggering.

I think that the problem for many politicians is that Nicola Sturgeon is modern and progressive in a way that far outstrips any of her contemporaries. In my opinion, there is perhaps only one other political leader who surpasses her in this resepct and that us Jacinda Ardern. For me, these two women represent the future of politics and I just think that they are both perceived as demonstrating that woman are far more capable at running countries than their male counterparts. They are offering something new and different and have,at last, buried the ghost of Margaret Thatcher as the stereotype of the female leader. There is no woman within Labour who has the clout of NS.

Nationalism is generally a massively bad and disruptive thing in politics. NS is an opportunist whilst, at the same time, I just find it impossible not to concur with many of her assessments. It is disturbing because, in so many ways, I really do not like what she stands for and think she will have a grossly negative impact on the ability for England to ever elect a progressive government. A lot of people in England do look towards NS with envy and a lot of admiration. By the same token, Blackford is demonstrably this governments most effective critic and his performances in PMQ underscore just how lame Sir Keir Starmer is. There can be no doubt that an independent Scotland will benefit from a strong leader like NS. England is clearly holding Scotland back in so many ways but I think the progressive tendencies of the SNP will ultimately be a model that much of Western Europe will try to emulate. The future of politics belongs to the likes os Sturgeon and Ardern.

 

[AberdeenSaint]

No worries, I'll go through it for you

£600, 000 still missing

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snps-missing-600k-still-being-26104089

On the Cal Mac Ferry scandal 'The [Scottish] government is limping from crisis to crisis in their attempts to deliver these boats and shipbuilding experts suggest the final cost may reach over £400m, far outstripping the original £97m “fixed-price" contract. SNP ministers and the spin doctors around them have sought to blame figures like disgraced former Finance Secretary Derek Mackay and others for the debacle. But in Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland, nothing that big happens without her say so'

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....litical-career-alex-cole-hamilton-msp-3631412

Costing tax payers £43 million since 2013, is this the third attempt to sell off Prestwick Airport ?

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-ministers-third-attempt-sell-26281359

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2021/drug-related-deaths-rise

Nicola Sturgeon passed Care Home deaths off as a 'mistake' as the SNP health secretary Jeane Freeman told the BBC's Nick Robinson: "...we didn't take the right precautions to make sure that older people leaving hospital going into care homes were as safe as they could be and that was a mistake.We know older people were moved out of hospital into care homes without COVID tests, and that some had the virus'.

And care home residents are still being failed:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/polit...s-still-failed-by-scottish-government-3638676

Nicola Sturgeon mislead parliament as the report found that the 'First minister’s evidence about what she said to Salmond, her predecessor as SNP leader, when they met at her home in April 2018 to discuss the confidential government inquiry into sexual harassment claims against him was incorrect.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...rliament-alex-salmond-inquiry-committee-finds

'Nuances' hmmm, some may say corrupt and inept but if that's the price you are willing to pay for 'Freedom' and Independence...

So it`s all in the press, so it must be correct and unbiased, right ?

 

[saintrichie123]

What a twat

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[Archers Road]

What a twat

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So by Rees-Mogg's cricket analogy, Boris has been ruled out and must now walk?