Shame he ever became leader - he was just not equipped for the role. Had David Miliband not been shafted the last few years may have had a very different outcome.
Delighted with Truss and her efforts in enabling Scottish Independence. Keep talking Truss, we will wave as we go.
It's not stupid, though If the plan is to give Ukraine weapons and nothing else, the best case scenario is the stalemate will drag out for that much longer which benefits nobody (although Ukraine will likely come off worse) and gives Russia an excuse to refuse to come to the negotiating table, while the worst case scenario is Russia uses it as an excuse for escalation - although given they've been bombing hospitals from the start, **** knows what their idea of escalation is As there's never going to be a sudden Ukrainian counter attack that has them kicking down the door of the Putinbunker, stupidity is sabre-rattling yet having no intention to follow through with it like Truss has been doing for months, because that does absolutely nothing while also giving the Russians another excuse to refuse to come to the negotiating table
Ukraine wins by not losing. As long as Ukraine carries on fighting, and the West doesn't lose its appetite for resupplying them as food prices soar etc, then either (1) the Russian offensive could come to a point at which it runs out of the ability to sustain itself or (2) Putin gets overthrown. Of course most can't envisage a point at which Putin gets deposed, but that is the way of all dictators that appear invincible (and several Chairman of the Communist Part in the old Soviet Union). Very few expect these dictators to get toppled but eventually they do. The longer the war goes on the more likely the event is. But the West can't lose it's resolve.
Ukraine doesn't win by not losing, though: their infrastructure is going to be completely ****ed for a minimum of twenty years regardless of whether the stalemate grinds to a draw or Russia persist in throwing bodies at their own hubris until either Putin carks it or the heat death of the galaxy, and the human cost is going to last longer than that, and while they have pushed Russia out of Kyiv they've lost Crimea and Donbas and the expectation is they'll have to give up at least one of those if and when the Russians deign to get to the negotiating table And that's the key point: if they have to give either of those up that sees them lose a key port in Odessa and the Donbas coal industry, which will further **** with their economy as they will not only have the cost of rebuild on their plate but a sizable amount of income lost, and that's where the ultimate question would be whether Ukraine gets support in rebuilding their country like West Germany and Japan did post WWII, or if they get told they can feel happy that they're now free in spite the country being a smoking ruin like Afghanistan. For example, if Ukraine gets EU membership, will there be sufficient EU cash to rebuild and, more importantly, what happens to the countries that likely would have had that EU cash before it was diverted?
Whereas letting Ukraine get overrun gets Putin to the table how, exactly? Letting genocidal dictators do whatever they want in the name of peace is moronic.
There's a world of difference between giving Ukraine weapons and nothing else, and giving them nothing Say the stalemate last another six months, which is more than likely. What is the human cost to Ukraine compared to Russia? What is the infrastructure damage they'll receive (on top of what they already endured) compared to Russia? What are the chances that a particularly bleak winter in western Europe has the EU around the negotiating table to try and get some much-needed Russian gas as if Ukraine doesn't exist? If the answer to any of those questions is "more weapons"...well it's not an answer, is it? Ukraine needs more than weapons now, as demonstrated by weapons having no part in grain shipments leaving Odessa and averting potential starvation to various countries (which appeared to be Putin's plan, threatening the world with a humanitarian crisis if they didn't look the other way) and it sure as hell will need more than weapons six, twelve, eighteen months from now, because a weapon is as useful in keeping people warm in the middle of winter as it is treating people who've had bombs land on their homes
It hasn't been more weapons and nothing else though, has it? Nobody's suggesting that as a solution, either. Utter strawman.
Okay, so what figure has been pledged to rebuild Ukraine after Russia call it quits and/or are more interested in quickest way to get that red stain off the Kremlin's marble? Now, what's the number of weapons pledged to tide over Ukraine for the next 2-3 months? There is no strawman because that is all that is being offered, the temporary solution that is weapons based on the belief that Putin will stop throwing bodies at his own hubris, and the fact is that arming Ukrainians is still going to lead to Ukrainians dying - and not just those on the front lines, as the various bombings of houses, hospitals and shopping centres have demonstrated, which is why it's futile to think that the main (only?) solution is to arm them and only arm them
And here's the haunted chimney with another example of the Tories thinking that ****ting on the Scots is a vote-winner...
The US pledged $40bn in military and humanitarian aid in May, which was an equal split, IIRC. This just sounds like more Stop The War faux-pacifist stuff. It's pro-Putin nonsense.
That's a ridiculous strawman The point remains that Ukraine is, and indeed has been ever since Putin learned he couldn't waltz in and take the country over a weekend, a war of attrition - one where Ukraine has the advantage of being on home territory so can dig in, but Russia has the advantage of having more meat to feet into the grinder, and one of those is going to collapse eventually And this is where chucking weapons at Ukraine and hope they can hold out for another 2-3 months in the hope Putin might have a fall in the shower in the interim is only going to drag it out for 2-3 months longer until the next round of giving them weapons, when the reality is Ukraine needs more than weapons, most obviously when winter hits home in late November because not only will the frontline troops be on their own in the cold, but think of the towns and villages far closer to the front than they would like and how they are cut off from food and (most likely) heating and electricity On the subject of pro-Putin nonsense, am I alone in thinking the BBC coverage in particular is doing Putin's work for him? It never seems to report when the Ukrainian forces drive back Russian advances or when they sent the Russians fleeing from Snake Island and certainly never notes that they popped another Russian general, but they always show Ukrainians as victims. Hardly good for Ukrainian morale, is it?
We all know that YouGov has dubious Tory connections, but what's the point in weighting polls? How does that help them in the long run if the polls end up being inaccurate? Public perception? Something else?
First of all, the figures aren't a 50/50 split, it's $8.5bn on weapons, $8.5bn to go into a fund, $5bn in food...well, the other half of that is a secret apparently (source: NPR) - yet the fact remains the US has spent twice as much on arming Ukrainians than they have on humanitarian aid As I said, from the beginning, what's the pledge for when the war's done? Large swatches of the country will need to be rebuilt, especially their infrastructure, which will take many years. So what's the plan there? And before you bring it up, the economic fund has one hell of a caveat to it: it can only be spent through to September 2024 (and puts the onus on food distribution onto the Ukrainians) and it's a bold assumption to assume that the whole thing will blow over by 2024. In comparison, the EU has pledged to aid with reconstruction, but bloody hell does the wording sound remarkably like they're trying to palm off most of the financial pledges onto the G7 and/or G20 while also dumping the planning responsibility on Ukraine, which sounds like a recipe for red tape
