I wonder if Johnson will be truly audacious enough to try and appoint the Conservatives way to a majority in the House of Lords. Who am I kidding?
I’m not giving anyone an excuse. I’m trying to add a little historical and geopolitical perspective, which is mostly missing from current political discourse in the U.K. and North America.
Or perhaps a lot of people are well aware of the history and consequently are aware that Russia needs no outside encouragement to treat Ukraine (and the Baltics, and Poland, and eastern Finland, and on and on) as satellites to be dealt with as they please?
Rather as the USA treats Central and South America and the Caribbean? Excuse me if I don’t stand and cheer as the U.K. follows Team America, World Police into yet another ill fated attempt to keep the world safe for democracy
So, in order to be against the imperialism of one actor, you should turn a blind eye to the imperialism of another? It's entirely possible -- downright essential, really -- to oppose both of those things.
Clearly some governments are trying to help their people through the energy crisis. Let’s see what Mistrust has in her locker. The Tories have often said that they won’t impose windfall taxes as it could stop companies making future investments in the UK. The threat of losing “future investment” hasn’t stopped other governments from imposing windfall taxes. “GERMANY has unveiled £54billion of support for families facing rocketing fuel costs. Announcing the rescue plan, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, below, told citizens: “You’ll never walk alone.” The Kremlin is yet to reopen the key Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany after it was shut for three days of maintenance. Critics have accused Vladimir Putin of holding Europe hostage over fuel supplies, with Berlin forced to cut its reliance on Russian fuel. Mr Scholz said: “Germany will come through this as a democracy because we are very economically strong and we are a welfare state –the two together are important.” The €67bn package, which is bigger than two earlier efforts, will include one-off payments to the most vulnerable, such as pensioners, people on benefits and students. There are also £1.47bn of tax breaks for about 9,000 firms which use vast amounts of energy. There will also be caps on energy bills, partly funded through a windfall tax on energy company profits. Households will be allowed a limited amount of discounted power but must pay higher prices for extra electricity they use. Mr Scholz, who became German leader last December after Angela Merkel quit, admitted Russia was “no longer a reliable energy partner”. He insisted Germany would get through the winter. Other European governments also pledged help in recent weeks. Italy hiked taxes on energy firms whose profits have ballooned, so Rome could unveil a £12bn plan meaning families’ bills will remain around 2021 levels. Other measures include a €200 (£169) one-off payment to people earning €35,000 (£29,600) a year or less, and a 20% tax credit for all energy-intensive companies hit by a 30% price spike. Spain cut VAT on energy bills from 21% to 10% and temporarily slashed special tax on electricity from 7% to 0.5%. The measures were funded by a £2.5bn windfall tax on energy companies. Weeks before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February, France forced state-owned energy giant EDF to cap wholesale price rises to 4% for a year at a cost of £7bn. Paris announced a one-off €100 payment last year to 5.8 million families receiving energy vouchers.”
I’m not proposing turning a blind eye to Putin’s aggression. As I’ve already said, I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I rather think history should have told all of humanity by now, that war is not the answer to anything. And if you arm one side in a war, you are contributing to that conflict; there is simply no way of doing that without getting blood on your hands. Furthermore, the record of the US and her allies, when involving themselves in conflicts around the world, does not fill one with confidence that they’ll get it right this time; how many times in the last 70 years have this weeks freedom fighters turned out to be next years terrorists? And how often, really, has the route to peace involved sending weapons to the designated good guys?
I'm really baffled by how you think you get around a war that was already happening. That has been happening for eight years. Outright capitulation in the face of expansionist autocrats doesn't exactly have much of a record of success either. That, also, isn't our choice; Ukraine itself chose to resist, and has chosen to resist for several years now, and our choice was simply between supporting that resistance or leaving them to be overrun. War is an awful thing to be avoided wherever possible, but it's hopelessly naive to believe it can always be avoided just because you want it to be.
Putting aside the complexities and **** ups of numerous western interventions In the name of democracy (as we have to recognise this) does Putin recognise anything other than counter aggression? I hate war, but I’m not sure there is another choice here other than Ukraine conceding territory. I understand others credit Putin with a clever end game/plan, but if these concessions are made he will just continue to land grab under any auspice of historical justification.
Ah yes, printing money to solve inflation whilst doing nothing to solve the energy crisis. I’m sure that will go well. I too love accepting Monopoly money for scarce resources. It’s astonishing to me that none of these governments know anything about economic history. A part of me is convinced this is all deliberate because surely, SURELY they can’t be this stupid?
And there we are. America and the West have totally played themselves. Using the currency as a weapon will go down as one of the biggest political own goals of the century. Insane.
If Ukraine doesn't win then what happens is Russia spends five years strengthening, learning from their mistakes and then they invade again. Thank **** the people telling Ukraine to give up didn't have a say when the Nazis rolled through Europe. "All we're doing is prolonging Europe's agony. The Nazis can't be defeated. Best to negotiate a peace". War is, indeed, ****ing awful. It's awful beyond belief. It's vile, evil and terrible for everyone involved. However, suggesting that just giving up is better is risible. Tell you what, anyone on here suggesting the Ukrainians should give up, answer me this: If a foreign nation had rolled tanks into England and successfully controlled, say, the home counties, would you be saying the same? That we should let them have it? The situation is identical.
Do you think it's possible for a country to be doing the right thing in one part of the world while doing the wrong thing in another? Or are we stuck in black and white world again?
We’re very definitely not in a black and white world, which is precisely why I’m reluctant to swallow a binary narrative about a conflict with complex origins. Especially when choosing sides involves supplying weapons to that side; like we did, at the risk of repeating myself, when supplying Iraq with weapons throughout a futile and protracted war with Iran.
All I’m saying is are the sanctions and sending weapons to Ukraine genuinely in their best interest? Is it better to turn the country into a permanent kill box.. or best to try and broker peace as quickly as possible? The only people benefitting from our current strategy seem to be the military industrial complex… and Putin I see that the propaganda has started today “Putin is weaponising energy”… yes.. he is - but only after we chose to weaponise the financial system. The more we provoke Putin the worse this gets. I believe we should strengthen NATO and our allies to prevent him going any further. And back a peace deal in Ukraine if at all possible.
Why does everyone on one side of this talk as though Ukraine has no agency, no say whatsoever in what it wants or what its people want? I note also no answer to the Home Counties question. Would we be expected to accept peace terms because other countries wanted us to? Or would we tell the invaders to **** off and take help wherever we could get it? If we asked for US help and received it would that be despicable? I'm genuinely interested how you would deal with that scenario. I also genuinely hope that if you give it some real thought, truly think of Canterbury, South East London, Dover, Worthing and Brighton under foreign rule gained by military power, you might just might have a clue about how Ukrainians feel about being told it's in their best interests not to fight. Give it ten minutes thought. Consider how you'd feel if civilians were found with bullet wounds in the back of their heads in Woking after the invaders were pushed out. Consider how you'd feel if, during the invasion, West Quay had been hit by a naval missile aimed to hit it when packed. Then, if you tell me you'd be OK with just saying, "Yeah, don't worry we can't win, war's bad, let's sue for peace", I'll know that you haven't actually given it even a moment's thought.
