The answer to your first sentence is Boris Johnson. Your last sentence is possibly true but also wishful thinking in my opinion. England is more right than left and like it or not the Conservatives strike a chord with much of the electorate. She will only have to address the things a lot of voters find important (immigration, law and order, the BBC etc) and she will be half way there. Those issues are not confined to the middle classes, for a small example go on the Leeds Utd forum to get a flavour of working class attitudes to immigration. She has two years to smooth over the BJ tenure, it's not beyond the Conservatives to do that and I wouldn't be surprised to see another Con government come the next GE. Unless she proves to be an absolute disaster all the talk of division and another leadership battle will be put aside and show a united face to get re-elected. P.S. I could have condensed all the above to "Don't get your hopes up". sorry to be a killjoy.
It sounds like you think it's OK (and given you'd be first in the queue, somewhat noble) for us to want to defend our country when it's invaded by a foreign power but not for Ukrainians. It's important for them to take the peace we want them to take. Can you even begin to understand how disgraceful that sounds? Actually, let's not mince words, how disgraceful it actually is? As for your question, let's pretend it'll reach a million quid a month. Just as realistic. So I'll answer that. I'd go without heat in my house for a year if it would help Ukraine defeat Russia. Because Russia ****ing invaded them. Russian tanks rolled across the border and took over towns and cities. Not as part of a civil war (Jesus) but as an invading force to remove the government of a democratic state. And Ukraine is a democracy. A weak democracy, a faulty democracy, trying their best to face up to and eradicate rampant corruption in their past. I care about democracy. I'm prepared to take pain. It's our fight. Democracy demands sacrifices because despots hate it and will do anything to destroy it. Even rolling tanks into their neighbours. The Russians will not stop. The Russians have publicly stated that they see Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in the same way. The Russians will not stop. You benefit from the blood that was spilt to allow you to live in a democracy but when asked to put yourself out to help a democratic state that has been invaded by a neighbour's troops, you turn your face away. You've accused me of being personal in the past and here goes. You should be ashamed. Deeply ashamed. If it helps, I'm ashamed. I'm deeply ashamed that some people don't appear to give a solitary **** about putting themselves in other people's shoes. "I'm alright Jack" seems to be the mot juste. It's OK. I really don't expect you to understand my point of view. Maybe other people might be persuaded. I'll leave the subject here as it's too raw. Vin
In truth MP's expenses for all parties are a joke. The expenses scandal of 2009 was an eye opener for a lot of people I think. There was a common excuse screamed out by many of the accused MPs "I didn't break any rules". Conveniently disregarding the fact that they made the allowance rules in the first place and some very generous allowances they were. Since 2010 what MPs can claim for has admittedly been tightened up, such as they can no longer claim the interest payments for the mortgage on a second home (WTF!) but some still find a way to squeeze a little more from the system. https://www.landlordtoday.co.uk/bre...t-out-their-own-homes-and-then-claim-expenses
I am not asking for the Ukrainians to stop defending their own nation. I am simply saying that there is a definite line where the cost of helping the Ukrainians defend themselves is that we destroy our own society & economy. Just like in your personal life, you cannot pour from an empty cup. If we destroy our energy markets and society breaks down thanks to civil unrest, how much good will we be at defending democracy then? How many people will die here if that happens? And as for the disgrace comment - yes we do get a say in their peace deal. Because we have nukes. Unfortunately the world is a massive game of “my dick is bigger than your dick”. It’s how power & game theory works. I detest it, but it is what it is. I am not ashamed of anything. Looking at things objectively and weighing the costs is nothing to be ashamed of. If I’m guilty of anything its hopefully underestimating the resilience of our energy markets & power grid. But in my opinion it’s worth worrying about these things & assuming the worst because if they go down people will die in this country.
Take the misfortune of working for a bunch of misbegotten bastards as step on the path to enlightenment. Have a chant and light a hippie stick.
Found a letter in my postbox from HMRC and thought “WTF do those bastards want now?” Turns out that the nice people want to give me a tax rebate. Only £63.60, but better in my pocket than theirs.
Just said on the news that the Queen has been advised, by her doctor, to rest after the visits of Johnson and Mistrust. I’m not a royalist, but wish her well, although “Death by Tory PMs” has a ring to it.
God help us all of that Leeds Utd board politics thread typifies the attitudes of the average English person. Thankfully, I don’t think it does. There are people who think like that, but I genuinely don’t think they are much more than a vociferous minority (who feel empowered by Brexit, but that’s not going very well is it?)
I am quite impressed by Vin's emotional plea and I am sure that the points he has raised are ones that most people would concur with. Unfortunately, I regret that alot of this is idealistic, as much as I would like them to succeed. Russia had, to my knowledge, never been vanquished by a foreign power and even when the like of military geniuses such as Napoleon inflected some serious reverses against them, Russia has , in the end, always succeeed in repelling their enemies. Where Russia has been challenged, it has come at some cost to their opponents whether we are talking about 1812, the Crimean War where this resulted in a national outcry in the Uk or Hiltler in World War 2 which ultimately spelt the end for the Nazis regardless of what was happening on the Western / European /North African fronts which were effectively a sideshow when it came to beating Hitler. Any conclusion in Ukraine will only ever be on terms that are acceptable to Russia and I really feel that this is a problem that will not go away really easily, regardless of Western sanctions and the humiliating performance of the Russian military. I just think that Russia is too large and remote to be "defeated" in the traditional sense. It is admirable that people should think that Putin gets his just rewards and we should teach him a lesson that invading other democracies cannot be tolerated. Unfortinately, in the real world it is the West which is seeming it's citizens suffer economically to a far greater percentage than in Russia where the standard of living is already poor. If you do not have much already, you have little to lose. Osvalorama is just arguing that the reality is that, no matter how well meaning, measures against Russia will hit the West so hard as likely to be unpallable to many countries. The appetite in central Europe for support for Ukraine will dwindle as soon as their is no fuel from Russia. I cannot see Russia ceasing to be a threat in the short term and " a good result" for the West will ultimately be the serious reduction in Russia's military capabilities.To my knowledge, this is being acheived already. I would concur that we will reach a point where economic factors will kick in and material support for Ukraine will dminish as people realise the futility of it as a long term goal. However, in the long term, Putin and his cronies will get hooked out quite sharpely and violently too. I do not see the Russians as a threat to the UK or indeed much of Western Europe. You are not going to see tanks rolling over the Rhine. They are simply not capable of anything beyond air strikes. On the ground, the Russian army has performed dreadfully. As I implied yesterday, I feel that the aggression will stop as soon as former states of the USSR are encompassed in to the Russian sphere of influence. Recovering the Baltic states and maybe ensuring that Poland is taken out of the influence of NATO together with a face-saving conclusion in Ukraine would ultimately help restore a kind of status quo. This is absolutely the very best that Russia could expect to hope for and I do not think they will get anywhere near achieving this. The West needs to be pragmatic and appreciate Russia, like China, can effectively do what they wish at the moment but, at some point, the wheels are going to come off for them in the not-too-distant future. If there are lessons that have been learned, it is that the Russian miltary no longer looks quite so threatening as it did in 2021. You wonder how many Russian soldier would ultimately defect if it came to a challenge against the West. With the West effectively carrying out a proxy war in Ukraine, a "good result" for the West would be to destroy as much hardware as Russia has and limit their capability to wage war. I am not sure that we can manipulate the situation sufficiently to kick Russian troops back over the border. It will be a success for the West by simply reducing their ability to remain a threat for their neightbours. In my opinion, this conflict really demonstrates how futile war is. You have to have faith in humanity to find a solution as opposed to relying on economics. I really think this will end up being a stalemate that the West will eventually lose interest in and that Russia will end up creating further problems for itself in trying to take territory it ultimately cannot expect to hold. In the end, I feel that it will be the Russians themselves who will be more infliuential in bringing this sorry conflict to an end and they themselves will ultimately take the action that will be terminal for Putin.
One of the reasons we still, after all these centuries, have not evolved past war as a means of resolving disputes, is that too many people are unable to control their emotions, and allow themselves to be driven by anger - anger which they always, whichever side they are on, consider to be justified.
Just met three quite interesting people - Leo Johnson - Boris's brother - he's alright actually. He's not an MP and pretty good company, in a diet-Boris type way. Not hateful, and I managed not to tell him how much of a prick his brother is. Tom Tugenhadt - shorter than you think, and just not particularly impressive tbh. Yvette Cooper - now you're talking. Bright, engaged, engaging, on the ball, witty. Man, she really should be the Labour Party leader.
The question remains, though: what does one do when someone has already declared war on you? What is the route to avoid a war that one side is intent on prosecuting, and indeed has already begun prosecuting? Simply declaring that war is bad (I don't disagree!) is highly unlikely to sway the party that is rolling tanks into your land and believes that it has a decisive advantage.
Eh? Nobody is suggesting taking the war into, or invading Russia?! "As I implied yesterday, I feel that the aggression will stop as soon as former states of the USSR are encompassed in to the Russian sphere of influence.: ****ing hell, Ian. You think that's a reasonable position to take? Let's just hand back all the Baltic states etc?
Your argument is very simplistic and deeply flawed. For a start, you are forgetting that in WW2, a greater percentage of the Ukrainian SSR population (16.3%) died at the hands of the Nazis than the population of the Russian SFSR (12.7%). That’s a higher proportion than any of the Soviet republics with the exception of the Byelorussian SSR, where a quarter of the entire population were killed. It’s easy to confuse Russia with the USSR, and that’s what you’re doing here. My point is that it isn’t just the Russians who have memories of repelling invaders from their borders. Secondly, this is not a war where Russia is in any way the victim, rather the opposite. Ukraine is a sovereign nation which gave up its vast nuclear arsenal in 1994 under the Budapest Memorandum, which in return guaranteed its borders. Russia has been systematically eroding those borders ever since. The invasion in February was the latest in a series of incursions following the seizure of the Crimea in 2014. You are correct in your analysis of Putin’s hegemony aims, but if we can learn anything from history, it is that giving aggressive imperialist expansion free reign leads inevitably to world war. He cannot be allowed to claim any victory in this conflict. Thirdly, if anyone should be deciding the exit strategy for this war, it has to be Ukraine itself. They are the ones doing the fighting and dying, albeit with the aid of Western hardware. As long as they wish to continue, and they are doing very well at the moment, we should continue to support them.
It remains shocking to me how closely purportedly left-wing opposition to the war parallels the arguments one would expect from the likes of Kissinger or Mearsheimer. Prioritizing the West's short-term economic interests and leaving lesser countries to the whim of the regional hegemon is a hardcore realist perspective, so hardcore that even Kissinger and Mearsheimer backed away from it after initially making statements regarding Ukraine that hew closely to Ian's post.
