to be fair it's been a bit like that since the war started. We've banned their athletes and sports people. We kicked off any russian strictly stars off the top of my head. No doubt any known russians that we know probably get looked down upon just for being russian whether they are pro war or anti war, in this country or in their country. Luckily we really aren't in a proper war with russia or we'd probably go full U.S. style and round them up in some camps like WW2
We did the same, people of Italian, German and Austrian heritage sent to Isle of Man etc …..and I. Sure the other side did it, and probably worse, as well.
Ukraine war: Road outside Russian Embassy renamed 'Kyiv Road' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64756620 It’s all getting a little bit cringe now
I'm alright jack. 66 for me. However, the real problem which will need to be grasped at some point is the fact that the unnecessary abolition of a default retirement age coupled with the loss of value of pensions since companies moved over to money purchase schemes has created a difficulty for the next generations. People don't want to retire because in truth they simply cannot afford to. There is less chance therefore for progression through the ranks because us wrinklies are holding on for as long as they can. The workforce is getting older as there aren't the number of new jobs available for the kids to start on. Why? Because of some flawed logic that you can't retire someone at a certain age because that constitutes age discrimination? It doesn't. They are not being dismissed because of age but rather because they are retiring. I'm just waiting for the brain surgeon test case who is sacked because of the mistakes he has begun to make with catastrophic consequences. Restore a default retirement age and people will leave with dignity rather than being forced out when they've made a serious mistake.
**** me, common sense prevails for once... Roald Dahl: Original books to be kept in print following criticism Published 3 hours ago Share please log in to view this image Roald Dahl's books are to be printed in their original form, following criticism of the decision to amend novels including The BFG, making them more suitable for modern audiences. The plan to remove references to things like characters' appearance and weight had sparked a fierce debate. Words including "fat" and "ugly" were removed after being reviewed by sensitivity readers, who check for potentially offensive content. Puffin will now sell the originals. Francesca Dow, managing editor of Penguin, which owns Puffin, said: "We've listened to the debate over the past week which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl's books, and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation." Sir Salman Rushdie had called the edits "censorship", whilst His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman told BBC Radio 4 that Dahl's books "should be allowed to fade away", not changed if people judge them to be offensive. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said they should not be "airbrushed", while on Thursday, the Queen Consort told an audience of writers and publishers: "Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination. Enough said." Penguin said their latest decision to keep producing the original versions was because "we recognise the importance of keeping Dahl's classic texts in print". Puffin said the release of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, featuring original versions of his children's books, was in order to "keep the texts in print". Francesca Dow added: "At Puffin we have proudly published Roald Dahl's stories for more than 40 years in partnership with the Roald Dahl Story Company. "Their mischievous spirit and his unique storytelling genius have delighted the imaginations of readers across many generations.
Can we just start sending jet fighters now If we really want the Ukrainians to win the war we should send them everything they want to win it quickly Will they be asking for troops anytime soon
For years, Putin didn’t invade Ukraine. What made him finally snap in 2022? Opinion by Anatol Lieven • Yesterday 15:43 27122 Why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and try to capture Kyiv in February 2022, and not years earlier? Moscow has always wanted to dominate Ukraine, and Putin has given the reasons for this in his speeches and writings. Why then did he not try to take all or most of the country after the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, rather than only annexing Crimea, and giving limited, semi-covert help to separatists in the Donbas? On Friday’s one-year anniversary of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, it is worth thinking about precisely how we got to this point – and where things might be going. Indeed, Russian hardliners spent years criticising their leader for not invading sooner. In 2014, the Ukrainian army was hopelessly weak; in Viktor Yanukovych, the Russians had a pro-Russian, democratically elected Ukrainian president; and incidents like the killing of pro-Russian demonstrators in Odesa provided a good pretext for action. The reason for Putin’s past restraint lies in what was a core part of Russian strategy dating back to the 1990s: trying to wedge more distance between Europe and the United States, and ultimately to create a new security order in Europe with Russia as a full partner and respected power. It was always clear that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine would destroy any hope of rapprochement with the western Europeans, driving them for the foreseeable future into the arms of the US. Simultaneously, such a move would leave Russia diplomatically isolated and dangerously dependent on China. This Russian strategy was correctly seen as an attempt to split the west, and cement a Russian sphere of influence in the states of the former Soviet Union. However, having a European security order with Russia at the table would also have removed the risk of a Russian attack on Nato, the EU, and most likely, Ukraine; and allowed Moscow to exert a looser influence over its neighbours – closer perhaps to the present approach of the US to Central America – rather than gripping them tightly. It was an approach that had roots in Mikhail Gorbachev’s idea – welcomed in the west at the time – of a “common European home”. At one time, Putin subscribed to this idea. He wrote in 2012 that: “Russia is an inseparable, organic part of Greater Europe, of the wider European civilisation. Our citizens feel themselves to be Europeans.” This vision has now been abandoned in favour of the concept of Russia as a separate “Eurasian civilisation”. Between 1999, when Putin came to power, and 2020, when Biden was elected president of the US, this Russian strategy experienced severe disappointments, but also enough encouraging signs from Paris and Berlin to keep it alive. The most systematic Russian attempt to negotiate a new European security order came with the interim presidency of Dmitry Medvedev from 2008 to 2012. With Putin’s approval, he proposed a European security treaty that would have frozen Nato enlargement, effectively ensured the neutrality of Ukraine and other states, and institutionalised consultation on equal terms between Russia and leading western countries. But western states barely even pretended to take these proposals seriously. In 2014, it appears to have been Chancellor Angela Merkel’s warnings of “massive damage” to Russia and German-Russian relations that persuaded Putin to call a halt to the advance of the Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas. In return, Germany refused to arm Ukraine, and with France, brokered the Minsk 2 agreement, whereby the Donbas would return to Ukraine as an autonomous territory. In 2016, Russian hopes of a split between western Europe and the United States were revived by the election of Donald Trump – not because of any specific policy, rather because of the strong hostility that he provoked in Europe. But Biden’s election brought the US administration and west European establishments back together again. These years also saw Ukraine refuse to guarantee autonomy for the Donbas, and western failure to put any pressure on Kyiv to do so. This was accompanied by other developments that made Putin decide to bring matters concerning Ukraine to a head. These included the US-Ukrainian Strategic Partnership of November 2021, which held out the prospect of Ukraine becoming a heavily armed US ally in all but name, while continuing to threaten to retake the Donbas by force. In recent months, the German and French leaders in 2015, Merkel and François Hollande, have declared that the Minsk 2 agreement on Donbas autonomy was only a manoeuvre on their part to allow the Ukrainians the time to build up their armed forces. This is what Russian hardliners always believed, and by 2022, Putin himself seems to have come to the same conclusion. Nonetheless, almost until the eve of invasion, Putin continued unsuccessfully to press the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in particular to support a treaty of neutrality for Ukraine and negotiate directly with the separatist leaders in the Donbas. We cannot, of course, say for sure if this would have led Putin to call off the invasion; but since it would have opened up a deep split between Paris and Washington, such a move by Macron might well have revived in Putin’s mind the old and deeply held Russian strategy of trying to divide the west and forge agreement with France and Germany. Putin now seems to agree fully with Russian hardline nationalists that no western government can be trusted, and that the west as a whole is implacably hostile to Russia. He remains, however, vulnerable to attack from those same hardliners, both because of the deep incompetence with which the invasion was conducted, and because their charge that he was previously naive about the hopes of rapprochement with Europe appears to have been completely vindicated. It is from this side, not the Russian liberals, that the greatest threat to his rule now comes; and of course this makes it even more difficult for Putin to seek any peace that does not have some appearance at least of Russian victory. Meanwhile, the Russian invasion and its accompanying atrocities have destroyed whatever genuine sympathy for Russia existed in the French and German establishments. A peaceful and consensual security order in Europe looks very far away. But while Putin and his criminal invasion of Ukraine are chiefly responsible for this, we should also recognise that western and central Europeans also did far too little to try to keep Gorbachev’s dream of a common European home alive. Anatol Lieven is director of the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Seems a fair assessment, save that his criticism of Europe in not doing more, takes no account of what Ukraine, a sovereign country with a democratically elected government, wanted ie to move closer to the West and join the EU. France and Germany had to respect that and not treat Ukraine like a pawn.
You're speaking about the Ukraine as if it was a unified monocultural country Goldie - it isnt. The Western part of the country wants to move closer to the West and to NATO and the EU - but the East apparently doesn't. Ultimately some kind of partition of this country is inevitable.
The East? That's something of an ovestatement, Cologne https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-isnt-unified-yet-these-4-charts-explain-how/ In 2015, 92% of the Ukrainian population saw Ukraine as their homeland. I'm willing to bet that may have gone up since the Russian invasion and atrocities carried out. Of course, though, Russia has been shifting Ukranians out and Russians in. I agree a partition may be inevitable, with parts of Luhansk and Donetsk going to Russia. Crimea on the Black Sea will be the sticking point.
Only skim read the article from strollers but whilst i have no doubt that the Ukrainians wouldn't want to be part of the Russians now and there have been democratic votes since (2014 played a big role) i would argue the origins of it all was very non democratic overthrowing of the pro Russian democratically elected government.
Do you mean, like Putin was democratically elected? Alex Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner, has been imprisoned by Putin.
Thought it was an interesting analysis. People need to get a little more perspective, it seems to me.
