I never said it was. All I'm pointing out is that the simplistic "Bomber Command bad" narrative is utterly facile. It's revisionism at its worst.
Nobody said bomber command bad. They said the policy of firebombing civilian population centres was bad.
It’s very easy to look back 80 odd years and take a view from the comfort of 2024 on what had to be done to rid the world of Nazism. One could take Siegfried Sassoon’s viewpoint that “war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals”, but he wasn’t fighting against a movement bent on achieving global domination by the Aryan race and the enslavement or genocide of everyone else. You’re right Vin, from the time the blitzkrieg into Western Europe began in May 1940, until the victory at El Alamein in October 1942, bombing Germany was the only means of taking the offence against the Nazi advance. People forget that the Second World War was a “total war”, in that not just the military but pretty much the whole population of all the combatant nations were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the war effort. Strategically, however uncomfortable we might find it nowadays, the civilian population was therefore a legitimate target. The bombing campaign was vital, both in terms of reducing the enemy’s ability to fight, and in the equally important sense of having something to cheer about, when everything seemed to be going against the Allied cause. Later, as you say, the bombing campaign diverted resources and attention away from the defence of not just Normandy, but Italy and Southern France as well. Bomber Command, along with the US Eighth Air Force, undoubtedly committed acts which might be considered atrocities, such as the completely unnecessary obliteration of Dresden, but this doesn’t take anything away from how important the campaign was.
I don’t think many (anyone?) is holding the personnel involved responsible in any way. It’s the policy of targeting civilians that is always wrong. I question British actions in other conflicts, but never question the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women on the ground, at sea and in the air
I see Prince Andrew has ended his friendship with the Chinese bloke who is allegedly a spy. I wonder if he flew personally to China to tell him face to face that their friendship was over, because he`s such an honourable chap, after all. WTF was that charlatan doing as a `government trade envoy` for 10 years, other than milking it and lining his own pockets?. I would have nothing to do with anything associated with that slimeball.
I wonder if the UK's unofficial US envoy (and absent MP for the decent, honest, normal people of Clacton on Sea) will be weighing in and positing if people would sign a petition for a snap US election! Due to broken manifesto promises, only three months into the Trump 2 admin? There is already backtracking from Trump on "what they call 'groceries'! Bacon, lettuce, tomato etc". So-called "grocery" prices will be in fact hard to bring down, will not happen "simply" and "immediately" as promised. All of a sudden its "hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard"
OK guys. been a nice few years but I will call it a day for good now. Last few pages says this is not the place for me: While we can all agree war is horrible, leaders make some nasty decisions there does seem to be some over simplification of some of what happened above and straight lines drawn. Anyways. Enjoy the season. Its been a fun couple of decades
"Police can seize more than £2m from Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan after they failed to pay tax on £21m of revenue from their online businesses, a court has ruled." "The chief magistrate at Westminster Magistrates' Court said what appeared to be a "complex financial matrix" was actually a "straightforward cheat of the revenue". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2v1rnvrv0o
Don't normally post on this thread, but I need to rant; For the 2nd time in a year, my area has been left without water. This is now the 2nd day. Last time was 4 days. Meanwhile, I hear of southern water bosses getting pay rises, huge bonuses and making billions of pounds worth of profits, whilst our monthly fees are rising. The infrastructure is crumbling, not up to standard and keeps failing. We cannot be left without water multiple times a year. It's a ****ing joke. I'm currently sat in a 1 mile queue barely moving, moved probably 500 yards in 50 minutes, just to try and get some bottled water to tie us over. Ironically, I'm trying to get to Staplewood to collect, because the priority register (of which we are on) hasn't been utilised for us. Utter ****ing joke the state of this country, it really is.
Still, privatisation of all of our publicly owned utilities has been good, nay brilliant, for mates of the Tories. So that's alright then.
Yeah never been a fan of utilities being private. The one industry that actually needs and benefits from government ownership. Oh and rail and busses.
What I don’t understand is how a business, like a water company, can operate whilst being billions of pounds in debt, yet still be allowed to pay dividends to shareholders. Unless I am mistaken most of them are able to pay dividends to shareholders yet make no profit on which to pay taxes.
I might have posted this before but it emphasises how the wealthy are able to use shares in their companies to buy other companies, without having to sell their shares to raise the money, thus avoiding capital gains tax.
