Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%

  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
Staines R's said:
Do you not think that the Russians have tried to be pretty light handed and tried to avoid civilian casualties so far at least for the first stage of the conflict ? Wasn’t it something like 130 civilian deaths reported so far by the UN ? Do you think they (the Russians) genuinely believed the Ukrainian public would rise up against their current leaders and welcome the Russian invaders with open arms ? A bit naive if they did surely…but if not what other reason would they have to not annihilate whole neighbourhoods and bomb them indiscriminately to submission ?
Sorry mate…so many questions but always interested in your thoughts
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Putin has isolated himself for two years and only sees people who reinforce what he wants to believe. This is a man who gets his own way 100% of the time. It doesn’t really matter what Russians in general believe, it’s what Putin believes that is important. He has been told, most likely, that this will be a piece of piss. When it proves not to be, will he lash out? Possibly. He doesn’t need a reason/excuse to level towns and cities, we know that already. This is the nature of megalomaniac paranoia.

It’s interesting that we are seeing absolutely no propaganda from the majority Russian speaking areas in Ukraine ‘liberated’ by the Russian military. Might be on RT I suppose, and could be that the mainstream media has suppressed footage of the celebrations……

In my opinion.
 
Staines R's said:
I agree he (Putin) seems on the face of it very unhinged and does appear to be having some kind of mental episode…paranoid schizophrenia ? It happens every day, however this time it’s someone in charge which is very scary.
A bit like the airline pilot who wants to commit suicide……taking down all and sundry with him but this time on a massive scale.
Yeah Russia should have stuck with Communism…..at least the right wingers knew their enemy then ;)
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Yes, the airline pilot analogy may be frighteningly correct, hence the West playing it cool.

Right and Left all sounds a bit passe now, doesn't it? Certainly in the West with identity politics coming in, EU arguments etc.

At the end of the day, extreme right and extreme left end up with unaccountable dictators, and so have a lot in common
 
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sb_73 said:
Putin has isolated himself for two years and only sees people who reinforce what he wants to believe. This is a man who gets his own way 100% of the time. It doesn’t really matter what Russians in general believe, it’s what Putin believes that is important. He has been told, most likely, that this will be a piece of piss. When it proves not to be, will he lash out? Possibly. He doesn’t need a reason/excuse to level towns and cities, we know that already. This is the nature of megalomaniac paranoia.

It’s interesting that we are seeing absolutely no propaganda from the majority Russian speaking areas in Ukraine ‘liberated’ by the Russian military. Might be on RT I suppose, and could be that the mainstream media has suppressed footage of the celebrations……

In my opinion.
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RT was reporting gains of 30km in territory by the separatists in the East of the country. Had a few reports of crying grannies displaced by shelling etc but like most media, almost certainly slanted in some way.

Thanks for your input
 
Goldhawk-Road said:
Yes, the airline pilot analogy may be frighteningly correct, hence the West playing it cool.

Right and Left all sounds a bit passe now, doesn't it? Certainly in the West with identity politics coming in, EU arguments etc.

At the end of the day, extreme right and extreme left end up with unaccountable dictators, and so have a lot in common
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Good post
 
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Goldhawk-Road said:
And you didn't answer my questions on what further sanctions the UK should be putting in place...

As to refugees, if there is a security risk, then individuals should be vetted before they enter the country. That seems prudent. We'll take 100,000 to start with and then review as we go forwards. I see no reason why we should not take the same number of vetted refugees as say, the Netherlands, that has a population about as dense as ours. If countries like Poland take more than theirshare of refugees, we should be contributing financially to the extra cost alongside EU member states. Ultimately, the cost should fall to Russia, but I can't see reparations coming any time soon.
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We should go at least as far with sanctions as the EU has. There are dozens of individuals sanctioned by the EU, but not by the UK - Abramovich a prime example.

As for refugees, we are talking big ('leading the way' <doh>) but refusing to waive visas, thereby ensuring that it would be weeks, if not months, before any could get here.
 
Stroller said:
We should go at least as far with sanctions as the EU has. There are dozens of individuals sanctioned by the EU, but not by the UK - Abramovich a prime example.

As for refugees, we are talking big ('leading the way' <doh>) but refusing to waive visas, thereby ensuring that it would be weeks, if not months, before any could get here.
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If we’re doing anything we’re leading the way. We’re British.
 
Interesting, Xi and his bunch of cronies have stopped blaming the Ukraine invasion on the US, said they are very concerned about civilian casualties, talked to the Ukrainian foreign minister and offered to help mediate in ceasefire discussions……if they walk away from Putin he’s going to feel very isolated indeed.
 
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sb_73 said:
I wonder how the Russian conscripts will react when they realise that their pay has been effectively halved by inflation/ exchange rate collapse? Even more so the mercenaries of the Wagner group (if we are on political affiliations, they are named Wagner for a reason) who seem to do a lot of Russia’s special forces work for them (as private armies are illegal in Russia, safe to assume they are in fact a part of the Russian military with ‘deniability’). The other rogue group involved are the Chechen special forces, apparently doing a lot of sabotage for Putin. Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, has admitted they have taken casualties.

But the Russian military have pretty obviously underestimated the strength and determination of the Ukrainian defence, and likely overestimated their own capability as well. Slow learners, they were the same in Syria, and when they realised they couldn’t take and hold an urban area, they simply bombed them flat, cf Aleppo. I’m afraid that this might be the next step in Ukraine.
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Putin has been using the Chechens as a private army for years - In Syria as well as Eastern Ukraine. They're a nasty bunch of ****s
 
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Steelmonkey said:
Putin has been using the Chechens as a private army for years - In Syria as well as Eastern Ukraine. They're a nasty bunch of ****s
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The Chechen war was truly brutal from all sides.
Hope that doesn’t upset some on here who want good guys to cheer on.

On another note......anyone who really wants to expand their mind and possibly have their views changed on some conflicts really must listen to the podcast Conflicted, recommended by Steels/Raving. I’ve today had my views changed somewhat on the whole Yemen conflict, which I for ages have followed the usual Left Wing narrative of Saudi, Western backed aggression against the glorious Houthi rebels.....should have realised...it’s never that simple.
 
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Stroller said:
I heard a Ukrainian representative on the radio on Monday saying, 'If NATO won't enforce a no-fly zone, give us the planes and we'll do it ourselves. We have the pilots'. I now read that the EU is doing just that, supplying 70 fighter jets. For our part, Dominic Raab 'hasn't ruled out' doing similar.

How come the 'lumbering' EU has been able to move much faster than us on refugees, sanctions and now planes than the supposedly newly nimble UK?
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How many planes are they sending
 
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