Snap General Election called

[Mikey Brown]

Some sensible views on Starmer's Labour:

https://labourlist.org/2024/06/labour-p ... byn-blair/

"Starmerism is about fixing the failures of not only Corbynism, but Blairism too"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... dApp_Other

"Expert economists back Labour’s plan to end economic stagnation in UK"

The focus/narrative around Corbyn coming from Labour at the moment is just weird. So many quotes and articles going on about Corbynism and never really expanding on what that is, other than it being “radical”.

Maybe it’s inspiring for some, but to me it comes across like he’s just borrowing the Tory “it’s all Labour’s fault” line, and doesn’t really know where he stands beyond not being Corbyn.

I’m cautiously optimistic Starmer will be better for “THE ECONOMY” than the conservatives have been, but I’m not really sure what about either of these articles jumped out at you as encouraging or insightful?

Edit: I'm a bit pissed so this is a ramble, sorry!

Fair enough. Both articles jumped out at me as encouraging although admittedly not hugely insightful; there again I wouldn't expect a huge amount of insight as he's trying to be canny and not give the "left wing" of his own party, nor the media, nor other parties (all of whom it seems would rather see the Tories returned to power) too much in the way of ammunition.

At least one of those articles does touch on how he is trying to be more than 'not Corbyn'. And we already know what Corbynism is/was; we lived thru it.

Even if that weren't true, I wouldn't say having a focus on Corbyn is weird; JC pulled in a lot of the left wing of Labour and spooked the hell out of everyone else. You can see on this forum how Starmer is constantly judged by the "left" as not being as pure or as noble as JC so it seems obvious, to me at least, that to get votes from the majority who aren't, how can I say this, "enthusiastic socialists", Starmer is having to distance himself from that wing of the Labour party.

I dunno. To me it feels like if you can't see what Starmer stands for, it's not because it isn't there. I feel like there's a narrative driven by everyone who hates him, which as I said is everyone outside centrist Labour, who are all parroting the same attack lines, generally pretty vacuous lines about being "Red Tories" or some other meaningless bollox. Who he is and where he's taking the Labour party seems pretty clear to me. If someone doesn't want to see it, that's at least as much on them as it is on him, there's 10s of millions of voters, he can't explain himself in detail to every last one of them, at some point people have to be open enough to at least try to understand him.

Fair enough.

Perhaps I struggle to understand how those on the right would have viewed Starmer initially, I wouldn’t have thought there were many concerns about him being a leftoid. Do middle ground voters fear he’s the same as JC? I don’t know.

I guess we’ll see whether this is gaining more from the right or losing more from the left, with the Tories already in complete turmoil.

[Sandydragon]

Notice that I'm not saying that military security is completely irrelevant or advocating complete disarmament myself, but I'm finding it amusing that "Let's spend money on preventing/mitigating a climate disaster and not on preventing a military disaster" is 'student union politics' and 'not grown up', while "Let's spend money on preventing a military disaster and not on preventing/mitigating a climate disaster" is a grown-up and sensible political perspective. This is especially true given the case that the greatest threat to the continent is currently unable to conquer Ukraine in conventional warfare, so it doesn't feel like we're going to be fending off Russkies at the White Cliffs in the next 5 years.

Personally, I'd be interested in looking to reduce military budgets/get more bang for our buck forming closer military unions with our geographically close allies - is there really a need for separate UK and French nuclear deterrents, aircraft carriers, bombers, etc, when any threat coming at one of us will be directly affecting the other?

Puja

Then you are naive in the face of the current geopolitical situation. Do you trust Trump led America enough to protect us from Putin?

I agree that we in Europe need to plan for a defence that might not include America. If you think that means reducing military expenditure below what it is today then you are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Do you trust Trump-led America enough to protect us from climate disasters?

Puja

I trust Trump to do neither. But your point is somewhat undermined by the fact that we need China and India onboard to protect against climate change, as well as the US. To keep Europe free from Russian interference we don’t.

And if you focus on climate change and not defence then your work would be undone by a major war or indeed a Russian dominated Europe. Stability has to come before condos one the world to cut carbon emissions.

Stability is the top priority which comes from defence and collective security and good foreign policy. Top priority. Greens seem to think that if you ignore Russia it will go away. Naive

[Puja]

Then you are naive in the face of the current geopolitical situation. Do you trust Trump led America enough to protect us from Putin?

I agree that we in Europe need to plan for a defence that might not include America. If you think that means reducing military expenditure below what it is today then you are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Do you trust Trump-led America enough to protect us from climate disasters?

Puja

I trust Trump to do neither. But your point is somewhat undermined by the fact that we need China and India onboard to protect against climate change, as well as the US. To keep Europe free from Russian interference we don’t.

And if you focus on climate change and not defence then your work would be undone by a major war or indeed a Russian dominated Europe. Stability has to come before condos one the world to cut carbon emissions.

Stability is the top priority which comes from defence and collective security and good foreign policy. Top priority. Greens seem to think that if you ignore Russia it will go away. Naive

We do need China and India and Africa on board to protect against climate change, none of whom will be particularly interested in listening to us if we tell them they need to spend billions on decarbonising, but we're not going to right now, tyvm.

Also mitigating against climate change isn't just about reducing our carbon emissions, but about future-proofing ourselves with things like renewable energy, insulation, sea and river defences, so that when the upheavals come, we are in a far better position to weather them. Apart from anything else, the cost of living crisis would've been a lot less if Cameron hadn't said to "get rid of the Green crap" back in 2013 and we'd been less reliant on imported gas and oil.

I will point out once again that I am not in favour of disbanding the military nor am I in favour of a lot of the Greens' policy on it, but it's incredible that protecting against the threat of "a Russian dominated Europe" is mandatory to be a sensible politician and protecting against climate disaster is optional, especially since the former is very much a worst case hypothetical (given they can't beat Ukraine in conventional warfare, let alone NATO (even if we were America-less)) and the latter is very definitely happening and will only get worse.

Puja

[Zhivago]

Do you trust Trump-led America enough to protect us from climate disasters?

Puja

I trust Trump to do neither. But your point is somewhat undermined by the fact that we need China and India onboard to protect against climate change, as well as the US. To keep Europe free from Russian interference we don’t.

And if you focus on climate change and not defence then your work would be undone by a major war or indeed a Russian dominated Europe. Stability has to come before condos one the world to cut carbon emissions.

Stability is the top priority which comes from defence and collective security and good foreign policy. Top priority. Greens seem to think that if you ignore Russia it will go away. Naive

We do need China and India and Africa on board to protect against climate change, none of whom will be particularly interested in listening to us if we tell them they need to spend billions on decarbonising, but we're not going to right now, tyvm.

Also mitigating against climate change isn't just about reducing our carbon emissions, but about future-proofing ourselves with things like renewable energy, insulation, sea and river defences, so that when the upheavals come, we are in a far better position to weather them. Apart from anything else, the cost of living crisis would've been a lot less if Cameron hadn't said to "get rid of the Green crap" back in 2013 and we'd been less reliant on imported gas and oil.

I will point out once again that I am not in favour of disbanding the military nor am I in favour of a lot of the Greens' policy on it, but it's incredible that protecting against the threat of "a Russian dominated Europe" is mandatory to be a sensible politician and protecting against climate disaster is optional, especially since the former is very much a worst case hypothetical (given they can't beat Ukraine in conventional warfare, let alone NATO (even if we were America-less)) and the latter is very definitely happening and will only get worse.

Puja

It is not a worst case hypothetical, it's their overtly stated ambition. You should research a bit about their ideology before disregarding the threat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundati ... eopolitics

[Puja]

I trust Trump to do neither. But your point is somewhat undermined by the fact that we need China and India onboard to protect against climate change, as well as the US. To keep Europe free from Russian interference we don’t.

And if you focus on climate change and not defence then your work would be undone by a major war or indeed a Russian dominated Europe. Stability has to come before condos one the world to cut carbon emissions.

Stability is the top priority which comes from defence and collective security and good foreign policy. Top priority. Greens seem to think that if you ignore Russia it will go away. Naive

We do need China and India and Africa on board to protect against climate change, none of whom will be particularly interested in listening to us if we tell them they need to spend billions on decarbonising, but we're not going to right now, tyvm.

Also mitigating against climate change isn't just about reducing our carbon emissions, but about future-proofing ourselves with things like renewable energy, insulation, sea and river defences, so that when the upheavals come, we are in a far better position to weather them. Apart from anything else, the cost of living crisis would've been a lot less if Cameron hadn't said to "get rid of the Green crap" back in 2013 and we'd been less reliant on imported gas and oil.

I will point out once again that I am not in favour of disbanding the military nor am I in favour of a lot of the Greens' policy on it, but it's incredible that protecting against the threat of "a Russian dominated Europe" is mandatory to be a sensible politician and protecting against climate disaster is optional, especially since the former is very much a worst case hypothetical (given they can't beat Ukraine in conventional warfare, let alone NATO (even if we were America-less)) and the latter is very definitely happening and will only get worse.

Puja

It is not a worst case hypothetical, it's their overtly stated ambition. You should research a bit about their ideology before disregarding the threat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism

I have the overtly stated ambition of winning the lottery.

Puja

[Zhivago]

We do need China and India and Africa on board to protect against climate change, none of whom will be particularly interested in listening to us if we tell them they need to spend billions on decarbonising, but we're not going to right now, tyvm.

Also mitigating against climate change isn't just about reducing our carbon emissions, but about future-proofing ourselves with things like renewable energy, insulation, sea and river defences, so that when the upheavals come, we are in a far better position to weather them. Apart from anything else, the cost of living crisis would've been a lot less if Cameron hadn't said to "get rid of the Green crap" back in 2013 and we'd been less reliant on imported gas and oil.

I will point out once again that I am not in favour of disbanding the military nor am I in favour of a lot of the Greens' policy on it, but it's incredible that protecting against the threat of "a Russian dominated Europe" is mandatory to be a sensible politician and protecting against climate disaster is optional, especially since the former is very much a worst case hypothetical (given they can't beat Ukraine in conventional warfare, let alone NATO (even if we were America-less)) and the latter is very definitely happening and will only get worse.

Puja

It is not a worst case hypothetical, it's their overtly stated ambition. You should research a bit about their ideology before disregarding the threat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism

I have the overtly stated ambition of winning the lottery.

Puja

All very well, but there is no wikipedia page about your ambition, and there is a surfeit of material about the Russian ideology.

The Russian ambition is well within the realm of possibilities if we were to reduce military expenditure, as you desire. You don't apprehend quite how close Kyiv was to falling. And how dire a situation we would have been in if that had happened.

[Puja]

It is not a worst case hypothetical, it's their overtly stated ambition. You should research a bit about their ideology before disregarding the threat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism

I have the overtly stated ambition of winning the lottery.

Puja

All very well, but there is no wikipedia page about your ambition, and there is a surfeit of material about the Russian ideology.

The Russian ambition is well within the realm of possibilities if we were to reduce military expenditure, as you desire. You don't apprehend quite how close Kyiv was to falling. And how dire a situation we would have been in if that had happened.

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

[Zhivago]

I have the overtly stated ambition of winning the lottery.

Puja

All very well, but there is no wikipedia page about your ambition, and there is a surfeit of material about the Russian ideology.

The Russian ambition is well within the realm of possibilities if we were to reduce military expenditure, as you desire. You don't apprehend quite how close Kyiv was to falling. And how dire a situation we would have been in if that had happened.

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

The war is not yet over and the outcome is uncertain.

[Puja]

All very well, but there is no wikipedia page about your ambition, and there is a surfeit of material about the Russian ideology.

The Russian ambition is well within the realm of possibilities if we were to reduce military expenditure, as you desire. You don't apprehend quite how close Kyiv was to falling. And how dire a situation we would have been in if that had happened.

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

The war is not yet over and the outcome is uncertain.

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

[morepork]

What an unnecessarily patronising tone this thread has taken on.

[Zhivago]

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

The war is not yet over and the outcome is uncertain.

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

On the contrary. Ukraine was the most industrialised part of the USSR. Gaining it would vastly augment Russian power.

[Stom]

My comments here are going to be a bit jumbled...

But there are two parts to this as far as I can see:

1) Does any green deal NEED buy-in from India/China, or could we create a new tax law that would have a MASSIVE impact without the need to have them on side.

By placing a tax on every single item based upon the amount of miles of transport the items from that product travel, we could eliminate a huge quantity of emissions AND create jobs in Europe. Yes, prices would go up, but it would be a fundamental shift in the right direction, in my opinion.

At the moment, an average car, for example, includes parts made in the UK, China, Chile, Hungary, Taiwan, and potentially elsewhere. But it's not just that. The part from the UK is shipped to China to be bolted onto another part, and then shipped to Hungary to be assembled into one unit, before being shipped back to the UK to be assembled completely. Meanwhile, the parts from Chile go to India, are partially assembled before being shipped to Taiwan, and then to the UK for final assembly. By taxing the journey these parts take, we would make it economically nonviable to continue this way.

Meanwhile, things like Wish.com could be eliminated, which would be a HUMONGOUS net benefit to society.

2) Russia...do we need more funding for the army? Or do we need to actually isolate Russia and their partners completely? We've taken a massive backseat in this conflict, not helped by the actions of the Hungarian government (and one reason I'm so pissed at the UK's handling of Brexit: there was a real chance to create an EU for the people, but it was not taken). If we, and other nations, had actively become involved, we could have ended this thing already. Just go and assassinate the fucker, ffs! Heck, infiltrate NK and get yourself a double whammy. Why the hell not.

Defense spending is so far down the pipeline when we're facing a real and actual threat. The lukewarm war Russia is waging isn't a direct threat, it's an indirect one. What is more funding going to do? Troops will not protect us. More nukes will not protect us. cyber sercurity, sure, but do we need more funding there, or just a realignment of current funding?

We need to concentrate funding on the massive issue at hand: the planet. And the truth is that many societaly problems are simply related to that issue.

[Puja]

What an unnecessarily patronising tone this thread has taken on.

Agreed. Let's leave alone the question of whether Russia will conquer the universe if the British disband all their armies and give all the materiel to Belarus (as I believe the two opposing sides are), and get back to the important things - the death spiral of the Tory party.

The gambling thing is the gift that keeps on giving. On the one hand, it's a story of very little - do we actually particularly care about William Hill getting ripped off for £500 by someone who got the inside nod? However, it's come to symbolise all the graft and corruption of the last 14 years, especially since it's coming out in a drip-drip-drip of revelations. If there'd just been 4 people announced on day one, then it wouldn't have had half the effect of them being strung out like a club announcing contract signings.

Puja

[Zhivago]

My comments here are going to be a bit jumbled...

But there are two parts to this as far as I can see:

1) Does any green deal NEED buy-in from India/China, or could we create a new tax law that would have a MASSIVE impact without the need to have them on side.

By placing a tax on every single item based upon the amount of miles of transport the items from that product travel, we could eliminate a huge quantity of emissions AND create jobs in Europe. Yes, prices would go up, but it would be a fundamental shift in the right direction, in my opinion.

At the moment, an average car, for example, includes parts made in the UK, China, Chile, Hungary, Taiwan, and potentially elsewhere. But it's not just that. The part from the UK is shipped to China to be bolted onto another part, and then shipped to Hungary to be assembled into one unit, before being shipped back to the UK to be assembled completely. Meanwhile, the parts from Chile go to India, are partially assembled before being shipped to Taiwan, and then to the UK for final assembly. By taxing the journey these parts take, we would make it economically nonviable to continue this way.

Meanwhile, things like Wish.com could be eliminated, which would be a HUMONGOUS net benefit to society.

2) Russia...do we need more funding for the army? Or do we need to actually isolate Russia and their partners completely? We've taken a massive backseat in this conflict, not helped by the actions of the Hungarian government (and one reason I'm so pissed at the UK's handling of Brexit: there was a real chance to create an EU for the people, but it was not taken). If we, and other nations, had actively become involved, we could have ended this thing already. Just go and assassinate the fucker, ffs! Heck, infiltrate NK and get yourself a double whammy. Why the hell not.

Defense spending is so far down the pipeline when we're facing a real and actual threat. The lukewarm war Russia is waging isn't a direct threat, it's an indirect one. What is more funding going to do? Troops will not protect us. More nukes will not protect us. cyber sercurity, sure, but do we need more funding there, or just a realignment of current funding?

We need to concentrate funding on the massive issue at hand: the planet. And the truth is that many societaly problems are simply related to that issue.

Price rises will reduce demand which will lead to reduced sales which means less revenue which means businesses performing badly and job losses. That's not a politically acceptable option.

[cashead]

What an unnecessarily patronising tone this thread has taken on.

Yeah, for real. The fuck is with the Colonialist fever dream that some people are having? Like, yeah, I wonder why Britain is the world's leading exporter of independence days.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

I'm amazed by the pearl-clutching over this. It's not "violence against politicians" - it's a milkshake. It's a noisy and embarrassing protest, not violence.

Back onto serious politicians, Starmer did a terrible job at the debate. All very well explaining carefully afterwards that the Tories are lying and exaggerating, but most of the audience will not read the careful and well-cited later rebuttal - they just heard Sunak hammer home the point of "Labour will raise taxes by £2,000" over and over and Starmer fail to deal with it.

Puja

He answered like a lawyer. He assumed he would get his turn and the moderator kept saying "we've moved off topic" when he was about to answer. He needs to learn to muscle his way on before the next election.

[Sandydragon]

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

The war is not yet over and the outcome is uncertain.

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

When would we use nuclear weapons? To defend Poland, the Baltic states, France?

Putin will push boundaries as far as he can. He has already invaded Ukraine, twice, and Georgia. He is trying to recreate the Russian empire and overcome the Cold War.

Encouraging him by reducing defence spending, as it appears you wish to do, it absurd. Even appeasement was designed to buy time to rearm.

[Sandydragon]

My comments here are going to be a bit jumbled...

But there are two parts to this as far as I can see:

1) Does any green deal NEED buy-in from India/China, or could we create a new tax law that would have a MASSIVE impact without the need to have them on side.

By placing a tax on every single item based upon the amount of miles of transport the items from that product travel, we could eliminate a huge quantity of emissions AND create jobs in Europe. Yes, prices would go up, but it would be a fundamental shift in the right direction, in my opinion.

At the moment, an average car, for example, includes parts made in the UK, China, Chile, Hungary, Taiwan, and potentially elsewhere. But it's not just that. The part from the UK is shipped to China to be bolted onto another part, and then shipped to Hungary to be assembled into one unit, before being shipped back to the UK to be assembled completely. Meanwhile, the parts from Chile go to India, are partially assembled before being shipped to Taiwan, and then to the UK for final assembly. By taxing the journey these parts take, we would make it economically nonviable to continue this way.

Meanwhile, things like Wish.com could be eliminated, which would be a HUMONGOUS net benefit to society.

2) Russia...do we need more funding for the army? Or do we need to actually isolate Russia and their partners completely? We've taken a massive backseat in this conflict, not helped by the actions of the Hungarian government (and one reason I'm so pissed at the UK's handling of Brexit: there was a real chance to create an EU for the people, but it was not taken). If we, and other nations, had actively become involved, we could have ended this thing already. Just go and assassinate the fucker, ffs! Heck, infiltrate NK and get yourself a double whammy. Why the hell not.

Defense spending is so far down the pipeline when we're facing a real and actual threat. The lukewarm war Russia is waging isn't a direct threat, it's an indirect one. What is more funding going to do? Troops will not protect us. More nukes will not protect us. cyber sercurity, sure, but do we need more funding there, or just a realignment of current funding?

We need to concentrate funding on the massive issue at hand: the planet. And the truth is that many societaly problems are simply related to that issue.

We’ve tried isolating Russia. It hasn’t worked. Much of the world is trying not to offen Russia and China so will co tone to trade with them.

European defence is a joke on the whole. Take US out of nato and capability is reduced by 3/5s to 3/4. Russia light fancy that at some point.

Noting that a huge chunk of our munitions have been sen to Ukraine and the defence industry isn’t geared up to replace them.

We have a military that is tiny. We couldn’t deploy anything more than a division and then not for long. We simply couldn’t sustain the losses Ukraine has.

Bottom line we need to invest and ensure that we can as a group of European states in nato defend ourselves, especially if Trump is re elected.

Regarding the environmental aspect, would us isolationg ourselves from global markets and supply chains make the slightest difference overall? The rest of Europe and the US, plus China India and others would still buy and ship materials. Without major multinational agreement what the UK alone can achieve is minuscule.

[Sandydragon]

I have the overtly stated ambition of winning the lottery.

Puja

All very well, but there is no wikipedia page about your ambition, and there is a surfeit of material about the Russian ideology.

The Russian ambition is well within the realm of possibilities if we were to reduce military expenditure, as you desire. You don't apprehend quite how close Kyiv was to falling. And how dire a situation we would have been in if that had happened.

If Britain combines its nuclear deterrent and aircraft carriers with France, then Russia will gain the capacity to overrun all of Europe? This strikes me as unlikely.

I'm sure a counterfactual history could be written where Russia took Kyiv and everything went very differently, but in this timeline, they didn't. They are now in a situation where they have lost over 500,000 men and climbing and are forced to beg North Korea and Iran for weaponry. An "overtly stated ambition" to conquer all of Europe is meaningless when you have no capacity to carry that out.

Kanye West has the ambition to be US President and there are Wikipedia pages and a surfeit of information about that. Doesn't mean it's got any real chance of occurring.

Puja

And what about our stockpiles of munitions having gifted so much to Ukraine? Russia is gearing its economy to fight a major war. We aren’t. If Trump forces Ukraine to compromise next year then Russia can recover.

[Puja]

The war is not yet over and the outcome is uncertain.

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

When would we use nuclear weapons? To defend Poland, the Baltic states, France?

Putin will push boundaries as far as he can. He has already invaded Ukraine, twice, and Georgia. He is trying to recreate the Russian empire and overcome the Cold War.

Encouraging him by reducing defence spending, as it appears you wish to do, it absurd. Even appeasement was designed to buy time to rearm.

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

[Zhivago]

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

When would we use nuclear weapons? To defend Poland, the Baltic states, France?

Putin will push boundaries as far as he can. He has already invaded Ukraine, twice, and Georgia. He is trying to recreate the Russian empire and overcome the Cold War.

Encouraging him by reducing defence spending, as it appears you wish to do, it absurd. Even appeasement was designed to buy time to rearm.

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

I doubt we'd use nukes if Putin invaded the Baltics. It'd be NATO conventional forces. The plan was to cede ground and reconquer it. European (i.e. NATO without US) forces are not strong enough to reliably achieve this.

[Zhivago]

The RAND Corporation conducted a series of wargames to explore the shape and likely outcome of a Russian invasion of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The results were unambiguous and suggested that given the Baltic states’ military capabilities and NATO’s posture at the time, Russian forces could overrun the Baltic states within 36 to 60 hours. Such a swift defeat would leave NATO with unpalatable choices including: a bloody counteroffensive; a nuclear response; or the acceptance of Russian rule over the Baltics.

To avoid such a situation, the study recommended that seven allied brigades – including three heavy brigades – with appropriate air support and other enablers should be deployed to permanent bases in the Baltics.

These suggestions have never materialised. Although NATO has deployed a multinational battalion battle group to each Baltic state and Poland as part of its Enhanced Forward Presence, boosted the readiness of the NATO Response Force and the US has unilaterally forward deployed some heavy forces into the region, these efforts are not even close to matching the proposed force package. There are no signs that this situation will change in the future, meaning that the Baltic states are still in the same situation as the RAND study found them four years ago – their conventional militaries destroyed in less than three days and NATO struggling to choose from three unthinkable options.

https://www.tweedekamer.nl/downloads/do ... 2024D07122

This is a 2020 paper referencing a 2016 paper by RAND. The situation now is not materially different aside from the fact that Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine, and of course Sweden and Finland are now in NATO. The Russian military industrial complex is in wartime mode of production, whereas we are not. If we let Russia succeed in Ukraine, the Baltics would be easy pickings.

[Puja]

Here's a nice palate cleanser for you all - Tommy Robinson has just been arrested in Canada for having entered the country illegally.



Puja

[Sandydragon]

Here's a nice palate cleanser for you all - Tommy Robinson has just been arrested in Canada for having entered the country illegally.



Puja

I think we can all agree that’s a good thing.
In other news Farage is picking a fight with the Daily Mail and Boris Johnson. My only concern with that is the potential for the popcorn to run out

[Sandydragon]

True, Ukraine may still lose the war - more than possible. But that won't affect Russia's complete inability to conquer all of Europe from its current position.

Puja

When would we use nuclear weapons? To defend Poland, the Baltic states, France?

Putin will push boundaries as far as he can. He has already invaded Ukraine, twice, and Georgia. He is trying to recreate the Russian empire and overcome the Cold War.

Encouraging him by reducing defence spending, as it appears you wish to do, it absurd. Even appeasement was designed to buy time to rearm.

And are the nuclear weapons more effective if there are individual British and French ones or would they work just as well as an Anglo-French joint effort?

Puja

We have far fewer warheads than the US, Russia might see a nuclear war as being winnable against just the UK and France. But even so, we re unlikely to unleash a nuclear apocalypse unless it’s the last resort. Which means defending Poland and other allies in Eastern Europe will need conventional forces, which are currently very under sized.