What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Not sure how this fits in, but I believe that it was Trump who started supplying the Ukrainians with arms and training - a decision that Obama had declined to take on the basis that it would be seen as provocative by the Russians.

The list notwithstanding Z, point 4 seems to have backfired somewhat, since now (if I have it right - it's a bit difficult to keep up because the situation is so fluid and keeps changing) most of Europe is no longer taking Russian gas (or is in the process of moving away from it with some alacrity). Even Germany, heavily dependent upon said Russian gas, is making moves to cut its dependence on it. This war is going to cost Russia dear, win or lose.

[Zarathustra]

Thank you, Peter, for following the logic of my points and criticizing it on that basis. You make a good point. The West is imposing unprecedented sanctions upon Russia that perhaps even Putin himself was not expecting. After all, they came too late to stop the invasion, so Putin was correct in gauging our leaders' reluctance. And that's the problem: our reluctance/weakness. He probably assumes that after all this is over, everything will be back to business as usual, because where else is Europe going to get its oil and gas? Biden is already saying that he will do nothing to encourage increased production here. So Putin has every right to expect that things will go back to normal, just like they did after the world watched Crimea be taken.

It's absolutely insane that Biden cancelled a pipeline here, but then lifted sanctions on a Russian pipeline. This is madness. The Dems/Leftists don't know what they are doing. This much is crystal clear. Their incompetence is costing the entire world.

[peter]

Now this post is going to be contentious because in the climate being fostered by our media coverage, anything that approaches criticism of the Ukrainian side is seen as tantamount to being a Putin apologist, if not a traitor traitorous in itself. But here goes anyway......

I take my news from a variety of sources - BBC and Sky, the national newspapers and radio stations (including LBC and GBNews), and a number of YouTube channels including TLDR (who I find balanced and informative).

Vladimir Putin has come in for much criticism for his use of the the word 'nazi' in his description of the Kiev administration, describing his campaign as to be "the denazification' of the Ukraine etc.

Certainly so much bollocks if it is judged by the rest of what he has had to say, but....

I noticed the other day that the YouTube algorithm had thrown up a video, posted eight years ago, entitled something like "the rise of Ukraine's far-right", and intrigued I went over to have a look. Now this was not created by some out on a limb fake-news hucksters - it was a segment of the BBC Newsnight show, a highly respected and widely viewed mainstream program in the UK. In fact, probably the highest regarded news program of the entire BBC catalogue.

I watched the video - perturbing stuff as you can imagine, featuring interviews with soldiers and civilians all espousing the highly nationalistic views characteristic of far-right ideology - and then glanced down the related videos to the left side of the one I was seeing. There were more of the same nature, also from the same BBC program

In total I counted five such presentations, done by Newsnight over the course of the last eight years, the final one appearing as recently as only one year ago. One title in particular struck me (in the light of current events) along the lines of "infiltration of the Ukrainian government by the far-right". NB. I should stress, I haven't yet watched these YouTube vids - I'm just observing that they are there.

Now a degree of nationalism in Ukraine is understandable given its experience of being subsumed into a larger grouping (quite possibly against its will - I simply don't know the history of how it came to membership of the USSR) and of the extreme socialist kind, but the video I did watch was not showing a patriotism that we would understand, so much as an ideological nationalism that we have learned from history, only leads to bad things.

But certainly, given what has happened in the past three weeks, we are suddenly hearing very little about this uglier side of Ukrainian politics. There is certainly nothing of the fascist about nice Mr Zelensky, who seems at present to be not far short of being able to walk on water. I don't know, but perhaps it's just that it might be this kind of thing that nasty Mr Putin is referring to when he speaks in these unpalatable terms?

Another interesting thing I have noted about the presentation of this latest of world geopolitical crises is in respect of coverage of 'enemy' combatants taken prisoner by the Ukrainians. There have been a number of cases where Russian captives have been reported (and paraded?) as having given accounts of how they were "forced" into the Ukraine against their will (or at least inclinations) - proof positive of the malign nature of the master they serve.

Perhaps so. But I remember something similar being done with Isis held captives, and we all understood then how men in fear of their lives, men subjected to the psychological effects of being held captive by others who would see them dead, will say anything in order to save their skins, if they believe that that is what their captors want to hear. But of course this situation is different isn't it.

The world will not be a better place for the hysterical Russophobe attitude being pushed by our politicians and media (one MP has been calling for all Russians to be expelled from the UK) and no-one will be the better for it. We are seeing a giant leap backwards to the world of fifty years ago and if we would stop it, now is the time for reason and moderation not hysteria and hyperbole. (And compromise!)

[Zarathustra]

The situation with Ukraine is certainly more complex than "good guys vs bad guys." But news media love their simple narratives = ratings. As Obi pointed out in the Tank, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. That doesn't make Putin right, it just acknowledges the nuance of the situation. It's popular here for people to wear or display the Ukrainian flag in a symbolic show of solidarity, but would those people have considered such a move a year ago? It's one thing to say, "This war is wrong," and another to say, "We are all Ukrainians now." No, I'm certainly not. But the sheep prefer it simple.

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

I actually know about the research into this topic, haven't seen the BBC's take on it, but I've read a lot from the serious researchers of the far right like Umland and Shekhovtsov and others (I can fetch some links if interested), and basically it's like this - they find the far right nearly everywhere, France, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, etc., and in many counties at least some representatives in high offices or otherwise having lots of influence, like Le Pen in France or Alternative For Germany. They also pointed out lots of this in Russia and with much more influence than in Ukraine.

Then Russian trolls get there, yank out the pieces about Ukraine and wave like a flag. Looks like the mainstream media at some point kinda noticed and decided to fight the misleading half-truth by avoiding it.

And here Zarathusthra and Peter I agree with both of you, I wish more of the Western media didn't try to babysit people - in this case by simply cutting out this theme. And instead poured out all this info for people to see and understand.


And thanks for an excuse to post this

[peter]

I hear that Meta (the new quirky name for Facebook) are relaxing their rules on the posting of hate speech and calls for violence against individuals - as long as those individuals are Russian soldiers.......

I mean, Jesus! What can you even say? The situation becomes more bizzare by the day. As Neil Oliver pointed out in his latest post on YouTube, shall we start having the 'two minute hate period' of Orwell's 1984 in which we indulge in an outpouring of venom against the particular target of the moment?

This situation is all kinds of fucked up - by any standards. It seems that war is okay - just as long as it is someone else who is fighting it - someone else who is bearing the cost. The rhetoric is ramping up on both sides by the day and gaining a momentum that seems unstoppable. Biden seems to think that just by repeating the phrase "world war three" over and over that he will be able to avoid having to commit to further involvement - the idiot. Cannot he see that it's inevitable, too late, the bus has been missed? Putin has thrown down a gauntlet that will, like it or not, have to be picked up.

Either that or do what we do in respect of the 26 (give or take) other armed conflicts going on in the world today - turn our backs on it, forget it is happening? After a few months of hysteria while it feeds the media frenzy for disaster headlines, when information fatigue sets in and we need something new to chew our fingers over and run screaming into the street, then we can let it slide into the background (like Covid - remember that?) and forget it's happening. Except in this case there's thirty five million displaced people flooding in our direction to remind us and what are we going to do with them? You watch the thin veneer of Ukraine virtue signalling evaporate or morph into something else when they start being given the social housing, their children start jumping the queues for school places.

No shit, those who are supposed to be looking out for us have led us into a bad fucked up place. Maybe those scientists who think that the reason why there are no extraterrestrial civilisations out there is because they always blow themselves into oblivion before they develop the ability to head out into the vast of space have a point. If our stupid c***s of leaders in this world are anything to go by, it seems distinctly possible that they have the measure of it!

----------------------------0--------------------------

Quick few comments on the Sunday papers:

More evidence of the inevitable escalation of the Ukrainian war with the announcement of a Kremlin spokesman that convoys of armaments being supplied to the Ukrainian forces by the West will henceforth be seen as legitimate targets for attack. He doesn't say if these attacks will be carried out on NATO territory or only when the convoys have entered Ukraine proper. If the former is the case, or indeed if Western personnel are killed, even on Ukrainian soil, then this is bound to be a significant ratcheting up of events. Meanwhile at home, we've been told we will get three hundred and fifty quid a month if we take in a Ukrainian fleeing the conflict that we have found trawling the internet (where apparently many are issuing pleas for assistance in dealing with their plight). Sounds okay on the surface, but I'd think that there is a big risk of dodgy individuals predating on those in dire need in such an arrangement.

I K Rowling is up in arms about Sir Kier Stamer having stated that he considers trans women to be women proper, arguing that he does damage to women's rights as an unintended consequence. Maybe so - I can't say. But (I wonder)), why don't we hear of such arguments or problems in the other direction - ie in respect of trans men? Perhaps we men are just more accommodating, find less to argue about? "If you say you're a man - fine, you're a man", style of thing?

Lastly, some guy who saw an alien spaceship or something and reported it to the police, was apparently visited by government officials who interviewed him on the subject. The UK version of 'the men in black' perhaps? Who'd have thought it!

[peter]

YouTube has apparently barred all Russian news outlets from its platform, in compliance with the western need to control the narrative when it comes to the situation in the Ukraine.

It's not just on the internet though is it? Our mainstream media is similarly one-sided in its presentation of the conflict, and such debate as there is in between the hyper-sentimentalised segments (complete with mournful voiceovers and dirge-like music) outlining the Ukrainian people's plight, is all in line with the simplistic good side/bad side projection, and never straying into the difficult areas that might throw a third into the punchbowl of our thinking.

Areas like what exactly were we doing arming and training a non NATO country in the first place - could this justifiably be seen as a provocative thing to have been doing?

Or how moral is it to fuel a proxy war with the Russians without having the bollocks to get in amongst it ourselves? Shouldn't we either step up to the plate or get the fuck out of Dodge? Is our current stance not indicative of an inner cowardice, egging on from the sidelines, being ready with the towel, but to afraid to step into the ring ourselves? Does Putin have the measure of us, of our feet of clay on this score?

The message from our leaders is that no way - no way - are we putting boots on the ground in this conflict (metaphorical or otherwise), but the narrative and imagery that is pouring out of our screens is designed to do nothing but make us desperate to do something to stop the annihilation of the Ukrainian people, even to the tune of active involvement in the battle. This assault on the senses from both sides - the calm versus the emotive as it were - produces a confusion in us that stops us seeing this rationally, and for this reason I'm drawing back from immersion of myself in the news outpouring and heading into simpler territory.

I don't like the heart-string plucking output of the BBC - I find it too deliberately manipulative in its 'special reports' from a thousand different Ukrainian borders, a hundred besieged cities, all showing a tide of human misery and suffering. I suppose that this is just the way of modern war reporting - the embedding of journalists giving real-time reports and imagery of what is happening (carefully manicured to fit the narrative), but it doesn't work for me. I want facts without the embellishments; I'll form my own judgement if you just give me the hard information. For this I find the Financial Times to be the best source of news. It avoids the 'personal account' style of journalism of say the Guardian (the others sit sort of halfway between). For the visual stuff I'm going to stick to carefully selecting videos from YouTube - channels like TLDR, some GBNews and LBC stuff. Sky and the BBC are definitely out. They treat me like a child that can be led by the hand to whatever place they choose to lead me. Bollocks to that.

But to return to the fray (as it were), alas the escalation is proceeding apace with news that the Russians have blown up a Ukrainian army depot/training base (where NATO had been training Ukrainian forces, and combatants entering Ukraine to help in the effort were being given instruction). This is no doubt the Russians making good on their weekend claims that they considered any supplies of equipment and aid from NATO to the Ukrainian side as legitimate targets. We don't know yet if any NATO personnel have been killed, but if they have it will not go down well.

In an ironic twist it appears that the Russians have asked the Chinese for aid in the form of supplies of armaments, drones etc - a request that has met with swift warnings to China from the USA, that it must not do anything that appears to be breaking the US led sanctions on aiding the Russians. I've got a feeling that the Chinese will do just as they please when it comes to how they distribute their assistance, and furthermore will not be best pleased that the USA should presume to tell it what it can and cannot do. Also the irony of telling the Chinese they can't support the Russians while at the same time actively supporting the Ukrainian forces themselves in exactly the same way cannot be ignored.

But all in all these are significant escalations and just what we don't need. The American words are likely to make the Chinese more likely to aid Russia, not less, and surely they must realise this. But whatever, what we are seeing is the inevitable broadening of the conflict to include more than just the two currently combatant countries. We are headed for wide-scale conflict that will affect us all - and not just in our pockets.

Will it result in thermonuclear holocaust or just the inexorable division of the world into the conflict zones of Orwell's Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia? Who can tell. But in ten years time - if there is a ten years time - the idea that we should have done everything in our power, including if necessary surrender, capitulation or compromise, in order to stop this conflict in its tracks, will not seem as vacillating as it does today.

[peter]

Confession time.

I am that worst possible of things - an individual who is incapable of forming opinions of his own, but rather one (like Donald Trump before me) who's opinion is always that of the last person he has listened to who has put forward a not completely swivel-eyed assessment of any given situation under discussion.

A previous contributor to the Watch called Vraith, who's opinions I greatly miss (and how I wish he was still here opining on our current times), had a tag line that said that the vast bulk of people were like this, so perhaps I shouldn't feel too bad about it, but still.....

So it will come as no surprise that, having just watched a Spectator debate on the Ukrainian situation featuring Peter Hitchens and a geopolitical expert from one of our universities, my views on the said situation have undergone a virtual 360 degree turn (in far less time than it has taken me to post these words).

The other guy (ie not Hitchens) put forward some serious arguments that cannot be ignored, to the tune that if your enemy is in the process of making some serious mistakes that will bring about his downfall, it would be folly in the extreme to interrupt him. Such was the case in respect of Putin, he said, and thus the Western position of sitting back, doing nothing to escalate the situation but allowing the maniac to bring about his own downfall, was exactly right. Yes, he acknowledged, the continued bombardment of the Ukraine would result in deaths of Ukrainian citizens - probably hundreds of thousands of them - but from the perspective of Western global geopolitical strategy, this was by-the-by. There is a clear separation between what, emotively, we would like to see done in respect of supporting the Ukraine, and what lies in our geopolitical interest (which in the long term is probably far more important).

It's a bitter pill to swallow (especially for the Ukrainian people bearing the brunt of all of this), but our policy of support without actual involvement will serve us best in the long run. Russia will emerge from this much reduced - probably to the point where it can never again assume to a role of global power - and the entire global order will shift in consequence. Evidence would seem to indicate that the Russian forces are simply not up to the task that Putin has set them (which the man reckons would take at least a million troops, not the 200,000 or so available for the job) and that sooner or later they will be defeated with the consequence that Putin will fall. Last night I watched Armando Iannucchi's film The Death of Stalin, and comedy though it is, it gives a pretty good idea of how brutal transfer of power in the Kremlin can be when the chips are down.

So it seems that the Ukrainian people must, perforce, be allowed to bear the brunt of this, with whatever support we can give them in terms of humanitarian aid, until this thing is ended. I don't like it, but maybe in the longer term it is for the best. As for the future, post this war, neither Hitchens or this other fellow had much hope that it would be a cake-walk - there are simply too many problems brewing in the US - China relationship for that - but it will be what it will be. Both were equally pessimistic about the chances of a better replacement for Putin actually emerging in post conflict Russia; there are simply too many nasty beasts swilling around in Moscow for that - but at least Putin will be gone. And in this scenario, the West will have emerged from its disastrous post fall of the Soviet Union policies much better than it perhaps deserves. Russia will be screwed as said, but hey, who cares about that. Ukraine will almost certainly become a member of NATO, or at least increase its ties to the West and a new world order will be established.

Maybe its all for the best. What the fuck do I know (seriously). I should go back to watching Love Island or some other reality TV rubbish and stop immersing myself in global political situations about which I understand shit!

[wayfriend]

Russia will emerge from this much reduced

The eagerness to sanction Russia will fade. Greed will dictate that Russian sales territories and Russian exports are too valuable to ignore. The world will get weary, our union of opposition will break apart, and a "new normal" will become accepted. The ending of sanctions will be traded bit by bit for tokens of attrition. In the long long run, on the timescale that empires run on, Russia will absorb the cost and be the greater thereby.

[SoulBiter]

Russia will emerge from this much reduced

The eagerness to sanction Russia will fade. Greed will dictate that Russian sales territories and Russian exports are too valuable to ignore. The world will get weary, our union of opposition will break apart, and a "new normal" will become accepted. The ending of sanctions will be traded bit by bit for tokens of attrition. In the long long run, on the timescale that empires run on, Russia will absorb the cost and be the greater thereby.

I agree with WF's assessment here. People (in the scheme of things) have short memories. Assuming Russia annexes all of Ukraine or even most of Ukraine, within a few generations this will be considered normal again. People will forget why Russia was being sanctioned and the desire to make money from doing business, will over-ride other cautions.

[peter]

But that's an assumption too far Soulbiter; the analyst I listened to earlier made a good case that Russia is in over its neck. Given its logistical, morale and economic problems, the fact that its army is third rate at best, it is unlikely ever to do more than hold the Ukrainian forces in stalemate. Unless it wins, and wins soon, Putin will fall, the forces will withdraw and Ukraine will join up with the rest of NATO and/or the EU and seal Russia inside its own borders. Its days as a power beyond its own territory are gone. It won't even be a regional power anymore. Sure, we'll deal with it for what we want - but that won't make up for its having to accept that its days as an influencer of world events are over.

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

I won't pretend to be good at predicting things, I see some of the current situation and some patterns, got some suspicions and options, but which (if any) will work out we'll see, so some examples of the things that might apply about how Putin can try to get himself out. Might be some variation or something else I haven't thought of yet too, but I guess shows that there are more options here.

However, this is not to be scared of - fear and backing off actually tends to make him bolder - this is to understand. Putin is not something to underestimate and to wing it is not a safe tactic. Especially to wing it backing off and looking weak to him.


- TV fake victory - announce he achieved what he wanted in Ukraine and leave, possibly with some very symbolic concession or even none, maybe claiming he's a dove of piece who can't stand the horrors of this war, or also his propaganda already announced stuff like development of bio-weapons in Ukraine - he can safely say now there are none.

Unlikely, and even less likely for him to stay still after if does happen. More likely in combo with other options.

- Permanent/long-term bleeding wound scenario

Quite possible, done many times, more harmful for Putin if active, can be helped by shifting to less of a conventional war, more terrorism, hybrid components etc.
Usual for Putin to do, though the strength of Ukraine's resistance makes this harder to achieve, esp. without severe harm to Russian forces, but a slower pace and more hybrid war might last some.

- Escalating/raising the stakes - very possible.
Some sub-variants:
- Use of unconventional weapons, most possibly chemical, other like nuclear not out of question - very possible.

Done similarly to Syria. Actually since the 2-3 days thing didn't work out, already there was an huge increase in causing ruin and in violence against the civilians. If not so much a victory, at least devastation as a "consolation prize", in Putin's eyes showing that he's strong, cause that's clearly demonstrated by attacking unarmed civilians... Can also serve to get some fear and maybe concessions from some of his enemies and "allies".

- Shift of focus - creating or helping someone create a new disaster - very possible.

Both to shift the attention and cause he had other targets too anyway, that helps both to deal with the current situation more in the quiet and possibly get something in the new crisis. As an option, flooding Europe with refugees, possibly using some of them as a cover-up for his agents, explains bombing the most Russian-speaking cities since he saw no quick victory. Might be even another war (made I think more likely the less support Ukraine gets - Putin will both have more forces left and more perception he can get something with little resistance elsewhere). And Ukraine with the army, the people supporting it, and the sheer size is relatively much more likely to fend off his attacks than many others, so everyone may be forced to fight in a much more dangerous case. Also very much in line with Putin's behavior and ideology, Dugin did call war their mother.

[peter]

Things are moving quite rapidly and there seems (at last) to be a bit of sense creeping into the situation. Zelensky has made what is quite a big concession to Russian demands by his acknowledgement yesterday that Ukraine can never be a member of NATO. In stating that "that door is closed to us" he makes a significant step toward the plan for peace that came out of Russia some days ago: a shift of sorts on the acceptance of some kind of autonomy for the Donbas region would probably be enough for Putin to return to his people claiming success.

There will be little doubt that Putin will be looking for a way out - he has screwed up and must be aware of it by now (I'm betting there will be some nervous bods amongst his advisors at the moment), and a climb-down by Zelensky in any form will come as a great relief to him. Early days to say if anything is going to come of this, but while the jawing goes on, so does the fighting.

It is pretty universally acknowledged that our current crop of political elite are second grade at best, and Johnson showed his lack of understanding of the Russian-Ukranian situation when he said a day or so ago that "we made a mistake in not stopping Russia in 2014 when they invaded the Crimea." If we had tried to stop Russia at that point the story would have been a very different one. Russia's historical links to the region, its proximity and vital strategic importance would have made the fight for that piece of land one that the country was prepared to die upon. It was the West's closer association and involvement in the putsch that ousted the elected (and neutral) government of the day that began this crisis (which actually started eight years ago and has been grumbling on behind the scenes ever since).

In another interesting development - and by no means unrelated to the situation with Russia - the detained Anglo-Iranian journalist Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, held in detention in Iran since April 2016, has suddenly had her passport returned. Whether she will be able to return home to the UK in the near future is not yet clear, but the return of her passport is a good sign that her situation is improving.

Although the Iranians have not said so, her detention has always been assumed to be linked to the UK refusal to spring the 400 million quid it owes to Iran (payment for tanks it never delivered), and speculation abounds that some behind the scenes agreement on this dosh is being negotiated. The UK Government have denied this - apparently it would constitute sanctions busting in terms of proscriptions of dealing with the Iranians that are still in situ - but needless to say, no-one believes them. Whether the Iranians will also give some assurances on not carrying out further work on the development of nuclear capabilities remains to be seen.

But....... given the situation in respect of sanctions on Russian oil, it would be naive to think that this sudden thaw in relationships between the UK and Iranian administrations was not related to the Ukrainian situation, and it goes without saying that concomitant with the increasing communication on other issues will be discussions about our purchasing Iranian oil to make up for our shortfall. Needs must (as they say) when the devil drives, and our much vaunted moral compass can swing in a wide arc when expediency demands it.

But there you have it. Days thoughts done. Two cups of tea working through me and I'm off because I need to.........

[Avatar]

...and our much vaunted moral compass can swing in a wide arc when expediency demands it.

It has ever been thus.

--A

[SoulBiter]

But that's an assumption too far Soulbiter; the analyst I listened to earlier made a good case that Russia is in over its neck. Given its logistical, morale and economic problems, the fact that its army is third rate at best, it is unlikely ever to do more than hold the Ukrainian forces in stalemate. Unless it wins, and wins soon, Putin will fall, the forces will withdraw and Ukraine will join up with the rest of NATO and/or the EU and seal Russia inside its own borders. Its days as a power beyond its own territory are gone. It won't even be a regional power anymore. Sure, we'll deal with it for what we want - but that won't make up for its having to accept that its days as an influencer of world events are over.

Remember that I started my statement with "Assuming Russia annexes Ukraine or a significant part of Ukraine".

After that, there will be sanctions for maybe even years, but longer term the World will forget about the whole thing, bring Russia back to the table and concede on reducing sanctions until there are none. After decades of seeing this play out, I cant see how it will end any different.

Now if against all odds, Russia pulls out and leaves Ukraine intact... that might change things short term.... but I have no doubt that as long as Putin or those like him are in charge, their greater designs of being THE dominant force in the West wont change and he will leverage Corporate business investment in Russia to fund his next run at it until he succeeds.

[peter]

So Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been released from detention in Iran after "months of negotiation" by our caring government.

What fucking bullshit!

In case they haven't noticed, the woman has been held in that tyrannical dictatorship (who shortly we will be dealing with, without the slightest qualm ever crossing our minds) for six - fucking - years!

And the fact that that sanctions busting 400 million has been paid, just now, not because they give a flying fuck about the woman, but because we just happen, also just now, to need the oil that Iran can supply us, should not be lost on anyone.

So spare me the bullshit about "Nazanin coming home for a cup of tea" and tell us - but more properly her - why she was left to rot, hung out to dry like that other poor ***t (who's name most of the papers can hardly be bothered to mention {it's Morad Tahbaz by the way}, and the government would rather you didn't think about at all) who has been left behind, until it, just now, suited the government to get off their fat corrupt arses and do something about it.

Jesus, they're barely even bothering to hide it. The Telegraph says "those involved in the deal said the deal was agreed because it would smooth nuclear negotiations between the West and Iran." You bet it will! The Iranians will be able to fuck about with uranium until the whole country glows in the dark just as long as they turn on the oil taps - and the smoke screen that "this has been going on for months"....... Give it a rest you twats! What do you take us for: three year-olds with the intelligence of chimpanzees?

This money - money that it turns out was taken in payment for a bunch of frikkin' chieftain tanks fer fucks sake, that never got delivered because of the sudden realisation that it was Western soldiers who they would likely be turned on - could have been payed back years ago. It was the Iranian's money! What - the excuse that "to give them their money back for goods we never delivered would be to break trade sanctions against them" would stack up even in that three year old chimpanzee's brain? Give us a rest! This whole situation from the sorry fucked up tank deal to the slithering deceptive back-channel payment that gets the oil flowing (and Zaghari-Ratcliffe released as a side issue, because that's all it is - and fuck the poor c**t left behind: who gives a shit about him) stinks. It's absolutely right up the street of Johnson and Truss - and in any country with a media worth more than a back-street wank it would be being screamed from every news outlet on the books. But this is Johnson's Britain. This is the UK 2022. As a result it's left to morons like me to shout it from tin-pot sites like this, from whence it will echo away into nothingness without causing so much as a ripple.

Well I hope that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe comes back, has her "cup of tea" and then comes out swinging. I hope she calls this whole sorry business for exactly what it is and proclaims her release not as an act of good intention by our government, but a fortuitous side effect of a grubby deal - and one that the government who today bask in the reflected glow of, in reality couldn't give a fig about.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release, wonderful news though it is, is a useful side effect: a distraction to deflect media attention away from the reality of what our political masters are up to, with all of the stink of the Oliver North -Terry Waite situation about it that it has, and we should not deceive ourselves into thinking otherwise.

[peter]

There must be some nervous bods in the Ministry of Defense today with the news that their Secretary spent eight minutes talking on the phone to some clown posing as the Ukrainian Prime Minister.

Widely assumed to have been a sting carried out by Russian cyber-warfare agents, the revelations are embarrassing in the extreme. The call began genuinely enough, but having gone through the more general stuff, the imposter's questions became more detailed and penetrating (in relation to UK intentions and deployments etc), and finally bordering on the ridiculous, at which point Ben Wallace - the defence secretary - became suspicious and ended the call.

Oops! Red faces all around. How much sensitive information was revealed by Wallace before he rumbled that something was amiss is not really known. He's playing it down, as are his department, but the fact that it happened at all - I mean, what level of security are these clowns operating on - is embarrassing to say the least.

And that's not the worst of it. Following Wallace's disclosure of his call, Home Secretary Priti Patel revealed that she also had received one. Patel however declined to say how long her call had lasted or what she had spoken of. Given the intellectual level that Patel is rumoured to operate on, one can only shudder in thinking about what information may have been passed across in that particular call.


----------------------------------------0------------------------------------

The Times are running a story today about how hundreds of DVLA staff were paid to stay at home watching Netflix (free subscription to which seems to be some kind of benefit they enjoy) during the pandemic, while neither working from home (due to their computers not being able to access their work sites) nor off sick - but simply because they were deemed to be in vulnerable categories that were exempt from attending work.

This was going on while the backlog of licencing applications for both domestic and delivery drivers was stacking up into the tens of thousands, with lorry drivers and those dependant on their cars for work unable to do so because of the delay. It was a running joke apparently in the office, about the number of their compatriots sitting at home with their feet up.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. And I'd put you a pound to a penny that if the truth were known, it would have been repeated in civil service departments of every type up and down the length and breadth of the country. No wonder so many people were entirely happy with lockdown and the pandemic restrictions - they'd never had it so good! While the rest of us laboured on, they milked it rotten for all it was worth, laughing all the way to the bank.


----------------------------------0----------------------------

One can only be horrified to read about the callous treatment of the P&O workers who were told to unload their ferries yesterday, to gather in the communal areas - and then summarily sacked without notice, being told, "we can get agency workers to do your jobs for lower wages than you."

They were escorted from the ships by handcuff bearing security staff (in case of trouble) and then the said agency replacements who were waiting in buses outside the dock gates, were wheeled in.

Some eight hundred staff were dispatched of in this manner.

The operation has a pre-organised smell resembling that of the 'fortress Wapping' affair in which Rupert Murdoch sacked his entire Fleet Street staff and replaced them with new ones already trained in his secret new printing plant at Wapping. In this case the villains are the new owners, essentially a Dubai based company that goes back to the UAE government. The RMT union who represent the employees is a traditionally militant one, but in the face of such tactics and given the very restrictive laws they now operate under, it is unlikely that they will be able to do much in support of the sacked workers.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson said last night that the actions of the P&O ownership were "completely unacceptable", but given the traditional hatred of the conservative party for the unions and the fact that it was them that introduced the laws that made such treatment of workers possible, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for him to actually do anything about it.

So much for there not being a "race to the bottom" in the new invigorated 'Brexit Britain'. And make no mistake - this will not be the last time you see this kind of thing - in fact I'm betting that there are plenty of other prospective axe-men out there watching to see how this progresses, with beady eyes on the agency worker pay rates and thoughts of potential savings in their minds. So watch out for forthcoming events of a similar type, coming (quite possibly) 'to a job near you'.

(On the Brexit front, the FT have a minor front page snippet that is entitled "Post Brexit Trade outlook under fire". Basically it says that the government are not demonstrating any benefits from the deals that they have so far struck since leaving the EU and that they are going to fail to get any further deals in place this year as well. Now there's a suprise. At least the war in Ukraine is a good distraction from that little piece of news!)

[peter]

Like a dog returning to it's vomit, Boris Johnson after a brief period where he seemed to be gathering a bit of statesmanship about himself (not that I was talking in by it, I hasten to add), has returned to form and loused it up with an ill advised and frankly stupid speech at the Tory Party spring conference in Blackpool.

Seemingly unaware of the implicit bad taste of the comparison, he likened the Ukrainian struggle against the Russian invasion and occupation with that of brexiteers in their 'fight' to leave the European Union. This was the British people, he said, demonstrating the same desire for freedom and independence as exhibited by the Ukrainians in their struggles against the Russians. The implicit comparison of the EU with the tyranny of Putin's Russia brought forth howls of rage from EU leaders and the the fact that the the Ukrainian administration is fighting, amongst other things, for the right to join the EU, seemed lost on him. Or perhaps not: perhaps he was deliberately trying to needle the EU leaders (for what reason I can't begin to guess - it seems to me to be a time when solidarity of statement and intent should be the order of the day). Or perhaps it was just the kind of tub-thumping jingoism that the PM thought would go down well in front of an audience of extreme Tory hardliners, so he said it despite it's obvious wrongness and bad-taste, and hang the consequences. Brexit, it should be remembered, is proving to be as successful as storing ice-cream in an oven, and perhaps Johnson, in the knowledge of this, felt that the national sovereignty and patriotic aspects of the event needed a shove to the fore in order to obscure/ameliorate the economically disastrous consequences that are rapidly becoming more evident.

But this is ever going to be the Tories problem with Johnson. He is simply too unreliable, too prone to gaffs and indiscretions, to hold his leadership together for any extended period of time. He may have enjoyed a brief holiday from the almost continuous chain of crises and scandals that have beset his premiership from almost day one (and this bought with the blood of the Ukrainian people) but even if it is not another revelation of some jiggery-pokery or wrong doing that brings him down once again, one can always be confident that he will open his big thoughtless mouth (seemingly at times, completely disconnected from his brain) and say something stupid. He can't help it - it's simply in his nature.

In another Johnson related story in today's Telegraph, it is reported that there is something of a rift between Johnson and his Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, over the PM's desire to instigate a renewed push towards nuclear power plant construction. Disagreement between No's 10 and 11 Downing Street are nothing new, but the divisions developing in this administration are getting pretty down and dirty. The paper reports that details of the Chancellor's mini-statement, to be given in the House later this week, have not, as is the usual case, been shared by aides with their counterparts in No 10. Given the looming cost of living crisis and that the statement will give in outline, the chancellor's plans for dealing with it, this withholding is pretty significant: it goes without saying that a PM would like to have advance notice of what his chancellor has planned in the form of treasury activity in order to mitigate an approaching economy tsunami.

But on the divergence of the two in respect of the PM's desired drive towards nuclear (and I'm not sure why Sunak would oppose this - cost maybe?), critics of Johnson's position that nuclear power is "safe, clean and reliable" will have two words with which to answer him. "Fukushima Chernobyl!"

[Fist and Faith]

Seemingly unaware of the implicit bad taste of the comparison, he likened the Ukrainian struggle against the Russian invasion and occupation with that of brexiteers in their 'fight' to leave the European Union. This was the British people, he said, demonstrating the same desire for freedom and independence as exhibited by the Ukrainians in their struggles against the Russians.

Holy cow.

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

Well, what can I say... I don't feel like contemplating someone's taste or the lack of it, I sincerely wish for the British people to never know from their own experience things like this

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 8d090e38e3