not sure if you meant this, but do you think the British government were not aware of the destruction and the lack of accuracy of those cluster bombs that we dropped?

Everyone knew they weren’t precision, they were called “the grid square removal system”, they would land where you wanted (accurate) but the area they covered was huge so there would be the risk to things close by, the secondary risk was that the munitions themselves weren’t that reliable and would pose a lasting danger to all

In context no unguided indirect fire is accurate all the time, that’s why they spend a lot of time training observers. It’s also why we tend to use aircraft or drones these days

I personally wouldn’t hold out hope of the actual Russian infantry surrendering. Maybe some of the less trained conscripts, but I don’t see it with the professional soldiers. Being in a war zone 100% focuses your thoughts on the job at hand, this includes thinking about your own safety and that of your colleagues. The officers and Senior NCO’s will be keeping a very close eye on the moral of the troops and ensuring they are completely focused.

The make up of the Russian army is complex because it has conscripts, contracted soldiers and a lot of corruption

Their capabilities are constrained by the corruption, radios seem to be an issue as do maps, the airforce doesn’t have many precision guided munitions and the pilots are under trained (looks like they are pulling them back from their Syrian operations to support). The conscripts weren’t told why they were there nor were the contracted soldiers, so they didn’t expect resistance on the ground. The artillery was constrained because of the cameras and this hollows out the heart of their doctrine. The radio situation means the command structure isn’t talking to the units and unit radio nets are open to intercept with a large effort going into that

Morale is everything, if the Ukrainians can keep the pressure on the Russian units will start to contract back in their efforts as they will feel the game is up. Some units will fight regardless such as the Chechen units but they are fighting the Azov Regiment units so it’s matching the less politically desirable units off against each other. I wouldn’t want to be a civilian in that area though as it will be horrific

I think there will be a tipping point when one side or the other collapses in terms of morale and will to fight, Putin will need to either “fall ill” or be removed by other means for it to be a “clean” end though.

Final thought, I don’t think a professional politician would have made some of the decisions the Ukrainian President has, the mass mobilization and arming of the population, staying in Kyiv and the mobile phone walkabouts, and stopping fighting age men from leaving the country are all decisions I can’t see a professional politician ever doing in a western European context other than probably Switzerland

You can do it as a community interest company

Advantage is limited liability

Disadvantage is the annual return to companies House

If you are organised it’s not that onerous, there are plenty of people who specialise and don’t charge a lot

Banks do accounts for third sector groups, ideally choose one which a few of you use for personal banking as it makes the I’d checks easier and you can electronic bank. They also help with big cheques for photos for press releases etc

Is the PMBA organisation folding?

Recent history sadly demonstrates that isnt restricted to the dictatorships. Indeed it is possibly a weakness of some of our democratic systems that we relied on the idea that people wouldnt lie with a straight face.

I agree, the apologists for Boris’ parties need to feel the pain otherwise basic standards of leadership have no meaning

Best way to get rid of them – vote Indy!

Almost funny, follow the current administration into independence so you can dump them….

It’s much easier to drive aggressive, expansionist policies if you’re willing to flout international law and subject your citizens to medieval levels of torture and subjugation.

I agree, which is why they can lie with a straight face and say black is white etc

Would you rush to the front line or encourage your children (if you have any) to do the same?

I was only talking about higher gas bills and the financial risk c£45 billion for some countries if they close the swift system

If not, why post an otherwise stupid and pointless comment.

Hence why it’s not

You may be a 5* General or know the colour of the boat House in Hereford but…

LOL, I don’t even play Call of Duty

To date, putin and Xi have
out-manoeuvered the west/NATO.

Probably a correct observation, we are too worried by issues that don’t even register with these two and lack strategic vision by virtue of the need to win elections fought on short term issues

I doubt anyone of them will say anything to avoid putting themselves in harms way.

It’s “Death of Stalin” like, if they think others will follow they will lead, otherwise no-one moves as they are terrified

I thought Keir was quite good at the despatch box, Dame Angela less so,

He needs to get decent advice on how to create a scorched earth for Russian assets in the UK and hammer clear and loud again and again at them.

It’s a soft spot for the conservatives and he needs to exploit

Every day the Ukrainians can hold out will weaken his position.

Newsnight say the UK assessment is that the harder the Ukrainians fight the harsher the Putin onslaught will be. Based on the assessment they are fighting hard it’s going to be terrible unless someone in Russia takes Putin out

Western sanctions are weak and arguably push cash back into Russia as we still buy the commodities, until the realisation hits that we need to take pain to inflict pain it’s not going to work

The database contained all sorts of rubbish in the form of spelling mistakes and cities called Smith or 39 Acacia Avenue, but also howlers like Cardiff, England and even Belfast, Ireland and variations thereof. And many times over, they weren’t one-offs.

You needed to pay your off-shore programmers a bit more, it wouldn’t have been written by a UK national

But yes I recognise that, and it’s frigging annoying. I mean, English people using the term England as a synonym for the UK is not explicitly anti-Welsh (or anti-Scottish), but it still is.

Other than Americans who does? I may have to apologise to those in NI for referring to the UK as Britain occasionally but other than for rugby and football England in place of UK isn’t used to anywhere I socialise or read

I was talking about our Brexiter Unionist – small_and_soft

Does the fact you can’t pigeonhole me accurately give you cognitive dissonance? Or are you just a bit obsessed that one automatically means the other. Do you have no room in your head for political nuances?

Do we now start talking about Scotshitters? After all we talk about brexishit with free abandon……

I think it’s important to point it out if anyone says anything we feel is provoking going forward but maybe we can try putting the last few pages behind us?

Oops!

Double checks timeline

Nope

Didn’t you understand what you were voting for?

Yes, what you have done is either extrapolated my comment to the way the UK majority vote went or are you still raging against a construct of your embittered imagination

I am trying to assert that I do not want to be associated with England and Wales anymore.

In what way, the people, the politics, geography, popular culture, language, arts? Can you explain?

Should Starmer receive a well-deserved pat on the back for providing inspirational leadership in a time of unprecedented crises and finally giving British voters something which they can truly believe in?

If he can hold it at +6 through the Ukrainian crisis then he’s done well, Boris gets to be statesmanlike which always boosts ratings

As I said, I’m pro-European. I don’t believe I’m anti-English but if by your definition you can’t be pro-European without being anti-English then there’s not much I can do about it.

More pro EU government

And anti primacy of Westminster government

You want to reclaim sovereignty from one to give (back) to the other

Being pro-European is a statement of geography and location

And?………

Buy land next to the border motorways

Until Scotland was forced into making a choice between Europe and Britain

You aren’t forced, I suggest you look back a few pages, the whole should Scotland join the EU discussion was hardly conclusive.

If you want a hard border between iS and rUK then EU membership is the best way to achieve it

Othering’ typically suggests that we are trying to make you (English people) less than human.

No it doesn’t, you are just extrapolating to close the point down

Anyone who thinks that the population of England is a homogeneous blob is clearly trying to create a difference in order to create division

The way the electorate vote differently is distorted mainly by the presence of a nationalist party and it’s success in creating and now in power funding a narrative of a difference between Scots and rUK all the while Scotland is exporting senior politicians and prime ministers to the UK parliament they blame for their woes

There appears to be mobile cremation units following the advance to dispose of Russian bodies for plausible denial.

Citation needed for that

It’s hard to deny the existence of someone these days let alone the numbers that may die, how does he hide the wounded?

I’m assuming big_n_soft that you’re also a Leaver, based on your solid Unionist views, you’re a star, great choice, thanks…

Showing the perils of using stereotypes and othering of people, you are just raging against a construct of your embittered imagination

Its just not so at all that hatred of of England is there across the vast majority of the independence movement

You lot voted for Brexit, take responsibility for your actions. I see no reason whatsoever why Scotland has to help with your FU, nor why we should suffer from YOUR choice of Govt.

Slight disgruntlement then? A bit miffed? Still homogenised othering.

Its better than those who want, and indeed, have slashed it but still want to send the troops into harms way.

I can name only one MP who proposed NATO troops in Ukraine before the invasion

I bet he has changed his mind now simply because the logistics of offensive are considerably different to defence and deterrence

So you name the posters on here or the MPs who are calling for NATO troops to deploy to Ukraine… Or are you just talking tripe?

Bear in mind that whilst Wales might be in the same jurisdiction it is very different to England politically.

There are substantial differences all across the UK, the homogeneous “England” so hated doesn’t exist except in the minds of those who are trying to carve out a separate identity so as not to be tainted by decisions they don’t like

Sadly the attitude and incompetence of the Whitehall government and the more measured responses from Sturgeon must be adding support to the Indy campaign, and if I was north of the border I may well have a different view

It’s the Andy Burnham effect, you can make lots of noises on issues outside your responsibilities and sound very good. When you have the civil servants giving you the detailed analysis of the impact of various decisions life gets a lot harder. Sturgeon’s record on core devolved issues is poor, education, health, etc she wants to spend more but that’s easy to say when you don’t get blamed for tax rises

Will any of this cause UK to reverse it’s policy of continually shrinking it’s armed forces? More wishful thinking.

Some who post on here think UK military spending already makes us look like Billy big bass on a world stage. They want to slash it.

Let’s be clear, all but the most staunch indy campaigners don’t expect Indy to be an overnight thing –

What year is the SNP proposing for a new binding referendum? Announcement within weeks apparently

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19870772.scottish-independence-downing-street-calls-snp-stop-planning-indyref2/

They wouldn’t have to, they’d squish us in seconds

Why were they scared of NATO aggression then, fearful of NATO invasion

That narrative is bollox as demonstrated by our lack of being able to do anything about Ukraine on the ground

So yes, a shoeing.

Good job they won’t be using you to assess our combat power

The key issue for all NATO countries is that they are six months away from a large scale offensive operation. They won’t be committing ground forces without a full spectrum capability. Add in the need to refresh all their NBC training and NATO doesn’t have the same quantity of bridging kit etc needed for offensive operations.

NATO is constructed around defence, and it’s capability to invade Russia negligible which is why the NATO aggression narrative is just bollox

There’s a minor flaw in that plan, Russian forces would hand us a shoeing before they moved an inch go nuclear quite quickly

FIFY

I would think little difference. There is little appetite IMO north of the border for going around pretending to be billy bigbaws and pretending we are a big player in the world.

I would suggest that we are demonstrating that we aren’t.

As for the independence discussion I’m sure now the oil and gas price is at a historic high the voices to grab the opportunity to push for a binding vote quickly whilst the numbers add up will get very loud

These are the precise words in the 2019 Labour Party manifesto which he was personally responsible for :

We will maintain our commitment to NATO and our close relationship with our European partners, and we will use our influence at the United Nations to support peace and security worldwide.

For Corbyn to renegade on that manifesto commitment would have required him to circumvent parliament

I can’t think why people didn’t believe him….. And as we know a parliamentary majority would be able to carry a bill to leave, he could just cite it’s aggressive eastwards expansion and that leaving would allow the UK to work constructively for peace……

But at least he’s now sent a tweet asking the Russians to leave Eastern Ukraine

The US has spent billions of dollars in Ukraine. Why?

Government or corporates? Property or oil and gas?

Go on tell us

Who is in danger of being invaded at the moment?

Maybe not at the moment, but they are worried about it

New legislation in Finland will stop the Russian expansion?

A more sensible strategy might have been for the buffer states to remain neutral militarily whilst pursuing other ways of ‘westernising’ if that’s what they wanted.

Isn’t the westernisation the problem, trying to have working democracies, rule of law, vibrant press, etc etc. How westernised could they get before the tanks rolled…..

What’s that got to do with what Russia spends?

Hmmm, hands up if you think the level of Russian defence spending impacts what NATO member countries spend…..

he never said we would leave if he was PM

Did he ever say he would stay in NATO? The organisation he wants to throw other countries out of…

I’ve no idea, and don’t really care. Why is it relevant?

You made it relevant by saying NATO essentially exists to give defence companies a market by virtue of the commitment to spend 2% GDP

BND even thinks we lefties would invite the russians in with open arms and fight on their side in a war!

No I don’t. I believe a Corbyn led government would have left NATO and be sending troops to act as “peacekeepers” in Ukraine which in turn would facilitate the carving up of Ukraine by Putin. All the time railing against the aggression from NATO

The question everyone should be asking is why they wanted to expand? Could it have had anything to do with the fact that NATO expects member states to spend a certain percentage of their annual budgets on weapons and other defence supplies from an arms and defence services industry based in NATO states?

daft bit is that nearly all the countries in NATO have been either below the 2% or have been fiddling the numbers like the UK to make it look like we do.

Could you enlighten on the %of GDP the Russians spend on defence sourced from russian defence services industry?

Guess you must have missed all the talk about Ukraine joining NATO

Which everyone including Putin and contributors on here know is so far away from becoming reality as to be not relevant. Unless you want to use it to justify an anti NATO narrative