So the UK today gets its fourth successive Tory Prime Minister, despite the fact the previous three all crashed in failure, even in their own terms.
After presiding over crippling austerity as a policy response to Gordon Brown’s massive handover of public money to the casino bankers, David Cameron’s attempt to control the lunatic right of his party by offering a Brexit referendum backfired spectacularly. Theresa May was brought down by that same right wing when she attempted to devise a Brexit deal which allowed for a sensible trading relationship with the European Union. Johnson realised that governing from the far right was the only way to handle the Conservative Party, but the lies and corruption of his government led to him being quite exploded, like Bunbury.
So now the Queen swears in the fourth Tory Prime Minister, and does it in Scotland, a nation where the Tories have been overwhelmingly rejected by the electorate throughout this period (and indeed, for seven decades). A Prime Minister elected by 80,000 people mostly in South East England, to govern 66,000,000 throughout the UK, receives office from an old woman, elected by nobody, dwelling in a castle.
Liz Truss won the Tory member electorate by promising yet anther shift still further right. The Tory party has now moved so far to the right as to be invisible to the naked eye. I should have thought it were impossible to have a more brutal Home Secretary than Priti Patel, for example, and then they pull the crazed Suella Braverman up to the office. Expect refugee deportations to the Antarctic.
During the Tory leadership campaign it was impossible to protect Liz Truss entirely from scrutiny and questioning, therefore it became blindingly obvious that she is actually pretty stupid. She cannot deliver a script at all, and when asked to think off script, a look of panic enters her eyes, a crazed smile freezes on her lips, and she says the very first thought that fights its way out of the dense matter that sits where her brain ought to be.
But now the carapace of deference and protection that surrounds a Prime Minister closes around her. The media are already changing the narrative. Journalists have not previously felt the need to hide their amusement at her intellectually challenged demeanour. Now, in the past 48 hours, I have heard correspondent after correspondent tell us that she is “hard working” and always “masters her brief”. That is plainly the approved narrative.
It is interesting how, when push comes to shove, the neoliberal political class stick together. I have actually heard two senior Labour figures reinforce this new line on finding Truss hard working. Look out for further instances.
We are now going to see immediate action on a freeze on gas prices, though the details remain obscure. Remember, that is a freeze at already through the roof prices. (That was entirely serendipitous, but “through the roof” was an apt phrase, as that is where most of the energy goes in the insulation-poor UK).
Truss’s conversion to action on energy prices is not motivated by a sudden concern for poverty or the needs of ordinary people. I learnt of it on Sunday night, before her U turn was briefed, from senior Foreign Office (FCDO) sources. Government polling has indicated a substantial fall in public support for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, due to unsustainable energy prices at home.
This is rather comforting as it shows the public are not daft and understand cause and effect, even when the media try to hide it.
Liz Truss’s motivation for an energy price freeze is therefore to maintain public support for fueling the Ukraine War, the overwhelming neoliberal priority. After losing the proxy war in Syria, defeat again by Russia in Ukraine is the gun barrel down which NATO is currently staring. Rather than a negotiated peace, yet more weapons and more brinkmanship are the preferred way forward.
Remember the huge increase in energy prices means incredible profits for the energy companies. Their costs have not increased. The price hike is caused purely by competition from Russia being restricted by the war. This is war profiteering.
As usual, there may be some pretence at difference of detail by the controlled opposition. But do not be surprised to see all the neoliberal parties – Tory, Labour, Liberal, SNP – broadly agree in the next week over a deal on energy bills. They are doing it for their joint promotion of war – whichthough will keep the super profits of both the arms and the energy companies rolling in.
Ultimately, they will expect you to pick up the tab, either through deferred bills or increased taxes; they are merely extending the timescale of your exploitation by war profiteers.
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You’re right, Truss is a moron. Last night dinner with the Jewish elite, where Truss pledged to put Jews and Israel at the forefront of all her decisions. Truss tranced by MI6 goon juice.
We are witnessing the final imperial collapse of bankrupt Britain. The Scots blew their chance of escape, and I’ve hard video evidence of vote fraud in the Scottish referendum which I shot off the TV screen at 4 something AM, when the producer was probably in the loo, or making coffee. lol
I am amazed that Sunak wants to die by Sarmat. I’ve no idea why he hasn’t legged it to California where his chances are marginally better than hated Britain.
Can you provide this evidence as it would be very useful to independence supporters.
Flashback to a comment I made a few years ago. Julian is screwed with Liz ‘effing’ Truss.
A tale of Tertulias and Tatlidil
‘Tatlidil, which means “sweet talk” in Turkish, was established in 2011 by then prime minister David Cameron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.’
‘American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a highly secretive meeting organised by the most influential neoconservative think tank in Washington populated by senior US military and intelligence officials.’
‘Declassified recently revealed how the AEI, which has a strongly anti-Assange position, has been courting British ministers for years.’
‘The Foreign Office has long taken a strong anti-Assange position, rejecting UN findings in his favour, refusing to pop recognise the political asylum given to him by Ecuador, and even labelling Assange a “miserable little worm”.’
‘Liz Truss, then Justice Secretary, “advised” the Queen to appointLady Arbuthnot in October 2016.’ (As Chief Magistrate in Westminster)
‘Declassified has discovered that the addresses given by Lord Arbuthnot and other parliamentarians for Tertulias and Tatlidil have been the same — despite no obvious connection between the two organisations other than the UK Foreign Office.’
———
The above is derived from the new setup ‘Declassified UK’ written by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtice – i don’t know much about it’s authenticity, being early days – but it is one of a stunning set of stories from their new stable which I have been perusing here https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/declassified-uk/
(The cast of characters takes in the above summary stars many of the ‘dogs of whores’ of our establishment from Straw to Scarlett to Randy Andy to Truss AND the Arbuthnots … and it shows that it is almost a PERSONAL animosity against Julian Assange by the British and American state)’
Welcome to our latest CIA quisling PM.
A clear, credible and utterly believable explanation of the current situation.
Great to see you cut through all the bullshit.
“Their costs have not increased. The price hike is caused purely by competition from Russia being restricted by the war.”
Thank you, first person I’ve heard say that. Makes sense but would like further analysis. Presumably then IF Russia became allowed to sell us gas in the future prices would come back down?
Presumably then IF Russia became allowed to sell us gas in the future prices would come back down?
Elementary economics. Supply and demand.
To be fairer to Truss than she deserves, the supply of natural gas from Russia is essentially controlled by Germany because that’s where the pipelines carrying the gas pass through, so to really return to a normal market for natural gas, Germany would have to start acting in the interests of its own (and other European) citizens instead of blindly obeying orders from Washington.
Germany, act in its own interest? Germany is not a sovereign country, hasn’t been since 1945. Germany is simply an American satrap, having, as it does forty American military bases in the country. Guess who makes Germany’s energy decisions, a hint, it is not Germany.
wirklich? hahaha. A good laugh before bedtime clears the throat. thanks for the hilarity.
And thanks to our host for another journalistic first.
NATIONALISE ALL ENERGY AND WATER. Why make banks sustainable for the next 20 years, via our energy bills?
Reject tax cuts that are not targetted at those who purport to want to invest.
WARNING This cabinet might want to carry on dreaming of dividing Russia and they might join the US in their fatalism.
what are we leaving our children? what of those in Yemen and Ghaza? What of this planet?
Will they dare and destroy it?
With or without the conflict in Ukraine, world commodity prices have been rising at an alarming rate for some time before the ‘special invasion’ started. There was always going to be a time when the citizens pips were going to be squeezed a tad too far. Inflation is a belt tightener too far, questions are being asked in all houses except one.
Craig’s bigotry towards a free vote on Brexit is past its sell by date. Get over it.
Our host’s comments about cheese maker Truss being a bit cack handed and slow witted with words is nothing new. Did he not pay attention to the last First Secretary to the Treasury whilst in office? This is just a new resident for number 10, nothing to fret over, happens all the time these days.
Getting the votes cast for Sunak (60,399] mixed up with the votes cast for Truss (81,326] is just nit picking on my part.
Is there a lot happening at this juncture in history, well, yes, there is. Is it a looming black swan warning of a calamity about to happen, let’s hope it’s the harbinger of positive change as well as negative.
Me? I’ve already stockpiled the popcorn…_
Don’t despair, Mr. Murray. Maybe you could consider moving to Russia?
https://youtu.be/UcX1J-vUWPw
winter is coming 🙂
Whats your point? Do you actually have an argument or have you just found an online worn out lame retort generator and chosen one at random?
Welcoming Mr. Murray to visit my country. Recently he spent several months in prison, don’t want him to spend this winter in a frozen house 🙂 Also, he’d have a chance to see how much modern Russia is different from the country he had visited several decades ago.
Maybe Craig might call Mhairi Black to inform her that she is a “neoliberal”???
Actually, Andrew, the notion that everybody would prefer to live in the “free, democratic” West rather than the “communist dictatorships” of the East isn’t as much of an unchallengeable axiom as it used to be.
In the days of Stalin, Khruschev, and Chairman Mao over there (and Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson, etc over here) yes, it was true. No argument there.
But things have changed, both “over there” and “over here”, and most people haven’t noticed. Here’s a link to someone who has been around the world and can make a real, up-to-date comparison: he could live anywhere in the European Union or anywhere in Australia, and he chooses to live in … China.
I doubt he’d enjoy being conscripted.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61619638
The article you link to says nothing about conscription.
It describes a rule change to allow enlistment for people over 40, in particular those with peak technical skills who it identifies as frequently being between 40 and 45.
It’s actually Ukraine that has prohibited men under 60 from leaving the country (and will be considering the conscription of women from next month).
So Craig, being on the ‘wrong’ side of 60, IIRC, would be perfectly safe from compulsory enlistment – whether in Russia, or Ukraine!
«It’s actually Ukraine that has prohibited men under 60 from leaving the country (and will be considering the conscription of women from next month).»
That’s nothing: President _elensky released from prison and gave weapons to most violent criminals, with the excuse that they would then patriotically go to the front. I suspect that the real reason was to create a climate of lawless violence when the RF forces occupy ukrainian territory.
Note: there have been “penal battalions” in history made of convicted criminals, but they were well organized and controlled. President _elensky just released them and gave them free arms.
If the Russians continue wisely plodding on, the collective west can continue to demilitarise themselves with Ukraine, as they are doing most effectively so far. Russia will have no use for Sarmats, Iskanders or Kinzhals…they can calmly walk into Berlin and Paris and the Europeans will welcome them as they will be bringing food and warmth.
Well, there’s a thought!!!
No doubt the Russian soldiers won’t be calling out “быстро!” when they walk into the Paris restaurants, cafes and … bistros.
It’s pretty bad, but our one ray of hope is that Liz Truss turns out to be an unwitting comedy genius.
Describing her predecessor as “admired from Kiev to Carlisle” (awkward pause) is worthy of the Edinburgh Fringe.
Ooh – did she say Kiev and not the required revised spelling? Hard to tell from written reports as the propagandists are changing fact to fit the fascist narrative minute by minute.
No, she would have said “Keeev”.
Strange then that the UK is so gung-ho for prolonging this war, when of all European nations, we seem uniquely vulnerable to fluctuations in the wholesale cost, driven by supply and demand (the UK apparently stiffened Zelensky’s resolve against dialogue and negotiations).
Ukraine is the elephant in the room that neither of the big two hawkish parties, nor BBC, sky news et al want to link into the energy cost crisis. Russia’s not playing fair? What did they expect Russia to do?
And the Guardian has become afraid of the truth. The former editor of the Guardian, CP Scott, famously wrote: “Comment is free, facts are sacred.” Today’s epithet could just as easily be “See No Evil, Hear No Evil,” when it comes to NATO, neoliberalism and neocon driven foreign policy. They produce hit pieces on brave shoestring outfits like the the Grayzone. This, when ‘a guardian’ worthy of the name would be incorporating the likes of Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal and Kit klarenberg and their thorough investigations and write-ups. Note how they never challenge the facts in their reports, it’s just unevidenced innuendo & smears. They once employed the likes of Glenn Greenwald, now they stand in the opposite corner. The Guardian claim every inconvenient fact or difficult story highlighted by the likes of the Grayzone or Greenwald, must somehow be Russian disinfo – an approach akin to a kid sticking his fingers in his ears repeating, ‘Nah nah nah No, I don’t hear you!’ upon hearing some uncomfortable truth. I know this is a frequent theme, but the guardian was important to the political ecosystem in a country dominated by the right.
On energy, the govt are seriously considering a £100bn -£130bn bung to subsidise exorbitant company profits, while prima facie capping prices. This is like asking the entire UK to take out another mortgage to subsidise companies that have made billions and now face going bust if left to the very market forces the Tories previously claimed they worshipped. As much as I dislike Labour under Starmer, even their overly timid solution, which falls short of the publicly popular Corbynism idea of renationalisation, is preferable to this Tory bung, to prop up ailing energy sector that’s ripe for renationalisation.
> Strange then that the UK is so gung-ho for prolonging this war
I agree.
I think we’re sending the minimum amount of armour that is sufficient to prolong the war, without leading to any culmination. We need to either stop funding the war, end sanctions, and get some fuel from Russia; or help Ukraine to actually defeat the invader, by sending enough armour and artillery to finish it. Faffing about is the cause of the energy crisis.
But that kinda assumes stalemate isn’t the US’s aim here. From the US’s perspective, both sides fighting themselves to a stalemate is advantageous: It keeps Russia isolated, an international pariah – while weakening their armed forces and finances. Boosts US LNG sales to Europe; boosts NATO (US influence in Europe) and resultant sales of military hardware esp. to the new NATO members. Weakens the Euro, lifts the dollar and reaffirms its status as the world’s reserve currency. Weakens competitor the EU more generally – the engine of Europe, German industry, which was reliant on cheap Russian gas.
Does anyone believe were the reverse happening, the US would be prolonging it?
I wonder if the US are prolonging the war to weaken Russia so that the US can have another go at regime change in Syria. The other side of it is that US tax dollars spent on arms for Ukraine goes to US arms companies.
Well, I spoke of what “we” ought to do. Based on “our” aims. For you, everything seems to be axiomatically about the USA.
That’s a position that can reasonably be taken; I don’t happen to agree with it, and your presentation of that position is so dogmatic that I don’t care to argue with you. But can you please stop wedging the same dogma into every comment thread?
Ukraine doesn’t need armour, it needs trained soldiers. I don’t think us sending them would go down well anywhere, except perhaps in Kiev.
For those that don’t know. Labour and the Lib Dem energy plan involves taxing energy producers, producers who’ve seen huge profits this year (Shell and Total both posted record earnings for Q2, this after breaking records in Q1).
The beauty of their windfall tax, is it need only be in place as long as the wholesale price remains sky high. The Truss plan potentially lumbers everyone (households and businesses) with permanently higher bills regardless of whether wholesale prices drop.
Labour’s emphasis on nuclear and renewables is also preferable to fracking.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/03/uk-complex-geology-challenge-fracking-drinking-water
From drillordrop.com :
Cuadrilla has often referred to itself as a small British start-up. Since 2020, it has been 96%-owned by the Australian mining group, A J Lucas (source). 65% of A J Lucas is owned by Kerogen Capital, a Hong Kong-based private equity fund manager. In 2020, a Kerogen Capital director joined the board of 10 Cuadrilla subsidiaries.
Well worth a read:
https://drillordrop.com/2022/09/02/uk-fracking-a-decade-of-broken-promises-earthquakes-and-no-gas/
According to reports they’ve apparently opted to borrow the full amount needed, so no fund or corporate loans scheme – just straight up corporate welfare. The deficit and ultimately national debt will take the hit. Theresa May’s magic money tree must have been located. No money to renationalise but money for this?
If we had a properly functioning democracy – without 2nd Referendum or antisemitism ‘Crisis’ psyops – the energy and water cartels would have been renationalised long ago, with giant backdated compensation transferred from Cayman accounts to the public. Azov would never have received a penny from the UK taxpayer. Instead Britain would have been a leading international voice of sanity on the Ukraine, helping facilitate peace negotiations.
But since we have a strictly managed faux democracy we end up with psychopathic neoliberal Thick Lizzy at the wheel, opposed from her right by a decaying ham who sounds like a wasp stuck in a public waste bin. Both clowns competing on how much public money they can stuff into the offshore accounts of energy profiteers and how many Ukrainians they can throw on the bonfire to salvage face for Washington. All of it loudly celebrated by the most venal cohort on earth, aka our beloved liberal and conservative commentariat.
Thanks Craig for giving us the first reasonable appraisal of our new conservative leader, I’m sure she will give her short term in office the best effort she can. It is high time the simpleton community had a go at this difficult task.* As an Oxford graduate studying Philosophy Politics and Economics she has been fitted with a sturdy set of blinkers, and this should make it easier for her to ignore the consequences of whatever she does or whatever misery she may inflict during her short, short reign.
* https://newsthump.com/2022/09/05/its-political-correctness-gone-mad-reaction-as-the-uk-appoints-first-simpleton-prime-minister/
I doubt UK relations with Russia will improve any, after Lavrov met Truss and it didn’t end very well. Truss is a wannabe Margaret Thatcher. Johnson surrounded himself with yes men and women, in what appeared to be a right-leaning talentless cabinet. I don’t foresee Truss making many changes to her new cabinet.
Johnson leaves Ten Downing street as one of the worst PMs in living memory, from the lies of building forty new hospitals, to the billions wasted on Covid apps, and not fit for purpose PPE that all lined the pockets of his corporate buddies and Tory donors. Not to mention the proroguing of the UK parliament and the keeping going of the SMO in Ukraine; add in the parties during lockdown, and I haven’t even touched the sides of the activities of that nefarious individual, nor what he got up to as Mayor of London.
Unsurprisingly some in the Tory party would like to see Johnson return as PM as a later date, and we know why, he greased many, many palms whilst in office.
As you rightly say the SNP will praise Truss, but ask her to do more to cover their own backs with supporters back home, war is indeed a racket. It hasn’t cost the energy firms a penny more to produce their goods, and I think it was a bigwig from BP who said not that long ago that BP was a cash machine. Of course the West has, in most part, added to the cost of living crisis with thousands of sanctions put in place against Russia, a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe. The Tory government doesn’t really care how damaging these sanctions are to the average person on the street; its all about enriching the corporations who are mostly Tory donors and buddies.
Truss will just be a like for like replacement with Johnson in mind, she won’t make many changes to her cabinet, nor Tory policies or the ever present Tory ideology especially that of austerity.
Craig,
The price-caps and windfall taxes are surely related to the sanctions on Russia. But they are not caused by the sanctions; these caps and taxes are the result of constructing a phony market that is the opposite of transparent, designed to give the government full control of energy short of actually nationalizing the entire sector.
With respect to Ukraine: I don’t care much whether there are some fascists in the Azov Regiment. We should hope that Ukraine succeeds in driving the invader out of their country; if they don’t, then that is a licence to other demagogues to invade their neighbours. So instead of sending them a few rocket-launchers, we need to send tanks. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles is what they’ll need to re-occupy Crimea and Donbas, which have both been occupied for 8 years, and are now full of concrete bunkers.
The energy-price crisis is the result of a foolish reliance on a malevolent supplier that has a long record of manipulating supplies for geopolitical purposes. The crisis will continue as long as the war goes on, so we need to help end it.
If Ukraine is really fascist, then it’s a threat to its neighbours, because fascism is always expansionist and militaristic. I don’t see it; I see a country trying to assert its own borders, which is what any state does if it wants any international respect.
“ With respect to Ukraine: I don’t care much whether there are some fascists in the Azov Regiment”
Of course you don’t care; you’re not an ethnic Russian living in the Donbas region, suffering well-documented fascist para-military aggression since 2014.
If you were, I expect you’d feel quite differently.
There was an opportunity for peaceful resolution in the Minsk ll agreement, now sadly lost.
You don’t have to be an ethnic Russian living in the Donbass to care about the fact that neo Nazism is now an acceptable ideology in the supposedly human rights respecting West. The mere thought of weapons my tax money bought (and I am a pacifist so already repelled by them) being supplied to Nazis who are invited here for training and fighting over there under British military supervision disgusts me. We’re the Nazis now. It’s shameful. It makes my skin creep.
Sure, but these people – assuming they’re real people and not sock puppets – have not only no ability to empathise, but only see the world through the prism of their own lives, in this particular case that of a smug beneficiary and supporter of the status quo.
Hence the suggestion that if their circumstances were different, then they would think entirely differently.
C’mon, it’s worth a try!
Jimmeh, whether you care about fascists in the Azov regiment is irrelevant; it’s whether the Russian government would have cared or not that mattered, and considering the history of WWII and the deaths of tens of millions of Russians in their part of the war against Nazism, NATO training fascists on Russia’s borders danced all over the Kremlin’s red buttons.
> the deaths of tens of millions of Russians
…and Ukrainians.
“they’ll [Ukraine] need to re-occupy Crimea and Donbas, which have both been occupied for 8 years” (Jimmeh)
@Jimmeh, I suggest you check who was occupying Crimea, Donbass and the other areas of eastern Ukraine in 2014. You will find they were Ukraine citizens who had been declared terrorists by the government in Kiyev. One of those ‘crimes’ was to speak Russian the other was to oppose the Maidan Coup that happened only a year before a scheduled election. So much love for the ballot box is heartwarmingly refreshing.
Following the coup in 2014 which overthrew the corrupt Russia-friendly President Yanukovych, with the corrupt Europe-friendly President Poroshenko, who was in turn replaced by the corrupt ‘anybody but Russia friendly’ Zelensky.
But then again, every President of Ukraine following the end of the Cold War has been corrupt, some doing jail time. I haven’t read the Ukrainian laws regarding criteria to be the country’s president, but I suspect that being corrupt is a minimum qualification to get you on the ballot paper.
The occupation of Crimea by Russia needs to be viewed alongside the vital strategic importance of the Russian naval base when Kiyev was sending forces east in 2014, as part of their ‘Anti Terror Operation’.
The simple truth is, they were never going to surrender the Crimean naval bases. Also keep in mind they did not mount their ‘Special Operation’ for another 8 years, and the civil war, started in 2014, is still ongoing in eastern Ukraine…_
DiggerUK.
You might find this rather interesting, with Sevastopol and Crimea in mind.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/02/the-obama-regimes-plan-to-seize-the-russian-naval-base-in-crimera/
I find it very interesting, thank you. I ask others here to sacrifice some of their time and read it.
It links in with an information piece I have kept from OffGuardian. https://off-guardian.org/2022/03/08/timeline-the-crimean-referendum/
Putting the two articles together means I will always ask the question “Show me who bankrolled the opinion poll” I won’t be that dumb again…_
You’ll be interested in this too:
Why were the US Navy going to repair the school in Sevastopol?
It is all too easy to forget the death of millions of Ukrainians due to starvation under Stalin. Some Russians died as well but something like that does not get forgotten in a generation or two. There are many critics of Ukraine probably with good reason. But the Far right got 2% or so in the last general election. The majority of Ukrainians want closer ties with the west, not being part of the Eurasian Economic Union. They voted for that in 2013 but President Yanukovych went to Moscow to talk about becoming part of the EEU. The critics of Ukraine usually start with “the unconstitutional coup of 2014, with CIA aid’, as thought the Ukrainians had no opinions of their own.
Many Ukrainians claim that Putin infiltrated people, arms and money across the border in Donbas and Crimea in 2014 and it was long term plan to take control of those areas. From reading some of the OSCE and Human Rights Watch evidence, the human rights abuses have been committed by both sides.
In 2020 the election in Belarus was declared won by Lukashenko with about 80% of the vote. The scale of the demonstrations and sampling polling clearly indicate this was nonsense. The protests were put down by force and Lukashenko publicly congratulated by Putin. The Ukrainians could see the implications. They are aware of what happens to dissenters in Russia.
And they have had 30 years to be able to travel to the west, or experience the joys of the internet. The country has changed. Putin has been in govt. most of the last 20 years and his style of governing does not encourage alternative opinions – as we saw when he announced the recognition of the two breakaway republics and one of his ministers made a point he didn’t like. The body language said it all. Putin has probably got a concept of Ukraine which is way out of date. He probably did expect to walk in, take over and humiliate the West, showing it as powerless. Dr Fiona Hill says some of the troops in the column heading for Kyiv included police units. It should not surprise us that the Ukrainians are prepared to resist.
Many of the critics of the West see the war as a proxy war for the protection and spread of neo-liberalism. I would share many of their views about neo-liberalism but it does not mean that the Russian invasion is therefore justified.
The Ukrainian forces did not, and still do not, have enough attack weapons, tanks and mobile artillery to be a military threat. If the EU brings about further reforms pushing the country closer to western norms, the results will filter back to Russia. Many have relatives there. That is the threat to the type of society, traditional, non-liberal, Orthodox, pan-Slavic alternative that Putin stands for.
Russia is a country with a recent past of being a super power, and a longer history of being an empire. In the 21st century it is poorer than Europe, with obsolete infrastructure, static birth rate, few advanced industries and a reliance on exporting primary products. Many of its weapons are dependent on imported components. It is in alliance with China but the balance is the reverse of when the Communists took control of China.
My reading is that Russia is trying to recapture its status and thought that the take over of Ukraine (along with Belarus being a proxy) would restore it. Novesti, the media agency, on the day of the invasion, put out a post saying ‘now Ukraine has come home’ (or words to that effect), but it was taken down a few days later. Later statements restrict war aims to ‘liberation’ of the Donbas and south shore (with their gas and oil deposits). I doubt Novesti would have published such a piece without official approval. It supports the notion that the special military operation would be short. (Some in the west thought the same).
Now we have a situation where neither side can climb down.
“pushing the country closer to western norms”
What would these be then? The British Empire of the Opium Wars, the continuous Indian famines, the West Indian slave plantations with their hideous tortures and rapes? You know all the things they did not teach us at school. Or perhaps Putin could send round Nato capitals pictures of Pyongyang in 1953 and declare he is about to adopt wester norms?
The EU , for all its problems, set standards of democracy and freedom of the press, the European convention on Human Rights. Things which are somewhat lacking in the Russian federation.
The EU more obviously sets the standard in neoliberal post democracy / anti democracy.
You know well what happened when France Holland, Ireland voted against EU treaties that enshrine austerity and privatisation in the interests of Europe’s banks and corporations. You saw very clearly indeed the EU response when the Greek people voted against brutal Troika austerity, again in the interests of Europe’s banks.
What freedom of the press? Up until last year Russians had a much greater variety of political opinions in their mass media than here in the UK. Have you read ‘Moscow Times’,until 2017 distributed free in Russia in Russian. ( I think George Soros financed it behind the scenes). How about the Communist press? The media in the UK is carefully censored: they call it community standards, though!
PS The EU or the UK or the US are not democracies, but plutocratic oligarchies. Madison, fourth president of the US and “Father of the Constitution’ made clear his opposition to genuine democracy. Democracy,meaning the people would decide issues themselves, said Madison, gives rise to class struggle and is injurious to the rights of private property, so the US would become a Republic and would be ruled by ‘elected representatives.’ So our representative is Truss? What does she have in common with Atlee, Eden, MacMillan, Alex Douglas Hume, Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Johnstone and Starmer? She went to Oxford. Very representative!
U Watt
when the treaties were rejected, changes were made and they passed the second time.
None of these countries want to leave the EU.
We can agree the bankers have too much power The Troika was the IMF -representing American banks, the ECB which is independent of the EU Parliament and national politicians The Commission is the EU civl service. I am against what was done to Greece but like Varoufakis, I want reform in the EU , not its abolition.
J Lowrie
are you seriously saying Russia is less censored? No doubt the establishment pulls lots of strings with our media and the democracy is flawed but we can give our opinions on blogs like this and be against the war. I believe people who have travelled in Russia and report that dissent is suppressed.
”are you seriously saying Russia is less censored?”
Well, RT and Sputnik are banned here, and they enjoyed widespread viewing. In The US RT was the most watched foreign channel Now, banned! Of course, Craig is not banned (yet), but as class struggle heats up I should guess algorithm censorship might well be applied to those who post on his blog. (This is already happening with other radical blogs, so that the vast majority of followers do not get to see certain posts). For the moment his audience seems to be too small to attract censorship, but if we have ‘freedom of the press’ here, then I take it that Craig’s blog is not being monitored by the powers that be. When the only alternatives were socialist and pacifist newspapers of limited content and circulation, Western ideologues loudly trumpeted their belief in freedom of speech, and a few critical letters to the editor might be published; but just you try posting articles critical of Israel on the Guardian’s comments page. As for western support for human rights, when did that start? After Iraq? Remember what that Wicked Witch from the West, Madeleine Albright, said about the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children? “It was worth it”! Yet in our ‘free press’ we read that Putin and not Blair is guilty of war crimes and should be put on trial!
This is information from the Ru-Wiki, I’d be grateful if someone could view the data on the official website of the Ukrainian election commission http://www.cvk.gov.ua/ because I have no access there.
2019. Radical nationalist forces in Ukraine went to the polls as a single bloc. Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok led a bloc consisting of the National Corps, the Right Sector, Yarosh’s State Initiative, the OUN, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. In the top five of the party list, the founder and first commander of the Azov Battalion Andriy Biletsky, the former leader of the Right Sector Dmitry Yarosh and the current leader of the Right Sector Andrey Tarasenko. The bloc’s program was called “Ukraine Above All”, they won 2.23% of the vote.
I want to say that I find the argument about 2% support for nationalists in Ukraine ridiculous. The NSDAP had 2.6% of the vote in 1928, already in 1930 they had 18%; in 1932 this turned into 37%; and 43% the following year 1933.
So, how much is enough and when it’s too much?
Hello Tatyana, I couldn’t get into that website either, there are pages from the site on the wayback machine, can you point me in the right direction as my Russian is rather primitive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/http://www.cvk.gov.ua/
Hi, Pete. Don’t blame your Russian, actually the website is in Ukrainian 🙂
Thank you for reminder to use webmachine!
I guess we need this page
https://web.archive.org/web/20201223155930/https://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2019/wp300pt001f01=919.html
Position #11 – Svoboda, 2.15%. The figure in Ru-Wiki is wrong, it should belong to position #10 Sharij party, 2.23%.
Interesting that Greens got 0.66% and Agro-party got 0.51%. Explains why agricultural lands were sold to transnational giant corporations. It was strongly objected and widely discussed unpopular decision.
No surprise #2 in this chart is banned now, it was pro-russian. #3 is for ex-prime minister Julia Timoshenko. #4 is for ex-president Poroshenko. #5 is my personal favorite, its name is ‘the Voice’, its founder is singer Vakarchuk from ‘Ocean of Elsa’ band. Beautiful music!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOct47_7qg&ab_channel=AtropaBelladonna
the video is from ‘Original Sin’ film with Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie, screen version of ‘Waltz into Darkness’ by Cornell Woolrich. Worth watching.
Tatyana, thanks for the reply and the clarifications. The wayback machine is a useful resource, in some respects more honest than some authorities would like, given how much inconvenient history gets rewritten.
You’re speaking of events 90 years ago, when political and social conditions were very different.
“It is all too easy to forget the death of millions of Ukrainians due to starvation under Stalin. Some Russians died as well…”
“Some Russians”, eh? It was as many if not more than died in Ukraine. Thanks for that, it meant that I didn’t need to read any more of your comment.
Interesting you mention alleged “Holodomor” that happened nearly 100 years ago under the Soviet Union with Stalin (NOT Russian) and yet you do not mention role of Ukrainian Nazis and their crime against Jews and Russians nearly 80 years ago. So, according to you, Ukrainians should remember and not forgive, while Russians should remember and forgive. What do you feel about Germans sending weapons against Russia to France (Napoleon) or UK (Crimean wars – funny that one for me)? What do you feel about Germans and Italians? You must be happy to leave the EU. Why would you be in the Union with these people?!
“And they have had 30 years to be able to travel to the west, or experience the joys of the internet”.
Are you saying that Russians were behind the Iron curtain and did not experience Western culture and the milk and honey of the UK?
After Brexit and negotiations with the EU, I understood why Ukraine could not trade freely with Eu and Russia.
Industies in the Eastern part of Ukraine were free trading with Russia and other ex-Soviet republics (their main market), and if joining the EU they have to stop that free trade and Russia and the rest becomes a 3rd country. If you have ailing industry, cutting your market is suicide and you add that those people feel Russian things change and cause dissatisfaction. Only Brits are crazy enough to leave market next door and make deals with Pacific Islands.
Moreover, the Holodomor is a Ukrainian nazi invention. There was a famine, by no means the first but certainly the last, in various parts of the Soviet Union due mainly to natural disasters. Even Robert Conquest , whose function it was to invent black propaganda against the Soviet Union, came to accept this. There was never any famine targeted against Ukraine. This famine was 90 years ago. 90 years before that was the Great Irish Famine. It seems in Britain it is all too easy to forget that. The population of Ireland is lower today than in 1840. How about that of Ukraine? For those interested in genuine scientific analysis of Soviet famines cf. the work of Mark Tauger, by no means a pinko-liberal. Further, Tauger demonstrated that Stalin and co. tried to ALLEVIATE the situation in Ukraine albeit within their meagre resources; interesting to contrast this with the savage indifference of the English Government to the horrendous sufferings of the Irish peasants.
Yes it was blown up in the yellow press of the fanatical anti communist William Randolph Hearst. Hearst’s reporter/ eyewitness was an Welsh ex con who had not even been in Ukraine and whose photographic evidence was later discovered to be from the Crimean War of the 1850s.
Meantime the author of the 3 million famine deaths in Bengal a decade later is lauded as the greatest ever Englishman.
You presumably realise that Crimea has a massive majority of people who identify as Russian, as do several areas in Donbas. Are your UK supplied weapons intended to force these people under Ukraine control at gunpoint? Would you support the right of a Westminster government to do likewise in a Scotland that proclaimed itself independent after a referendum?
David, I believe that it’s wrong to compare Scotland and Donbass. In my opinion, London would like to keep both the land and the population as part of its kingdom. While Kyiv repeatedly declares that they only need land, and the dissenting population can collect their belongings and move to Russia.
The latest heated discussion about the Donbass is very indicative. The topic starter on another forum, he said that in 2014 all Russians had choice to leave Ukraine, and if they would have done so, there would be no war today. When asked if he considers this normal and would he offer this to the Jews during World War II, the author answered, verbatim:
“Smart Jews fled, and stupid Jews went to the crematorium.”
Maybe not in Scotland but why not in Northern Ireland.
> You presumably realise that Crimea has a massive majority of people who identify as Russian
Possibly because Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol is the biggest employer in Crimea (and doesn’t employ many Ukrainians). Possibly because Ukraine has long been a favoured holiday and retirement destination for Russians. And possibly because of the history of population movements out of Crimea, and their replacement with Russians.
In fact, I don’t realise what proportion of Crimeans “identify as Russian”. How is one supposed to know?
The simple fact is that the invasion of Crimea was an invasion, as the invasions of Donetsk and Luhansk were invasions. I’m not keen on wars, so I’m quite enthusiastic about NOT marching armies across established international borders.
” if they don’t, then that is a licence to other demagogues to invade their neighbours.”
A licence long since taken with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, also Grenada, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Korea, unless they don’t count because they weren’t countries neighbours of the invading country (except Grenada). The message has been that’s it’s OK to invade other countries for decades now, so long as they are smaller than you. Russia is just following the example of the West. In addition, the fact that almost every country that has been invaded in the past century has eventually succeeded in kicking out the invader doesn’t seem to have been much of a deterrent, so it is unlikely that a Ukranian victory in the Donbas would be either.
«But they are not caused by the sanctions; these caps and taxes are the result of constructing a phony market that is the opposite of transparent»
The UK market setup is a joke, but the same price increases are happening in many European countries with a completely different market setup, because there is a *physical shortage* of fuel, and consumption must be cut, one way or another. The only choices are who cuts is and how.
Richard Murphy, of whom I am not always a great fan, has an excellent blog post today regarding the poor economic consequences and unforeseen accounting issues with what is likely to be Truss’s energy bailout policy:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/09/06/the-nightmare-progression-to-being-a-failed-state-begins/
Well worth a read, IMO.
That’s frightening, thanks Mr S.
I believe Mr Mark Littlewood is a Lib Dem, as was Liz Truss. Dare I whisper again that a ‘progressive alliance’ of LDs and Labour centrists is fool’s gold?
My brother-in-law was at an event where she was speaking once, and underwent an hour of Liz Truss speaking about… Liz Truss. As for hard work, she benefits from contrast with Boris Johnson, whose work ethic makes a sloth look like Stakhanov. Truss did manage to get Nazanin Zeghari-Radcliffe freed, when Johnson only got her into deeper trouble, but that’s pretty much the only actual achievement in her long and undistinguished career.
As for Braverman, like Patel, her job is to put a brown face on policies beyond Enoch Powell’s wildest imagination, but unlike Patel, she may actually be halfway competent at implementing her despicable agenda, which is of course bad news for the refugees whose rights will be trampled, and for what passes for democratic freedoms in the UK being curtailed further by the policing bill and other such measures.
If growth is Truss’s objective then it is more government spending that is needed – not less. Also, given the strain and inadequacies in government services, NHS etc. where then does she cut? Hard to imagine her logic in planning to cut taxes and diminish government revenue sources and expect growth.
There is the issue of regulatory reform but this still does not distract from the need for increased government expenditure.
Whether she can get increased private/foreign we shall see.
What truly astounds is the cutting off of Russian oil and gas with the predictable, yet unwanted consequence of increasing prices because the reduced supply leads to that result – self-inflicted result.
Just my observation.
We shall see.
Climate change denier cuckoo Suella Braverman (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/11/suella-braverman-received-10000-leadership-bid-donation-from-prominent-climate-deniers-firm), graduated as an army member of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme (https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-mother-of-all-parliamentary-schemes.html) a ‘charity’ sponsored by BAE, Rolls Royce and Augusta Westland to the tune of £45,000/year since 2002. Braverman basked in the joy of army uniform complete with self-appointed medals. pffft!
Braverman will do the grunt work for the hard sell of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine to the British public and press in law decisions for war to be retained as a prerogative power, such as In 2018, when the UK government carried out air strikes on Syria without prior parliamentary approval, an accord earlier reviewed by Jeremy Corbyn: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-04-17/debates/EF164C0A-E0F5-40B6-A718-DD8693A2490C/MilitaryActionOverseasParliamentaryApproval
Jeremy’s critique here lead to the Tory theme of Corbyn’s ‘threat to national security’ after he told the Solidarity With Refugees rally in London that he opposed British involvement in airstrikes against targets in Iraq and Syria, calling for “peaceful solutions” and describing bombing as the easy option.
PM Lizz Truss is the next puppet of the powers that rule from the shadows. Regarding the Ukraine the USA etc. started this war back in 2014. Most of Joe Public don’t bother to research anything, just digest what is fed out of the box in the corner. Excellent article Craig.
I have it on good authority that when this war has ended, the terrority that Russia claims in the Ukraine will be rock solid and iron clad in their hands and the rest of the country will be a buffer zone. Nato and the western leaders who are fighting this proxy war are war criminals, one of whom has just left power. The latest is about to become one unless changes direction.
Let us agree that:
1. The neo-liberal stage of the capitalist mode of production is in serious, possibly/hopefully terminal, trouble, but still all-powerful in its military, political and (partially, because under attack from “populist” factions) ideological aspects;
2. Despite increasing awareness of this through all sections of the Western population, there is no immediate prospect (for a whole variety of reasons that do not have to be rehearsed here) of a Communist “breakthrough” in any of the leading economies.
So, in the face of this physical/ideological power and the lack of any substantial political organisations willing/able to fight for the interests of the (manual) working class, what can be done (as Lenin almost said)?
The two most fundamental acts of a Communist regime would be the arming of the (manual) working class and the taking into communal ownership (without financial compensation) of all the natural resources in the area under its jurisdiction (this statement of fact immediately allows one to judge whether any (advanced) Communist, as opposed to Socialist, regime has ever existed – spoiler alert, NO). In the case of land, this would immediately reduce its value to zero – an acre of land in central London would be “worth” exactly the same as an acre of poor hill-farming land in Wales – with two immediate results: firstly, since no one owns the land, there is no one to pay rent or a mortgage to; secondly, the global financial infrastructure behind the “value of land” would be disrupted.
The first point is obviously not possible in the UK/Scotland at present because we do not have a written Constitution with a 2nd Amendment. The second point, however, is possible without any supporting political/military infrastructure: as well as/instead of refusing to pay utility bills, refuse to pay rent/mortgage. If a substantial proportion of the UK/Scottish population did this, there is fuck all anyone could do about it.
A Communist revolution without the party – who knows how far it would go?
Jeezo. It really takes a special kind of doublethink to characterize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a proxy war on Russia. It’s like saying the 2003 invasion of Iraq was really an Iranian proxy war on America, because it was Shi’a-Iranian partisans who did the bulk of the legwork in kicking the occupiers out of Iraq. (And in this case, NATO is just sending weapons and cash.)
Oh! you mean the dichotomy of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or perhaps the ‘oil for food’ program or have I come unglued?
Western analysts spent years warning that Western actions would provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. Our politicians and media are now desperate to bury that long history of warnings, so they pointedly refer to Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion. You just have to laugh at them.
I am embarrassed to say that it was my wife who pointed out “unprovoked” to me in every statement?
It’s like when US media kept calling the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade the “accidental bombing”.
As somebody once said, ” Das ist die Sprachregelung.”
“It really takes a special kind of doublethink to characterize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a proxy war on Russia.”
It really doesn’t take anything of the kind, you just need to be apprised of the facts which the western mainstream media is depriving you of in favour of feeding you lies and deception in a way that hasn’t been seen in this country at least since the Second World War.
If people realised the extent to which the BBC et al are misleading them the occupants of Broadcasting House would have been run out of the building by now.
If you are genuinely so unbelieving I suggest you start by looking more closely at the 2014 American orchestrated and neo-Nazi facilitated coup in Kiev which removed the democratically elected government. Then just trace forwards from there through the anti-Russian legislation and the neo-Nazi atrocities to the civil war in East Ukraine leaving 15,000 dead (about a third of which were ethnically Russian civilians).
Then ask yourself why the mainstream media not only never told you about this but in many instances are flat-out lying about it.
Btw, it is not the war that is adding to insanely rising fuel costs, as the BBC/Truss et al would have you believe, it is the American/western sanctions.
And if you set out to destroy Russia you can hardly be surprised when Russia bites back.
Bravo!
A good look at today’s realities.
Keep writing.
” and then they pull the crazed Suella Braverman up to the office. Expect refugee deportations to the Antarctic.”
Oh she has far bigger plans than that and not just for refugees.
https://declassifieduk.org/creeping-authoritarianism-the-next-threat-to-our-civil-liberties/
Just splendid. This is an exhibition of the grim humour Adorno once talked about. Of course I also fully agree with the content.
“During the Tory leadership campaign it was impossible to protect Liz Truss entirely from scrutiny and questioning, therefore it became blindingly obvious that she is actually pretty stupid.”
I think the defining moment was her gaffe about Rostov and Voronezh oblasts. No one who wasn’t either extremely stupid or terminally lazy would have made that mistake. I suppose we’ve just had a terminally lazy PM, so it’s time for an extremely stupid one.
Hope it is not too impolite to post this
https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1550009926843596800
Thatchers is rubbish cider, too.
«So the UK today gets its fourth successive Tory Prime Minister, despite the fact the previous three all crashed in failure, even in their own terms.»
This is the constant delusion of hallucinated “leftoids” and “liberals”: for tory voters all the governments since 2010 have been wildly successful, with booming property and rents rapidly uplifting their living standards, and declining labour costs and taxation, and in addition they also got Brexit, and having taking back control of immigration, the immigration of third-world cheaper labourers with no rights is booming.
Rejoice! Rejoice! 🙁
«Johnson realised that governing from the far right was the only way to handle the Conservative Party, but the lies and corruption of his government led to him being quite exploded»
Everybody knew what Boris was like when he was nominated and elected, and his MPs, the tory press and voters held their noses. Also expensive wallpaper and beers at “work” meeting are pretty minuscule instances of “lies and corruption”, so there must be another reason.
It is quite transparent: he was brought down by an obviously concerted and artificial campaign by the thatcherite media, but mainly the “whig” media.
It is simply the “whig”/globalist wing (Cameron, Blair, and friends) of the establishment trying to take back control of the Conservative party from the “tory”/kipper wing that chose Johnson as their frontman. This quote pretty much gives the game away:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/07/lord-michael-heseltine-boris-goes-brexit-goes/
“If Boris goes, Brexit goes, says Lord Heseltine
Tory grandee says Prime Minister’s departure likely to lead to shake-up in relations with EU”
However of the three leading candidates to replace him both Truss and Mordaunt were tory/kippers, and accordingly the whig/globalist canidate, Sunak, failed, because Johnson expelled many “whig” MPs, and the Conservative Associations that select MPs and elect the leader are mostly tory/”kipper” and love their huge property profits and their blue passports.
Just expect more attacks from the whig/globalist thatcherite press against Truss until the whigs take back the leadership of the Conservative just as they took back the leadership of New Labour in 2019.
It astonishes me that our blogger is does not perceive both that the Conservatives have been enormously successful
I believe we should have a national government, similar to WW2. Truss is a fruitcake wedded to free market brainwashing answers, except the free market did not create the energy crisis.
As Goose has said, this is nothing more than a sledgehammer last ditch attempt to shore up the technically bankrupt US economy. Something had to be done, or the USA would have sunk without trace financially.
Sadly, the consequence of this is most of the European population will now sink without trace financially. However, the one thing the US dumbos don’t seem to have considered is their selfish gain may backfire. If no one in Europe can afford to spend money on anything but energy and food, where does that leave all the highly geared US-private equity backed multinationals when the economies of other countries are collapsing?
There are thousands of British businesses about to go under because of high energy prices; even local chip shops are saying they will have no alternative but to close down – which ought to be a serious red alert for anyone in power. If unemployment surges as companies go bust, how will this benefit the US bunker bullies?
«Truss is a fruitcake»
If I remember well Dominic Cummings of all people said that he thought that she was “properly crackers”. But of course she is cunning and very popular with many MPs and of course the base. Here are two reports about that base:
https://twitter.com/RichardBridger/status/926052048579301376
“About 7 years ago, I toyed with going into politics. Maybe I could make a difference, I thought (I was young & naïve, okay?) So I took some advice, joined a few things, went to a few Tory party events. It was… fucking awful. …
I cannot stress how many weirdos and oddballs I met in the Tory party. North of 80% (though that might not be representative). Proper rah-rah crews. Totally in their own world, apart from reality and real people across the country. I knew they weren’t like real people because I was a state school kid and had some solid experience of non-elite, real people
And I was doing focus groups for years across the country, so met a good range of other ordinary people These ordinary people were a mix of amazing and god-awful, but at least they were pretty *normal* human beings – unlike many party folk So I pretty soon gave up on politics due to the oddballs.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/09/brexit-talks-stall-making-hard-brexit-even-more-likely.html
“I have the tiniest smidge of sympathy for May because the party her leadership is supposed to corral in to some semblance of coherent, logical thinking (a necessary precursor to a strategy which isn’t a dingbat delusional) is in a world of its own.
I spent the holiday weekend at my mother-in-law’s and went to a garden party hosted by her neighbour who is a bit of a leading light, as so often haughty well-heeled women are, in the local constituency Conservative Party Association. The Constituency itself is hard line swivel-eyed Brexit-land.
I attempted to engage some of the other guests (a lot of party members) in conversation about what compromises they were willing to make for Brexit, what the trade-offs should be, what the electoral implications were and so on. [ … ] In the end, I got told to stop making conversation awkward as people were beginning to stare. I listened in on their conversations, they were merely talking the Brexit book with self-reinforcing beliefs that we just need to tell the EU to sod off. Little chance, then, of May being able to get anywhere with that lot. Daily Mail land isn’t a handy cheap-laugh metaphor; I just spent the weekend there.”
A national government? Made up of whom?
The parties in Westminster are all dreadful, and all wedded to the same neoliberal nonsense as the government, the differences being restricted solely to managerial tweaks.
The government may control the levers of power – but after 46 years of public sector degradation, there is barely any surviving machinery or resource at the other end to enact anything that needs to be done, even if any party wanted to.
It’s probably for the best to abandon hope completely now and see the UK as the Titanic; head for a lifeboat if you can, and try to enjoy the spectacle of a previously wealthy country rapidly descending to the status of an emerging economy- but with the trajectory in the opposite direction – if you can’t.
Think Detroit.
What a crying shame; it didn’t have to be like this – we had everything really: a skilled workforce, decent education, reasonable housing, a good Public Health Service, vast energy resources, the global language, a temperate climate… all those opportunities thrown away… for greed.
A little microcosm of the whole planet. Who says the UK’s not world beating!
Isn’t this simply what western colonial powers did to the rest of the world for centuries, and America carries on doing even today to some extent?
Find a country which is doing reasonably well and has some resources. Plunder it for those resources, then saddle it with debt with the help of a corrupt government, demand a sell-off of public assets to service the unmanageable debt, and impose an exploitative regime to get the most out of the citizens for the least social returns.
The investor class has simply turned this on their own country and their fellow citizens in the past few decades. They never cared for ordinary people, workers, of course – but they had some respect for their own country. Now that respect has fallen away, and nothing is more important than personal enrichment before all else.
Spot on.
“all those opportunities thrown away… for greed.”
And yet there are still a multitude of voices that would have us believe that the problem is capitalism, or socialism, or underinvestment, or not enough regulation, or too much regulation, or the free market, or the lack of it, or education, or “woke” policies, or centralisation, or devolution, or too much government control or not enough etc etc and, if we could only tackle these issues, all would be solved. In reality, none of the above solutions will work unless we tackle the problem of greed.
«Johnson realised that governing from the far right was the only way to handle the Conservative Party, but the lies and corruption of his government led to him being quite exploded»
Everybody knew what Boris was like when he was nominated and elected, and his MPs, the tory press and voters held their noses. Also expensive wallpaper and beers at “work” meeting are pretty minuscule instances of “lies and corruption”, so there must be another reason.
It is quite transparent: he was brought down by an obviously concerted and artificial campaign by the thatcherite media, but mainly the “whig” media.
It is simply the “whig”/globalist wing (Cameron, Blair, and friends) of the establishment trying to take back control of the Conservative party from the “tory”/kipper wing that chose Johnson as their frontman. This quote pretty much gives the game away:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/07/lord-michael-heseltine-boris-goes-brexit-goes/
“If Boris goes, Brexit goes, says Lord Heseltine
Tory grandee says Prime Minister’s departure likely to lead to shake-up in relations with EU”
However of the three leading candidates to replace him both Truss and Mordaunt were tory/kippers, and accordingly the whig/globalist candidate, Sunak, failed, because Johnson expelled many “whig” MPs, and the Conservative Associations that select MPs and elect the leader are mostly tory/”kipper” and love their huge property profits and their blue passports.
Just expect more attacks from the whig/globalist thatcherite press against Truss until the whigs take back the leadership of the Conservative just as they took back the leadership of New Labour in 2019.
«Remember the huge increase in energy prices means incredible profits for the energy companies. Their costs have not increased.»
Their costs have increased *a lot*, because they are paying wholesale prices. However if they have a constant margin rate like 3%, if the price quadruples, their margin also quadruples, and that’s just a windfall.
Most energy companies just buy fuel wholesale and retail energy from it.
It is the businesses that extract fuel and sell it to energy companies, wherever they are, that have enormously increased profits, but that’s just another type of windfall.
Both windfalls can be taxed, but that does not solve the problem, which has nothing to do with prices (see below).
«The price hike is caused purely by competition from Russia being restricted by the war. This is war profiteering.»
It has nothing to do with “competition”, that is a ridiculous hallucination: the price has shot up because there is a physical shortage of fuel supply in Europe (electricity and gas don’t travel cheaply across oceans), due to the USA boycott of the largest european supplier, and therefore consumption has to be cut, and there are only two way to cut consumption:
In the latter case of price rationing there are two different cases:
As to the latter case, could the UK government outbid the german government or the french government? Would it be willing?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/29/european-gas-shortages-likely-to-last-several-winters-shell-chief-rationing-europe-russia
«Ben van Beurden said the situation could persist for several years. “It may well be that we will have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions,” he said. Van Beurden said solutions to the energy crisis would have to found through “efficiency savings, through rationing and a very, very quick buildout of alternatives”. […] competition for scarce resources has pushed wholesale European gas prices up by a factor of 12 compared with a year ago. […] The French prime minister, Elizabeth Borne, warned companies that energy could be rationed this winter, while Belgium’s energy minister said the next five to 10 years could be difficult.»
«Rationing by price, and then those who don’t have enough money cut their consumption much more than those who don’t have enough money.»
Oops, I did reread the post, but this is too garbled, I meant to write:
“Rationing by [higher] price, and then those who don’t have enough money cut their consumption much more than those who [do] have enough money [so that the total cut in consumption matches the reduced supply].”
Or you can do what the horrible, cheating, traitor, fascist, semi-fascist, populist arsehole …… etc. Orban did and sign a favorable long-term gas deal with bla bla bla Putin. In surrounding populations (countries) it is 50/50 (villain or hero, looking after his own people) and revised bills have not yet arrived.
I can afford 100 or 200 or 300 £ bill but what breaks my heart was one of CM readers apologizing and asking permission to continue
reading CM blog even if he had cancelled his subscribtion due to high el/gas bills and that was many many months ago.
Who is dumber with ideas? Lizz T or Ursula and other EU leaders. Things don’t make sense economically. Russia did not raise gas and oil price. It is the Market that we and Russians worship. There are so many energy suppliers/distributors “competing” in highly competitive market for the benefit of us consumers, stories goes. They fuck it up and should go down. Yes but it’s not their fault; it’s Putin’s. Same story with the banks. We have to save them with billions. If f***ing xyz goes down and 123 & 345 etc. there will still be gas in pipes. Opportunity to nationalize it for penny in a £? (disaster socializm).
«Or you can do what the horrible, cheating, traitor, fascist, semi-fascist, populist arsehole …… etc. Orban did and sign a favorable long-term gas deal with bla bla bla Putin.»
I guess that the impression of most european elites is that they don’t have a choice between complying with USA sanctions against the Russian Federation or ignoring them: their choice is between complying or being targeted by USA “secondary” sanctions plus regime change operations. Orban has decided to risk USA sanctions and regime change operations.
But I suspect that as the news from the war of aggression against the Donbas fade from european countries they will try to persuade the USA to let them import RF energy, but many think that one of the USA goals is to deliberately deprive european countries of cheaper RF energy, and rely only on much more expensive USA or USA-controlled energy imports.
I belive that “energy companies” means the ones extracting oil and gas in CM’s opinion. That is a part of the problem. For me energy companies are the ones extracting, and your energy company for me is a distributor (yes, they are known as energy companies).
Do we need 20, 30 or even more?Distributors/Energy companies selling us the same gas coming in the same pipes pretending there is chaos.
Now, when Distributors did not see problems coming, we have to save them.
What a great cross-section of opinion, I wonder if some commentators. better read than I would like to hypothesize on what would have happened if Russia had not mounted its SPM. Would the Donbas be re-absorbed into Ukraine? would Crimea be a U S base and Sevestapol the home of the US fleet? or would Mr. Putin have said enough is enough and none of us would be commenting here?
GFL,
I see no useful purpose in rewinding the history we have in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine to start playing war games. After all, we have a real war to study now.
Come hell or high water, Russia will never surrender their naval bases in Crimea, it would be game over for Russia.
It would probably initiate a conflict too dangerous to contemplate; especially when you consider that we have half of the worlds nuclear powers (Russia, UK, France, USA) who collectively own 96% of all nuclear weapons on the planet, sniffing around this conflict.
A ceasefire with immediate peace talks needs to be prioritised. I really don’t care about the details of any negotiations, or what diplomatic skullduggery is deployed to get to the negotiating table, I simply want to live long enough to demolish Digger Mansions retirement list.
That’s my two pennerth…_
The media are already changing the narrative. Journalists have not previously felt the need to hide their amusement at her intellectually challenged demeanour. Now, in the past 48 hours, I have heard correspondent after correspondent tell us that she is “hard working” and always “masters her brief”.
https://i.redd.it/5yjiwt39v7m91.jpg
Hardly a far right Tory party. Pretty much record levels of taxation, record levels of immigration, highest foreign aid in Europe, biggest contribution to defence of the EU in Europe, earliest committment to net zero, earliest to ban ICE cars, record health spending, record welfare spending, every government department flying pride flags, all offices of state held by immigrants, and a drag queen story hour in every library.
Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman & James Cleverly were all born in London town, Ian; zero out of three ain’t great as Meatloaf nearly sang.* Didn’t see any drag queens in the kiddies’ section of my local library when I was in there a couple weeks ago – or at least no obvious ones.
* I’m in a bad mood after Celtic’s pasting by Real tonight – don’t take it personal.
“record health spending, record welfare spending,”
Would that be record low levels?
No, astonishingly high levels, do you know the numbers?
Numbers are what you make them, as any accountant knows. “Record (high) spending” might be true, in which case the government, instead of being extremely parsimonius, is extremely incompetent. I suspect the “record spending” includes all the money wasted on Track and Trace and non-existent PPE. If that is the case, the charge of corruption can be added to that of incompetence.
So we are in a competition with Germany racing to the bottom. There are people (e.g. Thomas Roeper) who praise the German Aussenminister (foreign secretary) for reading aloud accident free from a script. I really worry what comes next.
A script written by AI…_
Should I have included a trigger warning…_
LOL – I came of age fifty years ago when political satire became obsolete. But now? I hope it will be over some time in the near future.