Provocative and unprofessional language from our defence secrets

[TheReluctantPhoenix]

I cannot believe a minister of state can make this type of speech at a VERY delicate point in geopolitics:

metro.co.uk/2022/02/23/vladimir-putin-has-gone-full-tonto-says-defence-chief-16157005/amp/

Regardless of one’s views, ministers should behave respectfully.

AIBU to think this is totally unprofessional he needs to retract this and apologise

Defence secretary, obviously!

I’d expect nothing less from that waste of a parliamentary seat. Still, if his intemperate and childish insults spur Putin on at least BAE can sell more death machines on the back of the conflict, pleasing his constituents who work at BAE.

Putin is hard as nails, he's no special snowflake. Comments like that will be water off a ducks back to a former KGB officer like him!

He knows his audience. That probably was toned down.

Are you trying to protect the feelings of a f**King prize nutcase who could potentially kill millions of innocent people?
Good for you

Of course no one is trying to protect Putin’s feelings, how silly.
It’s a case of presenting a calm and united front to the military aggression. Not sitting in a conference room trash talking like your party isn’t too scared to apply meaningful sanctions because you’ve taken so much Russian money in the past the words would stick in your craven throat.

I wouldn't have said it myself but we're a bit beyond diplomatic politesse at this point, and Putin and Wallace are never going to meet, so I'm not sure it matters too much.

A couple of weeks ago Russian TV news put up a picture of Liz Truss next to a word that, in Cyrillic, looks very like the word 'bitch' in English. This was not generally thought to be an accident.

And Putin has, to be fair, started talking like someone who's several cans sort of a six-pack. His speech on Monday was properly deranged. It stunned even very experienced analysts of Russian politics and foreign policy. There's a debate going on about whether he was trying to pull a Nixon Madman Strategy (pretend to be crazy to frighten your opponent into making concessions) or whether he has become so isolated that he's lost his grip on reality, but everyone agrees that what he did and said this week was completely different from what's gone before.

(But there's still no chance of a war between Russia and NATO.)

@Georgeskitchen,

There is a level of professionalism and ‘coded’ insults that nation states use in dealing with one another.

Threatening to beat Russia in a war is pretty stupid, frankly.

The more of a ‘fucking prize nutcase’ you think he is, the more stupid his comments become.

It's all ugly at the moment.

Nobody is behaving well.

This shit brings out the worst in Willy waving mankind. And yes it's always the menz

But Saucery is right too - there's a lot of macho posturing by the UK govt to cover up the fact that the UK is the weak link on sanctions. It's shameful.

If you really expect a member of Johnson’s cabinet to be “professional”, you’re deluded @TheReluctantPhoenix. They all lie, bully and insult the opposition.