To think we're about to witness a repeat of Labour's wrong Miliband brother moment?

[KenAdams]

How Liz will won above Rishi is beyond me. I mean, I know they're both Tories and we are where we are but her interview with Laura K on Sunday really worried me.

I feel like the country is on a knife edge waiting to see what she will announce and I'm 99% sure it just won't be enough and it will start a chain of events that will make for such a difficult time for this country.

I do think it would be stopped if Rishi were PM or at least kerbed but I feel that the Tory party are about to make the wrong decision with who they chose and with it will bring dire consequences for the country.

I would think it would make them unelectable but if they've selected an ERG PM then who knows any more? Maybe I'm just a cynic but I'm so concerned about the next few weeks and months.

Claims that the Conservatives are in Putin's pocket just do not stand up to scrutiny (see what I said above about Operation Orbital etc.)

Well, it started with 30 troops sent to Ukraine and reached a peak of 75 troops... 100 if you inc some training for the navy, it was part of a multi national training program.
to help train the Ukrainian military in medical, logistical, intelligence and infantry skills. This preceded a larger programme of training provided by up to 75 troops

You said the UK armed Ukraine (at that time) it did not.

I think if you take money from Putin supporting Oligarchs, then what do you expect?

@DdraigGoch so by your logic as a Russian you would be vocally protesting and facing jail and maybe worse then if so then I salute you, I really do. But it is easy to assert that from the comfort of your home in a democratic country with freedom of speech from behind a keyboard.

The conservative party got far too close to Russia. That is obvious in lots of ways.
They also failed to take seriously the threat from China until the 11th hour.
The Conservative party appeared to think it could carry on prioritising money, and ignoring issues of national security.

She isn’t.
It’s incredibly lazy, or indeed deeply ignorant rhetoric.

I didn’t like either of the
final two, but she’s obviously no fascist.

Does it matter when weapons were actually delivered? They were there before tanks started rolling on Kyiv which is the important thing. The decision of what to send and when would largely have been made based on advice from diplomats and the defence chiefs, so long as that advice was in line with the UK government's overall foreign policy, which is set by politicians. My guess is that the decision to actually send arms came when it became clear that a further invasion was a definite prospect.

The UK trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops before the 2022 invasion started. The UK is now leading the operation to continue that training. Why would the Conservative governments of the last seven years have done this if they really were in the pocket of Putin? He's got a pretty poor return on his investment, don't you think?

Why do I care about the 2019 interference and not any you allege to have happened in 2016? Probably because if the 2019 election had gone the way Putin wanted it to go, it would have compromised the UK. In my view the 2016 referendum has not compromised our status. Indeed we are free to take action without recourse to Germans worried about gas supplies or Hungarian populists.

Now here's a real corruption story: Schroder's links to Gazprom.

Many Russians have fled the country. Many have spoken out while still there. Some don't dare speak out in public but have made their views known to friends and family overseas (there's a Russian lady near me who says that her family back home are very much against Putin). Others support the "Special Military Operation", marvelling at the new car they've been given.

I know which group I have no wish to risk being confused for.

If cheap Russian gas had been on our doorstep rather than our own supplies does anybody here think that successive British governments wouldn't have taken it? It's a cheap stick to hit the Germans with and one previous Tory minister of state for energy Charles Hendry actually welcomed it. Nice try DdraigGoch !

We need Russia to keep lights on, says minister
Britain’s energy minister has welcomed investment in British power stations from Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom
Danny Fortson
Sunday August 07 2011, 1.01am, The Sunday Times
The government will not try to stop Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant, from investing in British power stations, according to Charles Hendry, the energy minister. He said Gazprom’s interest in Britain’s energy infrastructure would be welcomed.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-russia-to-keep-lights-on-says-minister-r9hw3gs982w

If cheap Russian gas had been on our doorstep rather than our own supplies does anybody here think that successive British governments wouldn't have taken it?

No, British governments would probably have done it too. And that would be just as corrupt and ill-advised as Nordstream 2.

Fact remains though that a former German Chancellor (who was presumably still very influential is a paid lobbyist for Gazprom.

Pressing on ahead with expanding the use of Russian supplies after 2014? Immoral.

To borrow a term from our previous PM - you are beginning to sound like Captain Hindsight with your robust approach to lines to take at historical junctures. And in memory of his wonderful time at the despatch box I'm aware it's an imperfect comparison that a pedantic Starmer-like barrister could rip to shreds. I really need to get on with my jobs.

@TheLassWiADelicateAir

Your ignorance is jaw dropping.

One could describe separatist movement in spain and Canada as such.

However scotland is a centuries old sovereign country with a seperate legal system seperate monarchy in history that has been in a union with 3 other countries & now a large amount of the citizens of that country no longer wish to remain in said union.

They continually vote for the party that wishes to end that union. Winning every election, be that WM, Holyrood or total of councils.

It's frankly laughable that you're too stupid to factor that.

If a ruling government if a country does no longer wish to be in a union & is forbidden from leaving. It ceases to be a voluntary union.
Even thatcher continually stated that

Ps pet is a gender neutral term from my background. I use it all the time.

I'm not chucking any insults around, I have just explained calmly that I consider some of the policies of this Tory government to be fascist in nature.

The things you describe may or may not be true, they are not relevant to whether the government's policies are or are not moving us away from British traditions and towards a fascist approach.

Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in the latter part of the 60s encouraged the Unions and gave them so much control that they were effectively holding the country to ransom.

The Conservatives were voted in but Ted Heath wasn’t strong enough to get them under control.
The country was still being dictated to by the unions. The blackouts were because the Union demands weren’t met straight away.

Labour then took over and it returned to the status quo. The country was on its knees when in 1979 Thatcher got in and was strong enough to gain back control.

Do you think that from 1974-1979 that the country was doing well. It was still awful.
Inflation meant that things would go up in price between you taking something off a shelf in a supermarket to you getting to the till.
I do know my history as I lived it.
The Winter of Discontent as it was called was because the Unions wanted so much that it just wasn’t possible any more to give them what they wanted.
Tax for even someone on what would have been below minimum wage was 33%

Labour gave so much money away to those on benefits that for a lot of people it wasn’t worth them working. I had more money by signing on the dole than I did going to work 40 hours per week.
I know families who jacked in their jobs and signed on because they were better off on benefits than working.
I remember one woman (single parent) with 4 children who gave up her job as she just couldn’t make ends meet so went on income support and was able to, for the first time ever, afford to go on holiday abroad for as she had more money coming in from income support than her job ever paid.

It was the ones in work who were made to pay for it all

I had more money by signing on the dole than I did going to work 40 hours per week

That’s odd because I definitely didn’t. I was a single parent too.

I had basically free university education, could sign on in the holidays' plenty of work,a terraced house in East Dulwich that I could afford on a basic salary after one rung on the property ladder which meant a studio flat in Eastbourne which was twice my salary to buy. The Tories offer absolutely nothing to young people now and Thatcher sold off affordable housing in bucketloads (it was 40% of the provision in the 70s and basically pretty easy to get if that's what you wanted) and here we are now a hollowed-out state and a PM elected by 60k people.

Oh, and NHS dentistry on demand and you got a GP you got to know and had a relationship with. Don't be gaslit that socialism carried out through the Labour Party hasn't done great things for this country. The Tories have chipped away for decades now on prosperity for the many.

Two important reasons: it matters very much when weapons were delivered, the UK refused point blank to sell or give any weapons to Ukraine and for truth, your post said the UK was supplying weapons for many years prior to the invasion, no one was.

Had we re armed Ukraine with modern NATO weapons, Putin wouldn't have invaded... that we got 2000 anti tank missiles into Ukraine very quickly is very good but as we ve seen with how quickly Russian has taken 25% of the country, they clearly needed and need plenty more.

Incredulous that you dismiss Russian interference in 2 UK referendums with "oh well, hasn't effected our ability to supply Ukraine..."

All countries in the EU are free to act as they see fit inc not taking part in EU sanctions on Russia and can supply or not weapons to Ukraine.

So it begins .....

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-liz-truss-a-tory-jeremy-corbyn-

If the membership really does adore things that put ordinary Conservative voters off their toast and marmalade, that’s a sign that power over the leadership is in the hands of people who don’t much care about winning the next election; people, in other words, who prefer to be a debating society. And you don’t have to reach back to Clarke versus Duncan Smith for a parallel. Labour found itself in exactly that position when, thanks to its join-the-party-for-a-fiver scheme, its membership was taken over by hard-left ultras who set about making the whole party completely unelectable. If that’s what is happening here, Ms Truss – Lord help her – may end up not being the 21st-century's Mrs Thatcher so much as the Tory party’s Jeremy Corbyn.

It was the ones in work who were made to pay for it all

Well, we all will be now, 130 billion for 18 months of "cheaper" energy... this must be the the most brain dead policy ever.
Giving billions to the wealthy, whilst not really helping the very poorest who have still seen energy cap costs go from £1200 to £2000.

Plus zero incentive to save energy.

This debt will be charged by investors at eye watering rates, we'll import inflation as the £ falls even further and in 18 months time, when Putin is still in power, regardless of Ukraine, we'll have super hi gas prices.

Germany is freezing unit costs to a certain level and then if you want more, you pay the market rate, Germany's help is a few 10s of billions, despite a much bigger pop.

Truss is effectively governing for the next GE, not for the good of the UK.

I had more money by signing on the dole than I did going to work 40 hours per week. Hmm, I call bollocks @Kennykenkencat

I looked at this report (researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06762/SN06762.pdf) which has a graph showing that at no point between 1948 and 2012 were unemployment benefits anywhere near average earnings. I am happy for you to provide other information as I am happy to be educated.

From the report: Since 1948, there has been a benefit paid to people who were unemployed and actively seeking work. The title, and detailed eligibility criteria for this benefit have changed over time but, since a rapid increase in the 1960s, the rate of the benefit has remained roughly constant in real terms, while seeing a significant fall as a proportion of average incomes. It is worth noting that, in 1948, Unemployment Benefit and the State Pension were set at the same level, of £1 6s (£1.30) per week. The level of the basic pension is now more than 50% higher than Job Seeker’s Allowance, and this gap will only grow in the foreseeable future, thanks to the differing treatment of the two benefits under the triple lock (Pensions) and the 1% uprating cap (JSA).

Once you add housing benefit to JSA you could live, for sure. But if you look at how scared e.g. miners were about moving from a wage to benefits, that is because it reduced quality of life significantly.

The Spectator pile-on is truly something to behold.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-madness-of-truss-s-energy-price-cap

Part of the problem is that the Conservative party is just the Labour party on a five-year lag; once Starmer suggested freezing prices, the blue team were inevitably going to follow along at some point. But a bigger problem is that the Tories are increasingly the party of the non-working and economically inactive.
The Tory vote is old. Pensioners don’t work and don’t pay much in taxes. They certainly don’t benefit from investments that pay off 20 years down the line. They’re very happy to rack up massive bills in the present day and pass them off to their grandchildren. And they vote in massive numbers.

This gives Conservative politicians strong incentives to find ways to take from the young and the future to give to the old and the present-day. It is toxic in the long term – we have a dysfunctional housing market, twisted to prop up pensioner assets, and high taxes to fund pensioner healthcare and pensions that are destroying family formation and living standards among young people. This is the only way the current Conservative party can see itself clinging on to power. Changing the prime minister isn’t enough to change that.

And The Spectator is a Tory mouthpiece!

It is toxic in the long term – we have a dysfunctional housing market, twisted to prop up pensioner assets, and high taxes to fund pensioner healthcare and pensions that are destroying family formation and living standards among young people. This is completely true, and I am not a natural Spectator reader at all. It is really very tough to get started these days.

Ah the 70s @vera99 . Wish I'd had the cop on to buy a flat back then. Too busy being a rebel against society maaan.

I don't recognise this cliché winter of discontent Britain either. During that winter I worked in a City pub while living in Havering. Don't recall mounds of bin bags . And my insurance and stock broker customers had plenty of cash to flash.

Things were grim job wise 73 - 75 though. The Oil shock after Yom Kippur War no doubt.

Yes, the 70s watching Gary Glitter at University he was an hour late coming down a huge staircase to massive applause, and I was a Stranglers Rock Goes to College gig where they stormed off stage after a few minutes bearing the University of Surrey for not booking them (they were a local band) when they were unknown!

It seemed to be a more egalitarian time in many ways or maybe it was just because I was young. Loads of squats everywhere so dropouts could pursue an alternative lifestyle at the fringes if they wanted. Thatcher and in particular her attack on Stonehenge free festivals and the New Age Travellers wanted to make sure that alternative bohemian lifestyles couldn't flourish in a society that got to 3 million unemployed. But she came to power when the North Sea oil and gas just started to come on big time and it funded her time in power.

She was no magician though just had 100s of billions of oil revenue to fund and underwrite her 'vision'. Rather than build infrastructure and mend the roof whilst the sun was shining she pursued a free market, City liberalisation and allowed our major manufacturing industries to decline. Under Labour, we had a 50% share in all the fields in BNOC but she privatised that shortly after taking power. Imagine we had sued that money to build replacement council housing for all that was sold off....rather than paying for mass unemployment.

www.scottishenergynews.com/how-did-britain-miss-out-on-400-billion-worth-of-n-sea-oil-revenue-compared-to-norway/

Globalisation has chipped away at your quality of life, we were in exactly the same fiscal position regardless of party. Labour spent more, Conservatives would spend a little less traditionally - although no one can say that anymore after the huge pandemic pay outs and the social care overhaul.

The point is this is happening globally, not just in your corner of Dulwich.

Great post @vera99 ! Yes North Sea oil rescued Thatcher.
' The simple questions are the hardest to answer. Like why are we spending £17 billion pounds a year to keep 3 million on the dole' - Mark Carlise MP Conservative.

I paraphrase but that's what he said. Britain could have had a big pension fund like Norway . Sigh.

Thatchers brutal assault on New Age Travellers drove them to Wales and Ireland. There are said to be around 2/3000 in County Cork. Near Dunmanway there's a place called Cúl. They decided it was an omen!