Youtube hearted comments of Dale Crocker (@dalecrocker3213).

  1. Sad days for the left. Biden revealed as the dangerous, bungling incompetent we always said he was, and the Capitol "insurrection" revealed as no worse than a student demo. A brief gloat is justified I think.
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  2. Thank you for an excellent presentation. I was moderately obsessed with the Shroud some years ago and I thought I might share one or two theories from the books I read at the time, and which may be of interest. One non-divine explanation of the image is bilirubin staining. This is the yellow stuff produced by the liver in jaundice cases. It can also be produced in cases of severe trauma and the idea is that the image is basically a sweat stain, made semi-permanent by the presence bilirubin in the sweat. There are photographs of the images of hands impressed on bedsheets by patients with severe liver conditions. And there is no doubt , of course, that crucifixion is an extremely traumatic business. You don't just hang there. The intense pain of the nail driven through the foot causes the victim to pull himself up by the arms - which of course causes intense pain from the nails in the hands. Some accounts suggest that in the initial stages at least this causes a quite rapid up and down jerking motion which can go on for some time. It may also be accompanied by erection and ejaculation, as occurs sometimes in hangings. The lungs flood with fluid, as happens during many traumas as well as in heart surgery when patients need to have the chest cavity constantly drained. The Roman soldier's spear thrust was to drain this fluid to prevent Christ from drowning in it, and thus dying too soon. Equally well, breaking the legs prevents any motion and thus the victim does actually drown. Christ's legs of course were not broken and the comparatively short time in which he was hung on the cross leads to the theory that he was taken down while still alive and revived by Joseph of Arimathea.... but that of course is a totally different story!
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  3. Very interesting and informative. Thankyou. My theory, for what it's worth, is that all this was happening inside John Dee's head. He obviously had an incredible brain and it is possible that a part of it invented the whole language, the conversation with angels and so on - but on a subconscious level. As there are attested cases of multiple personalities unknown to one another occupying a single person, Dr John Dee, the courtier and scholar, could not acknowledge the existence of this other self and so he needed another individual to focus upon. His scryer. He was thus able to deal with the material his subconscious other self was producing by imagining it to have an exterior reality, conveyed to him via Kelly and the others. It's all about trying to find meanings in numbers and arrangements of symbols which look as though they ought to be there, but in fact aren't. Dee had a split personality, crudely put, and his rational personality refused to recognise the irrational aspect, and so he was forced to exteriorise it in this manner. I enjoyed the video very much and the above is merely a suggestion, of course. I have one very minor criticism: although the sequence of illustrations was generally apt and excellent they did show the Elizabethan spy network reaching Australia a couple of hundred years before it was discovered and Dee arriving in London by train a couple of hundred years or so before they were invented.
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  4. But I'm far more worried about Islamification and creeping totalitarianism than I am about Russia. Russia will only invade or harm Britain if we go on annoying it in the stupid way we seem to be doing.
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  5. Musk is on our side. Starmer isn't.
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  6. Muticulturalism cannot exist when one culture denies the rights of other cultures to exist. Islamism does this.
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  7. Tim Wilson - Professor of Wishful Thinking.
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  8. Nothing new here. Owen Jones is wrong about everything.
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  9. No good will come of this.
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  10. Ukraine is nowhere near winning. Russia is nowhere near desperate. Get real.
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  11. Quite the contrary. Look forward to peace in both Ukraine and the Middle East.
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  12. As a cartoon character who draws cartoons Professor Wilson can't be blamed for thinking everyone is a cartoon. They aren't. And Donald Trump is nothing like the grotesque figure the Prof has drawn in his imagination.
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  13. There is no need to repair the relationship. Zelensky has to go. He has been an obstacle to peace ever since he allowed himself to be the puppet of US investment interests - interests which are entirely uncaring whether or not tens of thousands of foreigners died on their behalf.
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  14. It must be love that makes the dear old Prof so off target. Russia has already won this war. It has broken through the extremely strong Ukrainian defence lines in the south and can now take the third or so of Donetsk still in Ukrainian hands with comparative ease. It really is all over bar the shouting.
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  15. Newspapers are entertainment. The mistake would-be intellectuals make is in assuming that they represent a serious assessment of reality.
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  16. In fact, the Ukrainians have now shut down their own independent mapping service, since it actually recorded the considerable Russian advances currently taking place.
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  17. There is a limit to hospitality. It doesn't include gate-crashers.
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  18. One can only admire Ukraine's resilience, as misguided as it may be. Ukraine is losing and cannot possibly win this war. It is, furthermore, a war undertaken not on behalf of the Ukrainian people in any real sense, but on behalf of greedy Western agencies who wish to lay hands on the vast mineral resources of Eastern Ukraine, traditionally and actually in the possession of Russian companies, and worked by Russian people. The Kursk incursion has achieved next to nothing. It has had no significant impact on Russia's gradual advance on the southern front, since no significant troops were diverted from there. The ground itself is virtually worthless and will not even have much value as a bargaining chip in hopefully imminent peace negotiations - even if Ukraine still manages to hold any of it by then, which is becoming increasingly unlikely.
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  19. This is clearly WEF policy: get rid of expensive pensioners who no longer contribute and import healthy young men from third world countries who will work cheap and impregnate our women, thus restoring the balance between productive individuals and those to old and infirm to further contribute.
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  20. It looks very much to me as though Russia is within a hairsbreadth of achieving all its war aims. It is rapidly advancing in Donbass and seems to be squeezing the Ukrainians out of Kursk. Trump and Putin both strike me as eminently pragmatic men, and if this position can be ratified and a reasonable accommodation achieved, then there is no reason why this ghastly and needless episode should not be put behind us. Putin will be hailed as a national hero is this happens - and quite rightly so.
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  21. I'm really quite cheerful myself. Progressive leftism has got us all into a terrible mess.
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  22. What's sickening is how the Arabs were given the chance to do something with Gaza, and billions of dollars in aid to do it with. Instead they turned a potential paradise into an armed camp, ruled by leaders living luxury lifestyles. It's just the way they are. There's nothing anyone can do about it.
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  23. I assume Google to be Western-orientated. Can the new-look maps be configured to reflect this?
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  24. Professor, you might have more in common with Tommy than you think.
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  25. Europe's leaders are running around like a bunch of headless chickens. The idea that they can do anything meaningful to avert Ukraine's inevitable defeat is utterly laughable.
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  26. It comes as no great surprise that the Prof supports censorship. It's a very lefty thing. I was a lefty myself once until I realised that I was so because loving everybody and everything made me feel all warm and fluffy inside. Regretfully though, feeling all warm and fluffy inside is not a great basis for reasoned thought. Hard realities must be faced. So when coming up against any opposing views which point out discrepancies and irregularities in one's argument the reaction is often one of panic, as that nice, warm fluffy feeling begins to fray somewhat at the edges. The obvious response is to ban the source of this discomfort, so one can carry on basking in the heady glow of moral rectitude. In my view, for accuracy and disinterested analysis, RT beats shill news stations such as CNN and the BBC hands down. Even if my view is the wrong one, I bitterly resent any measures taken to prevent me having it.
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  27. From Bing. Take it or leave it. "Finding reliable figures for desertion and conscription avoidance rates in the Ukrainian military can be challenging due to the dynamic and sensitive nature of the situation. However, here are some estimates based on available data: Desertion: Reports suggest that 45,543 soldiers deserted between January and August 2024. The number of prosecutions for desertion has reached at least 30,000 this year. Conscription Avoidance: It is estimated that 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have fled the country to avoid conscription since the start of the war. Additionally, 20,000 men left the country to avoid being drafted between February 2022 and November 2023. These figures highlight the significant challenges faced by the Ukrainian military in maintaining its personnel during the ongoing conflict."
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  28. What's mad about bringing the world one step closer to peace?
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  29.  @paulro4  How so? He stands for freedom. Starmer stands for repression and state control.
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  30. I don't know about talk of Ukrainians defecting - but a greater part of the armies of separatist Donetsk and Luhansk consist of former Ukrainian soldiers (and policemen!) and when Russia entered Crimea in 2014 the Ukrainian army and the navy went over to the Russians almost to a man.
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  31. Patronising condescension? Pot, kettle, black?
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  32. May I ask what proportion of these sufferers you would considerer to be white British?
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  33.  @MutatedPizzaBoi  It really is a sign of intellectual poverty and historical ignorance to constantly equate the present situation in Ukraine with the situation in Germany in the 1930s.
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  34. As a PR exercise, this is all going pretty well. It's a great pity it had to come to this, but with the obliteration of British culture within a couple of generations looking inevitable, extreme measures have become necessary.
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  35. Your description covers most of the counties in the world. Surely turning them into holiday destinations has to be a step up?
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  36. They are home.
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  37. Tommy Robinson joined the BNP is his youth. The story has it that he went along to his second meeting with a friend who was thinking of joining too. The friend was black. Things went somewhat downhill from that point on.
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  38. If Ukraine had abided by Minsk this war would never have happened.
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  39. Xenophobia and racism are only relatively small elements in this. Fear of being invaded and overwhelmed by alien intruders, and resentment of the fact that our political class and the police are actively involved in this process are far, far more significant.
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  40. The message is clear and it is aimed, sadly, at people of the same political stamp as our dear Professor: "Be afraid. Be very, very afraid"!
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  41.  @colincampbell4261  Because they are growing in numbers and influence. And I don't think hatred is quite the right word. Resentment better covers it.
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  42. You kind of know the country is up the creek when American billionaires and right-wing TV hosts can point out - with considerable accuracy - just how much and how quickly we are descending into a dystopian nightmare.
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  43. This sentence is obscene. It marks a new stage in the country's decline into totalitarianism.
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  44. Sensible people, in other words.
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  45. It wasn't a salute. It was a gesture.
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  46. Perhaps the price and availability of real estate in Florida formed part of their conversation?
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  47. Europe is a geographical entity, not a political one despite attempts to make it so. Russia is not an expansionist country, despite attempts to pretend that it is. Ukraine will accept the return of territories to Russia as a small price to pay for ending the destruction of the country. Trump is an astute politician. Vladimir Putin is alive and well. Apart from these facts, Professor Wilson is correct in every regard.
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  48. Feisty chicks like Katie Hopkins make life worth living.
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  49. All sounds pretty good to me.
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  50. Oh do stop banging on about "far-right extremism". If there was an input from these semi-mythical figures it certainly met with approval from substantial numbers of the disaffected, ignored and vilified people who now constitute the British working class.
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  51. He made, sad to say, a basic journalist mistake of publishing severe allegations without 100% checking their validity. He then made the further mistake of defying the court order. These are errors of judgement, not of character. He is a brave man with a good deal of right on his side and I for one hope that he will emerge safe and sound from his incarceration a wiser but no less committed man, with a useful political future ahead of him.
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  52. My "Woke" is your "Fascist."
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  53. Deporting foreign prisoners and releasing those held on drugs charges would create something like 60,000 prison places. This might be just about enough to accommodate all those likely to be incarcerated for being rude on social media.
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  54. Yes! All we need now is for Trump to win and there is a grain of hope for the world.
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  55. Since every single one of these cases was brought because of who he was, rather than for any actual criminality, it seems very just that they should be abandoned for the same reason.
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  56. I must say I do find this hero-worship of a warmongering, incompetent globalist crook somewhat difficult to comprehend. Thank goodness there appears to be a substantial minority in this country and the US who have somehow, like me, managed to resist the conditioning.
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  57. Response needn't be nuclear. Russia has a fleet of high altitude strategic bombers which have not yet been used in this conflict. They could reduce Kiev to dust within a matter of days.
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  58. Thigs like this have happened many, many times before - but not in front of TV cameras. Personally I found it very refreshing, as are so many of Trump's activities. Yes, there is to be a new world order - and a far better one. The myth of Russian expansionism has coloured military and economic policy for far too long. Poor Zelensky, caught up in hopefully its last manifestation, is past history. He must bow out gracefully while Trump and Putin sort things out between them with - just for once - no need for soldiers to die on battlefields while they do so.
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  59. I think you are making rathe too much of what is basically a minor border dispute.
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  60. Roughly 230 million books are sold in Russia each year. What are the Russians doing with them if they're not reading them?
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  61.  @Clickhereforthetruth-e5z  And Tommy is both brave and not a racist.
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  62. It's purely cosmetic. More and more I am convinced that "replacement theory" is actually a thing, and that this Labour government fully supports it.
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  63. If you believe that Russia did this then you are even dafter that I took you for, Professor Tim.
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  64. And wouldn't they do it a great deal better if it wasn't for those pesky politicians!
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  65. He actually gives voice to the incoherent fears of oppressed British people, caught between the twin threats of Islamification and globalisation.
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  66. Keir Starmer is about as relevant to international politics as a goldfish in a pond of sharks.
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  67. Russia's goal is to take all of Donbass and defend it. It would, of course, have been much easier if Ukraine had followed the Minsk Accords and paved the way for regional autonomy, but Western greed has prevented that, and as a consequence many, many thousands of people have died to no purpose.
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  68. For which we should be thankful.
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  69. When the law protects criminals, the law must be ignored.
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  70. This is surely a sign that Ukraine has admitted defeat in the main theatre of operations, and is merely seeking a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.
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  71. It's time to acknowledge reality, and allow Russia to regain its historical predominance in Donbass and Crimea. This dreadful war has been an act of Western greed disguised as philanthropy.
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  72. This wasn't a debate. It was a bear garden with Trump as the bear and Harris and the "moderators" as the dogs yapping at his heels. A well-rehearsed stitch-up.
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  73. Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage are - like it or not - the voices of hundreds of thousands of angry British people. They do not fire this anger. They reflect it.
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  74. I love the confusion and distaste of middle-class lefties when faced with the fact of Trump's genius.
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  75. Fear of excessive immigration and Islamification doesn't have to be "orchestrated" . It's there. I find it quite insulting that so many on the Left regard the British white working class as being so idiotic that they can't think or do anything without being manipulated y "ringleaders." But modern-day Socialists are inevitably patronising, so I suppose it's only natural.
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  76. For real laughs I prefer Times Radio, CNN and the BBC.
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  77. They are not fighting for their survival. They are fighting over resources.
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  78. I've just watched a video of two girls inside a flat where the police were breaking the door down. One of them had apparently said something improper on social media. My sole comfort at the sight of this dystopian nightmare in action was that both girls were laughing their heads off.
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  79. Because Clacton isn't his workplace. And his job is to representing the views of the majority of the people of Clacton in Parliament and elsewhere, not to act as some kind of social worker.
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  80. Sentimental support for Ukraine and irrational fear of Russian expansionism are the barriers to peace, as they always have been. This war has been about resources - not about morality. Ukraine is sitting on uncountable trillions of dollarsworth of rare earth minerals. Compared with this fact buzzwords like "sovereignty", "democracy" and "aggression" fall by the wayside. Russia has rights over many of these resources. Russian companies own much of them, especially in the eastern part of Ukraine. They have been invested in by Russians and worked largely by Russians. The insidious attempts by Western agencies to wrest them away are what has caused this dreadful, needless war. Trump and Putin are both eminently pragmatic men, each with their fair share of cunning. A deal is entirely possible which will be satisfactory to both of them, and which will bring peace. To this end, sentimental support for Ukraine must be put to one side, and fear of Russian expansionism given a great deal more rational consideration than has been the case until now.
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  81. Out with the old - in with the new! I love it!
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  82. You must be mad.
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  83. It is an age of nations, not of empires. Which is why the EU is so dangerous and why Trump wants the US to draw in its horns and concentrate on trade, not conquest.
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  84.  @perkinscrane  These constant comparisons between the situation in Ukraine today and that in Europe in the 1930's are becoming increasingly ridiculous. Putin is not Hitler and has no plans for world domination. He saw how those ambitions helped destroy the Soviet Union.
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  85. I'm sure Farage has left the domestic affairs of the constituency in safe hands.
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  86. Hardly an end to his career. You can't put a good man down.
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  87.  @paulwilson7234  It rather depends on how you would prefer to see the future of your country, doesn't it?
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  88. You are becoming increasingly paranoid, Professor. Which is a shame, because you are clearly a decent person. I am not a Russian troll, though often being accused of being one simply because I can fully understand Russia's position in this conflict. Whether others who roughly share my opinions are "Russian trolls" or not, I cannot say. But I tend to doubt it. In this particular instance, to be confused about Ukraine's sudden invasion of Russian territory and being unable to see any immediate strategic advantage in it is entirely understandable. It looks very much like a last-ditch effort to obtain some fragile advantage before - at last - getting to the conference table. The only alternative is that Ukraine has vastly superior resources available than has been thought, and than Russia actually is on its last legs. Otherwise we are just looking at further needless bloodshed.
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  89. For International Law read US Law.
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  90. It amazes and depresses me that people like you can be so damned conceited.
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  91. All is fair in love and war.
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  92. Do you honestly think that foreign agencies have to read about Starmer's movements in the news??!! Some of them probably know where he's going before he does.
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  93. I worry about those who are conned by it.
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  94. Russia is not the aggressor, America and its allies are. The war is based upon a series of moral falsehoods. It has nothing to do with a brave little country fighting off an evil foe, it is about disputes over borders and resources, as most wars usually are. To Russia, this is a war of liberation. Eastern Ukraine was tragically and mistakenly appended on to the new country of Ukraine in 1991, simply because it was part of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine, and then only because it suited Russia in terms of logistics and administration to have it so. The Kiev government has not only attempted to suppress the very large Russian populations in the area, but has responded to American pressure and inducements to sign away the vast mineral wealth of the area - mineral wealth which has been exploited with Russian labour and Russian investment for centuries. Peaceful solutions have been rejected by Ukraine, one suspects entirely at NATO's behest, and thus Putin has been forced to go to war.
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  95. By what measure is information provided by Russia likely to be less accurate than that provided by America?
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  96. As most MPs will admit ( if not openly) constituency surgeries are a complete waste of time.
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  97. Aaaah! It's just like something out of a fairytale!
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  98. Our dear old Prof continues to confuse politics with theatre. Badenoch is a cautious operator who knows how to play both ends against the middle. She reminds me more and more of Thatcher in her early days.
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  99.  @ISuperTed  Another man of the people!
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  100. As a "Russian bot", I heartily agree. People simply cannot seem to understand that Russia has a very good case. Given the amount of propaganda they are fed this is hardly surprising.
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  101. The age of collusion between crooks like Joe Biden and suckers like our dear Professor is now over. As the great Maggie Thatcher said in another context; "Rejoice!"
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  102. Well he couldn't be much worse than the last two or three, could he?
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  103. Whatever the figures are, the tragedy is that it now looks very much as though Russia will achieve through war more or less what Putin initially proposed to achieve through negotiation. All the deaths will have been to no purpose.
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  104. Unlike the messages of love and unity preached by the religion of peace, and put into practice on our streets.
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  105. The more Badenoch puts up two fingers the more I like her.
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  106. Why?
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  107. This seems to serve no strategic purpose. A real puzzle.
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  108. I do hope this spat is actually a sign of affection. Badenoch and Farage would make a great team.
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  109. The Budapest Memorandum was not a binding treaty. It was little more than a signed minute of a series of meetings. It is of no more weight than the minutes of the meeting between Baker and Gorbachev, which has just been released, and in which Baker does indeed say that NATO will move no further eastwards. Conversations which took place more than thirty years ago have little relevance to the situation as it stands today.
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  110. There is no such thing as Islamaphobia. Islam is truly terrifying when taking to its logical extreme - as nations and peoples across the world have been finding out to their cost for 1400 years.
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  111. As they ought to judge many of his actions, once the dust has settled.
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  112. Cancel culture eh?
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  113. God Bless America.
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  114. But Putin is quite correct. The present county of Ukraine is simply the territory of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine - which was a country in name only, but in fact a construct of the Bolsheviks and later of Krushchev, who added Crimea in 1954. It was an administrative unit of the Soviet Union, largely controlled by Russia and those parts appended to it have little or no historical, linguistic or cultural connection with any place called "Ukraine", which is itself an ambiguous term covering a wide spectrum of varying territories in the region. The fact that the parts added by the Soviets are exceptionally rich in mineral wealth is the key to this issue. They have been invested in by Russia, and worked by Russian labour for centuries and I personally can fully understand Russian objections to having them spirited away by a process of treaties and agreements signed by the government in Kiev.
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  115. Despite potential legal constraints the police should release details of the suspect's religion and ethnicity. The fact that they haven't just adds to the suspicion that there is an element of religious fanaticism in this dreadful incident.
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  116. An MP is elected because he/she represents the general majority opinion in a constituency. The pastoral role is secondary, and can be left safely to others. It is utterly ingenuous to suggest Farage is neglecting his duties by using his new status as an MP and the leader of a political party to take his place on the world stage.
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  117. I think people should realise the COP has little or nothing to do with "tackling" climate change, but simply to find ways and means of making money out of it. These conferences are price-fixing exercises to determine the likely progress of the cap and trade market over the forthcoming year. The poorer nations, who supply the market with its raw materials in the form of unused carbon emission certificates, are seeking to increase the value of their product in much the same way as in the 19th century they might have sought to increase the price of ivory or slaves to an earlier generation of colonialist entrepreneurs.
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  118. But fewer will suffer in the long-run - so long as Ukraine surrenders to the inevitable and has some common sense.
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  119. A bit premature. He might occupy some cabinet position in Sir Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's government in twenty years or so though!
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  120. You can to a considerable degree. You might be surprised.
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  121.  @paulro4  The days are quite short at this time of year.
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  122. I realise that many American's have become addicted to war, but don't you think its time to give it a rest?
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  123. In this video Professor, your head is superimposed on Victoria Derbyshire's body. It is an improvement for both of you.
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  124. This sounds like a thoroughly sensible and realistic plan. I hope it is true.
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  125. Do you know what a dhimmi is, professor?
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  126. World peace came one step nearer.
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  127. This is much exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Compared with - say - Britain in the 1940s Russia is doing just fine.
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  128.  @beecee2205  A respect for freedom of speech?
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  129.  @PlanetaryCitizen  The language was being banned. Russians in senior positions were being replaced by Ukrainians. Dates of religious holidays were being altered. Street names were being changed and following the Maidan rebellion, torture squads were sent in.
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  130. Ukraine is a country in name only and the Budapest Memorandum was not a treaty and the nuclear weapons in Ukraine were not Ukrainian and they did not give them up in return for security assurances. All that aside the Professor is correct in every detail.
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  131. @ There's no need for a quid pro quo. As Trump said, Zelensky has no cards. He has nothing to offer.
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  132. Sachs is completely right. When Russia emerged reeling from finally shedding the shackles of Communism, instead of greeting it as an ally, the West saw it as prey. Continued US/NATO aggression for more than thirty years has resulted in several serious wars, the latest being the current tragedy in Ukraine. Instead of imagining ourselves to be on the side of truth and justice we should realise we have been pawns in a cynical takeover bid - and one which has finally failed.
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  133.  @lunaxquinn  It's a glib buzzword designed to give the pretence of intellectual respectability for what is nothing more than an assault on free speech. It is a signpost down a very, very dangerous road.
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  134. Brilliant PR stunt, certainly.
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  135. Reform has around 150,000 members. This three-member thing is a pure affectation.
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  136. To say nothing of starting the war in Ukraine.
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  137. I wonder if it will exercise the same level of incomprehensible censorship as the existing YouTube?
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  138. I blame the parents.
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  139. I sympathise with your confusion. It is never pleasant to see one's fondest imaginings undermined. It is, in fact, is far from nonsensical that this man was recruited by Ukraine for the task. It makes a great deal of sense that he would have attracted the interest of the Ukrainian special ops people when he was over there. He is an ideal candidate for a mission of this sort. There can be no doubt that there is considerable collusion between the US intelligence services and their opposite numbers in Kiev. They have a mutual interest in getting rid of Trump, in much the same way as the FBI and the Mafia had a mutual interest in getting rid of Kennedy. I doubt we will ever find the truth, however. This man has a very short life expectancy. An Epstein-style "suicide" or a Jack Ruby style murder can be expected I fear.
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  140. I'm afraid the mule still has to be bopped on the nose from time to time.
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  141. Starmer has confirmed in a few weeks the suspicions of many thousands of working-class Britons - that the State is their enemy.
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  142. Then you're a fool.
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  143. Which ones?
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  144. What else do you expect? We keep encouraging Ukraine to step up with bigger weapons, and Putin will do the same.
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  145. I think there are probably easier ways of earning a crust, don't you?
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  146. No need to. Eastern Ukraine - which is all Russia wants - already had a large Russian population and will have an even larger one after the war - because the Ukrainians have fled.
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  147. I think he's in love.
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  148. @ There are a number of fascinating videos about the new, rebuilt Mariupol available on YouTube. I recommend them.
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  149. It is nonsensical to pretend that new administrations are bound by arrangements made by previous ones. Treaties are signed with great flourishes, but as circumstances change they become meaningless - if not downright dangerous. The Ukraine war is a case in point. When Ukraine was given the same boundary as the former SSR of Ukraine no-one would have imagined that NATO would spread eastward like some advancing plague, or that the EU would get so full of itself that it felt able to attempt to steal Russian resources in Donbass. The Budapest Memorandum, as meaningless as it is, can equally be seen as a contributing factor. Without it there might not even be a war - in the same way that without the Treaty of Versailles there might well never have been World War II, or indeed that without the treaties signed in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and the Franco-Prussian War there would never have been World War I in the first place.
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  150. Depends who ends up writing the history.
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  151. It is a sign of extreme intellectual poverty to continually compare the present situation with that in the late 1930s. The differences far outweigh any spurious similarities.
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  152. @ History never repeats itself. To imagine that it does is dangerous because it leads to lazy thinking. The idea that the situation we face in Ukraine is "the same" as the situation in Europe in the late 1930s immediately leads to the drawing of a series of conclusions which are fatally incorrect. One you realise the truth of this you will, indeed, have learned from the past.
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  153. Badenoch is an extremely clever politician, as well as a true right-thinking conservative. She has no wish to be a performing seal in the ridiculous clown-show that is PMQs - and nor does she want to get involved in a drawn-out technical debate about this so-called "black hole." It's just a trap and she is sensibly avoiding it.
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  154. YouTube has stopped me replying to further comments on my original thread is this section. Just so you know.
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  155. The Muslims are now out on the streets too, and heavily armed. The rights and wrongs of it hardly matter any more. This will turn very, very nasty.
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  156. Face relentless persecution, you mean?
    3
  157. Why do we keep annoying Russia? What's in it for us ?
    3
  158. He is a registered Democrat and mercenary soldier, fanatical for the Ukraine cause.
    3
  159. I don't think Trump will be ALLOWED to win. Simple as.
    3
  160. There has been a substantial increase in the number of younger people dying of heart attacks since 2020. Assassination by Putin can be discounted, but there is thought to be an equally sinister reason for this which, unfortunately, cannot be mentioned in brainwashed Britain. It really needles me.
    3
  161. Do you expect him to set up an office in the Citizens Advice Bureau?
    3
  162. Though incorrect. The algorithms don't recognise nuance, they reward compliance.
    3
  163. Unfair? Who told you life was going to be fair?
    3
  164.  @dangermouse2235  Each to his own.
    3
  165. The two aren't necessarily exclusive.
    3
  166. There is no such thing as Islamophobia.
    3
  167. Although perhaps economically disadvantageous in the short term, leaving the EU was a correct decision politically. These artificial constructs are doomed not only to failure, but to eventually cause enormous hardship as their effects spread. Just as one example: without the EU there would not now be a war in Ukraine.
    3
  168. Getting rid of Starmer ASAP would solve these difficulties.
    3
  169. The only long-term plan for peace is for the Arab people to utterly reject the control of Islamic extremists such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
    3
  170. As ever, Labour has a blinkered, forensic view of such problems. It is not the fact that laws are being broken which is important. It is the fact that a centuries-old way of life is being undermined.
    3
  171. What's the difference between a Nazi salute and a salute used by the Nazis? There is one, you know.
    3
  172.  @RichardFraser-y9t  He's not my hero - just a working-class hero.
    3
  173. With all due respect, this is a naive interpretation. Although many members of the Russian "intelligentsia" with Western contacts and attitudes may feel this way, Putin remains highly regarded among the mass of ordinary Russians. If the Kursk incursion were to lead to Putin's downfall (which is extremely unlikely) the danger is that he will be replaced not by people inclined to surrender to NATO's advances, but to Kremlin "hawks" who will not hesitate to unleash the full force of Russian armaments upon Ukraine.
    3
  174. Apparently such a thing is near impossible with the weapon he was using at that distance.
    3
  175. How can you hand something over that isn't yours?
    3
  176. If they decide to allow Zelensky to hit inside Russia with NATO missiles it will undoubtedly lead to World War III.
    3
  177. No. Because they recognise the threat of rampant Islamism to the peace and well-being of our nation. It has little to do with race.
    3
  178. He's an MP, not a parish priest.
    3
  179. Biden was in the pocket of warmongers. Trump isn't. That's all you really need to know.
    3
  180. Do try to keep up Professor. There is no minerals deal. Zelensky is an obstacle in the path to peace and always had been. Chucking him out of the White House is symbolic of the new approach to world peace - which will mean all you Ukraine junkies and Putin haters are going to have to suffer a few severe withdrawal symptoms as realists tidy up the mess you have made.
    3
  181. Obviously Putin is behind this. Trump must have known.
    3
  182.  @daydays12  These are just details of the ceasefire. The main thrust of the Accords was to allow Ukraine to pave the way to granting regional autonomy to the two breakaway Donbass republics. This Ukraine failed to do, and instead use the time to take billions of dollars from the US and other NATO countries to build up its army. These treaties are typical of treaties which are designed to fail. They contain details which will invariably be broken, thus allowing the main participant to ignore its responsibilities. The technique was developed by the Americans when making treaties between Native American tribes as a pretext for exterminating them. Ukraine exists - but mainly on paper. The territory it occupies is the territory of the former SSR of Ukraine, which was created by Moscow. The eastern and western parts have deeply divided loyalties and interests.
    3
  183. It was the Ukrainians. They went to the same school.
    3
  184.  @andrewfrancis3591  Russia is winning, despite losses. This is an unavoidable fact. As to the ownership of of the resources of Eastern Ukraine, these have been invested in , owned and worked almost exclusively by Russians for decades, if not centuries. It is totally unfair that they should be handed over to US or European companies simply because the area was mistakenly included in the new country of Ukraine when it was created just over 30 years ago.
    3
  185. It is not the likes of Farage and Robinson who are responsible. It is a succession of governments aided by left-wing civil servants who have placed the interests of immigrants above the interests of the native British population.
    3
  186.  @garylovell6017  Very much so. Tommy has confronted the system head-on and has suffered greatly as a result. Although Tim's approach has been much more restrained and considered he is still, like Tommy, a classic British liberal with ideas of personal freedom and liberty of thought uppermost in his psyche.
    2
  187.  @drcommonsense1  This is certainly true of most Muslims, I am sure. But you have to admit that there is a substantial extremist wing of Islam which follows the more extreme precepts of the Koran. It is here where the danger lies and Muslims must be aware of this, and be prepared to do something about it. I fear that most are not prepared to do so, however.
    2
  188. I can't help feeling that this student-like support for a romantic cause will prove disastrous for this country. It is based on the long-standing myth that Putin's Russia is somehow expansionist, and wishes to recreate the Soviet Empire. There is no evidence for this. In fact, common sense ought to tell us that over-extension being a prime cause of the SU's downfall, the Russian Federation would have no wish to repeat the same mistake. The war in Ukraine is a border dispute over the ownership of valuable resources and the tragic involvement of the West in this conflict is due to the fact that if these resources were wrested from Russian control, they would fall into Western ownership instead.
    2
  189. Verify is an Orwellian con-trick.
    2
  190. Badenoch is the new Maggie Thatcher. Be afraid, lefties. Be very, very afraid.
    2
  191. There is a fairly comprehensive UN report.
    2
  192. How? Why? When?
    2
  193. Legitimate views and fears are being supressed by a paranoid, leftist elite. We are well on the road to a totalitarian state.
    2
  194. With Ukraine kicked out of Kursk Russia is in a commanding position at the conference table.
    2
  195. What money is needed? A message is sent out on social media and the crowds gather.
    2
  196. It's simply not an argument Badenoch should get involved in. She is not there to defend the inadequacies of her predecessors, but to confront Labour with its own inadequacies. Which doesn't look as though it's going to be too difficult.
    2
  197. Look on the bright side. The world is now safer for pet squirrels.
    2
  198. This absurd alliance with Ukraine is potentially suicidal.
    2
  199. This is a somewhat naive and idealistic view of politics. Corruption comes with the territory and cannot be avoided. All we can hope to do is to contain it within reasonable limits, and the British Parliamentary system does this quite as well as any other. You can't prevent politicians from pursuing personal advantage. All you can do is hope to catch them at it.
    2
  200. This is a great plan. The Arabs were given Gaza and billions of dollars in start-up money, as well as established businesses. They blew it on weapons, fancy uniforms and luxury lifestyles for their beloved leaders. Now it's time for civilised people to move back in.
    2
  201.  @mikethespike7579  Russia is merely protecting existing interests. That is not expansionism. Ukraine was offered the opportunity to grant regional autonomy to the disputed regions, but refused because Western agencies were still insisting on taking over the mineral resources there. It's NATO and EU expansionism which has caused this war, not Russia's reaction to it.
    2
  202. The Nigel Farage we see on our screens today is of course not the Nigel Farage who once lead UKIP. That man died ten years ago and has now been replaced by a KGB agent with facial surgery. Tommy Robinson does not exist at all. He is a hologram. I know this is true because a man down the pub told me so.
    2
  203. Another brilliant appointment by Trump. The FDA has for far too long been more or less a commercial arm of the pharmaceutical and food processing industries. This time Trump really will be clearing the swamp, and RFK Jr is just the man to get to work on that particular fetid corner.
    2
  204. The Soviet Union collapsed more than thirty years ago. Why are we living in the past?
    2
  205. Your obsession with the "far right" is just as disruptive as anything RT might say. It merely confirms the entirely justifiable working class resentment of the fact that they are considered to be ignorant by the ruling classes, and incapable of forming their own opinions without some kind of tuition.
    2
  206. Nazi behaviour? Both sides have been guilty of obscene acts - and to pretend otherwise is foolish. As to the reasons for the war they are the same reasons which start most wars - a battle over resources; in this case the vast mineral wealth of Eastern Ukraine, added to considerably by the recent discovery of a half-million tonne deposit of lithium near Mariupol. I am astonished that Professor Wilson seems to have lost all objectivity in his assessment of this conflict. One expects this sort of thing from brainwashed adolescents with their talk of "orcs" and "Putler" but not from an academic with access to the facts.
    2
  207. MI5 tried to recruit Tommy Robinson back in the early days. He turned them down and has never been forgiven for it. His charisma and leadership qualities present a real threat to the deep state and they will do anything to silence him.
    2
  208.  @Bob-us9di  What a great service she did then! One of my ghastliest childhood memories is being forced to drink a third of a pint of lukewarm milk at around 10am.
    2
  209.  @Bob-us9di  She did us a favour. One of my worst childhood memories is being forced to drink a third of a pint of lukewarm milk in the middle of the morning!
    2
  210. Of course it's fake. Everything about the election is fake. The decision has already been taken: Kamala Harris will be the new puppet of the US Deep State and all this fuss is just show and window-dressing.
    2
  211. @SlurpentisCEO Something over 200 million.
    2
  212.  @niftynige  I was waiting for answers like these! I was hoping someone would say they eat them, to make a change from potatoes!
    2
  213. As opposed to insidiously imperialist regimes, such as America's?
    2
  214. Every word Jenrick said is true. If the grooming gang scandal is the glue which binds the Tories and Reform together in a joint effort to forever rid this country of the new and stomach-churning version of woke globalist socialism typified by the Labour Party - then so be it.
    2
  215. Truss failed simply because her economic ideas (as sound as they are) were rolled out in too much of a hurry and with insufficient thought as to their likely reception by the financial establishment. Badenoch strikes me as being far more cunning. I have great hopes for her. The idea of a black Margaret Thatcher is just too wonderful to ignore. The fact that she chooses to surround herself with subordinates rather than set up yet another talking shop is yet another indication of her political maturity.
    2
  216. The West missed an opportunity for peace after the collapse of the USSR when instead of welcoming the new Russia it continued to cast it as an enemy. That opportunity is being presented to us again. Instead of feeding the voracious arms industry we should seek ways of forming economic and political ties with Russia.
    2
  217. About time!
    2
  218. The Prof just misses the point. This is not a trade war - it is an ideological war in which tariffs are being used to force other countries into toeing the Trump line. And it's working very well.
    2
  219. Are you religious by any chance? There is no link here!
    2
  220. The planned re-organisation will obviously be designed to de-democratise local authorities and hand even more power to unelected officials. This has been a Labour strategy since the days of Blair and many career bureaucrats at local level are members of various clubs and organisations dedicated to this purpose. To them, elected councillors are just a nuisance and they feel can do the job much better without them.
    2
  221. The jailing of people for saying out loud what thousands of people believe in their hearts is an insult to freedom and justice. Make no mistake, totalitarianism and a fascist police state are just around the corner and - quite hilariously, but not without precedent - the great and glorious cause of Socialism is what will create it.
    2
  222. So did Brezhnev, Yeltsin and Putin.
    2
  223.  @AS-bn9qv  This paranoia about dissenting voices (such as mine) being a "bots" or "trolls" rather makes my point. There are some people (such as yourself) who simply cannot seem to cope with the idea that their views may be mistaken. It disturbs that blissful, warm fluffy feeling of contentment upon which your peace and happiness seems to depend. I am a free speech extremist. Anything and everything is allowed except material which is likely to incite violent crime, or indicates that violent crime has been committed. I include child pornography in this category.
    2
  224. Natural justice!
    2
  225. Whatever his successes or failures, Vance represents the upwardly mobile working class committed to capitalism and resentful of state control - a constituency much neglected both in the USA and even more so here in Britain.
    2
  226. Sick Bucket? Actually the video is a fake, if that's any comfort to you.
    2
  227. It's been a hard struggle, but there's no doubt that Russia has won the war. Trump now has the chance to secure a lasting peace by distributing America's favours between Putin and whoever ends up in charge of Ukraine. If Obama and Biden had done this, there would, indeed, have been no war in the first place.
    2
  228. Some conspiracy theories do turn out to be actual conspiracies, though. Quite a number in fact. Others are deliberately injected into public discourse in order to lessen the credibility of those which are true.
    2
  229. There's nothing new in nations scrabbling for resources. At least Trump is upfront about it - unlike his predecessors who hid greed behind false philanthropy, as typified by USAID.
    2
  230. Trump's actions, like Putin's, are perfectly normal in the context of history as a whole, as I am sure the Prof must be aware. America is an imperialist power and Trump is simply being honest about this instead of pretending, like his predecessors, that extending its influence is somehow an act of altruism. As for Putin, his view that Crimea and much of Eastern Ukraine are Russian, and have been for very many years, is perfectly justifiable.
    2
  231. A voice of sanity
    2
  232.  @aerial558  Not in this instance. I copypasted an originally accepted comment in the thread and reposted it again. I typed in utterly innocuous comments and test comments. All were rejected. I am far from being an expert in these matters, but I am told it might be because the silly old YouTube bot suspects me of "spamming." (Whatever that is!)
    2
  233.  @aerial558  I think it must be. I do it myself sometimes. I sometimes get my bot to rewrite my stuff in bot language to get it past the YouTube bot and then copy and paste it. Funny old world, ain't it?
    2
  234. Flu deaths and hospitalisations dropped to near zero during the covid years. Odd that.
    2
  235. This retweet is just a slightly more offensive version of the generally disgusting left-wing reaction to Badenoch's appointment. From Starmer downwards the congratulations have concentrated on her colour and gender, rather than her abilities. True racism now lies at the heart of socialism. Conservatives and other right-wingers are now almost entirely colour-blind.
    2
  236.  @anthonyferris8912  Well if you are, perhaps you could explain it to me?
    2
  237.  @jeffholt9437  Absolutely. The case was a travesty. All the establishment is doing here is saying "the referee's decision is final" - even when it is clearly wrong.
    2
  238. The would-be assassin is a fanatical supporter of Ukraine, and has fought there and been instrumental in trying to recruit mercenaries on Zelensky's behalf. Just so you know.
    2
  239. This will of course release quite large numbers of battle-hardened troops to help ensure victory in Ukraine before Trump takes office and hopefully puts an end to this madness.
    2
  240. That well-know typing error on the south coast.
    2
  241. Only the Russian bits.
    2
  242. Ukraine returning to pre-Soviet borders and their international acceptance might well persuade Putin to accept this rump state joining NATO. It would be a very good deal all round.
    2
  243. Sachs is right and the Prof is wrong. The war in Ukraine is a direct result of US imperialism, backed by interference by the EU and financed by BlackRock and other profit-orientated interested parties. It has no moral dimension whatsoever.
    2
  244. Are you acquainted with every Haitian in America then?
    2
  245. Robinson and the marchers bring into sharp focus the utter failure of socialism to protect the interests of the native working class of Britain.
    2
  246. Trump's enemies spent a decade and many, many millions of dollars in trying to find criminal acts with which to defame him. All they ended up with was some potentially dubious accountancy and a load of nonsense from some sad old dear who claimed he groped her some time in the distant past.
    2
  247. I personally think he is very truthful and honest.
    2
  248.  @howareyou857  Yes, but even if so, what are his religion and his ethnicity? (Asking for a friend)
    2
  249. The trust cannot be rebuilt. Things have gone too far. There are large numbers of ordinary, working class people in this country who feel they are being dragged into a condition of life for which they have no respect or liking. Islamism, wokery and the fanatical promulgation of sexual deviancy, along with the more insidious effects of globalism, have undermined all hope of reconciliation.
    2
  250. But Tommy Robinson is not his name. It existed before Steve took it on. It is just a football fans' version of Robin Hood, say.
    2
  251. A hooligan with very sound political sense.
    2
  252.  johnslavin2270  Not at all. But they were probably better than they are likely to be when we become a minor adjunct of the Caliphate.
    2
  253.  johnslavin2270  Ah, those were the days!
    2
  254. I really think our dear Professor should stick to this kind of thing and steer clear of serious politics.
    2
  255. Quite right. This is not a hill to die on.
    2
  256. Zelensky was once a pro-American stooge - so what's the odds? He's out of a job now , of course. And supporting Ukraine's historical partner and neighbour doesn't make you a stooge.
    2
  257. Some sort of alliance between Reform and true Tories is the only real answer to Britain's horrifying descent into globalist serfdom.
    2
  258. Only a question of time. I have a wonderful vision of a new two-party system with Farage heading one group and Tommy Robinson the other.
    2
  259. Democracy isn't about numbers. It's about ideas.
    2
  260. Islam is an excellent religion for controlling people, utilising the fear of hell and eternal punishment to do so. Our new breed of globalist politicians will welcome it I am sure, Christianity now having failed in this role.
    2
  261. Well if the lives are pointless it doesn't much matter, does it?
    2
  262. If there ever was one.
    2
  263. The Prof and Kemi B would make a great music-hall double act.
    2
  264. I can quite see why the Professor never made a go of politics. The Tories would be very foolish to get involved in a tedious argument over the technicalities of government finance.
    2
  265. They're not that desperate.
    2
  266. It'll be more than trillion, I bet.
    2
  267. Actions have consequences. The West's utterly misguided interference in this border war has already created horrible damage out of all proportion to the issues involved.
    2
  268.  @daydays12  The main thrust of the Minsk Accords was for Ukraine to seek ways of granting regional autonomy to the two breakaway Donbass republics. The rest was just details of the ceasefire. Ukraine did nothing other than use the ceasefire to take billions of dollars from the US and other NATO countries to build up its army. The Accords, like most treaties which American lawyers have had a hand in drawing up, are full of pitfalls which mean that they are invariably broken in some minor way, thus enabling their main thrust to be ignored. It was a technique developed during the Indian Wars in the US and was used to help commit genocide. Russia's technique of handing over control to Wagner - a private army, not under official state control, might be considered somewhat dubious but it pales into insignificance beside Ukraine's cynical disregard for its obligations. You appear to be as ignorant of the military tactics employed as you are of the political background. Russia has never had any intention of taking Kiev, or indeed any of Western Ukraine. The SMO was an exercise designed purely to draw the Ukrainian army out into the open and attempt to destroy it on its own territory. Saying that Ukraine "doesn't exist" might be somewhat histrionic, but the fact remains that the new country of Ukraine is an artificial construct, based upon the boundaries of the former SSR of Ukraine, which was itself created by Moscow.
    2
  269.  @kentl7228  If you want to take a city you don't line up old equipment manned by disposable raw troops and trundle down the main highway, nose to tail. Putin has made it quite clear that taking al of Ukraine is impractical and undesirable.
    2
  270.  @kentl7228  Th SMO wasn't designed to take Kiev or any part of Western Ukraine. That's why it was called an SMO. Russia cynically threw tons of ancient armour and thousands of raw troops in an exercise designed purely to soak up as much of Ukraine's resources as possible. They were lined up in a row, like so many ducks in a fairground, and sent along the main highway. That's not how you conquer a city. What the Russians did in Mariupol is how you conquer a city.
    2
  271. Do you have the faintest idea what the duties of an MP actually are?
    2
  272. Wonderful when globalist warmongers dole out billions on an unwinnable war while British pensioners freeze and starve.
    2
  273. Kemi has a hard road ahead of her. At this point the best ability her team members should possess is the ability to do as they're told.
    2
  274. A prosecution could have been bought, but if it had been successful it would have been for purely political reasons. Trump was entirely justified in casting doubts on the result of of the 2020 election and the 2024 election could well have gone the same way were it not for the fact that the 20 million extra votes the establishment apparently has tucked away in a cupboard somewhere would not have been sufficient to overthrow the result. Too Big to Rig!
    2
  275. The idea that a bunch of Brit commies are helping Kamala is going to mean more votes for Trump. Thanks, Labour!
    2
  276. These people are so brainwashed. Glad you can see through the hype.
    2
  277. No. That's everyone who keeps fuelling the war.
    2
  278. The only humanitarian and truly socialist/globalist answer is to arrange for a regular ferry service, using properly seaworthy craft.
    2
  279. The Kursk adventure is merely an attempt to gain a couple of of bargaining chips in the hopefully imminent peace talks. Ukraine has lost this war.
    2
  280. Why am I banned?
    2
  281.  @lolly9080  They are both, under their skins, classic British liberals. They just happen to come from different backgrounds.
    1
  282. I understand from this that while not supporting censorship, Professor Wilson believes that outlets he suspects of purveying inaccurate information should be made difficult to access, or at least not made readily available. This is a neat get-out, enabling him to continue to feel all warm and fluffy inside while at the same time controlling the free flow of information and opinion. Journalism is a dirty trade. His experiences with RT are by no means unique. There is a current scandal in Australia, for example, where the state broadcaster ABC is accused of making Australian soldiers in Afghanistan appear to be war criminals by dubbing the sound of gunfire across footage in which the men were merely sweeping across territory with silent weapons. Ukraine is far from innocent in this regard. From the Ghost of Kiev onwards many of the stories purveyed on the media portraying the Ukrainians as heroes and the Russians as heartless villains bear the unmistakable stamp of manipulation. Zelensky owns a film company, don't forget.
    1
  283. We should never have got involved in the first place. This is a war between gangsters over loot, and the involvement of this country points strongly to the idea that our leaders are in bed with one of the gangs - very probably for immense personal gain..
    1
  284. I agree entirely, and I think it's probably a good thing.
    1
  285. This is nonsense. Of course Russians are allowed to return to Russia, but also given the opportunity to resettle in Donbass which had, anyway, a very extensive Russian population before the war.
    1
  286. Intelligent Labour party members (and I suppose there must be one or two) must already realise that if they allow Starmer to bumble along in his jackboots for much longer their party will be utterly destroyed at the next election. The only hope of survival is finding a replacement as quickly as possible. Sadly though, there appear to be no obvious contenders as yet.
    1
  287. Obviously the Prof doesn't play much poker.
    1
  288.  @dianesleeman5940  There's no need for a quid pro quo. Zelensky has nothing left to give. No cards, as Trump said. The war is over. Ukraine has lost. The Ukraine parliament is already considering impeaching Zelensky. All that has to happen now is for Trump and Putin to settle the peace between them.
    1
  289. I am offended by the use of the word "stochastic" . It incites me to violence.
    1
  290. Kursk is a farce.
    1
  291. There would not even be a need for demilitarised zone if Ukraine and the West acknowledged Russia's historical right to Donbass and Crimea, both of which have been developed by Russia for generations and have large Russian populations. They are Ukrainian in name only, and then only because they were included in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine - at the behest of Russia.
    1
  292.  @thomasrussell2812  We sure do.
    1
  293.  @Midland_Wolf_71  That's OK. I'm not socialist.
    1
  294. He's saving the world.
    1
  295. But clever.
    1
  296. Absolutely!
    1
  297. It is already recovering. Donbass is sitting on trillions of dollarsworth of mineral resources and areas now occupied by Russia are being rapidly rebuilt.
    1
  298.  @Crouchy232323  First they came for......
    1
  299.  @Anglotourist  Ooh, ain't you posh? But if you are implying that once the left-wing totalitarians get full control the pogroms will start, them I'm afraid I must agree with you.
    1
  300. One of the most extraordinary things about this incident is the way in which it has divided opinion so sharply. It's almost as though the human race has split down the middle. I saw it as bumptious, privileged, hero-worshipped, war-mongering con-artist Zelensky getting a long-deserved come-uppance. Others, I know, feel broadly the same. Yet on this channel and many others the comments sections are full of people practically in tears over the way their hero has been treated. I suppose in the end it comes down how susceptible one is to continuous conditioning by politicians and the media, as opposed to be able to analyse situations for oneself from time to time.
    1
  301. Putin has no wish to "advance across Europe". All he wants is to get back the bits of Russia stolen from it in the 1994 Budapest Accords.
    1
  302. A situation soon to change.
    1
  303.  @pgr3290  Check Weeb Union and DPA. They balance claims from both sides.
    1
  304. This obsession with actual numbers has very little to do with a democratic system of governance. Petitions and elections should be - and are - simply ways of testing the water of public opinion. Treating the process as some sort of point-scoring game can only ever result in contention. The election simply showed that after 14 years very many people were sick to death of the Tories. The petition simply shows that very people are sick to death of Labour after 140 days.
    1
  305. Musk is a loose cannon and probably only playing games for money. But a loose cannon with billions to chuck around is a force to be reckoned with. I would personally love to see a future in which both the Conservatives and Labour fall by the wayside and the future choice will between two other parties - one led by Nigel Farage and the other by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon!
    1
  306.  @barrybrodin7085  Name one.
    1
  307.  @barrybrodin7085  Name one lie.
    1
  308. Putin's great achievement has been to prevent his country from becoming yet another US vassal - unlike Britain and many other countries in the world.
    1
  309. The peace, honesty and virtue that has brought war in Ukraine and streets littered with junkies?
    1
  310. Keeeeeve!
    1
  311. Time to take sides, I'm afraid. Tommy Robinson is the true voice of the scandalously neglected British working class. The other lot are a bunch of middle-class lefty muddleheads, shepherded into an ersatz opposition by forces of which they are not even aware.
    1
  312.  @Bob-us9di  We didn't have one! Fridges were comparatively rare in the 1950s.
    1
  313.  @wonderland1985  No. Looking the other way while your husbands, brothers and cousins abuse young girls is not a crime.
    1
  314. Ever watched Times Radio?
    1
  315. The Democrats and the Deep State have spent many years and many dollars scraping together this very small list of minor peccadillos against Trump, while at the same time themselves engendering wars which have resulted in the deaths of many thousands. I do hope that once he installed the Donald will find ways of exerting a subtle revenge. Buying Greenland and forcing these people to go there and administer it might be an enjoyable option.
    1
  316. This has nothing to do with personal spite. This will only bring peace closer. The sooner Ukraine quits the better. The longer it goes on with this madness, the more territory Putin will demand in th final settlement.
    1
  317. The fact is that Russia has a very reasonable case, and its actions have been forced upon it by Western greed and intransigence. We are being led into the dreadful possibility of a European war by corrupt politicians and gung-ho generals. We are being lied to every day. Russia has no intention or even desire to recreate its empire. All it wants is to retain control of the mineral resources of Eastern Ukraine. All the West's leaders want is to take it away from them. This mess has nothing whatsoever to do with spreading freedom and democracy. The situation in Ukraine today has no resemblance to the situation in Germany in the 1930's and it would be difficult to think of a leader less like Hitler than Putin. Spurious similarities have been seized upon for propaganda purposes, and many of you have fallen for this. I urge everyone to do all they can to investigate thoroughly the background to this conflict before allowing yourselves to be led down the path to unimaginable horror and destruction.
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  318.  @oliCRF  I'm neither Russian nor a bot. I am British and very much concerned about the future of my children and grandchildren. Yes, the case is very reasonable. At the centre of the conflict are the vast mineral resources of Eastern Ukraine, estimated as being worth at least $13 trillion and possibly even more. These resources have been developed almost exclusively by Russian investment and Russian labour. Even after Ukrainian independence they have continued to be largely operated by Russian companies with their products and profits largely passing through Russian hands. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western entities, both public and private, have sought access to these resources through various means. Matters came to a head with the likelihood of Ukraine joining the EU, which would effectively have prevented Russia continuing to enjoy the benefits of its mining operations in Eastern Ukraine. They would have passed onto Western control, probably through being nationalised and their immense assets being handled by investment managers, such as Blackrock. A compromise was agreed upon in 2015 whereby Ukraine agreed to find a way to grant regional autonomy to the two oblasts in Donbass thus excluding their resources from the restrictions of EU membership. Ukraine did not proceed with this plan, and instead accepted several billion dollars from the US and other NATO countries with which to train and re-equip its army. Russia, believing this army to have been created to attempt to-retake those parts of Donbass held by separatists, invaded Ukraine with the purpose of destroying this army and extending the areas of Eastern Ukraine under its control. The above is far from being a soundbite, I realise, but soundbites don't make for reasoned assessment of complex situations.
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  319. Paranoid nonsense.
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  320. God (if there is one) is renowned for making mysterious choices, and I for one am convinced that Donald Trump is destiny's very unlikely choice to save the Western world from total collapse - or at least to slow the process down to semi-manageable levels.
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  321.  @thomasmoore1499  The concept of destiny is in no way dependent upon the existence of a divine being. Nor does the concept of choice insist that it must be a single entity which does the choosing. We evolve according to blind chance, it seems, and there is no reason why a slightly bizarre New York property developer should not fill the ecological slot occupied by Presidents of the United States. All that fancy talk aside though, the fact that Trump is outside the cabal of crooks and warmongers who have reigned in this once-great country for the past several decades makes him eminently suited to the role in my view - and hopefully in the view if Mother Nature as well as of the US electorate. Whether the aforesaid cabal will allow this to happen though is a different matter.
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  322. So did Brezhnev Yeltsin and Putin, but America needs enemies to keep its economy going.
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  323. A passer-by saw the shooter and called it in. The Feds had no choice but to respond. I am reminded that JFK was assassinated after he had announced plans to withdraw troops from Vietnam.
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  324. Keeping Russia as house bogeyman has fuelled US foreign policy for far too long. We must welcome an accord between Trump and Putin which finally recognises the enormous differences between the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.
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  325. Not when it's going to be Russians who are writing the the history.
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  326.  @julianmansell2379  History never repeats itself. It is very dangerous - and intellectually weak-minded - to believe that it does. It just saves you the trouble of thinking things through and almost inevitably leads you into serious error.
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  327. @ History never repeats itself. To imagine that it does is dangerous because it leads to lazy thinking. The idea that the situation we face in Ukraine is "the same" as the situation in Europe in the late 1930s immediately leads to the drawing of a series of conclusions which are fatally incorrect. One you realise the truth of this you will, indeed, have learned from the past.
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  328. NATO has outlived its usefulness. It is now little more than a glorified protection racket. As for Britain, our leaders have made the huge mistake of believing that the war in Ukraine was some kind of moral crusade instead of the egregious US takeover bid it actually was. We are now high and dry. Only a seismic shift in attitude and policy can save us from economic ruin and possible annihilation.
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  329. Will there be a vote?
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  330.  @elegantpaws4650  So two sets of angry young fools fighting and possibly killing each other is good, is it?
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  331. Which will hopefully be a good one, acknowledging the facts and bringing peace.
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  332. Ah, the typical leftist buffoon's view of history.
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  333. So BLM supporters, for instance, who set fire to buildings would be far right according to Starmer, would they? And Muslims who assault policemen or stick knives in people?
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  334. I rather think grooming gangs and opportunist immigrants being put up in hotels on our money are more responsible for this than anything these people may say.
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  335. And were all wiped out or fled during the Mongol invasions. Kursk has been predominantly Russian for at least 500 years.
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  336.  @lauchlanguddy1004  It has not been part of Ukraine for centuries.
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  337. He has done pretty well, when you look at it. And without becoming another US lackey, like Britain.
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  338. Climate change has become a vehicle of repression. The immigrants aren't coming here because it is suddenly hot where they live.
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  339. "Climate change" is just another weapon in the globalist armoury.
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  340. When he uses it I suppose.
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  341. Of course today's Free Palestine supporters would have it that this whole area has been inhabited by peace-loving Arabs since time immemorial, and is now being attacked by genocidal Jews.
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  342. Surely this land has been occupied since time immemorial by peace-loving Arabs who are now being persecuted by genocidal Jews from Europe?
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  343. The root causes of the war are European and American greed to take control of valuable resources in East Ukraine, which are owned by and operated by Russians. It is not greedy to protect what you already have.
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  344.  @NO-CASH478  Can't beat it.
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  345. Dr Pavlov says: "Have a biscuit!"
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  346. People have quite suddenly realised that in teaching the Tories a lesson they have let a wolf into the fold. This government is not a Labour government, it is a globalist government which has come to power through false pretences. It MUST be got rid of, and as soon as possible. One can only hope that genuine Labour party supporters, including even newly-elected MPs, will come to realise what they have done and have the courage to make redress.
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  347.  @Tas17.4  It's not the ordinary working class people who support Farage and TR who are gullible. It's the half-educated university students who've swallowed the crap about multiculturalism and globalism, People who wear facemasks in their cars and support Palestine and Ukraine instead of supporting the country they live in.
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  348.  @stevebarlow3154  I'm rather hoping that in the time it takes to get rid of the present lot the Right will have formed itself into a viable alternative under some label or the other.
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  349. Perhaps they don't take much notice of the Western media?
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  350. Putin seems to me to be totally on top of the situation. He is within a hairsbreadth of achieving his military objectives and Ukraine is in no position to argue much longer. Negotiation has always been possible - but not so long as Zelensky persists in his folly and the West continues to finance it. Peace is within sight. The tragedy is that the terms will, in the end, probably not be much different to those put forward in the Minsk accords ten years ago - and hundreds of thousands will have died to no purpose other than to further a callous and cynical attempt by greedy American and European billionaires to lay their hands on something which is not theirs.
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  351. We were warned. Thank Biden. Thank Starmer. We really can't wait for Trump to sort this out. Zelensky must be made to surrender now and accept the loss of Donbass and Crimea - which are, of course, parts of Russia appended to Ukraine by Russia in Soviet times.
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  352. I think Putin will be more than content with Donbass and Crimea - both of which are pretty much Russian anyway.
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  353. He only got the job to protect US interests and sacrifice his nation in doing so. Now the US doesn't want him any more he's pretty much redundant.
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  354. What a total waste of space and money the ICC is. It just provides highly paid and utterly pointless jobs for lawyers.
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  355. Trump is a Russian asset. And an asset to everyone else who wants peace.
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  356. Among Trump's first steps is to dismantle America's health and education governing bodies. In their separate ways the Department of Education and the FDA represent much of what is wrong with current systems of government in the West. The D of E is concerned not with improving minds, but with indoctrinating them with sinister and destructive ideas. The FDA, under the pretence of maintaining standards in health and food supplies, in fact colludes with the manufacturers of these products to put profit ahead of benefit, often with disastrous results. There are many other examples of this downhill trend. It's all gone wrong somewhere. Ideas put into practice for the best of reasons have become tainted and corrupt and it needs a Herculean effort to clean out the dirt and destroy the monsters. Donald Trump might be an unlikely Hercules, but he's all America has. So far in Britain there are few contenders for the role, if any.
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  357. What nonsense! He performed about every physical jerk known to man in his delight. Wouldn't you rather concentrate on how the wind blew away Trump's quiff for a second, or how Melania's hat-brim prevented him kissing her? These seem to be the other main talking points for TDS sufferers this morning.
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  358. At least you have utter intelligibility on your side.
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  359.  @nickmiller76  Ideas before numbers though!
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  360. Russia has no wish to destroy Ukraine. It merely wants to recover those parts of the new country of Ukraine which it considers to be Russian. The rest of the country can go its own way.
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  361. Of course the Deep State exists! It is just a term to describe a network of established, unelected bureaucrats who rule countries at least as much as elected politicians, - if not more so!
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  362. But the US getting hold of Ukraine's mineral wealth is what this war has ALWAYS been about. That is why America has consistently supported and paid for the Ukraine military, to say nothing of fomenting the rebellion which started it all back in 2014. The difference with Trump is that he is a peace-loving man and can see ways of getting hold of at least some of it without actually having to have people killed. There are, fortunately, sufficient resources in the western part of the country to compensate America for at least some of the billions it has foolishly and egregiously thrown into this war. Zelensky's removal via election will open the way to peace with Russia and the possibility of US trade with that country - which has, incidentally, far more of a moral right to the ownership of the mineral resources of Eastern Ukraine than the Ukrainians do.
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  363. But US agencies have been plotting for decades to undermine Russia. What's so special about Ukraine?
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  364. They do it quite regularly. Trump is a choirboy compared to many of his predecessors.
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  365. Truth in every word.
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  366. Zelensky's job was to wrest control of mineral-rich Donbass away from the Russians and hand it over to Western interests. He has failed, and he knows it. He must be wondering if his fate will be a well-heeled retirement - or something rather worse.
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  367. What about BLM?
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  368. I see him more as the bent cop who really runs things. And he's a good enough historian to realise that empires don't really ever get recreated.
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  369. NATO has had its day. It has become little more than a showcase for the arms industry and a vehicle for US colonialism. It ceased to have a true function after the collapse of the Soviet Union and now has a vested interest in promoting conflict, rather than preventing it.
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  370. It is of course entirely possible that the shooter was directly recruited by Zelensky. It is equally possible that elements within America's "intelligence community" are colluding in attempts to get rid of him. The melting away of security at the earlier attempt rings alarm bells and in the latest incident it appear that the shooter was spotted by a member of the public, not the SS or the FBI, who phoned in a report, forcing them to act. If this rings of conspiracy theory then - too bad. It is at least a theory with far more weight than nonsensical claims that these incidents are engineered by the Trump team to boost his election chances.
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  371. Is Ukraine an actual country, or is it just a mish-mash resulting from centuries of conquest and misapprehension? Should it admit that much of the territories incorporated into its current format are, in fact, parts of Russia and so bring to an end this bloody and needless war?
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  372.  @alanmorgan7212  So from this I suppose we have to assume that a relatively high proportion of those sharing the misery of A&E with Tim are white people there as the result of excessive indulgence in drink and drugs. Is that what you are implying?
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  373.  @alanmorgan7212  So do you think a large proportion of those in the A&E here are likely to be white people who are there as a result of drink and drugs?
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  374.  @alanmorgan7212  So do you think that there will be many such people in the room with Tim, then?
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  375.  @alanmorgan7212  Have you never been to A&E yourself then?
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  376. Russia is fighting to maintain its identity and integrity in the face of constant Western efforts to undermine it. This seems to me to be entirely reasonable, and from what I can gather it seems entirely reasonable to the majority of Russians also.
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  377.  @zephyr8072  You've got bots on the brain. Assuming you have one, that is.
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  378. Where can I buy one of these moral compasses? Do they have them on Amazon?
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  379. At least they weren't voting this time. Not enough of them, anyway.
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  380.  @sardo.numspa  Those "few fields" are sitting on top of trillions of dollars in mineral wealth, which is why they are so heavily defended.
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