egg

Litigation in a Red state is likely to favour the Republican boss man I'd imagine. To be fair to Trump, and as ridiculous as his financial expectations are, that was a disgraceful piece of editing, and the explanation given by the BBC is disingenuous. They need to settle.

Jesus wept, that's something I thought I'd never see.

Yep to all of that. The spend on tribunal judges and specialist members, plus the consequential pension costs, is vast. Diverting those resources to LA's to make the correct decisions at the outset is infinitely more sensible than paying judges and specialist members to tell them to spend unbudgeted monies further down the line. The system needs an urgent root and branch review and restructure.

Ah gotcha. Agreed.

The reality is that LA's refuse to assess when they know they should, then get told by the tribunal that they must, then once they do they refuse to issue a plan, then get told by the tribunal that they must, then try stick the kid in a school unsuitable, then get told by the tribunal to go with the parent's (appropriate) choice of school. Every tribunal step takes a year or so of the child's life. LA's play the system to buy time. They don't want to, but don't have the resources.

Ditto the SEND system, equally unaffordable in its current guise. We have LA's who can't afford to properly educate SEND after kids under it's jurisdiction, only to be told by Judges that they must do things that they haven't got money for. It's a broken system. If the approach people want to take to PiP etc was taken to SEND kids, there'd be an erroneous assumption that those kids are all putting on their Autism, global development delay, disability, etc, and left to rot at home https://www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/councils-warn-send-system-faces-total-collapse-without-major-reform-to-services/

I'm not going to answer what you want me to, mostly because you swerve many questions put to you. That's why I didn't ask any questions of you - there's no point. I've merely made points.

Ha! Interesting post and perspective. I'm in no doubt that Russia don't have their SU era weight and muscle, but you wholly ignore where we're at, and dismiss Alex's pointers to the reality as a wind up. At the end of the day, we had people like you telling us that Russia will run out of people and ordnance. You've always had that bizarre opinion, and seemingly still have your own perception. Whether they have, in your opinion, bureaucracy etc issues, is completely irrelevant to the fact that they haven't run out of gear, and won't. Kid yourself all you like that we still have a mighty military, and that Russia can barely knock up a bullet without North Korea's help, but that's a reality in your head only.

That's a unique take on it. There's no appeasement to the "socialist left". Not wanting to make slashing cuts, and a return to austerity, is a central ground stance, not a socialist one. We're skint. You say tax raising aren't the answer. I say austerity isn't the answer. I also say taking benefits from people who need them is wrong, and if the government needs a system that sorts the needy from the greedy, then assuming they're all greedy and should go without isn't the way a decent society operates imo. The rest of your post is just bollox.

Numbers, self sufficient supply chain, etc. Russia have been able to replenish at rate we couldn't get near.

You've missed the point of the discussion. It was a simple comparison of our military Vs Russia. Nobody seems willing to concede that ours is worse. Yes, NATO plus ours is decent, but that avoids the point.

You've said throughout this that Russia's military is weak, that they'll run out of stuff, etc. You were wrong. Do you believe that our military (ours alone) is stronger than Russia's? Yes, I know that we're part of NATO so with US support we'll be fine, but that wasn't the point at issue.

I haven't said that they have a plan. Or even an intention. No idea where you got that idea from.

Bollox. It's a non story. Manifesto. No income tax rise. Decision. No income tax rise. There's no non U-turn to herald because there's not been a U-turn.

It doesn't sound like our huge military spend stretches as far as Russia's...

There's been loads, and all sorts of land and home grabs by settlers too. It won't stop, and Israel and it's people will carry on acting with impunity.

You're comparing apples with kebabs there mate. We buy a lot of overpriced American stuff with a weak pound. They are not paying those prices, and their rubles go a lot further than our pounds.

Good rules!!

Indeed, but absolutely disgraceful that they've chosen to destroy previously undamaged homes and places for growing orchards. Perhaps a Hamas bloke liked apples.

Not NATO per se, but NATO countries are supplying their hardware, their money, training, etc. Western backed is more accurate.

That's a fair point which highlights the shit hand they've been dealt. What's clear though is that the masses want unspecified cuts. What they appear to want, but won't explicitly say, is cuts in welfare, although not the welfare they want. Essentially, what this boils down to is people wanting to see benefit cuts against people who can't work, unspecified austerity, and a solution to the cost of immigration.

Trump put two fingers up to much of the west earlier this year. He's also blown smoke up Putin's arse at points. He's also unpredictable and capable of turning on a sixpence. Personally, I'm not as convinced by US (with Trump at the helm) backing as some.

Russia are not fighting Ukraine. That's horribly misleading. Continually using the word embarrassing is embarrassing.

Absolutely. Decent guy, and the party backed the wrong horse there.

Of course we'd get support. That doesn't alter that the fact that our military alone would be steamrolled by Russia. There's no point putting out fingers in our ears and ignoring our own countries position. It also doesn't make it "embarrassing" to Russia that a NATO backed Ukraine is only losing slowly to Russia. Indeed, I'd turn the argument - it's bloody concerning that Ukraine are still losing despite the resources being thrown at them.