egg

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.

His support for his chancellor will cost him his job at some point. Milliband would be a disaster. Haigh I like though, but her economic ideas won't curry favour with the slash and cut crowd.

I don't get that reaction at all. This is not about embarrassment of anyone, although Alex makes a good point that our military would likely be embarrassed by Russia. The people saying that Russia would run out of gear, be on its knees, it's country be in ruins etc, will hopefully realise that they should look beyond the rhetoric they chose to believe. There's a link between your post, and the other 2 this morning though. Without western support, Russia would be in Kiev with their feet up by now. Whatever we've contributed to prevent that is money well spent.

BBC reporting that Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the "ceasefire". Houses, orchards, etc, flattened. Despicable on any normal assessment. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mxylxw48yo

Stop

My usual job is mostly office based, but I'd get a hell of a lot more done if I was remote or hybrid. No distractions at home, and I can just get my head down. Meetings can be done by teams, zoom or phone, but give people a genuine choice, most want face to face in my experience. Before I sold out of my business, most recruits (particularly youngsters) wanted a flexible hybrid option. Any service or office based business that's unwilling to offer that will struggle to recruit. Public service can be operated away from office environments to a very large extent. The costs savings of reduced office space could be massive too, and the government is sitting on a lot of superfluous high value real estate.

We've all built up our qualifying years Whitey, and paid our dues expecting a state pension. That doesn't alter that the state pension is part of the welfare system, and is of benefit to many of the people who receive it. It also doesn't alter that we can't afford it, and I'm not calling for it to be means tested, but I think it will be down the line.

As Kraken has said, and I've said previously, you just give vague waffle mate. You ignore questions. I'm ignoring you.

The report is interesting to the least. Delegate PiP type payments to local authorities, replace defined benefit state pensions with defined contribution schemes, all but abandon SEND kids. I gave up after that. Ralph has obviously swallowed that.

I can't believe you're persevering. He's not specific about anything because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's NI contribution linked.

I call it a welfare benefit because it is. I don't think it should be means tested, but I think it will be at some point because it's unaffordable.

I haven't suggested they can be. I think lots of our public and welfare expenditure is unsustainable. The thing is, we have people simultaneously wanting some welfare payments slashed, but not the ones they want including the state pension. That's the society we live in - fuck them, but look after me. Child benefit became means tested, and it'll be the state pension next.

It's a lot to people who don't have much other income. I think the whole thing will end up being means tested and be seen more as a benefit.

You say well done, but what bits do you like? Do you agree that we pay immigrants up to £24k to return home? How about replicating their "parallel societies" policy, including demolishing homes? We need to make ourselves less attractive but there are boundaries of reasonableness.