Salisbury Fox

If the target is Russia then I would suggest that hitting Moscow and St Petersburg would be enough.

Obviously it would depend on the Rules of Engagement that are put in place. Given we will be able to track aircraft from launch to any incursion I would expect any Russian aircraft to be met with some of our own pretty quickly. To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised to see some form of no fly zone to prevent that sort of thing, making it more obvious who was to blame. The Russians playing games will be a constant threat though and I would say that there is a higher risk of more deniable activities like mines and IEDs being laid.

A really good piece of analysis on the American approach to peace in Ukraine in the video linked below which culminated in the Oval Office spat the other day. Seems very plausible to me, well worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kITMluS2pT4

Agreed.

Assuming you mean nuclear, well you have to be able and willing to use them. Would they be used in the defence of say Estonia?

You are right, much of the Russian military has been destroyed, but given that Putin uses external conflict as a rallying tool I don’t expect them to all of a sudden become a peaceful nation. It will likely take years for them to rearm, but we must not underestimate the ability of their people to endure hardship for the sake of the nation, and for Putin to even care about those outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. Europe are unable to be able to match theis without significant sacrifice. Whilst Western Europe may have less of a threat to worry about, the Baltic states etc are right to be worried as can we, or would we defend them if attacked. I certainly doubt that the US would come to their aid. It’s also worth considering that attacks don’t always have to be through the use of a conventional military, for years Russia has been sowing the seeds of discontent in Europe. Fico and Orban are proof that a country can be aligned to Russian interests without force.

I’m not sure I agree with you there, as the island building and aggressive maritime manoeuvres indicates otherwise.

Shameful

History has shown that the terms of ending wars are really important if you don’t want flare ups in the future. I don’t see how giving Russia pretty much everything they want will lead to a more stable world, in fact I would suggest that it will make things much worse. In terms of destabilising countries through illegal migration, well Russia has literally been doing that in Finland and through Belarus. I should also add that I haven’t seen Zelensky doing nazi salutes yet, perhaps that will come given how right wing Ukrainians must be.

Well Trump is seemingly making the victim of aggression pay reparations for having the temerity of wanting to be a sovereign nation, more so than what was imposed on Germany after WW1 if what I have read about the deal presented to Zelensky for 50% of Ukraine’s resources is true. Burnt rapidly through any goodwill from the support given before. I don’t see anyone foolish enough to trust the US in the near to medium future. Shame Europe don’t seem able or in some cases willing to step up which will no doubt come back to bite us.

If the new series on Netflix called American Primeval has some factual basis I can sort of see why they are the way they are.

I think it would be naive to think that safe routes like say in France would not be swamped by an enormous amount of genuine and economic migrants. Many cases are very complex and so I very much doubt cases could be resolved in a general sense within 2 weeks without removing many of the existing safeguards. Those who still use other methods of entry will still pose a problem if they are undocumented. I’m not entirely sure of the reasons why asylum seekers can’t work before a decision is made but I would expect there to be issues around security and complications with pension contributions to name a couple. Personally I would like more resources given to addressing the black market which may help address the pull factor and exploitation of vulnerable people.

If safe routes are ever to be provided then the government would need to know how many they could take in to ensure the resources are available and in the right place to provide the support needed. There would likely have to be an increase in asylum case workers and they would have to be mindful that those who are refused may still use clandestine methods to get into the country anyway. In short, I believe that there’s a reason why it’s not been done already (less for directly from refugee camps) and it’s not just because of the political risks in doing so.

Agreed. There is always going to be many who perceive that their way of life, culture and values are being challenged with such large numbers arriving year on year. In the UK, it was possible to keep a lid on it when we were in the EU for the most part as there was growth to support the case that immigration was a net positive. Now growth across the whole continent is low or nonexistent coupled with existing resources being stretched, it’s a much more challenging argument to win. Those who feel that once the older generation die off views will change are fooling themselves as it’s such an easy message to sell that many younger people believe that there are simple solutions to complex problems.

It would take decades to develop the capabilities that European armies do not posses due to a reliance on NATO. It would also require a significant increase in Defence budgets which is unlikely to be palpable in the short term.

I’m sure he knows full well the problems the world faces, but I assume he’s thinking along the lines of the quote from Denis Healy: “Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders”.

Well I suppose that’s ok if you feel that the second and third order effects of this don’t seriously have an adverse affect on things like food security etc. Appears to be ill thought out to me. Looks like there are going to be some protests which could become interesting if they gain enough support: https://www.farminguk.com/news/farmers-across-uk-to-rally-in-london-against-devastating-budget_65568.html. Not sure if it’s true that agricultural equipment is exempt ULEZ

Apparently some have deserted already. I can’t imagine that they will be a game changer in terms of capability but numbers for meat assaults won’t help Ukraine. I can’t imagine we are at the stage of sending troops yet, certainly not for fighting, but sending troops to release Ukrainians in places like the border with Belarus could be a more measured escalation which was proposed by Estonia sometime ago.

I don’t doubt you, but I was responding to the claim that raising living standards so that those living here will have more kids, will see drop in migration. The key with being able to manage migration is getting the balance right between high and low skilled migration. Too many of the latter and there will be problems as the ONS figures highlight. I’m not convinced anyone has had a handle on this for the past 20-30 years.

Even if we had the growth to do the things you seem to think would solve the immigration crisis, migrants will still come. The world’s population is still growing and economic migrants and war/environmental refugees will only increase, to believe otherwise is naive.

I thought it was Lord Alli that was running the country McSweeney seems an open goal if there was a competent opposition given he was fined by the electoral commission for failing to declare donations.

Not really Lilian

Not sure I understand this as there were people trying to cross the channel decades before Brexit. Just looked up that the Sangatte ‘jungle’ camp opened in 1999. All that seems to have changed is the method of entry.

I appreciate that you may be trying to look at this objectively, but my point is that the police officer will have to justify his use of force based upon the threat he felt there was. We could never really understand that threat from a couple of short clips, especially given I don’t believe we know yet why they approached one of the individuals in the first place which is a factor in itself. Other factors to consider will include that the officers were armed (I can’t imagine there are many circumstances that an armed police officer is attacked in training that doesn’t result in an attempt to take the weapon), the speed of the attack, unknown number of assailants (the video shows how many but did the police know at the time given they were being attacked from behind at the start), injuries to fellow officers, what was being said e.g. I’m going to kill you etc.