Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU

Law, Equality & Human Rights Advocate: understand, be understood through fairness, respect, inclusion, humility. 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@atrupar Katie Z, with her limited language skills and terminological inexactitudes, is unsuitable to be US Press Sec.
Their role is to communicate factually, clearly, concisely, coherently.
She’s adopted her boss’s habit of failing to complete sentences, and reads notes mechanically,

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@RpsAgainstTrump He tries to come across in interviews as a modest man.
And he has much to be modest about.

[𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡 𝙈𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨 @PhilMyers53]

This is yet another Starmer initiative. The specialist rape courts currently being rolled out are a Labour government initiative from 2024 onward. NOTHING TO DO WITH BURNHAM a manifesto commitment. Again Burnham is trying to claim credit for Keir’s work https://t.co/ys9HMPUfmJ

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@JohnSimpsonNews @tshep42 Donald Trump's visit to the UN General Assembly will not be televised by the major US broadcasters on Monday…
Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC - collectively known as the TV pool… have decided to not dispatch cameramen or reporters to cover the president on Monday.

[John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews]

Glad to see professional solidarity, rather than politics, coming out on top in Washington.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

So, after eighteen months of lying on the supermarket floor screaming at Denmark, Donald Trump has been handed the 1951 defence agreement, which already gave America bases and the run of Greenland for as long as NATO exists, and which it was using so enthusiastically that it closed sixteen of its seventeen installations there. The grown-ups have simply wrapped the toy he already owned in shiny new paper, told him it was the biggest present anyone has ever had, and he is now running round the garden showing it to everyone. He will certainly make the history books, although I fear not in the chapter he was hoping for.

[Dr. Alice Frost @PoliSciChick84]

It is utter nonsense to equate a sensible outcome for Ukraine with a maximalist set of demands. The terms follow logically from the objective.

We start with the question of what we want for Ukraine: a sovereign state that is free to develop on its own and strong enough that Russia cannot credibly threaten it again.

1. Ukraine cannot be required to surrender territory as the price of peace. Territorial gains would give Russia defensible forward positions from which to rebuild, rearm, and potentially attempt the remainder later. More importantly, if military aggression produces durable territorial gains, it changes the expected payoff from trying again. If Russia instead emerges from the war having gained nothing territorially despite enormous costs, the incentive structure is very different.

2. Political security assurances are insufficient. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum provided Ukraine with American, British, and Russian security assurances, but those assurances plainly did not deter Russia. Nor can Ukraine reasonably assume that political promises made by one government will necessarily bind its successors. A credible settlement therefore requires something much closer to NATO: binding commitments backed by integrated military planning, substantial capabilities, and preferably forces whose presence makes intervention in another Russian attack effectively unavoidable. Ukraine must also retain the ability to defend itself rather than making its survival dependent entirely upon foreign political decisions.

3. There is also a precedent problem. If Russia concludes that coercive force produced a positive return, that experience will enter its calculations in any future confrontation with Ukraine or even Europe. Any settlement must therefore make the expected cost of renewed aggression substantially greater than its expected benefit.

That rules out any settlement requiring Ukraine to surrender territory or military strength in exchange for political security assurances.

It also implies several things:

1. Russia should withdraw from all internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, restoring Ukraine's 1991 borders.

2. Ukraine must be permitted to maintain a large, technologically advanced military, with future NATO membership remaining available to it.

3. Russia should be required to pay reparations for the immense destruction caused by its war of aggression. Apart from compensating Ukraine, imposing those costs changes the prospective price of future aggression.

4. There must be accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including cooperation with competent international tribunals, and Russia must return Ukrainian children who were unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred.

Whether Russia's present leadership would accept such terms is another question entirely. It probably will not do so while it believes continued war offers a better expected payoff. The purpose of sustained military, economic, and diplomatic pressure is to change that calculation until ending the war becomes preferable to continuing it.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration appears to be operating under the delusion that it can force Ukraine into accepting a terrible deal simply for the sake of achieving one. It cannot (quite apart from the fact that it has lost much of its leverage by largely ending direct American military aid to Ukraine). Worse, its continued pressure on Ukraine gives Moscow reason to believe that prolonging the war may eventually produce concessions that Russia cannot win on the battlefield. As long as Russia believes that continued fighting may be rewarded in this way, it has an incentive to continue.

A future American administration must understand that any viable settlement has to leave Ukraine militarily strong and capable of deterring another Russian attack.

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@berlin_bridge Economist: laid out in a 258-page governing programme, (AfD plans) are among the most sweeping ever produced by a party with a credible chance of taking office… party officials see as a blueprint for the rest of Germany. But they are also uncosted and in places unserious.

[Dr. Alice Frost @PoliSciChick84]

Stand 7. September: Die AfD verfügt in Sachsen-Anhalt über keine absolute Mehrheit. Sie verfügt über 39 der 83 Sitze im Landtag und verfehlt damit die erforderlichen 42 Mandate um drei. Die Wahlbeteiligung lag bei 77,8 Prozent, dem höchsten Wert, der je bei einer freien Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt erreicht wurde. Das Ergebnis ist also kein Zufallsprodukt einer niedrigen Wahlbeteiligung.

Ob die AfD letztlich die Landesregierung stellt, hängt jedoch nicht allein davon ab, ob sie eine formale Koalition bilden kann.

CDU, SPD, Grüne und Die Linke haben eine Zusammenarbeit mit der AfD ausgeschlossen. Auch das BSW lehnt eine formale Koalition ab, doch Sahra Wagenknecht und die Parteiführung lehnen die Brandmauer als Prinzip ab und befürworten eine punktuelle Zusammenarbeit mit der AfD, sofern sie diese für sinnvoll halten. Die fünf Abgeordneten des BSW könnten daher ausschlaggebend sein.

Hinzu kommt eine weitere Komplikation. Erhält in den ersten beiden Wahlgängen zur Wahl des Ministerpräsidenten kein Kandidat die absolute Mehrheit und löst sich der Landtag nicht selbst auf, genügt im dritten Wahlgang die Mehrheit der abgegebenen Stimmen. Enthaltungen zählen nicht. Bei 39 AfD-Sitzen könnte daher das Verhalten des BSW und sogar einzelner Abgeordneter anderer Parteien darüber entscheiden, ob Ulrich Siegmund Ministerpräsident wird, ohne dass die AfD jemals eine konventionelle Mehrheitskoalition bildet.

Wie auch immer die Regierung am Ende zustande kommt, der Schaden ist bereits entstanden. Die Wahl hat gezeigt, dass sehr viele Menschen in Deutschland bereit sind, eine rechtsextreme, prorussische und nationalistische Partei zu wählen, weil sie das Vertrauen in den Status quo verloren haben. Das sollte für die übrigen Parteien ein Weckruf sein.

Die Probleme, die diese Wut antreiben, sind real. Die Armutsquote steigt. Jahre unzureichender Investitionen haben erhebliche Infrastrukturdefizite hinterlassen. Das Gesundheitssystem steht zunehmend unter Druck. Das Wirtschaftswachstum bleibt schleppend, und die deutsche Industrie steht unter erheblichem Druck. Russland setzt seine hybriden Operationen gegen Deutschland und andere europäische Staaten fort, während innenpolitische Fehlentwicklungen das Vertrauen in etablierte Institutionen weiter beschädigt haben.

Die Menschen sind verständlicherweise verärgert, doch die etablierten Parteien müssen zeigen, dass es eine Alternative zur Alternative für Deutschland gibt. Kleine Schritte reichen nicht mehr. Deutschland braucht Reformen, die weitreichend genug sind, damit die Bürger spürbare Verbesserungen in ihrem Alltag erleben. Das wird schwierige Entscheidungen erfordern, die nicht sofort populär sein werden. Die Deutschen brauchen zudem ein deutlich klareres Verständnis der Bedrohung, die Russland für ihr Land darstellt, davon, warum die Ukraine ein Bollwerk gegen eine weitere russische Expansion bleibt, und davon, was populistische Regierungen mit Institutionen und wirtschaftspolitischen Prozessen anrichten können, sobald institutionelle Schranken zu erodieren beginnen.

Die AfD ist nicht die NSDAP. Sie muss es auch nicht sein, damit ihr Programm gefährlich ist. Ihre Wirtschafts- und Migrationspolitik droht Deutschlands Arbeitskräftemangel zu verschärfen und das Wachstum zu schwächen; ihre Feindseligkeit gegenüber Minderheiten, einschließlich der LGBTQ-Gemeinschaft, der Alice Weidel selbst angehört, gefährdet individuelle Rechte; ihre Nähe zu Moskau würde Russlands Position in Europa stärken; und jeder ernsthafte Versuch, einen "Dexit" zu verfolgen, würde Deutschland wirtschaftlich und politisch isolieren. Der Landesverband Sachsen-Anhalt wird zudem vom Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz als gesichert rechtsextremistische Bestrebung eingestuft.

Derzeit hat die AfD nicht genügend Sitze, um Sachsen-Anhalt allein zu regieren. Sachsen-Anhalt weist zudem politische und demografische Besonderheiten auf, die davor warnen, dieses Ergebnis mechanisch auf ganz Deutschland zu übertragen. Nichts davon gibt Anlass zur Sorglosigkeit. Das Feuer, das in Sachsen-Anhalt begonnen hat, kann sich ausbreiten.

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@PoliSciChick84 The Economist (AfD) plans…laid out in a 258-page governing programme, are among the most sweeping ever produced by a party with a credible chance of taking office…party officials see it as a blueprint for the rest of Germany. But they are also uncosted and in places unserious.

[Dr. Alice Frost @PoliSciChick84]

In the immediate future, here are four concrete actions that European and NATO member countries can take:

1. End all remaining commercial ties with Russia, including those involving German fish-processing plants, Irish alumina production, and Greek shipping companies.

2. Bar Russian citizens from entering the Schengen area, with narrow exceptions for humanitarian cases, dissidents, and other clearly defined protected categories.

3. Establish a clear threshold under which Russian hybrid attacks causing significant physical damage, casualties, or disruption will be treated as armed attacks against NATO and may trigger Article 5. I recognise that this is ultimately a matter for NATO rather than strictly an EU one.

4. Ramp up military assistance to Ukraine, especially air defences. Russia has been bombarding Kyiv for six consecutive nights. Europe has provided substantial assistance, but Ukraine needs considerably more air-defence systems and interceptors, and it needs them now.

U.S. intelligence increasingly suggests that Russia may be preparing to test one or more European countries, most likely through a “grey zone” attack designed to remain below the threshold of conventional war. Europe needs to respond accordingly and start treating Russia as a geopolitical enemy rather than as a security problem to be managed.

[David Gauke @DavidGauke]

A few initial thoughts on what has been announced this morning on changes to the early release scheme. First, it has to be acknowledged that this is a very difficult issue for whoever is in office. For decades, sentences have been increased, as has the prison population. 1/

[Alessandra Libutti 🇪🇺 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 @a_libutti]

Imagine reaching the point of resigning because you consider an issue so important that you can't accept the government's failure to resolve it. Then, two months later, while you're in the position that gives you the power to resolve it, you decide not to.

The trajectory of Andy Burnham's government, after just one month, can be summed up by that of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, who resigned as Defense Secretary in June because then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to set the target of 3 percent of GDP allocated to defense by 2030. In his resignation letter, Healey argued that that deadline was what the United Kingdom "had to set." National security was at stake. His departure had played a decisive role in marking Starmer's demise. 

In short, the man who resigns because the government fails to promise what he deems necessary, once seated at the Treasury of the new executive, abandons the very objective for which he provoked the crisis.

Yet Healey didn't believe this reversal required a new ethical choice. No new resignation letter. What was a matter of life and death as Minister of Defense seems to have become trivial as Chancellor. And the paradox is that all this is happening while Russia has directly threatened the United Kingdom and the British government has had to accelerate its national civil defense plan. The threat Healey had invoked has therefore not abated: on the contrary, it has become more concrete.

Of all the details, this is perhaps the most revealing part of the institutional coup that took place in the United Kingdom: the exploitation of everything that was brought up to force Starmer to resign and bring Burnham to power. A story of hidden plots, media constructions, and proclamations. A narrative machine. Indeed, a month of government was all it took for absolute promises to turn into distinctions, proclamations into postponements, and the much-celebrated break with Starmer into a series of backtracking.

Within the parameters of the art of U-turns
Andy Burnham has achieved what seemed impossible: challenging Boris Johnson's historic record as Britain's U-turn champion. A modus operandi that seemed unique to Bojo: promising the moon and then offering you a crust of bread, to the point of undermining you and even convincing you you owe him thanks. It took Burnham a month.

Building

On the housing front, Burnham had made the split with Starmer a cornerstone of his campaign. He had promised that all £39 billion of the ten-year housing program would be allocated to social housing. "Control matters," he had said during his election campaign in Makerfield: the point was to give control of housing policy back to local authorities. In government, however, the initial £10 billion allocation provides for around 70,000 homes, but only 60 percent will be allocated to social housing. This is precisely the program already laid out by Starmer.

Immigration

As mayor of Manchester, Burnham had called for the abolition of the principle of no recourse to public funds , the restriction that prevents many migrants from accessing welfare and public housing. During Makerfield's campaign, however, that position was withdrawn. 

Tax

Burnham had argued that Britain was too "exposed" to the bond markets, suggesting that the markets' constraints on the government had become a problem. Then, when his candidacy began to worry investors and British bond yields reacted to speculation of increased debt, he corrected his position, assuring them that he would respect Rachel Reeves's fiscal rules. This is one of the most revealing reversals because it shows the mechanism in its purest form: when he was speaking to voters, the bond market was the symbol of the constraints from which to break free; when he had to reassure those who would finance his government, those same rules suddenly became a fixed point. 1/

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@a_libutti She said (verbatim BBC) that she wished SKS had done more to tackle briefings against her, it was “unbearable… for me,” so she was referring to those briefings plus those against SKS., NOT working FOR him.
Distorting headline indeed!

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@80_mcswan No.

[Alessandra Libutti 🇪🇺 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 @a_libutti]

In a few words, all @YvetteCooperMP has to say about @Keir_Starmer to make him look bad is that he expected Ministers to do their actual jobs.

Which, I suppose, tells us rather more about Cooper and the coup enablers than it does about Starmer.

Ministers are not there simply to carry problems into No. 10 and wait for the Prime Minister to solve them. They are appointed, given departments, staff, budgets and considerable salaries precisely to find solutions, make decisions and take responsibility for delivering them.

A Prime Minister asking his Ministers, “What are you going to do about it?” is not evidence of poor leadership. It is quite literally the job description.

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@TheRickWilson J Robert Oppenheimer - "The purposes of this country in the field of foreign policy", he wrote, “cannot in any real or enduring way be achieved by coercion."

[Voice_of_reason #FBPE 💙 #RejoinEU @Disputatio_]

@premnsikka @Paul_Briley They’ll already have a plan to sell off valuable landing rights and orders placed for new aircraft, plus what others mention below, to finish the job.

[PBS News @NewsHour]

An association of thousands of FBI agents and other groups are backing a lawsuit filed by three bureau employees who were fired last year for their roles in an investigation into President Donald Trump's efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election. https://t.co/HcymybvzYo