RayC

I agree with your 1st and 3rd paragraphs but take issue with the second. We 'lefties' certainly don't have a monopoly when it comes to behaving like entitled children as can be seen from the list of open petitions https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions?state=open

I thought that we cleared this up in another thread? Apparently not. As I said before, you have been misinformed. In Europe, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, the UK - there are no doubt others - have all held national elections within the last year which were free (despite the efforts of Russia to disrupt them). Right wing polled quite well in these elections. Hope that helps.

It's hardly Starmer's fault that he became PM as a result of an undemocratic electoral system. The UK's PM might not be a major player on the international scene, but domestically it's the top position so I'd say that Starmer needs to be taken seriously (in the UK at least).

Pure hyperbolic nonsense. Where has Starmer lied to protect foreign interests? What actions has he taken that could be considered evil? How is he an enemy of Britain? (I'll preempt your response about the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance killing thousands of pensioners (it hasn't). Some individuals have, no doubt, suffered hardship but by that criterion you could cite certain actions taken by any government and classify them as evil).

Given her past flirtation with Fascism and her statements about same sex relationships, there was good reason to worry about what her premiership might bring, however, those fears have been largely unfounded. Unlike you, I comment on the facts and evidence. Again, unlike you I am aware of my bias. Therefore, I am not blinkered by an irrational hatred of anything or anyone which/who doesn't fit snuggly into a bigoted, dogmatic view of the world.

Then be more specific (and/or don't deny having made a statement).. I'm fine. Thanks for asking. There will hopefully soon be a time after the war and there may be a time to have relations with Russia - that rather depends on what Putin's concept of 'peace' looks like - but conducting 'business as usual' the day after the war ends is not that time. (I'll save you the bother of replying: "I didn't say that").

My apologies: I forgot to include the word 'European'. What you actually wrote was, "Open the European door ...". Now you can question my conclusion that Russia will see an opening of the door as vindication for its' actions, but you cannot deny what you wrote.

According to Henry Foy (comments made in weekly FT podcast), the EU - presumably the Commission and Parliament? - plus 22 of the 27 EU member states are in favour of allowing the UK's participation in this defence fund. The '5' are unnamed but France is obviously one and Hungary almost certainly another. The others are 'neutral' states, whatever that may mean in this context? Foy says that there is significant pressure being applied to the objectors to change their stance and that the 3 'neutral' states will come on board. Orban is a law unto himself, but the main stumbling block is seem as being France, who are being intransigent about the issue. Imo it is difficult to see this as anything other than (misplaced) opportunism on the part of the French. I know very little about the Defence sector, but as one of the top two nations in Western Europe with a (relatively) significant defence capability, it seems a misplaced strategy by the French to put what up-to-now has been quite an cohesive and impressive European response to events at risk.

Good article. Meloni has been impressive since coming to power. Despite fears that she would be an Italian Orban, unlike him she has shown a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with her EU counterparts. However, as the article suggests, maintaining a balancing act between Europe and the US will probably be her biggest test to date.

But you did say that Europe should open the door to Russia which would almost certainly be viewed as a vindication of its' actions by Moscow.

That in no way excuses Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A lot has changed, especially Putin's attitude since that verbal application. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

In a tryst with Joe Biden

Russia has a strange way of asking for acceptable by the wider European community.

You are clearly trying extremely hard - with success I might add - to disprove your own proposition that "... no one can be this dumb". You are obviously unable to differentiate between ABSOLUTE and PROPORTION. Further proof (extract taken from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1556756/ "Using phallometric test sensitivities to calculate the proportion of true pedophiles among various groups of sex offenders against children, and taking into consideration previously reported mean numbers of victims per offender group, THE RATIO OF HETROSEXUAL TO HOMOSEXUAL PEDOPHILES WAS CALCULATED TO BE APPROXIMATELY 11: 11:1 (my caps). I'll cut off your escape route by quoting the rest of the Abstract: "This suggests that the resulting proportion of true pedophiles among persons with a homosexual erotic development is greater than that in persons who develop heterosexually". So, in ABSOLUTE terms there are a greater number of heterosexual pedophiles, while in PROPORTIONAL terms there are a greater number of homosexuals. I hope that is simple enough for you to understand.

I didn't say that you were afraid of homosexuality; I said that you were homophobic. I know a number of gay individuals/couples (of both genders). To the best of my knowledge, none of them gets a parade either: I've not enquired, but I also doubt very much whether they receive a government subsidy to satisfy any sexual kinks that they may or may not have. As I said before, you don't have to celebrate anything. It is you who is skewing the figures. Given that 96% of the population are heterosexual, the absolute number of heterosexual paedophiles far outnumbers the number of homosexuals. In any event, the best rebuttal to your 25% figure - which incidentally I cannot find any reference to - and your (apparent) homophobia comes from the authors of the study in which this figure supposedly appears "To prevent misunderstanding or misuse of their studies on fraternal birth order in pedophiles, the researchers have stressed that any conclusion that homosexual pedophilia shares an etiological factor with androphilia does not imply that ordinary homosexual men (androphiles) are likely to molest boys, any more than the conclusion that heterosexual pedophilia shares an etiological factor with gynephilia would imply that ordinary heterosexual men (gynephiles) are likely to molest girls".