Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Sheilbh]

But people who do not follow politics will not put even 10% of effort into analysing things like that. It IS a matter of story.

Sure no-one follows politics or does that. That's not my point - this isn't about voters.

Political parties or politicians need to do the analysis and have a diagnosis in order to have policy offers and narratives that tie together and are coherent/make sense to voters. It's not just that the radicals on both sides have got better comms - they've got an analysis and theory. The mainstream don't yet - as I say I think they're still in the denial/bargaining stage.

[Tamas]

they're still in the denial/bargaining stage.

Ok, I agree with that

[Jacob]

I think that sounds about right Sheilbh.

[Sheilbh]

they're still in the denial/bargaining stage.

Ok, I agree with that

Yes. Although it's 17 years since the crash, 9 years since the first big political shocks (though I think they start a little earlier - Syriza, Podemos, IndyRef, Corbyn, Sanders run in the primaries), plus covid, plus war. I am slightly out of patience at this stage - at some point they need to, in the immortal words of Cher, "snap out of it"

[Josquius]

Ed Miliband should have won

[PJL]

Ed Miliband should have won

I'm defintely warming to the idea he should be the next PM if/when Starmer is pushed out. He very much has grown in stature over the last few years IMO.

[Sheilbh]

I think he'd have been a disaster then and worse now

[HVC]

Ed Miliband should have won

I'm defintely warming to the idea he should be the next PM if/when Starmer is pushed out. He very much has grown in stature over the last few years IMO.

Insoles

[Zoupa]

NATO aircraft have started to patrol in Europe with their transponders switched off. I don't know what this means, but I'm guessing to keep the russians guessing?

[Josquius]

Reading about zelensky recently giving a speech on Ukraines ballistic missile programme.

Is it just me, or an I increasingly getting inter-war vibes from the Ukraine war?

What I mean is the war is kind of giving off vibes of what people in the 20s/30s expected another great war to be like.

Scary air power and ballistic missiles all powerful, smashing blocks of cities seemingly at random.... But without the mobile element that caught the west off guard in ww2. The front remains very WW1 styled.

Big vibes of Things to Come or other speculative fiction of the era.