What are they thinking?

 It’s over 1000 days since russia invaded Ukraine and, with the third anniversary rapidly approaching with no end to the deaths and destruction in sight, I sit here and wonder just what the hell is in the minds of those who are the key players in all this.

It is just a handful of people who can bring this to a conclusion. Putin, of course, either has to decide or be persuaded to cease the attacks. He is not going to decide just like that, waking up one morning and concluding that he’d done enough and might as well bring the troops home. So he’ll need to be persuaded. And the only way persuasion will be effective would be if he were about to lose something. People aren’t important to him so it would be land or the ability to defend russia effectively.

Ukraine has a chunk of land in Kursk which they’re just about hanging on to but I doubt they’ll manage for much longer. So there’s not much in the land department that Ukraine can take. That leaves defence facilities, buildings where systems are installed and where they’re managed, which may well be different in these days of remote control and the weapons installations and storage buildings themselves. Someone will know where every one of these is and will have shared this information by some means or another and one would hope that the co-ordinates are already specified in suitable target summaries within NATO.

I think that every one of these needs to be hit very soon. Not in an obvious way. One important miss and there would be the certainty of russia identifying the source of whatever missiles hit and some remaining silo or storage facility would fire back and all hell would be let loose. The hits need to be carried out by means that are not so obviously identified and using Russians to do the job would make response tricky to manage. There must be thousands of people in russia who are totally fed up with what’s been going on, even if they only see one side on Russia Today or whatever program they’re permitted to watch these days. These people can surely not want to take control of Ukraine, have no desire to rape and torture and kill innocent families just across the border and they certainly have no desire to be citizens of the first nation to fire a nuclear weapon in anger. My guess is that a good number could be persuaded to assist in the task of switching off vital links to services and cancelling response abilities in return for some impressive financial and other rewards from a grateful world later.

I suspect that it is not necessary in every instance to blow up some place but rather incapacitate it. 

That’s what’s in my mind but I doubt that’s in anyone else’s. We’re looking at the moment to Biden and team in the USA and a few decision-makers in NATO countries and the organisation itself. I don’t see Biden doing anything more, nor the vast majority of NATO countries. They had the chance to do something useful 1000 days ago and did nothing. They have not even honoured commitments to Ukraine made in clear language in previous years when Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons stored in the country and again after russia seized control of Crimea. It makes me sad that my own country has not kept its word and how we have all run scared ever since January 2022 and that fright has taken root in so many of our population too.

So what is in the mind of many of our decision-makers is fear. Quite simply they’re frightened to do anything other than hope that someone else will do something instead. 

The move that is in everyone’s minds but which no-one dares talk about is the one we should have made, in unison across NATO, at the very start: send in masses of troops and sufficient weapons and material to show russia that they have no chance of making any worthwhile progress in Ukraine.

It may well not even have been necessary to attack any russian troops or positions, merely demonstrate that the whole of NATO and the USA and best part of the British Commonwealth was going to stand firm. No way would russia have attacked any of the NATO troops as they know only too well that their country would be annihilated. Yes, some places and maybe many thousands of people in the ‘West’ might also suffer terrible loss in such an exchange but russia would die for certain before more harm was done and that would be the end of that.

I wonder too how the good Russian people, and there are plenty of them, feel about their countries relationship with North Korea? I am pretty sure that if someone asked them to vote as to which nation they would like to have as a special chum for the future not one would have ticked the North Korea box! But there we have it now. Many thousands of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine in the name of the Russian Federation. Not only that but there is now the madness of russia donating technology to North Korea to help them defend themselves. Now we all know just how unpredictable the leaders of North Korea are. They have about as much knowledge of the planet and other nations as the snails in my garden. Read any material published by them and it makes little or no sense, just massive propaganda or constant moaning about their South Korea neighbour. Of all the countries in the world, russia chooses to support North Korea? I used to argue with people who tell me that Putin is mad but I do have to wonder sometimes just how he can justify this. Imagine him waking up one morning and chatting with his generals about the war.

“Oh, I’ve just done a deal with Kim Jong Il.He’ll give us some troops and in return we’re going to help him defend his country.”

“So if Kim tells you he’s being attacked by South Korea you’ll fight South Korea?”

“Er . . .”

“‘Cos you know Kim is always telling people he’s being attacked by someone, usually South Korea. The bloke’s mad, you do realise? You’re getting into bed with a crazy twerp who is in charge of probably the most introvert nation on the planet and the last place anyone else on the planet wants to live. You can’t even tour the place without being guided by someone and the vast majority of the population are living hand to mouth with little by way of possessions.”

“I’m not getting into bed with Kim . . .”

“But you’ll still get screwed!”

I am struggling to make sense of how we have arrived at this debacle of a world position. I started wondering what was in the minds of those who might feasibly do something to sort this out. I have to conclude thinking that the only people who can end this are the good Russians themselves. They need to be brave enough to speak out in the communities and question what is really happening. I don’t mean mass demonstrations but subtle infiltration of committees where decisions are taken and maybe there will be some who can change the stance of people close to Putin and rescue their nation from this madness.

If they don’t then I predict that russia will never be forgiven for the atrocities and breaking international law and rules for decent treatment of one’s fellow man. They’ll have one ally in North Korea and will find themselves dragged into some conflict with yet another country before long as a result, becoming more and more absent from meaningful world activity and trade, their people less respected or trusted. Despite the considerable mass of the Russian Federation, it will have as much influence on the world as North Korea has on a good day, which is zero.

Some deal will be struck in due course by men too frightened to stand up for what is right. And while Ukraine families mourn their loss and the West helps rebuild what russia destroyed, russia and russians will fade from view to the vast majority of people in the rest of the world. It is sad because there are some good Russians. 

After the last war, the phrase everyone remembers is: We shall not forget. 

And yet we will.

Time line thoughts

 I came across a time-line document I had made some years ago and thought I should take the opportunity to bring it up to date. My book Somewhere In Switzerland ended in March 1985 and it is also probably about time I wrote the second part, for which that time-line would be useful.

It is remarkable how much has happened in the last few years and yet how easily I have been able to forget which years things started in. COVID, for example, and the russian invasion. Surely I would remember when they started? I suppose I would have eventually figured it out but I have had to look at my posts here to be sure!

Yes, of course, COVID-19 hit us in early 2020, my first post in March 2020 being about how the postman would throw my parcels at me and scamper away whereas he would have stood on the doorstep chatting for ages a week or so before.

russia invaded Ukraine in January 2022. I used to write every few months, deploring the lack of assistance being provided or, where it was promised, the lack of delivery and generally how useless we have all been.

COVID-19 appears to have gone, although there is talk of yet another strain of the virus doing the rounds in a big way at the moment. I know quite a lot of people have had colds recently. But they are just that. Colds. No-one is really talking about COVID anything like as much - but still, interestingly, using the same old testing devices and donning masks as soon as they test positive. I really don't believe that there is much to fear now. We've survived and a lot of people now seem to appreciate just how wrong lockdown and all the closures and the compulsory mask-wearing and so on really were. I cannot blame the government of the day. They were caught very much with their pants down, some almost quite literally, and there had been no realistic plan in place for such a thing. People made things up as they went along and very sensible-sounding scientists came to very sensible-sounding conclusions at the time which we only now realise were mostly bonkers. But never mind. It was a crazy time and caused a lot of trouble and inconvenience but we survived. Those who didn't may well not have had that many years left on this planet anyway.

The russians, however, have not gone. After a period when Ukraine seemed to be gaining the upper hand we are back at a stage where russian troops are advancing in some areas but being held back in others. An estimate by a BBC UK and an independent russian source study suggests that russia is losing over 1000 people every month and 70,000 people have been killed or injured in the last six months alone. Yet still they come, with vast numbers of men being sent from all over russia to fight. It is the pure weight of numbers that has enabled russia to make progress but at what a price. One does have to wonder how long it can be before there are serious protests by mothers who are losing so many of their sons. Or are they mostly from villages where there is little chance of communication and even less chance that anyone would dare speak up anyway?

My concern is the new involvement of North Korean troops in the war, many now being seen on Ukraine territory, although so far largely only in construction work in towns which russia has taken over. North Korea has a huge army and I get the impression that, whilst not experienced in combat, they would simply do whatever their masters tell them.

Using the word masters here reminds me of all the woke nonsense that we have to put up with - people telling us British how bad we are for all sorts of slave trading some centuries ago. Why can these people not be as vocal about what is essentially thousands of slaves being sent to their likely death or certainly of illness or injury by their russian or North Korean masters? It is extraordinary that there are people demonstrating on our streets (and even more violently in other countries) about a whole range of past issues as well as the fate of Hamas supporters in Gaza but who seem totally unable to express any sympathy, never mind support, for the people of Ukraine.

If only all these loud demonstrators and political movers and shakers would get their act together on something which is happening today, pretty much here and now, or at least not very far away, where some nasty people are destroying innocent people's homes and lives. Children have been taken away from families and just disappeared in russia somewhere. How the hell can that be allowed to continue without some real protest by people who are good at protesting about oil or what is or is not happening to the planet.

Let me tell you now that what is happening in Ukraine is causing far greater damage to our planet than anything oil executives are doing or that some government minister is not doing. Some idiot minister can cancel the issue of new oil or gas drilling licences in the North Sea at the drop of a hat but ask anyone in the government to do anything of any real significance to deter russia or anyone else destroying life and limb in Ukraine and they'll just mumble about looking into it or make a speech and shake someone's hand but actually do bugger all.

Time and time again it has been made very clear that this war could have been ended had every country that found russia's action offensive and wrong made their views perfectly clear by providing support for the Ukraine army, on the ground, in the air, over cyberspace and at every international meeting where there was an opportunity to demonstrate, yes, demonstrate that support in whatever way they felt would get the message across to Putin and his team. "Get out now or we will force you out. There are plenty of us. We're well-equipped and willing to stand and defend the innocent."

Instead, we have all shuffled around on the outskirts and mumbled how bad it is and how 'someone ought to do something'. We should be shouting that someone needs to do something. That someone is our Prime Minister who should instruct our forces to go and do what's right. The last one should have done that as should the two before him. President Biden talks a good talk when he gets the words the right way round but, again, nothing actually happens. Everyone simply hopes, if they were to tell the truth, that the problem will just go away. That Putin will stop at some point and try to settle for what he has gained and just you try arguing against 'peace' at that point! Anyone objecting will be all too quickly placed on the pedestal of bad people wanting to prolong war, the loss of more lives and so forth. 

Even those politicians who have managed to send some actual planes or material to Ukraine have tied the hands of the Ukraine commanders and their troops over there by restricting what they can do with them. This is sheer madness. If russia knows that they are not going to be hit by a missile by staying a few miles inside the border, on their own territory, and firing off all kinds of nasty stuff from there then they will do so. If they thought that they might get pulverised by a few NATO missiles falling out of the sky then they'd think twice, move away and some hospital, train or electricity station might now be intact and children not buried under rubble.

There must be a hundred scenarios whereby russia can be appropriately restricted and pinned back in key areas if only other countries would add their men and weapons and intelligence to the battle. It could even be difficult to identify which country was supporting in this way and so impossible for russia to justify launching anything offensive at a NATO country which it would, in any event, do at its peril as that would most certainly bring a hail of metal down upon towns and key installations in russia.

"Oh, but what if they fire a nuclear missile at us?" you ask. 

"If they do, it gets intercepted and, at the same time a lot more get sent their way from every NATO base that has one ready. Whilst, yes, one or two towns can be demolished and a great many lives lost, the whole of russia will be devastated. They lose. They know that. So they won't fire first anything of much significance."

It's one of those questions that annoying women ask at meetings - like "So you don't mind innocent people getting killed?" How can you answer that? "No. I am perfectly happy to see people dying." or "No, you're quite right, we shouldn't risk any more loss of life". Clearly the latter is the more reasonable, more human-sounding. But the clever question misses the point. By not fighting the bully, the bully wins. Every time. Is that what she wants? Russia to take over Ukraine? Keep the kids they stole? Not acknowledge or be punished in any way for the atrocities at so many cities, towns and villages? So we have to say "Yes, I am prepared to see innocent people killed if it means that there is a chance of the bully being stopped and more killings avoided. It is not a pleasant concept. It is risky. But if Russia does not believe that we will cause considerable damage if they do not cease then they will not cease. " It really is as simple as that. There will be more loss of life and there is nothing we can do about that. Let us just try to ensure that there are no more Ukrainian lives or livelihoods or land or schools or hospitals or crops or power stations lost.

Now, back to that timeline:

August 2024. Trip to Ukraine . . .

My advice to the Conservative Party

Members have been asked to tell the new Chairman exactly what they think. So I did.

I have been a member since 1969, although that would have been the Young Conservatives at the start and I may have missed a few years along the way. Nevertheless, it was only at this election that I first considered voting for another party.

I didn't but I seriously considered Reform and, oddly, the old SDP seemed to have some sensible policies and Rod Liddle talks and writes a great deal of sense. He might have got my vote had he been in my constituency.

My loss of confidence in the Conservative Party arose from several sources:

1. Poor management of the behaviour of MPs.

We all know that people make mistakes and sometimes are downright stupid but (a) the public doesn't need to know about it and (b) if they do, action has to be prompt and decisive. There was a succession of naughty boys who really should have been spotted as liabilities at a considerably earlier stage when someone could have had a good, old-fashioned 'word' with them. There were also a lot of arguments - 'blue on blue' becoming a phrase we could do without hearing. Boris was really popular and most of the supporters were prepared to accept that he could be a bit bizarre at times but he stood up for things they liked someone to stand up for. He was brought down by some very clever work by a combination of people in the party who didn't care for him much and some darker opposition-friendly forces in the background who saw an opportunity to ruin the Party's chances at a future election. There simply was no-one of sufficient popularity or standing willing to take over and there really should have been far more control at the top, closing ranks behind Boris, at least for a while, and a realisation of what image needed to be maintained for the outside world. Mistakes were made in Lockdown etc. and Hancock was plain stupid not to realise that there might be cameras here and there. Cummings seemed to dislike Boris intensely and, brainy as he might be, he caused more damage to the Party's image than a lot of the stupid people did. When we needed really smart management of the image there was no-one.

2. Lack of action on woke stuff

I really could not believe what was happening to Great Britain in this respect. We watched statues being dumped or disrespected, ridiculous demonstrations by very minority minorities getting massive publicity and attention, police with rainbow armbands and NHS with rainbow crossing marks outside. I have no complaint about Pride or, for that matter, any minority organisation having a voice but we were being told that Mr Normal White Guy was some kind of evil bloke who destroyed the lives of savages in Africa or wherever and no-one ever seemed to counter any of this for years. Companies paid training firms of dubious certification large fees to lecture their staff on how they were apparently racist and wrong about almost everything and everyone suddenly started putting weird pronouns on email signatures. If anyone was honest enough to say out loud what they thought of all this they were disciplined and heaven help anyone who was a teacher or similar. They just got suspended or sacked.
All this gave rise to the Free Speech Union and week by week those of us who joined for some sort of protection were provided with daily tales of woe. Again all very very smart stuff by some dark forces who operated under the radar and were able to use poor legislative drafting to further their case almost unnoticed for a long time. Then it was too late and we had everyone taking the knee, Black Lives Matter people got rich very quickly and the Conservative Party were the baddies. How the hell did no-one see any of this coming? And when it did we still did very, very little.

3. Scotland's bloody marvellous, Wales is cool, don't mention Ireland and England's awful.

The SNP have now been shown to be a complete nightmare of a group but somehow they managed to control everything that happened anywhere in Scotland. Almost every bit of news about Scotland was how much better it was there than in Tory England. Nicola Sturgeon outmanoeuvred Boris on COVID by waiting to see what he'd planned and doing the same thing a little earlier if it was likely to be seen as strong, or delaying it and blaming having to follow Boris if it was weak. Rubbish policies but brilliant politics. Each week Scotland seemed to be tearing further away from the rest of Britain and we were allowing that to happen, with massive funding going across the border too when it might have been better utilised stopping in Northumberland.

Wales had a Labour 'government' that was making the biggest blunders imaginable but did we manage to make anyone aware of this? No. Not in the slightest. We even let them have a 20mph National Speed Limit for a while which any reasonable motorist would be horrified by. The whole Green ECO whatever Climate Change stuff has never been something that the Conservative supporters have been much bothered about. The vast majority of normal Conservatives take the view that the world is not about to end, that our children and our children's children will still be around to listen to our Children's Children's Children by the Moody Blues and there'll be electricity at a reasonable price to run the old record player too.

We like recycling but not cycling and especially not the Highway Code changes which reduced the motorist to some huge liability on the road that had to give priority to whatever other forms of life wished to cross the road. That wasn't just Wales but all over the land. Motorists were bad. They were already paying a fortune for fuel and now they're told their cars are rubbish and they'll not be able to buy a new one in a few years unless it's an electric one. We really do not want to hear this. It is not what Conservatives do. Leave us alone.

Northern Ireland was never going to be easy but we didn't exactly endear ourselves to whoever voted for us there either. We let EU negotiators get away with too much, though, and they all sounded so reasonable. Once again, our message was completely lost or meaningless to the voting public and they largely gave up on the whole thing. To be honest no-one knew or knows what to do about that but we were in charge and didn't handle things well. If one part of a lump of soil is in the EU and another is not then there will, by definition, be a border between the two. Different rules apply on each side. That's life. So some additional controls would be necessary to cut down illegal shipping of stuff or people one way or the other. That's life and nothing to do with The Troubles which someone will always bring up. Incidentally, we also allowed military personnel to be prosecuted for whatever did or did not happen in the 70s and that was not a Conservative Party's best moment either. We seemed to be frightened stiff still of the Nationalists there.

Basically all this made us English people feel pretty useless and pathetic. We were good at nothing, it seemed, and only we had voted for the Conservative Party so we had ourselves to blame. No effort that I recall was made to counter this crazed hatred of the English. As I said, some very effective forces operated behind and under the scenes to change the way we appeared and sounded and Angela 's 'Tory Scum' comment sort of capped it all nicely for the people operating the whole anti-Boris-Conservative show.

4. Poor quality MPs

As someone who was considered as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (way back in 1974) I like to think that Conservative MPs have one or more features: intelligence, panache, charm, nouse, passion, hard-working, dedicated. Ideally they'll have at least some star quality and be able to hold people's attention in a speech. They may be nerds or geeks, however, but still of big brain and valuable, for whom we need to supply a sort of care package to ensure they're not embarrassing when let loose.

My view is that most of the members I have witnessed on TV or Radio have not been very impressive. They do need to have talents of some sort and, if they are devoid but simply were the best on offer in a particular constituency then they need to be guided and cared for. I am not saying we should clamp down on their free speech but they do need to be very careful about what they say, write or type and someone needs to assess how they come across to the Joe Public that'll need to support them at the next election.

Of course, there are some really good people in the Party but we need to manage better who gets to advertise who we are and what we stand for.

I do hope to vote Conservative again but I do need to feel confident that the next leader will be a Prime Minister of whom I can feel proud and who has a team that is behind him or her for the long term and that they can appreciate what voters really want and distinguish between policies that work and can be beneficial and those that are merely following some ancient ritual or practice and just expected to happen.

Be quite radical, even, in some respects, like building an argument that shows both sides of the Climate Change argument. Challenge whether electric cars really are the solution? Restore our past achievements as Great Britain and explain, explain, explain just how wrong so many of the things now been taught or suggested really are. Counter all the demos that are against British values with better demos that support and explain them. Get more Conservatives as teachers. That's very important as much of what has gone wrong has come from actively left-wing teachers, lecturers, middle managers and legal experts.

Abandon all race, equality and similar legislation. If there's one law that says everyone will be treated with respect regardless of whatever minority or majority they may think they're in then there's no need for anything else.

The one thing Conservatives have got right in a big way is to support Ukraine. They have led in that respect and Boris, had he stayed, would probably have been able to gather sufficient extra support to bring more weapons and people to their defence to prevent the atrocious advances of the Russians. What is now a sort of uneasy stalemate could have been a victory and a return of most land back to Ukraine. Losing Boris lost a lot of ground, and lives, there.

I hope these thoughts are of some value and interest.

With kind regards and the best of luck,

None of the above

 

The table of results is getting very much misinterpreted by the media in general. They see just the chart above and talk of historic Labour victory when that isn't quite the full story. It's more of an accidental win.

Party	Seats	% vote
LAB	412	33.7
CON	121	23.7
REFORM	5	14.3
LIB	71	12.2
NI Parties	18	3.4
SNP	9	2.5
IND / PC	6	3.4
GREEN	4	6.8

Look, instead, at the percentage vote for each party.

Now things look a bit different. There's simply no way that Britain has voted with any enthusiasm whatsoever for a Labour government for the next five years.

Not only have 40% of the electorate not voted so one could say that None Of The Above won. It is also clear that, amongst those who bothered to vote, the total Conservative and Reform vote was 38%, much higher than Labour's 33.7%. Even adding Conservative and Liberal exceed Labour's very modest vote.

Take into account the poor 60% turn-out and Labour's 33.7% becomes a sad 20%. So just 1 in 5 of the electorate actually wanted a Labour government. 4 out of 5 of the people you see on the street, in your office, in the shops, on the bus, in traffic most definitely did not. But the top chart says it all - a majority of 170 or thereabouts will make opposition to what they propose to do very weak and ineffective. Indeed, I doubt anyone will be trying particularly hard for a long time. What's the point?

I do wonder, however, how the country will respond to Reform's 5 seats from over 14% of the vote while the Liberals have over 70 seats from just 12% of the vote? That clearly is not right. So many voters will feel disenfranchised. Indeed, Conservatives can be quite understandably annoyed to have a mere 120 seats from 24% of the vote whereas Labour get 412 from 33%.

The fact is that Conservative supporters lost the election by voting for Reform. Some kind of deal should have been done and, preferably, Rishi Sunak should have allowed much more time to plan a joint campaign with an Autumn election.

I will end by saying that I do appreciate only too well why the Conservative vote was fractured - Reform did have a point, the last few years have not been good government in many areas. Rishi Sunak made good progress in some but there were many errors before he took over that no-one was about to forget in a hurry. They really didn't deserve to win but then we didn't deserve the result we've got. I would have settled for a Conservative - Reform - Liberal government which would, at least, have represented more than half the people who bothered to vote.