| When you’ve finished bashing Boris 09:37 - Apr 16 with 4568 views | earlsgreenblue |
Brings a whole new perspective on “ Be careful what you wish for”!
Merkel’s legacy being rapidly re-appraised
The newspaper reports that was not quite four months ago that Angela Merkel packed up the giant wooden chess queen that stood in a corner of her office and removed the silver-framed portrait of the Russian empress Catherine the Great from her desk as she left the German chancellery for the last time.
Her reputation seemed guaranteed — with over 16 years of almost relentless crisis-fighting, she had more or less kept the European show on the road single-handedly and preserved her own country’s prosperity and stability. Asked to assess her time in office as a whole, 80% of Germans at the time said it had been good.
Merkel’s “grave miscalculations”
Just weeks later, President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the cost of that prosperity and the hollowness of that stability. The German press now runs daily articles dissecting what one prominent commentator has called “Merkel’s toxic legacy”. She now stands accused of leaving Ukraine, Europe and Germany itself at the mercy of the Kremlin through a series of grave miscalculations, from diplomatic indulgence towards Moscow and chronic underspending on the military to an energy strategy built on cheap Russian hydrocarbons.
“Mrs Chancellor,” as Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, said on Monday, “it was precisely Germany’s policies over the past ten, 15 years that meant Russia today has a strength founded on its monopoly over raw materials.”
A day earlier President Zelensky of Ukraine had invited Merkel to visit the scenes of Russian atrocities in Bucha and witness for herself what “the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in the past 14 years”.
Merkel, 67, who is now working on her memoirs, has largely kept to herself since the start of the war, surfacing only with two terse written statements in which she condemned the onslaught on Ukraine but said she stood by her decision to obstruct the country’s path to Nato membership in 2008.
The Times observes that the fixation on her individual decisions often seems like a form of displacement activity that distracts from the central point: the mess in which her country finds itself today is down to three decades of collective mistakes on the part of virtually the entire German establishment.
As Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s long-serving finance minister recently put it: “I too thought we had to co-operate with Russia. Today I know – I was wrong. We were all wrong.” The Guadian notes that since then, all eyes have been on Gerhard Schröder, the unrepentant ex-chancellor who in his final weeks in power shook hands with Vladimir Putin to ratify the Nord Stream pipeline underneath the Baltic Sea. Just weeks later, Schröder slipped effortlessly through the revolving door to become chairman of Nord Stream. |  | | |  |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 09:56 - Apr 16 with 3602 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
On a parallel theme to do with energy security, after dropping Junior at work today it occurred to me how unresilient our proposed future dependence on electricity will make us. Hack the grid or one big storm and no transport, no domestic appliances and come the cash free economy....no money either.
Edit..ps....how does any of what you posted detract from Johnson bashing? [Post edited 16 Apr 2022 9:57]
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 09:58 - Apr 16 with 3588 views | pointofblue |
The whole of Western Europe had taken an approach of appeasing rather than standing up to Moscow. And whatever she did, she will still be a far better leader than the one we currently have, though that is hardly a high barrier to cross. | |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:02 - Apr 16 with 3560 views | J2BLUE |
Always easy to be right with hindsight. In Germany's position I have no doubt our leaders would have done exactly the same. |  |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:19 - Apr 16 with 3514 views | You_Bloo_Right |
Until he has gone I don't think I'll ever finish "bashing Boris".
Edit: And maybe not even then. [Post edited 16 Apr 2022 10:20]
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:45 - Apr 16 with 3454 views | lowhouseblue |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 09:56 - Apr 16 by BanksterDebtSlave |
On a parallel theme to do with energy security, after dropping Junior at work today it occurred to me how unresilient our proposed future dependence on electricity will make us. Hack the grid or one big storm and no transport, no domestic appliances and come the cash free economy....no money either.
Edit..ps....how does any of what you posted detract from Johnson bashing? [Post edited 16 Apr 2022 9:57]
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we're already utterly dependent on electricity. the challenge is the huge increase in demand as we shift to electric cars and de-gasify heating. it's the both the increase supply and inadequacy of much of the current distribution network. |  |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:58 - Apr 16 with 3415 views | Churchman |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:02 - Apr 16 by J2BLUE |
Always easy to be right with hindsight. In Germany's position I have no doubt our leaders would have done exactly the same. |
I’m not so sure about that J2. I’m not defending Johnson’s crowd for trousering Putin’s stolen money or for taking even a single pint of Russian oil, let alone it’s shameful response to Ukrainian refugees, but I think there is a reason why Putin has singled out the U.K. for verbals that goes beyond Johnson’s odiousness.
The U.K. has provided more effective military support, incl training, than most for Baltic States, Poland (hence close relations) and training for Ukraine since the Crimea invasion. Not enough and smacks of wanting it both ways, but it’s better than the tacit support Germany, France, Italy and others have given to Putin, or 5000 helmets and a 1000 mouldy, unusable missiles.
Germany’s position is neatly summed up in the attached, which is repeated in or from the Irish Times.
https://tittlepress.com/vladimir-putin/1682888/
There are plenty of German articles on both its catastrophic, flawed strategy (Merkel) and its current foot dragging in publications like Der Spiegel. But they basically want all this to go away. There is also plenty of support for Putin (marches etc) in the country, particularly the east. Chances of Germany doing anything much now and in the future? Remote in my view, even if they have the capacity to. Promises to meet their NATO commitment? I wouldn’t hold your breath.
An interesting side to this is whether it will pull Europe together or splinter it. Putin I suspect thinks the latter and he may be right. The Poles take the opposite view to Germany, Hungary supports Russia, France has already refused to share its nuclear deterrent with its EU partners. It’s all a bit scary. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 12:06 - Apr 16 with 3219 views | Churchman |
I didn’t and won’t.
As for being an international joke, you are mostly right, but it would seen Comrade Putin doesn’t see the funny side. That’s Boris’ summer getaway with his secret lover Jimmy Krankie ruined then!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61126391 | | | |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 20:32 - Apr 16 with 2976 views | Swansea_Blue |
I’m not convinced trying to find diplomatic common ground and not being a warmonger (i.e. not rebuilding Germany’s military might - for obvious reasons) are the worse accusations in the world.
Their energy policy is certainly coming under some scrutiny now. You didn’t need that much hindsight either, after what he did to the Crimea. |  |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 23:34 - Apr 16 with 2843 views | Clapham_Junction |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 09:56 - Apr 16 by BanksterDebtSlave |
On a parallel theme to do with energy security, after dropping Junior at work today it occurred to me how unresilient our proposed future dependence on electricity will make us. Hack the grid or one big storm and no transport, no domestic appliances and come the cash free economy....no money either.
Edit..ps....how does any of what you posted detract from Johnson bashing? [Post edited 16 Apr 2022 9:57]
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How do domestic appliances work at the moment when there's no electricity?
I'd argue the opposite — the electric future will make households more resilient — people will have solar power filling up in-home batteries, or charging the car, and be able to run their home off both when there's a power cut. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 23:58 - Apr 16 with 2800 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 23:34 - Apr 16 by Clapham_Junction |
How do domestic appliances work at the moment when there's no electricity?
I'd argue the opposite — the electric future will make households more resilient — people will have solar power filling up in-home batteries, or charging the car, and be able to run their home off both when there's a power cut. |
Yeah when I said household appliances I was thinking more about chain saws and garden multi tools. What is this parallel universe where we all have solar panels and can afford electric cars? | |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 00:05 - Apr 17 with 2793 views | HARRY10 |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 20:32 - Apr 16 by Swansea_Blue |
I’m not convinced trying to find diplomatic common ground and not being a warmonger (i.e. not rebuilding Germany’s military might - for obvious reasons) are the worse accusations in the world.
Their energy policy is certainly coming under some scrutiny now. You didn’t need that much hindsight either, after what he did to the Crimea. |
I struggle to recall Merkel being in the pay of Putin, as was the bloater and numerous members of his cabinet.
Neither do I remember her attacking wind farms as did the bloater when he attacked Labour as they "put in a load of wind farms that failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding."
However, never one to get one thing wrong gut bucket then went on to say "We now have the opportunity to get shale gas - let's look at it."
“When he said that eight-nine years ago, clearly what he said was wrong,” Mr Kwarteng told LBC radio. “Wind farms, wind power contributes sometimes upwards of 40 per cent of electricity”.
Of course, it would not be Blubba if we did not get his history wrong as well "It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson" he waffled.
Which must have come as a surprise to Horatio, learning that it was wind from the North Sea that aided him at Trafalgar (off Spain) and at the Battle of the Nile.
"Magna Carta, did she die in vain" Were the words of Tony Hancock. A 'tub' playing the part of a self important, clueless idiot. Sadly for us all we have the real thing. | | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 00:50 - Apr 17 with 2759 views | Clapham_Junction |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 23:58 - Apr 16 by BanksterDebtSlave |
Yeah when I said household appliances I was thinking more about chain saws and garden multi tools. What is this parallel universe where we all have solar panels and can afford electric cars? |
The "proposed future dependence on electricity" that you were talking about.
If you won't have an electric car then you won't be dependent on electricity... | | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 01:13 - Apr 17 with 2735 views | jeera |
Well this is it. Merkel isn't an option for us is she so it's a bit of a non-point in that respect.
Should Germany et al have allowed themselves to become so reliant on Russia? No, probably not, but they have been in a very different place to us in more ways than one.
Germany does not have the access to the same resources as the UK, although it still bugs me that we are not more self reliant, especially for times of crisis.
They were not permitted for some time to rebuild the same forces following the war and their acceptance of that, along with a major shift in cultural policy, in no small way driven by guilt of that war, has been the foundation for their approach to foreign policy hasn't it?
We, on the other hand, have been considered to be some opposition/target for Russia for a long time now and this attitude prevailed before the likes of Johnson and the UK reaction to the Ukraine situation. They already saw the UK as a place to exploit at will. They have been mocking us for years in various ways. The dislike and distrust was already there.
Our reaction can only be considered as expected under the circumstances and Russia probably cannot believe its luck so far that their bluff has not yet been called further. |  |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 07:02 - Apr 17 with 2591 views | gazzer1999 |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 00:05 - Apr 17 by HARRY10 |
I struggle to recall Merkel being in the pay of Putin, as was the bloater and numerous members of his cabinet.
Neither do I remember her attacking wind farms as did the bloater when he attacked Labour as they "put in a load of wind farms that failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding."
However, never one to get one thing wrong gut bucket then went on to say "We now have the opportunity to get shale gas - let's look at it."
“When he said that eight-nine years ago, clearly what he said was wrong,” Mr Kwarteng told LBC radio. “Wind farms, wind power contributes sometimes upwards of 40 per cent of electricity”.
Of course, it would not be Blubba if we did not get his history wrong as well "It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson" he waffled.
Which must have come as a surprise to Horatio, learning that it was wind from the North Sea that aided him at Trafalgar (off Spain) and at the Battle of the Nile.
"Magna Carta, did she die in vain" Were the words of Tony Hancock. A 'tub' playing the part of a self important, clueless idiot. Sadly for us all we have the real thing. |
Does the 10 in your name refer to your age?
The gas pipeline not big enough a problem for you. And evidence being in the pay of Putin.
Boring post that only heaps out abuse on someones weight. I hate blocking people as I like to read posts but yours well you make Footers and that Spruce thing seem palatable.
I will give you the super glue if you head off to Number 10 to stick yourself to the gates. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 08:02 - Apr 17 with 2535 views | Churchman |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 01:13 - Apr 17 by jeera |
Well this is it. Merkel isn't an option for us is she so it's a bit of a non-point in that respect.
Should Germany et al have allowed themselves to become so reliant on Russia? No, probably not, but they have been in a very different place to us in more ways than one.
Germany does not have the access to the same resources as the UK, although it still bugs me that we are not more self reliant, especially for times of crisis.
They were not permitted for some time to rebuild the same forces following the war and their acceptance of that, along with a major shift in cultural policy, in no small way driven by guilt of that war, has been the foundation for their approach to foreign policy hasn't it?
We, on the other hand, have been considered to be some opposition/target for Russia for a long time now and this attitude prevailed before the likes of Johnson and the UK reaction to the Ukraine situation. They already saw the UK as a place to exploit at will. They have been mocking us for years in various ways. The dislike and distrust was already there.
Our reaction can only be considered as expected under the circumstances and Russia probably cannot believe its luck so far that their bluff has not yet been called further. |
I certainly agree that we should be more self sufficient - in many ways. This country’s laxity has also allowed stolen money to flow through it. Fine as long as a bit drops in Tories’ rouble bags.
As far as Germany goes, it’s economy is very different to the UKs. After the war it was split into the four zones and was smashed. It’s industry was rebuilt from scratch and that gave it its platform for what we see today. Constitution wise it was restricted militarily to a defensive role. Germany left it’s defence largely to the Americans and to a much lesser extent U.K. (BAOR etc). Up to 1990, fair enough, although it still had a defence commitment rarely adhered to.
Up to the fall of the Berlin Wall U.K. defence spending was always more than 5% GDP. A lot for a country on its uppers. Germany defence spending? A lot less (2%) and by 2005 it was 1%, most recently 1.4%. It’s agreed nato commitment is a min 2%, but they didn’t bother with that any more than they did 0.7% foreign aid.
Their choice was cheap Russian energy and tie ‘em in economically and let Von der Leyen run German military down to zippo. Billions spent on fine economic projects instead. Even after Putins adventures culminating in Crimea, poisonings you name it, no problem. Nord2 for them and a host of other EU countries. A head in the sand approach that they still favour? Well I think so.
My view is that Germany has shirked its responsibilities and hidden behind war guilt. It’s a view basically held in some German publications.
U.K. actions are different but reprehensible. How oligarchs making fortunes and buying assets here affects Russia Im not sure at the moment. Does much of that money find its way to Putin’s war machine? Certainly companies in Russia paying tax does. I need to understand it better, but it shouldn’t have happened. Who benefitted? I think we know.
Accepting bribes off Russians as Johnson’s people have is an absolutely repugnant. £2m in tory funds after Salisbury? Why? How thick can you get? It needs investigating properly and Johnson’s people held to account.
This disaster requires countries to rethink both their actions and responsibilities going forward. Finland and Sweden are already doing it, but the big European countries? We will see but I suspect national interests will come first. Germany? I think when Ukraine is beaten, it’ll be back to normal. I hope I’m wrong. | | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris (n/t) on 08:59 - Apr 17 with 2419 views | Felstow1978 |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:19 - Apr 16 by You_Bloo_Right |
Until he has gone I don't think I'll ever finish "bashing Boris".
Edit: And maybe not even then. [Post edited 16 Apr 2022 10:20]
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 09:18 - Apr 17 with 2359 views | solomon |
I’ll criticise him because he needs criticism. As for bashing? Never, always felt the term bashing was used by posh kids who have no understanding of the troubles outside of their safe entitled little world. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 11:36 - Apr 17 with 2262 views | Swansea_Blue |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 10:02 - Apr 16 by J2BLUE |
Always easy to be right with hindsight. In Germany's position I have no doubt our leaders would have done exactly the same. |
We kind of did, just we chose to launder their dirty money rather than pay for their gas (although we do a bit of that to and would have done more if geographically closer, I’m sure). | |
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 12:07 - Apr 17 with 2241 views | eireblue |
It is interesting.
There used to be a debating point that the relationship with certain countries had to be “nuanced”.
E.g. See relationships with Saudi, China etc. Russian was another one.
China, still does horrible things such as genocide, Saudi still kills people and Putin…..
Maybe nuance doesn’t work with nasty regimes that don’t respect basic human rights. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 12:31 - Apr 17 with 2216 views | giant_stow |
Well I think you have a point at least. Obviously "we" gorged on Russian money, but the Germans now find themselves in a far worse position, because they embraced the Russian economy, despite 8 years of clear warnings, and misgivings predating that. If they're not careful and do something soon, their reputation will make ours look shiny. Edit: Zelensky's continuing mention of the western blood money, financing this war is powerful because its basically true. [Post edited 17 Apr 2022 12:33]
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| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 12:37 - Apr 17 with 2196 views | Leaky |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 23:34 - Apr 16 by Clapham_Junction |
How do domestic appliances work at the moment when there's no electricity?
I'd argue the opposite — the electric future will make households more resilient — people will have solar power filling up in-home batteries, or charging the car, and be able to run their home off both when there's a power cut. |
The problem being that the infrastructure for going totally electric is not in place. If say a housing estate of 50 houses built in 60s/70s or 80s all had Air source Heat Pumps plus car charging points its highly likely that the electric supply to that development would too small. I say this as an installer of ASHP's. |  | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 13:46 - Apr 17 with 2143 views | solomon |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 12:37 - Apr 17 by Leaky |
The problem being that the infrastructure for going totally electric is not in place. If say a housing estate of 50 houses built in 60s/70s or 80s all had Air source Heat Pumps plus car charging points its highly likely that the electric supply to that development would too small. I say this as an installer of ASHP's. |
Ok I’ll bite, what’s your solution? | | | |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 14:00 - Apr 17 with 2117 views | Leaky |
| When you’ve finished bashing Boris on 13:46 - Apr 17 by solomon |
Ok I’ll bite, what’s your solution? |
Sorry haven't got a solution just pointing out the problems. If I had a solution I would probably now be Sir Leaky & with substantially better pension pot. You tell me how you put a car charging point in thousands Victorian & Edwardian terraced houses that only have on road parking. How do you put ASHP's in houses with 9inch solid walls & suspended wooden floors possibly with a cellar beneath, these are all problems that need to be overcome before we claim to be fuel free. Plus wind turbines still require a fair amount of oil for lubrication that has to change periodically. | | | |
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