Is the UK now giving off strong Third World vibes?

It will be a balancing act, like the new 15% Corporation tax rate that came in from worldwide pressure, not just the EU. Ireland couldn't ignore the political pressure from the US in particular on it, so had to go along with it.

So like we've always done we'll go along with the prevailing mood, but keep looking for the loopholes.

10 years ago people thought Ireland would be heavily affected by rule changes, the Apple case a great example, look at how that turned out. You've the ridiculous situation of a government strongly objecting to extra tax revenue, and defending a company that was acting extremely greedily to avoid taxes.

Corporation tax receipts have gone off the scale, leprauchan economics and all that. The government avoided the last crisis by letting companies bring Intellectual property rights to Ireland, they can't believe themselves how much Corporation tax they are taking in.

Italy has been ruled by the communists? I must have been slept through that day.

That's a bit of a leap there mate. I didn't realise we were discussing the Ukraine situation.

Oh, wait - maybe you think that UK & 3rd world = UKraine?

While that might all be true, the CP never ran Italy.

I seem to remember someone writing that it was about as radical as the British Labour party, which did hold the reins on several occasions.

As against that, one government minister in Italy (maybe even a prime minister?) at one stage was reputed to say "The Italian government is not unstable. I've been in government ever since the second world war".

When I moved back to the UK during Covid what shocked me was how normalised food bank collections seemed at supermarkets. Unheard of when I first emigrated back 2012.

it is shocking alright.

You might want to read up on Italian political history. The Italian Communist Party - despite being in opposition - had around 33% of the votes in Italy throughout the 1970s. My point was that the entire political landscape there, fascism followed by the emergence of a large Communist party among multiple other parties, was deeply fractured and unstable up until the 21st century i.e. not a good example of how political systems or coalitions operate.

to be fair he was very much fit to be pm, as much as he wasn't perfect (no politician is or will be)

but in comparison to junk like borris johnson, sunak and truss, there is no doubt he was a much much better bet.

it could be argued that to state either way whether a country would or wouldn't use it's nuclear weapons could be giving information to potential enemies, so corbyn not saying either way as to whether he would or wouldn't use nuclear weapons would be protecting the country as the enemy would not know what he would do.

anyway, nuclear weapons are a 1950s solution to a 2023 problem, weapons from a by gone era for warfare of a by gone era where there needed to be an end to millions being sent off to battle.

cyber and similar is the warfare of the modern age, it's cheap and effective and that is what countries should be focusing on rather then 70 year old technology that is cumbersome, horrifically expensive and requires all of the waiting around for the processes to take place before a single missile can even be fired, by which time the country is destroyed anyway.

People who have read his history books say they are badly written and incoherent and they don't think he is an intellectual. But because he has the posh plummy accent, his inferiors assume he has a vast intellect.

As I said with the monarchy, I used to think it wasn't a bad thing, but now I suspect it is contributing somewhat to the huge gap in equality and many millions of Britons living in poverty i.e. they are willingly buying into the idea of 'them and us' and having your betters in society.

ask corbyn himself that question.

no, other nuclear nations aren't what is preventing putin from firing his weapons, in reality if he is insane enough to fire them, then he will fire them regardless, seeing as anyone willing to fire them in the first place aren't bothered about the consequences.

it's a myth that nuclear weapons are a deterent, it's just something thrown out by those who are obsessed with WWII to an unhealthy level.

corbyn would have been fine for the uk and the safety of europe, at worst he would have been above the tories.

We will never know how good Corbyn would have been as a PM since so many outright lies were thrown against him that most people will never know the reality. The establishment closed ranks against the only real socialist the country has seen since the days of Bevin, and that includes his own party who chose to throw away the election to keep him out of power.

A very sad day and what's sader is most people bought wholeheartedly into the **** wall of lies.

it's a myth because anyone willing to fire a nuke isn't bothered about the consequences, because as far as they are concerned, the firing of it and the damage it does is more important then the damage done back.

ultimately no, because even without nukes the US would have defeated them anyway and the soviet union would only have ever been able to put together so many.

now days, cyber is more effective and a hell of a lot cheaper.

nuclear weapons are effectively another form of short peanus syndrome in 2023.

exactly, and you know what? you have reminded me that there doesn't even need to be a cyber attack launched to cause huge damage.

damage can be done by spreading misinformation and the far right will do the rest.

not any more.

cyber is the ultimate threat now, nuclear weapons are just the early diesel trains of weaponry and warfare.

I am English by Birth and lived there most of my life so are you willing to reconsider you statement ?