The great rethink and the opportunity for progressives

The Fat Shanks Effect... I switched to Hanes Cymru after the first year of InterPol, I wanted to enjoy my time in Aber...

I agree. Trump wasn't the start of the US' inward look - it just accelerated it. The UK, and certainly an independent Cymru, needs to look east. Prosperity and security in closer and closer relations with other European countries. In the future there will be an economic and probably military war between the US and China, (the cause - as the article states, the Americans will not like playing second fiddle to a stronger China), Europe must be able to stand on its own two feet or get crushed and used in the ensuing conflict.

US politics is as confusing as American Football. You can buy your representative if you've got enough money. Democracy , don't just love it. And even if you aspire to become president must be a multi-millionaire, because the idea Mr & Mrs Jones living in a trailer on Turnip Ridge, Idaho, can run and become commander in Chief is like finding Donald Trump's backbone. And if I hear another MAGA Trump supporter quote democracy & freedom with their dire bloody foreign policy record around the world, I myself will have the liberty and shove their opinion so far down their throat it'll poke out of the lips they never kiss with. I'll give them shock & awe!

I can guarantee that Brexit voters didn't even consider Russia when they voted for the biggest act of national self harm ever. I don't believe that Brexit voters thought too much about anything other than wanting less black or brown faces in the queue at Lidl. The fact that those faces don't even come from Europe, did not apparently dawn on them. That's what right wing issue mash up did to the lazy thinking masses. A rethink would involve a first think and I don't believe there was one.

It is the people of Ukraine that decided and quite rightly so to take charge of their own destiny. Also, anyone who says Nato has an 'eastward expansion' does not understand what Nato is. A country can only join Nato by a democratic will of the people. The latest members to join was initiated by Sveriges Riksdag and Suomen Eduskunta. It was their own self determination and such an option should not be denied to Ukraine nor vetoed by external powers.

Quisling... I have never read such a pile of ahistorical BS... I'm going to repost a bit of it with the names changed to make my point... "Wales has long been a geopolitical blancmange—a wobbly creation moulded by outside forces. Its history is a tug-of-war between East and West, with regions like Clwyd and Powys serving as the rope. Monmouth, for instance, is ethnically, linguistically, and emotionally English, yet it ended up in Wales thanks to 20th century map-doodling. Flint, too, has deep ties to Russia. These regions aren’t anomalies; they’re symptoms of a broader tension that has simmered for centuries."... What an absolute joke... I might add that long before the first Russian invasion of 2014 most Russian speaking Ukranians saw themselves as exactly that, next you'll be telling me that PPL in Wales who speak English are 'linguistically & emotionally English'... Sidelining Russian speakers? FFS most of the governments of Ukraine were run BY Russian speakers, it is the Russian war that has destroyed Russian as a Lingua Franca. Cuban Missile crisis? It wasn't f**king last week it was generations ago, I don't expect you know how that was resolved anyway (which was by a mutual pullback of missiles USSR in Cuba & US in Turkey), NI? there has been for decades a mechanism in place that ensures that NI citizens should have the right to self determination... Why don't you highlight some of the rather less old issues that don't paint Russia as an innocent victim, Like the failed imperial war in Afghanistan, carpet bombing it's own (ethnic minority) citizens & the entire city of Grozny, the invasion of Georgia, and the first Ukrainian invasion... "it’s time to drop the theatrics, acknowledge the complexities, and focus on solutions that don’t involve turning Eastern Europe into a perpetual war zone. Because, frankly, the world has enough problems without adding another endless conflict to the list." So, abandoning the Ukrainians would stop the war in E Europe would it? who the hell are you trying to kid? (yourself presumably), try talling that to the Georgians & Moldovans, or are you going to tell me they'd all rather be Russians as well, on yer bike, point it east, ride to Moscow, join their army and see what life is like for ACTUAL Russians, nasty, short, and brutal, much like it has been for most of their sad history...

That's all true but has always been true. Ever since it was invented to administer an empire, Whitehall has been a crèche for the ruling elite to dump their most hopeless progeny when they couldn't real "status" jobs as governors, lawyers, surgeons or more recently hedge fund managers. No-one ever said to friends over canapes and champers in the hunting lodge "we secretly hope little Johnny will one day be a senior beancounter in the tax office". But they did say "Winston, little Johnny is so useless he's still having crayons surgically removed at 18. Any chance you could do an old boys favour and get him into a senior beancounters role in the Treasury?"

Watch the vid. frog face was constantly on QT and other media as the "other side". His qualification are zero in this and they would pit people like him against orders of magnitude greater numbers of people that have proven st nige knew three parts of sod all. But the TV shows have 2 or 3 seats on the stage so nige could spout his bile with next to no context on the experience and expertise that said he was wrong.

As a Welshman living in the 21st century I played no part in the historical crimes of the British Empire, if I had it my way Tony Blair would be in the Hague, and Wales would be free to chose its own path. So I reserve the right condemn Russia's aggression and support Ukraine's right to defend its territory without being called a hypocrite. It is more hypocritical for one to condemn western aggression and then resort to whataboutisms or make excuses when other states do the same. Anyone who is truly opposed to war must condemn all forms of military aggression and imperialism irrespective of who commits it. History is there so that we learn from our mistakes and ensure that it is not repeated. We can equally condemn Western imperialism and Russian Imperialism, that is not mutually exclusive.

I just watched a hostile state denigrate what should be a friend by what is now undoubtably a putin stooge in the Whitehouse. I am now seeing the UK is pretty much where putin wants it. Marginalised, on the shelf. We are struggling to keep up with trump (though people have warned what he is unlike reform's farage that crawled so far up him he can polish the back of 47's teeth) and we are outside the EU. This is very dangerous. Yet we have the reform and tory party all signing trumps praises as our friend. There is only on direction now for the UK and that is the only democracies that stand with Ukraine in this part of the world, and that is the EU. The outcome of brexit is a failure on any level the proponents are shown for what they are. Charlatans. Followers are basically a cult. And really have to wonder what influence was pushed to the leave from the likes of putin because he is the only winner here. That was demonstrated yesterday when Trump and Vance imploded with stupidity.

Spot on