Whilst this post is mainly for the attention of @Nikolaos, it is for the eyes of everyone. Now, I am not going to go into specifics here as we cannot discuss on the open forum any actions taken against members as they remain confidential between the admin team and the member concerned. I can however explain things in more general terms When there is a report that someone has breached the rules of the forum, the admin team spend time together to reach a decision as to how it should be handled. Those decisions must be agreed by at least three people out of our group of five, but more often than not all five will agree. Actions taken can range from a PM being sent to someone to explain where they have gone wrong and ask them to refrain, all the way through to banning the individual concerned from the forum. When we send a PM to someone, nobody else knows it has been done and nor should they. When we ban someone however, that we cannot hide from everyone else as the person's username will show with a line through it which, for example, looks like this: Where there is a post that you find offensive and/or that you believe should have been deleted but may have been missed (we are all human after all), please just drop us a DM and we will see what we can do to help. For the record, anyone who is found to be making racist posts on this forum will be banned, without doubt. The fact you are still with us (and I do hope you stay @Nikolaos) is absolute confirmation that you are have not posted anything racist at all. As for being far-right... well, some would say it is better to be right than wrong, and far is merely perspective
My honest feelings: It is very sad when members fall out, we all have different opinions. With what the World has gone through with Covid and now the poor people in Ukraine, I would like US ALL show a little bit more love to our fellow men/woman.
Could this refer to the MASSIVE profits made by the likes of Shell? Keir was having a go at Boris about setting up a new 'windfall tax' - on these massive profits.
I believe that most of them were destroyed on the ground - but not all - the pilots must have escaped as they are ready to hop into a Polish jet and pay back Russia. There are still some Ukrainian jets flying around. The Ukrainians were quite canny - their tanks were hidden out of sight - in woodland or some such. They read Putin and knew that he would try and destroy their defensive equipment before moving troops in. I hope that Ben sends over our Starstreak missile system - that will go a fair way to closing down the skies over Ukraine. These missiles are far more lethal than anything else we have/are sending over.
There was a discussion on TV earlier and they stated that in Ireland they are taking a large lump of tax off petrol and diesel. We had the usual response that we need to get away from hydrocarbons and it won't make that much difference to people's cost of living especially as the poorest don't drive. It took right up to the end of the discussion before one of them pointed out the bleeding obvious. The whole cost of transport would be helped, especially the haulage industry, and therefore prices in the shops.
The issue with a windfall tax is twofold - one, the money won't be passed onto the consumer/taxpayer, instead going into government coffers and secondly the companies themselves will simply pass it on by increasing prices now or at some point in the future.
Boris could reduce fuel duty from diesel/petrol, remove VAT from domestic fuel. remove green levies from domestic fuel and cancel or pause the proposed NI hike to ease the burden -- he won't, because he is an "I'm alright Jack" character as is most of our parliament.
OK, fair enough Guys and thank you, it just feels incredibly odd when you're a mixed ethnicity person who passionately opposes any sort of racial discrimination and then gets accused of racism and political extremism, you know? For me, it really wasn't a question of being hurt or offended, just what is acceptable to state about others on a public forum. I have absolutely no problem with disagreements, I just don't like such extreme mischaracterisations. Nick
Russia has banned exports of more than 200 types of foreign-made product until the end of 2022 in a bid to mitigate the impact of western sanctions. Putin is getting desperate. Sanctions need to stay for the long term - he needs to feel their full impact. Russia may be able to take Ukraine - but they won't be able to hold it for long. Bye bye Putin....
Seemingly Russia has been saying that there are US biological weapon labs and chemical weapon development in Ukraine. This is seen by the US as a precursor to Russia using such weapons in Ukraine and then blaming the Ukrainian forces. The UK Ministry of Defence has already reported that Russia is using TOS-1A to launch thermobaric rockets. Lovely bit of footage on the news of a Russian tank column being destroyed. It is just a pity so many young men have to die.
It's exporting goods that were imported. So Russia buy a load of TV's from Samsung and they are keeping them for themselves - because they can't get any more. He is desperate - we can simply buy the TV's from Samsung. Keep the sanctions on for a very long time - he needs to understand that military force is not enough in a modern world. Inflation over in Russia is going up faster than a Starstreak missile.