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As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

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Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#41

Post by 323 »

mellavora wrote: post #16
curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

Counter-argument. Why are the G7 not increasing the aid to Ukraine, to more quickly end the war and force Russia to settle?

Because G7 is afraid of Russia splintering into 10 nuclear republics. This is well covered by various analysts.

So G7 wants a soft "landing".

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#42

Post by majesticmerc »

Jochim wrote: post #6
curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

Also in the UK. Personally I'm sick of seeing our government cosy up to authoritarian regimes because they have something we happen to want. In the UK we're particularly unlucky in that the people currently in charge don't really care if the poor in our society freeze or starve as they've stated so astutely in the recent leadership contest. The rest of the G7 at least seem prepared to shield their population as much…

It's also worth remembering that Russian forces have committed an assassination [0] on UK soil using radioactive material, and attempted another one that was bungled and killed an innocent English police officer _in England_ [1].

The general feeling towards Russia in the UK is very hostile, and there are certainly a huge number of people happy to put the squeeze on Putin. There is little to no enthusiasm for appeasement here, and the pressure is on the government to ease the pressure on the vulnerable without bending over to Russian foreign policy.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yuli...

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#43

Post by moomin »

curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

Surprisingly, the U.K. isn’t nearly as affected as mainland Europe by Russia’s antics. But sky-high crude prices, regulatory capture and lack of storage (government neglect, again) mean that, shockingly, U.K. is going to suffer worse than Germany.

Blaming this all of this on the UK’s stance wrt Russia is mostly a move by politicians who don’t want to admit how badly they’ve messed regular governing up.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#44

Post by cm2187 »

curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

The sanctions were spearheaded by europe, the US followed, initially reluctantly (Biden wanted some symbolic sanctions like freezing a few bank accounts and banning a handful of people from travel). It is european countries (and EU countries), that Putin claims are in Russia' sphere of influence (Baltic states, Poland, czech republic, etc). That stated nostalgia for lost power was easy to dismiss until 2022 (and I dismissed it). But the Ukraine invasion made it clear they cannot be dismissed anymore and if Ukraine becomes a military success for Russia, the next provocations and aggressions will target EU countries.

So no, this is not something imposed by the US, it is a policy initiated by europe, for europe's benefit, and with the support of the US.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#45

Post by ignoramous »

ReptileMan wrote: post #35
ThePadawan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> London is based on being the word's money laundering capital, vacation playground and best buddy for Russian Oligarchs, Saudi Royals, CCP big shots and other wealthy dictators and warlords. Having lived in Zurich for many years, those are fightin' words! /j

As a friend of mine defined Zurich in the mid 90s - Zurich - the Swiss city where one of ten is Swiss ... The irony - she was mail order bride that just got her Swiss citizenship.

The quasi-Xenophobes are well and truly out of their closet.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#46

Post by sofixa »

ShivShankaran wrote: post #27
mellavora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-argument. Why are the G7 not increasing the aid to Ukraine, to more quickly end the war and force Russia to settle?

Exactly.. Why not amp up the war against the super power with most nukes in the world. I wonder what would happen if the real civilized world started aiding freedom fighters against UK in Iraq, Syria and Libya? Russia will probably start doing that

This false equivalency is honestly revolting.

Anyways, Putin is, hopefully, not mad enough to step into nuclear territory. We'll see how he fares when he's cornered in (when Ukraine's counteroffensives get too serious to hide from the Russian public and he has to mobilise to hope to win, or back down.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#47

Post by justin66 »

curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

> Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering?

The G7 includes the EU as a non enumerated member. The EU, which does not include Ukraine but does include the Baltics and some Nordic states which fear for their own safety. Not to mention how intertwined the G7’s interests are with NATO.

There is a really derpy “if you ignore all the killing that’s happening in this war, it would totally make financial sense to end the sanctions” vibe to some of these comments. The people who are at risk have a say as well.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#48

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

shapefrog wrote: post #28
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get what they vote for. What's the problem?

I am extremely comfortable with people having to suffer the obvious consequences of their choicse, it only bothers me hearing them moan about it.

People moan about it because they and their governments haven't understood the consequences of their votes and actions. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

It doesn't help that elections are also just popularity contests and charades of endless lies and empty promises. Your average voter is far too I'll equipped to make informed judgements on complex issues making them easy to influence through fear mongering by groups with vested interests in seeing the results they want.

Everything is fucked.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#49

Post by cm2187 »

sofixa wrote: post #39
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because energy companies, even European ones, are making bank. So are asset owners. Every crisis is someone's opportunity to make money off other peoples' loss. As long as their assets are safe and keep going up, nobody cares about CoL going up. Well, at least until riots happen and political extremism grows to new heights. Come on France, 'do yer thang' (riots), we'll follow suit.

> Come on France, 'do yer thang' (riots), we'll follow suit. Somewhat unlikely for now. The government is shielding the population from the worst, as they should, by capping electricity prices and with grants/loans to those worst impacted. The average Brit is being hit much worse than the average French.

You are not shielding the country. By printing money to pay for high energy cost, you maintain demand high when there is scarcity (instead of letting the demand adjust, people using heating as little as they can, companies finding substitute for gas, etc), that's a recipe for making the problem worse.

Re: As Britain awaits a new prime minister, its cost-of-living crisis mounts

#50

Post by maccard »

Pearse wrote: post #21
curiousgal wrote: post #2

Okay this is a genuine question but why are the G7 not backing down when clearly their populations are the ones suffering? It feels strange to me living in the UK that the sanctions have been spearheaded by the US when they are mostly shielded from Russia. Whereas for European countries, it is obvious that they are dependent on Russian gas and yet they are not willing to negotiate. The average citizen cares about the…

I'm not in the UK but we are having a similar cost of living crisis in Ireland. I'm happy to pay the price of solidarity with Ukraine. I work with both Russian and Ukrainian people and none of them want this war. People are dieing and being forced out of their homes. I know this is happing everywhere but I would like to support these people: 1 because I know people in that country and 2 because like Britain in the se…

> I'm not in the UK but we are having a similar cost of living crisis in Ireland.

I'm irish, living in the UK, and the cost of living crisis is significantly worse here. The standard rate that Electric ireland are about to increase to for both gas and electricity is lower than I paid last winter, and we're about to see our bills almost double from that (and do the same again in 6 months). My bill in october will be almost 4x the cost of what it was last september.

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