Brexit.

Sid

Time for another coffee.
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Italy will be laughing all the way to the bank.
 
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Luisa Land

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On a side note. Watching politicians 'bumping elbows' while smiling smiling at the cameras is cringeworthy.

Why?

Whether one finds this ridiculous or, on the contrary, smiles about it like some of these politicians, probably has a lot to do with one's own cultural imprint.
Physical contact is part of social interaction in some regions in Europe, in other regions many people find it strange ( was surprised to learn that Limburg belongs to these regions, as the "like" of Sid suggests lol)
And that some politicians have fun with this gesture like little boys, I find sympathetic. Times are serious enough and the job of many politicians is especially hard in these times. So let them have this harmless fun
 

Sid

Time for another coffee.
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It is so staged and they feel so uncomfortable about it and they know they are breaking the corona virus distancing rules, just to get a positive picture out to the world.

And yes I'm no fan of the mandatory 3 kisses on the cheek (or even worse air kisses), that are administered here in NL with even vague acquaintances or even worse with coworkers after a vacation or first working day after New Year, as a welcome ritual.
But I guess that is more me than a Limburgian thingy.
:barf:
With family and friends, that is something totally different.

A handshake is more than enough for others.
 
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Stora

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Why?

Whether one finds this ridiculous or, on the contrary, smiles about it like some of these politicians, probably has a lot to do with one's own cultural imprint.
Physical contact is part of social interaction in some regions in Europe, in other regions many people find it strange ( was surprised to learn that Limburg belongs to these regions, as the "like" of Sid suggests lol)
And that some politicians have fun with this gesture like little boys, I find sympathetic. Times are serious enough and the job of many politicians is especially hard in these times. So let them have this harmless fun
I don't know maybe it's me. I just get a feeling that they are trying to show that they are 'down with the kids' while it's an obvious staged photo shoot.
 

Arkady Arkright

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RE: Russian influence on Brexit (and elections). Not only did the PM's chief advisor Dominic Cummings spend 3 years working in Russia (a period about which his own Wikipedia page lacks any detail whatsoever), a load of other Tories benefit from Russian money too :-

From today's Independent
The Times reported that 14 cabinet ministers and members of the ISC had taken money from figures linked to Russia.
It listed Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, as having personally received £25,000 from Lubov Chernukhin, a banker and the wife of Mr Putin's former deputy finance minister, and £23,000 from Mr Temerko.
Other cabinet ministers said to have accepted money, either personally or to their constituency branch, from the two Russia-linked individuals include Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, Alok Sharma, the business secretary, and Robert Buckland, the justice secretary.
And that's just the Cabinet...
 

Innula Zenovka

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And Grrr again



Now The Daily Telegraph has pretty much turned into The Daily Boris, it's interesting to see how much The Times, a more traditionally Conservative paper, dislikes this current administration -- it's a reminder of why so many Tory MPs were worried about choosing him as leader in the first place.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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RE: Russian influence on Brexit (and elections). Not only did the PM's chief advisor Dominic Cummings spend 3 years working in Russia (a period about which his own Wikipedia page lacks any detail whatsoever), a load of other Tories benefit from Russian money too :-
Well it's no wonder that London's nick name has been Londongrad for quite some time. And of course that money had to be rubbing off somewhere on some Brits...
 

bubblesort

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RE: Russian influence on Brexit (and elections). Not only did the PM's chief advisor Dominic Cummings spend 3 years working in Russia (a period about which his own Wikipedia page lacks any detail whatsoever), a load of other Tories benefit from Russian money too :-

From today's Independent


And that's just the Cabinet...
It's incredible how the Russians, of all people, are so good at campaigning for things in more democratic societies. Such a shame that the ruling class in America and the UK are not up to the task of out-campaigning Russia. All that education and grooming David Cameron and Hillary Clinton received, and they couldn't handle the overwhelming onslaught of Russian propaganda. Sure, the Russian memes may look silly, obscure, and ineffective, but that's exactly what the Russians want you to believe! If Putin can do all this, it makes one wonder how much of a landslide he would win by in Russia if he ever ran a fair election over there. I guess we will never find out. Putin is so good at democracy, he doesn't even have to run for office any more!
 

Innula Zenovka

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It's incredible how the Russians, of all people, are so good at campaigning for things in more democratic societies. Such a shame that the ruling class in America and the UK are not up to the task of out-campaigning Russia. All that education and grooming David Cameron and Hillary Clinton received, and they couldn't handle the overwhelming onslaught of Russian propaganda. Sure, the Russian memes may look silly, obscure, and ineffective, but that's exactly what the Russians want you to believe! If Putin can do all this, it makes one wonder how much of a landslide he would win by in Russia if he ever ran a fair election over there. I guess we will never find out. Putin is so good at democracy, he doesn't even have to run for office any more!
Not really. The Russians realised, very early on, the internet's potential to fracture and manipulate public opinion in order to disrupt traditional political debates about the merits of one platform against another and to replace them with shifting and amorphous temporary coalitions of interest groups (often mutually hostile) who can briefly be assembled into a temporary "Putin majority" for a particular candidate on election day.

The majority thus assembled, whether it be in favour of Putin's United Russia party or Brexit, comprises a multitude of voters, each of whom, at the time they vote see the preferred candidate or policy as delivering a particular policy of particular importance to them.

A classic example of this would be what, to the Leave campaign's surprise as much as to anyone else, turned out to be one of the most effective motivators for a particular group of undecided voters in the 2016 referendum -- a campaign linking the EU to Spanish bullfighting, and thus to concerns about animal welfare in general. I never saw it, but apparently lots of swing voters on Facebook whom the algorithms had identified as an appropriate audience did, and their engagement with it was far higher than most other pitches to different audiences.

More generally, though, Russian propaganda is designed not so much to promote individual candidates and policies on their merits but, rather, to call into question the validity of democratic political debate altogether, by attacking the idea there's a shared set of facts and beliefs that all sides in democratic debate can agree on. Instead, they promote competing "alternative facts," where you can trust nothing you read or see, and politicians are all cynical manipulators out for themselves.

That's what all the cries of "fake news" and "Mainstream media" are about -- it's politics as professional wrestling and reality TV, a staged spectacle where you cheer your heroes and boo your villains, aware at one level that it's all a charade, but it's fun and entertaining nevertheless.

But I suspect you know this anyway.
 

Stora

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Russian hackers stole trade papers from Liam Fox email



Documents on UK-US trade talks, leaked ahead of the 2019 general election, were stolen from an email account belonging to Conservative MP Liam Fox, it has emerged.
The papers were published online and used by Labour in the 2019 campaign to claim the NHS would be put at risk.
The UK government has said Russians almost certainly sought to interfere in the election through the documents.





Russian hackers stole papers from Liam Fox email
 
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Chin Rey

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FREEDOM FOR THE JUTES!

As an unexpected side effect of Brexit, it seems the once proud Jutish kingdom of Kent is finally been able to take its first little step towards independence from its Anglo-Saxon overlords!

For those who are so terminally bored they're willing to read official documents (unlike a certain Tory MP with the initials IDS): Enforcing Operation Brock plans in 2021

For those who's rather watch a short YT video instead: