Ukraine: Blockade or no Blockade? British foreign policy stances could cost Boris Johnson his premiership.

Western countries - especially USA and UK - have been supplying weapons to Ukrainian forces. Economic sanctions, bans and political bans have been applied against the Russian Federation and against private Russian citizens. No wonder then that when President Macron of France and others ask Russian authorities to lift the blockade of Ukrainian ports to allow safe passage for Ukrainian exports like wheat Russian authorities are not willing to lift the blockade. I don't think that after everything that has been done and is being done against the Russian Federation there is any mood for negotiation.

There is an ongoing military conflict and Western countries are not neutral in this conflict. There is a massive anti-Russian propaganda machine and some countries have gone as far as banning Russian mass media so a mass media war is very much part of the war in Ukraine and the United Kingdom is the main culprit in what is happening concerning Ukraine.

The mood for confrontation is pretty obvious and the level of madness is rising with the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss MP now threatening that she is going to ban Chinese investors being China another piece of the puzzle of another potential conflict that could make what is happening in Eastern Europe look like a game for small children. The fact that Britain does not have its own foreign policy and simply follows what the USA wants or does not want is a recipe for disaster and British consumers are already paying a very high price for such short-sighted approach. In political terms, the consequences for the ruling Conservative Party would be catastrophic.

After the Covid pandemic and the cost of dealing with the Covid pandemic, the British Chancellor Rishi Sunak was counting on resources to repair the economic damage generated by pandemic and the policies implemented to keep the British economy afloat. Now, the British Chancellor is having to go farther along lines that contradict what many in the Conservative Party believe the Conservative Party should stand for. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now become a very visible target within his own ranks. Never mind the innefficacity or the incompentence of the leadership of the Labour Party. The British stance on Ukraine could cost Boris Johnson his premiership and open the way for a return of the Labour Party to power. 

Henry Kissinger: Why he is right and why he is wrong

 

Henry Kissinger: Why he is right and why he is wrong

With regards to what Kenry Kissinger proposer to get out of the present impasse in Ukraine, there are arguments in favour and arguments against what he proposes.

Sometimes the solution is determined by circumstances on the ground that make any other alternative impossible. If you take North Korea and South Korea as an example, you could say that having North Korea, South Korea and a demilitarised buffer zone in between was the best that could be achieved given the balance of forces on the ground that made any other option unavailable.

With regards to Ukraine, specifically, there are realities on the ground that need to be recognized. Although there is a country called Ukraine with clearly defined geographic limits when it comes to people the situation is pretty blurred. You have areas where Ukrainian elements are the fundamental majority. There are areas when there is a more or less balanced mix of ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. There are areas where ethnic Russians are the distinct majority. This has been reflected in electoral results long before the present crisis occurred. I was speaking with a Polish lady today and she was telling that her parents were Polish because they were born in Ukraine in regions that used to be part of Poland when they were born. I guess there is the same kind of dilemma for people of many other ethnic backgrounds and nationalities because European borders have been changing and countries that existed at one point no longer exist today. 

There was something called Yugoslavia not long ago. Now, there are several countries that shared a common past for decades that suddenly are no longer part of the same unit. You have got Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegobina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, et cetera. People that were German by birth because at the time of their birth a given region was part of Germany saw changes first hand when the said region became part of Poland as part of the political arrangements at the end of World War Two. This has happened and is going to continue happening in the future as what we believed to be the status quo - something that would last forever and ever - was transient.

If the idea is to dismantle Ukraine geographically, this might be an alternative but poses many dangers. If the idea is to keep Ukraine geographically as one item this also poses many dangers. In fact, the present crisis did not start in 2022. It actually started in 2014 with all the comings and goings of Ukrainian internal politics. One side of Ukraine wanted to go West and another side of Ukraine did not want to go West. Frictions led to internal conflict, internal conflict led to Civil War and ultimately ended up being a war that went beyond present national boundaries.

Perhaps Henry Kissinger's proposal is to implement in Ukraine a similar path to the one followed by Yugoslavia where different ethnic groups followed different paths. It sounds reasonable, but there are also pitfalls. You would have two major powers side to side with nothing in between. You would have one side of Ukraine very much attached to the West and another side of Ukraine very much attached to the Russian Federation, with huge grievances and mistrust and nothing in between. Even with a buffer zone that it will be very difficult to police and maintain there is no guarantees for a lasting peace.

Another possibility would be to treat the whole of Ukraine as a buffer zone between NATO countries and the Russian Federation. Can this be achieved? In an unstable country like Ukraine, with high levels of corruption, there are no guarantees either that internal operators and external operators will not seek to undermine any agreement made to turn Ukraine into a buffer zone.

For the moment, the only solution is a conflict that will go on and on, a permanent economic disaster, in a country ravaged by war. The next question that needs to be raised is 'Will Ukraine be able to survive as a country or will it finally cease to exist like Yugoslavia?' Neighbouring country have territorial claims as Ukraine was made up of regions that used to belong to neighbouring countries.

 

BBC: Wave of closures and critical changes that will affect output balance

 

For decades, the BBC has strived to become more like private mass media and is paying a very high price for it with recent announcements leading to the demise of various services. One hopes that the trend towards political correctness will now turn into a trend towards value content, if anything for the sake of survival in a very competitive environment.

The coming of the Digital Age left  many promises unfulfilled. The transition from analogue to digital was a bag of missed opportunities. In the 1990s came the expression 'Value for Money' that became 'Value for Rubbish' and waste leading to generations of viewers walking away from the BBC.

The saga of the BBC World Service was a typical example of what should not have been done. The once proud BBC World Service was cut off bit by bit. BBC World Service used to be a pool of talent respected worldwide and one of the worst tragedies was the loss of its well known headquarters at Bush House in Central London. The facilities had been rented from the beginning and the opportunity was missed to acquire them because those in charge thought that there was no point in buying the buildings because rental payments were relatively low. When the cost of renting went up, the Corporation saw much of the budget allocated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office eaten away and the decision was made to move the World Service to Broadcasting House - not before closing down many language services and reducing the entire operation to the bone.

Short-termism killed the BBC World Service that now exists as a skeleton of its former self. From a budgetary point of view, the BBC World Service was merged with local BBC and it now seems that BBC News Channel will now merge with BBC World to form "a single global rolling TV news service". Elegant way of calling a de-facto reduction of the BBC output.

Tim Davie, the present BBC Director General, stated that many of the World Service's foreign language services would go online only. Another step towards the shadows. It was announce that there will also be cuts to local television and radio services in England because 'while the vast majority of the spending is focused on traditional broadcast television and radio channels audiences are shifting online. This will lead to a chain of job losses.

Any hopes of retaining British soft power overseas should be forever forgotten. For decades, British programming for overseas publics has been cut bit by bit. The now defunct Central Office of Information used to produce a wide range of programmes in English and in foreign languages for radio and television that were very much appreciated by foreign audiences. The closure of foreign language services produced by the BBC only made a bad situation worse.

Unless there is a dramatic change in terms of internet services provision across the United Kingdom, millions of Britons across the United Kingdom will not be able to access BBC streaming services when so called traditional radio and television broadcast services come to an end. One wonders then what is the point of focusing on services that can only be accessed by those who have access to Internet connections that are fast enough to distribute such services.

All we hear is talk about finances. What about content? At the end of the day, no matter how many cuts are introduced to save monies, people are going to continue walking away from the BBC if value content is not on offer and/or the services cannot be accessed because of slow and insufficient Internet connections across the United Kingdom.

  

  

Democracy in Britain is being devalued and this is why politicians are afraid of 'extremism'.

Day after day, Democracy in Britain is being devalued. There is no real enthusiam in elections and the lack of enthusiasm is being reflected with low turnouts. It is almost inconceivable that we have reached the present state of affairs with one three out of four people entitled to vote not turning out to vote.

People are caught up between useless politicians that usually appear on the media for reasons that have nothing to do with real politics in a country in which inflation is going up and up without a hope regarding any rises of income for the vast majority of the population that has to put up with rising financial pressures without having the means to remedy what is going on.

Parliament is a circus, but there is no fun on the streets of Britain and there is no fun within political parties that are facing discontent within their own ranks and the discontent is becoming louder and louder putting into question party political allegiance.

Foreign conflicts are the way to divert attention from what is really happening at home and this is why mass media are so profusely used to maintain smoke screens around what is really happening inside the country itself.

Conventional democracy has been failing for decades and colourful speeches and false promises are becoming less and less effective and the judiciary has been increasingly used to prevent explosive situations that will ultimately occur in spite of all legislation issued by the British Parliament. 

Coming to the issue of by-elections and to the reasons why they are being fought, it comes to our attention that more often than not they are now due to criminal behaviour or presumed criminal behaviour of elected Members of Parliament. This is a time when public and private lives become entangled to the detriment of democratic institutions. There is always the presumption that corruption is widespread, but this is the time when corruption is in full display in the public domain.

Despite noisy scandals, how much of an impact do noisy scandals have in terms of the will of voters to support a given political party or a given candidate?How much influence do the mass media have to influence peoples' decisions? We are driven by assumptions, but we have little to support our assumptions in terms of what will be the outcome of the election.

I do assume that most of us are so busy dealing with our own particular problems and challenges and know so very little about what is being done on our behalf that we become mere spectators. We are represented but we do not choose those who represent us. This is the state of what we call democracy.

Conservative Party is being defeated by demographics

Whether this is accepted or not, the fact remains that demographic changes are changing the political map of England and in particular of London. There are swades of people that might abstain from voting Labour, but would certainly not support the Conservative Party. During the recent local elections in London, there were block votes and mixed votes. Block votes is when all votes on the ballot paper are for a single party. A mixed vote is when on the ballot paper votes are for different political parties. 

After recent changes in terms of the number of wards and of the candidates that could be chosen to represent each ward, it became apparent that people in general could support Labour and Greens or Lid Dems on the same ballot, but very few could bring themselves to choose a mixed vote that included Conservatives. Another option, for many voters who did not want to vote Labour was simply to abstain in a sort of protest vote.

In Conservative ranks there is the view that 'Westminster is poisonous'. This means that events happening at national level are somehow putting off Conservative voters and anybody else who in theory would be willing to support Conservative candidates.

The race card and the socio-economic card play a huge part in local elections in London. The Conservative Party managed to lose the only Councillor it had in Clapham, Lambeth. Members of ethnic minorities would not support the Conservative Party. I have chosen the label 'ethnic minorities' when in fact so called ethnic minorities have become majorities in several London boroughs.

London politics is tribal and tribalism is very much undermining democracy when people vote along racial lines driven by misconceptions about what candidates actually represent. One can understand why Labour demonises candidates of other political parties as a way to keep itself in power, but this undermines relationships between communities. If politics is dominated by ghetto mentalities, and ideas about 'us and the others', peaceful coexistence cannot be promoted.