Federer officially in 3rd place on GS titles. Who would have thought he would retire as 3rd all those years ago.

Yes if she was running in an election. But a majority of Tory members still probably care more about lower taxes than much else and they're the ones she will have to ultimately win over.

Penny Mordaunt is probably by far the best choice for the Tory's but I don't know if they're smart enough to go for her. I think she'll get the biggest pull from potential Labour voters as she's called out Boris on Party Gate and is likely to be seen as more ethical and also who would be considered the most interesting and attractive out of the bunch. She's advocated for assisted suicide, more IVF funding, tackling loneliness and poverty and said things like "Transgender women are women". Being a white British born female will help her chances with the racist voters and female voters also.

I think she will get plenty of backing by MPs but when it's put to the party membership I think she would struggle being up against Rishi. She looks fine in a multi-way vote but in a head to head I imagine she'll struggle greatly as I don't think she really fits with the typical Tory electorate because of those previously mentioned views, even though she strongly backed Brexit and defence measures and her economic views and most other views are typical Tory.

'Ready for Rishi' like he's someone people are pining for, I'm worried about the quality of his PR team if that lameness is the best they can come up with. I doubt many care about him in the slightest he is a boring but obvious choice still. He's lucky nobody else running is rivetting much either so it might not weigh too much against him. He would have been a shoe in without the tax scandal happening.

Starmer vs Rishi would be the most boring election on record. Perhaps that's a good thing though.

I called him a c*nt not a scumbag. But I realised there's a lot of c*nts in the party, it wasn't right to single him out.

He looked like a ready-to-go prepped replacement so now they will be less likely to get rid of Boris without a known replacement that the public would likely have been behind.

Well I'm working under the assumption that he's a career politician and these people usually have their speeches written out for them.

The Whitehouse is saying he surposably meant something different now though to how it sounded. It is certainly possible he's a bit senile and got his lines mixed-up.

There's no chance Biden is spouting off random lines. If it was Trump then sure. But someone like Biden will be vetting every major thing he says past his team and probably even the military. The tone of it will be very intentional and in-line with their military strategy. If it's provoking then they are intending to provoke.

Whether that's a wise thing or not is a different question but I wouldn't put it on Biden himself.

No, I've only seen still images in the news lol. The man just looks out of place.

But then Biden seems a bit weird also. And the rest of them as well to be honest.. like who the hell are these people just randoms like any other person but they're acting all important.

It's probably just a mood I'm in. I think Boris helps decloak the masquerade. To see them as individuals with all their shortcomings and trifle motivations for wanting to get to the position they have done. As clueless as the next but left with so much power over the many.

Politics really is a treat.

F**k me Boris looks like an embarrassing idiot at G7. It seems to stand out a lot more when he's put alongside other leaders. I shouldn't judge on appearances but I can't even look at the pictures without wincing.

So has anything actually been done yet or planning to be done to prevent Trump trying once more to turn himself into a dictatorship if he gets back in power in 2024?

@laundry - So what you're suggesting is that the Ukraine implements some form of scorched earth policy in order to deter Russia from invading the country further?  If so, it does sound rather drastic to me.

Yeah pretty much. In both Taiwan and the Ukraine. The status quo as we have it now isn't exactly working is it? It's not that extreme a measure because if it was put in place where it would be known to automatically happen after invasion then it would probably never get used because it's too big and effective a deterrent for anyone to want to stage an invasion. That's the point of it. And it's magnitudes less extreme than what major countries already do now which is the threat to nuke the **** out of anyone who attacks them and potentially make the whole species extinct.

It's surely been considered but my guess is that the West probably vetos such an idea as it will have knock on consequences for us which we're not willing to accept.

In the end these countries don't matter to us as much as our politicians try to make out. If it was our land being invaded you would suddenly see a very different and more serious response than just a few sanctions.

Perhaps instead of using nukes for MAD, nukes could deployed onto your own land in a controlled form. Then you say "if anyone invades and takes over our land we will set the nukes off and destroy its usefullness". Kind of like the defence of being able to brick your phone if somebody steals it.

This would then make invading the land useless as it would become radioactive and obliterated. It would cause severe side effects to all neighbours, this would hurt yourself obviously but would also hurt the aggressor (which is typically a neighbouring country).

It is still obviously terribly bad for everyone if nukes are set off. But it is a defensive measure on your own land rather than an aggressive one on others land that could lead to MAD. It should be enough of a deterrent to make any invasion of that land not worthwhile. And it's kind of more in a sweet spot whereby you could conceive of a country using this as a defence and actually using their nukes. Whereas at the minute firing off nukes for MAD isn't something that any country is going to conceivably choose to do as it's completely insane. Whilst still an obvious deterrent MAD isn't helping in a situation like the one we're in because it's too extreme but setting them off on your land perhaps isn't which makes it a better defense system.

Well they're not a threat to the UK still.

Our nukes are pretty useless, they're not stopping this invasion happening. Maybe if Ukraine and Taiwan had some nukes, then we might be seeing something different. The West could easily supply them some, but then they don't actually want nukes in a place where they might actually get used.

Ukraine isn't even going to retaliate. They'll fight the war on their own soil and then lose and then give up. Crimea 2.0

No missiles will be fired into Moscow.

The bigger question is still whether China will ever decide to go hmm. And at what point would the West actually decide to properly intervene. How far are we actually willing to let Russia and China push?

I think Djoko enjoys missing out on slams for stupid reasons, starting to be a pattern. If he never gets slam no. 21 I'm sure he'll look back on his idiocy with great regret.