Emrys
Emrys's JournalMark Drakeford to stand down as Labour first minister of Wales
The 69-year-old Labour politician, who has been Welsh leader since December 2018, said he hoped his replacement could be in place before Easter 2024.
At a news conference in Cardiff, Mr Drakeford said he would remain as first minister until then “in the full sense of that job”.
Mr Drakeford said he would continue to work “tirelessly” for a Labour government to “start repairing the huge damage which has been inflicted by the Tories over the last 13 years”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mark-drakeford-first-minister-wales-stand-down-b2463266.html
Drakeford's conduct as first minister has gained respect even among those who aren't Labour voters, his mild demeanour masking hints of steel when the occasion demanded.
He led Wales well during the COVID crisis, often allying with the SNP in Scotland in trying to plough a saner course than the shambolic regime at Westminster did. In his quiet way, Labour in Wales has been more radical than Labour UK-wide on a number of policies, which has led to improvements in the party's standing in Wales, though Drakeford's personal approval ratings have fallen in recent times.
He'll be missed.
It remains to be seen how the timing of his stepping down and selection of his successor will mesh with the possibility of an early general election given the utter chaos among the Tories at the moment.
Oh, and out of sheer generosity, I'll offer this bonus instalment in your crash course on Ukraine.
It has a little local flavour, assuming you're based in the US, of course:
Trump impeachment: Giuliani sought help for Kiev mayor Klitschko when meeting senior Ukrainian official
US president's personal lawyer tried to help former world boxing champion keep his job
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-impeachment-ukraine-rudy-giulliani-zelenskiy-vitaliy-klitschko-a9312536.html
Reading up and down replies to this OP, a number of us have made some effort to offer you information
If we haven't tried harder, maybe it's because, rightly or wrongly, we suspect your time on DU may not be long.
I couldn't tell you what "percentage of Ukraine agrees with him about Zelensky" because you may be able to grasp that accurate polling is rather difficult to conduct in the present circumstances.
It's irrelevant at the moment anyway because Zelensky has sufficient (in fact, overwhelming) support in Ukraine's parliament to continue as leader, and Ukraine's constitution expressly forbids elections being held under conditions of martial law, a state of law that has been repeatedly overwhelmingly supported in the six times it's been voted for renewal by the parliament since it was initially declared.
Instead, assuming (perhaps foolishly) that you're genuinely curious, I'll offer you a brief, incomplete course in background reading:
Ukraine’s Other Battle: Zelensky vs. the Mayors - https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89833
EXPLAINED: Why Zelensky and Klitschko are Having a Public Falling Out - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/4799
'He Told the Truth' – Kyiv Mayor Klitschko Agrees with Zaluzhny on War Stalemate - https://www.kyivpost.com/post/24993
Ukraine blocks ex-president from leaving country amid alleged plan to meet with Hungary’s Orban - https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20231202-ukraine-blocks-ex-president-from-leaving-country-amid-alleged-plan-to-meet-pro-putin-hungary-s-orban
Klitschko says Ukraine is turning authoritarian as conflict with Zelensky persists - https://kyivindependent.com/klitschko-says-ukraine-is-turning-authoritarian-as-conflict-with-president-persists/
Once you've read through all that, I'll risk blowing your mind by revealing that Klitchko has a younger brother who's also been a professional boxer of some renown and is his spitting image.
I'll just cut to the chase and go full ad hominem. The author, Daniel Hannan, is an arse of the first water.
He's a failed UK Tory politician - failed in the way that UK Tory politicians do nowadays in having been elevated to a seat for life in the House of Lords by Boris Johnson.His career, such as it has been since he began it as a newspaper opinion columnist (on the model of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove), has been marked by very few achievements of any note other than winning a seat in the European Parliament three times having each time been placed at the top of the Tory list for his region of South East England, largely because he was a prominent Eurosceptic. His main claim to fame - that made him a darling of Fox News for a time - was a crack in the European Parliament in 2009 about UK premier Gordon Brown being "the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government" that went viral online, which wasn't even original, having been stolen from UK Opposition leader John Smith, who'd made the same jab at UK premier John Major in 1992.
He was an arch Leaver during the disastrous Brexit referendum, promising many things that didn't come to pass, including his insistence that there was no way the UK would leave the European Single Market (we did) and that Europeans living in the UK would not have their status as UK residents threatened (it was).
He might count the UK leaving the EU as a career highlight. Nothing he forecast as an outcome of it actually happening has come to pass, so forgive me if I have little respect for his powers of prediction about Ukraine.
I'm actually surprised that Hannan can point to Ukraine on a map as he showed so little interest in the world outside the UK that in 2018, at that time still a Member of the European Parliament, he ranked 738 out of 751 in terms of participation in roll call votes, his time being mostly spent as an ultimately unsuccessful troublemaker who at one point compared the European Parliament to 1930s Germany when he didn't get his way.
He did dabble in US politics superficially, endorsing Obama in his first presidential run as he thought McCain too much of a hawk (a choice he very quickly publicly disowned when his rightwing readership reacted adversely), and Mitt Romney in the next election because he thought Obama's policies were taking the US in a direction too similar to the EU's.
He now, as he reveals in passing in this column, spends his time hobnobbing with "global Centre-Right parties", so it's little wonder his view of the Ukraine conflict is somewhat jaundiced.
A subtext he doesn't overtly explore is that he'd hate Ukraine to succeed and ultimately join the EU because he's done his best to undermine that organization throughout his political career.
Not a total solution, but where there's a will, there's a way:
Ukraine on Thursday said it had tested transporting trucks across the Polish border using trains, in an attempt to bypass a month-long blockade by Polish hauliers.
Truck traffic at four border crossings has been paralysed since November, amid protests by Polish hauliers demanding the reintroduction of entry permits for their Ukrainian competitors.
"Ukrainian Railways has sent the first train with trucks to Poland," the state-owned rail operator said in a statement.
...
"Similar trips will be organised in the opposite direction," Ukrainian Railways said, posting a video showing a train carrying over a dozen trucks moving to an undisclosed location.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/25192
Reuters has also reported on this initiative.
Stuart Seldowitz facing hate crime, stalking charges after harassing New York City halal cart worker, police say
Source: CBS New York
NEW YORK -- A man accused of harassing a New York City halal cart worker was arrested Wednesday, police say.
Stuart Seldowitz, 64, is facing multiple charges, including aggravated harassment, hate crime and stalking.
Police say on multiple occasions, Seldowitz approached a 24-year-old man at his food cart on Second Avenue and 83rd Street on the Upper East Side and made anti-Islamic statements.
NYPD says 64 year old Stuart Seldowitz arrested and charged with
Aggravated Harassment 2
Hate Crime/Stalking
Stalking, Cause Fear
Stalking, At Employment
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/stuart-seldowitz-arrested-halal-cart-worker-anti-islamic-harassment/
Reasonable for protesters to call Iain Duncan Smith 'Tory scum', court rules
...
Lord Justice Popplewell and Justice Fordham said no fault in law was made by a senior district judge last November in finding Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent.
In response to a request for a judicial review from the director of public prosecutions, the high court found that Judge Goldspring, who is also described as a chief magistrate, had made the important finding that “the use of Tory scum was to highlight the policies” of Duncan Smith, and that this was relevant to the “reasonableness of the conduct” in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.
...
The high court ruled that the defence needed to set out the facts for a “reasonable conduct defence” in relation to the freedom of expression and assembly rights in the European convention on human rights, but that it had been up to the prosecution to demonstrate the proportionality of an interference with those rights, which it had not done.
Goldspring had said: “My decision set no precedent as to what may constitute unlawful behaviour in other circumstances – but that in this case, on these facts, the use of those words did not amount to an offence, as in the circumstances it was reasonable and protected by the convention.” The high court agreed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/21/protesters-iain-duncan-smith-tory-scum-reasonable-court-rules
YouTube link, well worth the watch:
Twofer: Paul Simon and George Harrison duet on two tracks on Saturday Night Live in 1976
One of George's and one of Paul's:
Background to how this performance came to happen: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/george-harrison-beatles-paul-simon-duet-here-comes-the-sun-on-snl-video/
It's subject to repeated votes for renewal by the Ukrainian Parliament.
You know, like happens in democracies. Here's the latest vote:
KIEV, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday voted to extend the current martial law in the country, which is due to expire on Nov. 16, for another 90 days, lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said.
The legislation to extend the martial law was endorsed by 329 votes, with a required minimum of 226, Honcharenko wrote on Telegram.
The lawmakers also approved a separate bill on extending the general mobilization of the population till Feb. 14, 2024.
The Ukrainian parliament imposed martial law in the wake of the conflict with Russia on Feb. 24 in 2022, and has extended it nine times since then.
https://english.news.cn/20231108/2ed4cfd62f6f45af8dc6eb6f7c232de6/c.html
This sort of information isn't hard to find.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Scotland
Member since: Mon Sep 7, 2009, 12:57 AM
Number of posts: 7,280
