Gen Leonid Ivashin, a legend in the Russian military, rebuts Putin's year's end talk: “Before the start of the ‘special military operation,’ I issued a warning. And the past four years have proven the correctness and seriousness of those assessments. We have achieved no success at the tactical-

The DoJ will neither be the first or last not to make a mistake lile this. Having spent a lot of time reading redacted files these days they tend to be photocopies with the original retained and you can't do tricks like hold them up to the light. E-docs clearly are a whole new problem.

Slow Christmas day news, curtesy of the grauniad. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

My latest: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Lol.

No research is required. The claim is obviously bullshit.

In important news: I HAVE COMPLETED MY MARKING EARLY. Bask in my glory, mortals.

I've played this video game.

I don't think this is quite right. I think it is more to do with the (typically false) sense that military history is old-fashioned and intellectually conservative, that it is somewhat antiquarian. Of course, this is false.

Trying to rewatch Peaky Blinders episode 1. But Sam Neil is still reading a file marked "Top Secret". In the 1920s? I think not! How can one possibly suspend disbelief?

A step in the right direction regarding UKHE policy. Now, the funding model needs to be re-examined, caps on domestic students imposed, international students removed from immigration figures, re-liberalise entry for international students' dependents, and legislating to depower VC offices.

For the first time in my life, I will vote for Plaid. Not just to keep Reform out, but to give Labour a well-deserved kick up the backside. They need to radically rethink their approach of pandering to the right. Perhaps a bloody defeat will give them the jolt they need to mend their ways?

People often frame this around the Monroe Doctrine, a reassertion. Surely, it is more like later phases of US history? I'm thinking of the Imperial phase of the Ocean Empire-building; the Spanish American War, etc. Or perhaps even the 50s a la Guatemala.

A complete repudiation of Labour's strategy of appealing to the right at the expense of its left.

If Ratcliffe won't run it, and it is critically important enough to be bailed out like this, the government should nationalise it.

Leaving aside the politics of this, I think that the way perception of a given appears to be on a pendulum is interesting. If perception swings one way, reaction to that perception tends to shift perception back in the opposite direction. I suspect that soon, Britain will see a similar phenomenon.

Leaving aside the sexist fashion blather, the headline also likens the new "C" - the actual head of the agency - to "Miss Moneypenny", a fictional secretary, reflective of a reality from decades ago. This actively seeks to deprofessionalise a very senior woman because she is a woman.

Without commenting on the edit and the BBC airing it, I don't see how this law suit goes very far. The BBC have apologised, senior figures walked the plank, it wasn't broadcast in the US, and Trump won the election. Hard to see how he substancially lost reputation. edition.cnn.com/2025/12/15/m...

There is an excellent point in @iandunt.bsky.social's book on Westminster that speaks about precisely this in terms of good SpAds.

This film is actually terrifying. There is a scene were Julie (Hilary Swank), the protagonist, is chased through a school late at night by a marauding school Karate gang, the leader clearly intent on him and his subordinates gang raping her. Hence, she learns to kick ass. Rating? Parental Guidence.

Rewatching The Next Karate Kid (4?), and I cant struggle but think that, continuing from 1, this is a story about child servitude. Young, precarious kids, with lots of problems at home and school, are tricked into servitude and violence on the part of a charismatic, psychopathic "mentor".

I was just considering, does anyone know the rates of basic interaction here vs X? The population of this site is relatively small, as in the 10s of millions of users. X, Threads etc, are much larger. But how much of the latter include genuine interaction with real people?

While he himself is very annoying, amid making something of a fool of himself at the hands of Piers Morgan and various other hacks, the streamer "Destiny" did at least point out that Ana has radicalised herself because internet trolls gave her a hard time.

Dreadful news. Where are the media in all of this? UKHE, one of our few great export industries, as well as a vital part of our socio-economic national infrastructure, has been slowly collapsing and now rapidly so. @teamlabouruk.bsky.social asleep at the wheel.

Really? The Tory peers are a joke, hacks and cranks. But Labour's are just more of the same old political operators. What happened to making people like Asa Briggs a Lord? Actual experts with something to offer that you don't get get from professional politics.

BBC News is so broken and servile, it is covering Farage's own attacks on it at face value but not including calls by Holocaust survivors for him to apologise on its website. Seems to me that there needs to a clear at out the top of the corporation.

Trying to watch the Godfather on Netflix and the sheer volume of adverts now on that platform make it unwatchable. Every few minutes, the film is interrupted.

Imagine this happening to the fishing industry in a fishing town. The papers would be up in arms and screaming bloody murder. Extrapolate this across the entire UK over the last 5 years and projected for the next 5. I think we would see 6 figure job losses in one of the UKs most lucrative sectors.

I think the scale of job losses is being widely under reported. The big culls at individual HEIs are reported, but we seem to have little idea (even after @ucuqmu.bsky.social work) about the wider losses. I am going through a consultation at the moment. HEIs typically do this in trickles.

Lol.

No. Recommending sticking to the marking criteria and assignment brief when you fail a student is not transphobic.

As usual, the British public are demonstrably wrong.

Advice to new academics if you're going to fail a piece of work: 1. In feedback, quote liberally from the assignment brief, marking criteria, and student handbook. 2. Onky explain why the work fails to meet the criteria. 3. Offer no other judgement. 4. Never give 0 unless the issue is cheating.

I can't see how this is a debate in the culture wars. The essay doesn't engage with the source material in any substantive way. Is it a zero? I don't know. But it certainly isn't passable regardless of whether one finds it offensive or not. It doesn't meet the basic requirements.

Badenoch is woefully out of her depth. The government is error prone and looks dreadful (even when it isn't). An even half-competent LOTO would be making mincemeat out of them. Yet her weakness and utter incompetence means the Tories are making no headway at all.

What funding?

If you can't motivate the majority of your students to turn up and do at least some reading to complete their assignments properly, then perhaps the problem isn't with them but with you?

Is she trying to get herself replaced?

I've been thinking about prosopography. Because why not dip I to Lewis Namier and Charles Beard of an evening? @sandbaggerone.bsky.social do you think a collective biography approach to British Intel has legs?

I think the term "historical revisionism" should be banned from use by journalists, columnists and politicians until I personally have tested them rigourously to ensure that they know what it means.

Lol

Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what Farage thought of Truss’s budget that cost Britain about £30,000,000,000.

I've not looked at or heard anything about the budget. Thoughts? @iandunt.bsky.social

Said it before, I'll say it again. This podcast is really, really good. I very much enjoy the balance of intellectually meaty material but with a rye, humorous delivery.

This I their most popular song on Spotify, with 900m streams. I'm disappointed it's not metal and despise myself for liking it so much. open.spotify.com/track/2wBnZd...

I've heard a lot about Ghost, the band, apparently they are with Sleep Token the new big thing. Even my students are talking about them. So I bought an album for £4.99 at the shops. It is really... derivative. It sounds like a poppy version of 70s/80s metal. Very new wave. Why do the kids like this?

Leaving aside of the folly of out Faraging Farage, what does this serve? It is expensive and will not work in putting off migrants from seeking a new life in the UK. Labour have lost the plot.

I see the Telegraph are spinning Farage's school boy racism as a non-story. "It was 50 years ago!", they bellow. It's snot fair!!! Is the subtext, like 9 year olds. But the point is that his racism is more dogwhistle now, yet still present. The other is that he is clearly lying through his teeth.

My prediction: the revelations that Farage was a racist and still is, see the Breaking Point poster as Exhibit A, will not dent his or Reform's position by a single point. The idea that "subject him to scrutiny" will damage him is laughable. The people who like him and Reform want the racism.

It amazes me that there are three unoccupied seats in the US House and they have been (or will be) unoccupied for months. Why does it take so long, in a two year election cycle, to hold a special election and fill a vacancy? Who represents the constituents in the meantime? Do they pay federal taxes?