Picking Cain's Brains

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, Cain, what's the scoop on Rishi Sunak?  Never heard of him.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Me either. Everybody seemed to be worried it would be Johnson, Braverman, or Patel. Or Coffey:



This is one of those "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't" things, isn't it?

[Cain]

Okay, Cain, what's the scoop on Rishi Sunak?  Never heard of him.

He's twice as rich as the King of England.

Literally that's all you need to know, it tells you everything about him. But for a brief rundown, he's a creature of the banks, he was willing to serve in Boris Johnson's cabinet, he has the same cavalier belief that he is above the rules that Boris Johnson does and he's already mislead Parliament, engaged in antisemitic dogwhistles and re-appointed significant nutters and criminals to high office.

He is more competent than Truss, probably one of the most competent front bench Tories in all honesty. But given their baseline competence, you shouldn't expect much.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, Cain, what's the scoop on Rishi Sunak?  Never heard of him.

He's twice as rich as the King of England.

Literally that's all you need to know, it tells you everything about him. But for a brief rundown, he's a creature of the banks, he was willing to serve in Boris Johnson's cabinet, he has the same cavalier belief that he is above the rules that Boris Johnson does and he's already mislead Parliament, engaged in antisemitic dogwhistles and re-appointed significant nutters and criminals to high office.

He is more competent than Truss, probably one of the most competent front bench Tories in all honesty. But given their baseline competence, you shouldn't expect much.

Why don't they just say "fuck it" and put Rees-Mogg in?

[Cain]

He's pissed off the half of the party that still have holiday homes in reality. Sunak, who is one of those, noticeably banished him to the back benches, because the man's not only malevonent he's useless, even by current Tory party standards. Putting him in power would be even worse than Truss.

Plus, remember, this was an MP stitch-up this time around, and not the party membership. The party membership are insane, which is why they wanted Truss. The MPs actually have to worry about re-election, which is why they rallied around the more moderate and competent candidate, relatively speaking, while everyone else stood down. The candidate they can actually potentially not get wiped out in a future election with, unlike Truss or Rees-Mogg. Sunak did have glowing profiles written about him for his Covid budget measures, after all.

[Junkenstein]

Evening Cain,

Can I get a drop of prophecy for the future? I'm guessing early election, but how early and why? Probably not by next summer, but by say September after everyones holidays are fucked again through a shitshow 40c summer.

I'm giving 3/1 on riots by April ish, small scale but widespread.

[Doktor Howl]

He's pissed off the half of the party that still have holiday homes in reality. Sunak, who is one of those, noticeably banished him to the back benches, because the man's not only malevonent he's useless, even by current Tory party standards. Putting him in power would be even worse than Truss.

Plus, remember, this was an MP stitch-up this time around, and not the party membership. The party membership are insane, which is why they wanted Truss. The MPs actually have to worry about re-election, which is why they rallied around the more moderate and competent candidate, relatively speaking, while everyone else stood down. The candidate they can actually potentially not get wiped out in a future election with, unlike Truss or Rees-Mogg. Sunak did have glowing profiles written about him for his Covid budget measures, after all.

From what I've seen so far, he's not a complete shitshow.

[Junkenstein]

Can't recall who said it but the just was "instead of getting trussterfucked we are just sunknackered".

Given the list of things on strike it may be underestimating things.

[Cain]

Hmm. The way I see it, unless there's an igniting crisis, Sunak will just glide along until election day.

That said, there are so many looming crises that you can almost take your pick. At this point I consider public sector strikes escalating into wildcat strikes and the government trying to bring in emergency powers to curb their ability to legally strike to be a leading contender. Mike Lynch is charismatic and eats government reporters for breakfast, people are sympathetic to nurses and when the army inevitably gets pulled in, people will feel sorry for the squaddies and blame the suits, not the unions, for their woes.

Energy and cost of living crisis factors into that. Government continues to sit on its hands and do nothing. How many more businesses need to go under before the combination of those out of work and those in work but severely underpaid threaten to tilt into a crisis? How many families having to chose between heating and going bankrupt during what's projected to be an especially harsh winter?

EU negotiations are going suspiciously well...which means the Brexit gang are working themselves up to calling treason on Sunak. They're already putting Priti Patel forward to test the waters, but I think she's just to see how things look and not the real contender.

[Cain]

From what I've seen so far, he's not a complete shitshow.

Only because he hides from critical press and doesn't go out of a way to make a prat out of himself. He was one of Johnson's top cabinet members. This is just Johnsonianism without Johnson. So real problems are getting ignored in favour of asset-stripping and cronyism, and nothing will be done about any real issue ever.

Most MPs have already given up. They know the next general election is going to be a slaughter, so they're stealing office supplies and putting in sick days.

[altered]

How bad is this Russian bank thing for Putin? We all know he's going to win any elections had anyway, so I'm more wondering if one of his inner circle might see about having him be the latest mysteriously defenestrated Russian.

And more importantly, how bad is this for Russia? Will it survive to the end of 2023 without fragmenting? I can see a lot of separatist movements gaining ground under these circumstances, particularly with the military busy out West.

[Cain]

In the short term, I believe the Central Russian Bank will recover and reorientate from the shock. The move came as a surprise - both the timing and that it happened at all - and so they're scrambling to recover, obviously hampered by the existing sanction regime narrowing their options. But the current run is mostly a consequence of that shock.

Longer term, the damage is done, it's just not equally distributed. EU price caps and bans on Russian oil sales, capital flight and sourcing for parts will hit harder once winter properly settles in and starts breaking things down. Being unable to source replacements, while revenue drains away and international companies refuse to work in the region will hit them hard. I don't think we'll see a dramatic tipping point like the bank run or anything, but the damage it'll do to the average Russian and the Russian military (which is already on its last legs) will almost certainly be more noticeable. Ukraine is already penetrating Russia's air space with drones, so I expect if we see mass defeats in the field, that may cause more panic than anything on the economic front - or pre-empt it.

(as an aside, still impressed with how Biden and NATO have thrashed their biggest regional rival with what is effectively a rounding error on the US military budget, and shown that NATO's combined arms docrine is still very relevant)

[Brother Mythos]

Cain,

As you haven't been very active on the forum since my own return, I hesitated to ask about a reliable source(s) for news about the ongoing war in Ukraine.

I've been relying primarily on the following sources: www.criticalthreats.org, Reporting from Ukraine on YouTube, and Military Lab on YouTube.

Other sources I've found are spotty on reporting, and often overly sensationalistic for my taste. So, can you recommend what you consider to be a reliable source(s) for the latest news from the front lines?

Thanks.

[Cain]

Front line news is...tricky. I'll admit, I don't follow the front line, open source stuff for the most part. I've found a lot of sources lately are very...lax on showing some pretty horrific scenes, the kind of stuff that will definitely put you off your dinner. Not to mention Twitter is now full of paid blue check mark "open source intel" dipshits who are being aggressively pushed by Musk, whose own position on the conflict is suspect.

Unless you're looking for specific weapon system or tactical disposition information, I would honestly suggest not focusing on that level. Taking a step or two back and looking at the bigger picture will allow for the trends to be more broadly visible, and is less susceptible to being gamed, simply because Ukraine can't hide it's been pushed out of so and so a city, or Russia can't hide it lost 50 tanks in it's last idiot push.

In general, I'd prefer something like various university and think tank analysis centres for stuff like this, as they will usually provide daily to weekly updates and fairly dispassionate analysis. Some of these will undoubtedly be biased, you've got your Atlantic Council and RUSI official blogs and such after all, but they're still pretty useful, and tend to bullshit a lot less than TV talking heads do. But that's where I'd look, Eurasia-focused security think tanks and research programs.

[Brother Mythos]

Cain,

Thanks for the advice. I will widen my search for accurate intel accordingly.