"Sources close to" Bob Borsley

@BobBorsley

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Retired academic (theoretical linguist). University of Essex/Bangor University. Lives on Ynys Môn. Has lived in Essex, Poland, Edinburgh, Warwickshire, etc.

Anglesey
Joined June 2017
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 months
@yarotrof Republicans then and now:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
Whatever Party Chuka Umunna is in today, I have more respect for him than for all the 'moderate' Labour MPs who have more in common with him than Corbyn but continue to work to put Corbyn and his stalinist advisors into Downing Street.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@NoKnownFuture My wife lived for her first 27 years under Polish communism. So she knows quite a bit about it. I had 3 years. What does your experience amount to?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@RussianEmbassy You grabbed Polish territory in the 18th century, tried again in 1920, grabbed Eastern Poland in 1939, and made the country a Russian colony from 1945 to 1989. And you wonder why you’re not popular in Poland.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@benandjerrys Putin thanks you for your support.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
People say Russia is turning into North Korea, but it also seems to be turning into ISIS:
@JuliaDavisNews
Julia Davis
1 year
Meanwhile in Russia: top state TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov claims that God had chosen Russia to be the weapon of his judgment. Solovyov advocates for the continued use of thermobaric weapons, demanding more blood and destruction.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
Pleased to say that my local bridge is in good condition. The Welsh had the good sense not to attack Ukraine:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@irgarner The only reason Russia's neighbours are anti-Russian is that Russia has been bullying and invading them for a couple of centuries. Abandon that behaviour and they will cease to be anti-Russian. But it may take some time.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@jeremycorbyn Tolkien had a better understanding: ‘It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,’ answered Éowyn. ‘And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies?'
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"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@Gerashchenko_en In 1942, they were supplied by the US: eventually 427,000 motor vehicles, 13 million pairs of winter boots, 5 million tons of food, 2000 locomotives, 11,000 freight wagons, 540,000 tons of rails. (John Keegan, The Second World War, p. 177)
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@Russia You forgot to mention that his critics generally end up in exile, in jail, or in an early grave.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@AliceTawhai @fasc1nate Don’t hear the word “togs” anywhere near enough.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@davidfrum Reagan has statues in Eastern Europe commemorating his opposition to Russian imperialism. These guys seem to be hoping for a statue in Moscow commemorating their support for Russian imperialism.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@IlvesToomas So much easier to deal with defenceless civilians than the Ukrainian army.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@RealRedAquarium @DouglasKMurray When you say “there was a horrible sense of foreboding”, you mean you had a horrible sense of foreboding. That’s a fact about you (whoever you are).
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@maxfras Country repeatedly bullied and invaded by Russia doesn't much like Russia. Actions have consequences.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@RussianEmbassy @mfa_russia @FCDOGovUK @trussliz @BBCWorld @guardian @FT @Telegraph @DailyMailUK Why are you allowed on Twitter when you don't allow Russian people to access it?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@mjluxmoore @EliotHiggins The threat to Putin is democracy in neighbouring countries, which creates a serious danger that Russians will say: why can't we be like that?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
11 months
@visegrad24 @Free_Media_Hub Why is he not a part of Putin’s canon fodder? Is he not a true patriot?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
6 months
@olex_scherba @Euan_MacDonald Like the Nazis stealing the property of Jews.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@TheOliverStone Some people living comfortably in a Western democracy just can’t resist an anti-Western dictator.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
Somebody missed the de- in denazification:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@RobbieGarthland @sumlenny If Russia had cordial relations with her neighbours, Russians would be welcome as immigrants. But Russia has bullied and invaded her neighbours for a couple of centuries, and inevitably they’re not so keen on Russians.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@GrimArtGroup Bob Borsley, 1969:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
@d_vidnguyen I see they want us to 'believe in Britain'. Not easy to believe in a country which produces people like them in significant numbers.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@Kasparov63 The idea that he's fighting the Nazis is about the only idea he didn't steal from the Nazis.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
Pleased to say that my local bridge is in good condition. The Welsh had the good sense not to attack Ukraine:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@andreajenkyns @BorisJohnson He delivered Brexit, which has made us all poorer. And he delivered it because he saw it as a way to power for himself. So he made the country poorer in order to put himself in power. Apart from that (and a few other things), a great guy.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@Otto_English Anyone who is not pig ignorant about history is woke. Apparently.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
“... if a western country were to display one-tenth, one-hundredth or one-thousandth of the brutality that China is inflicting on Muslims, the global left would be burning with outrage.” @NickCohen4
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@MedvedevRussiaE @trussliz According to internet the population of Russia is 146,078,038, but apparently there is only one guy who can be in charge, for decade after decade. What is wrong with the other 146,078,037?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@SteveBakerHW @EastBelfastCA Putin thanks you for you efforts to divide the opposition to him. Much appreciated at this difficult time.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
28 days
Sometimes Russian pundits make it hard for those in the West pushing their line that the way forward for Ukraine and the West is negotiations with Putin. They forget that it is not just their own people who can hear their bloodthirsty racist rants:
@JuliaDavisNews
Julia Davis
28 days
Meanwhile in Russia: Vitaly Tretyakov, Dean of the Higher School of Television, argued that negotiations with Ukraine are pointless, until Zelensky and "everyone who stands behind him" get annihilated.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@Shayan86 Instead of just saying that something is not true, you could also us tell what is true.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
@tompeck He didn't get where he is today by telling the truth.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
@AngelaRayner @BorisJohnson I'm disgusted too, just as I was when IRA apologist Jeremy Corbyn was elevated to the leadership of the Labour Party.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
@JuliaDavisNews He’s everything the Putin regime could possibly want in a US President. Odd that the Party of Ronald Reagan should support him.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 months
@maxseddon @irgarner Russia can be an anti-religious tyranny as under the Communists or a religious tyranny as under the Tsars and Putin. But it’s never learned to be anything other than a tyranny.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
"As was increasingly obvious after 2008, the only way Putin was going to leave the Kremlin was feet first, either in a box or dragged out by a mob." (Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming, p181):
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@irgarner Funny he didn't support Ukraine when he had the opportunity.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@spectatorindex Makes you wonder what it would look like if Russia did have some 'ill intention' towards its neighbours.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@davidallengreen @SpiritofHo Apparently, there were no empires prior to capitalism. Not sure what it was that the Romans, and the Arabs, and Mongols had. Maybe a co-prosperity sphere.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@mission_russian @amnesty Always good to hear what the people who lied for nearly 50 years about Katyn are saying about anything. I bet you wish that the truth hadn’t come out in the brief glasnost period so that you could still be lying about it.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
For all the self-styled "anti-imperialists" in the West there is now a real imperialist state that they can train their sights on. But they won't because what they oppose is not imperialism but the power and influence of Western democracies:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
"Many Europeans are still reluctant to acknowledge Russia’s descent into full-blown fascism under Vladimir Putin, despite similarities with Nazi Germany that are now too obvious to ignore."
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@RussianEmbassy @mfa_russia @natomission_ru @NATO @mission_russian @RussiaUN @BBCWorld @bbcrussian @FT @guardian @SkyNews If you hadn’t been bullying and invading your neighbours for centuries they would have no interest in joining a military alliance that offers them a measure of protection. It is entirely down to you that they are interested in NATO. (Of course you know that perfectly well.)
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@illdoitanyway This is a lot like France and Germany refusing to aid the Spanish Republic against Franco, and just as disgraceful.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 months
@samah_fadil Prigozhin had oeace talks with Putin. Peace talks with Putin are like peace talks with Hitler. It was Putin that "interfered" in Ukraine. Talk to some Ukrainians some time.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
14 days
A nice reminder of how Russia always lies:
@JuliaDavisNews
Julia Davis
2 years
OTD in 2014, Russian-controlled forces shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight #MH17 over E. Ukraine, using a Russian-supplied Buk missile. This was one of my first videos for the Russian Media Monitor. State TV boasted about downing the aircraft, but minutes later blamed Ukraine.
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@BobBorsley
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2 years
@anders_aslund The West should be highlighting how bad Putin is not just for Russia's neighbours but also for Russia itself.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@medeabenjamin Putin thanks you for your help. He needs all the help he can get at this difficult time. You're not quite as useful as the Iranian regime, but it's still appreciated.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@UN_Spokesperson @antonioguterres Strikes by whom? Is it a complete mystery?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@nytopinion @scharap @JyShapiro Ukraine has a view about this. It’s not just Russia and the West that matter.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@AmbRusFrance You'd be a lot more popular if you hadn't spent a couple of centuries bullying and invading you neighbours. Perhaps, if you stopped doing that, people would gradually develop a more positive view of you.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
6 years
@PCollinsTimes @OwenJones84 When did the Corbynite line change from 'fuck off and join the Tories' to 'don't fuck off and join the Tories'?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
@anneapplebaum Reagan has statues in Poland commemorating his opposition to Russian imperialism. Trump appears to be hoping for a statue in Russia commemorating his support for Russian imperialism.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@corbyn_project @jeremycorbyn @STWuk @CNDuk Tolkien understood things better: ‘It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,’ answered Éowyn. ‘And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies?’
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@TimMacAndErny The English used to like jokes about the thick Irish. I fear the Irish may develop a tast for jokes about the thick English.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
If someone had told the teenage Elizabeth about this in 1940, she would probably have been surprised:
@darrenmccaffrey
Darren McCaffrey
2 years
Berlin pays tribute to #QueenElizabeth ❤️
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@chenweihua @HolocaustMuseum Why are you allowed on Twitter when the Chinese people are not allowed to access it?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 months
@Otto_English "Do you like Winston Churchill" is an excellent example of a question to which a sensible answer is "yes and no", followed by a hopefully not too long explanation. It's not like "Do you like broccoli?"
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
@LawDavF @JohnKLocal It's baffling. We lose our trading links with 27 countries. They each lose their links with 1 country. Maybe some people are not very good at arithmetic.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
@mfa_russia @PolandMFA @LithuaniaMFA @LinkeviciusL @rusemb_pl @RussianEmbassy @AmbRusFrance @RussianEmbassyC @georgegalloway @ValLisitsa @Dpol_un “Protection” that involved deporting 1,700,000 Poles to Siberia and Central Asia and the murder of 22,000 Polish military personnel.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
25 days
@Redpeter99 Is she still offering opinions?
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@BobBorsley
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2 years
@hrochfor1 @Fio_edwards Sweden is more or less surrounded by NATO countries. Doesn't seem bothered.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@NikaMelkozerova They lied for 50 years about Katyn. Suspect the lies about Bucha will not last as long.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
6 months
@v_j_freeman Do these people think they are completely different from the antisemites of all the past centuries? Or do they see the continuity but think all the earlier antisemites were basically on the right side of history?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
@BenjaminNorton Do you like all dictators? Or just anti-Western ones?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@irgarner Tolkien understood things better: ‘It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,’ answered Éowyn. ‘And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@JuliaDavisNews Nuking a country where Putin has just been arrested is possibly a course of action that Putin himself would not favour.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 months
@KareemRifai A Russian counterpart of Assange would have been dead long ago. As Snowden must know.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@AuschwitzMuseum @BluegrassRabbi You do a very good job. Anyone who knows anything knows what “did not survive” means. The important thing is to give a face and more to so many who did not survive (and a few who did).
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@rolandmcs Heffer doesn’t know much about grammar, as explained here by a linguist:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@RSkidelsky So not really bothered by Litvinenko, Crimea, MH17, Syria, Nemtsov, or the Skripals.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
7 years
@JuliaDavisNews They maybe thought the US president has the same power as the Russian president. In fact the consitution & a free press impose constraints.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
@Prune602 @JuliaDavisNews Weird also that people from this "ruined economic space” are not clamouring to get into Russia to enjoy Putin's oh so benevolent rule.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
11 months
@russophileLs “Nazi” is Russian for “critic of Russian imperialism”.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@JimmySecUK He helped Putin by promoting Brexit. Naturally, he's going to help Putin by undermining support for Ukraine.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@AlanRMacLeod So you think Ukraine should surrender? Do you like all dictators? Or just anti-Western ones like Putin?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@mission_russian @CzechMFA @CZmissionGeneva Why are you lot still on Twitter when you don't allow the Russian people to access it?
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
8 months
Jeremy Corbyn is essentially a slightly house-trained version of this:
@habibi_uk
habibi
8 months
Piers Corbyn on the 7 October atrocities. "The whole thing was a set-up from start to finish." "It was planned all along." "It was a fake operation." Israel is after oil, you see. Now now. Calm down. Be respectful. His mother was at Cable Street, you know.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@yanisvaroufakis Have you got any detailed advice on how exactly your “sisters” should “hang in there”? I’m sure they would appreciate your words of wisdom.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@russophileLs Wonder why he doesn't have Hitler in the first list.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
5 years
@donaldtuskEPP @Paul1Singh I worked in Poland in the late 70s. If you had told me then that Poland would be in the EU in 2020 and the UK out, I wouldn’t have believed you. A sad day for the UK.
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@BobBorsley
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2 years
@MarieAnnUK As Garry Kasparov said in 2015: "Telling Ukrainians they provoked Putin by rejecting him and moving toward Europe is like telling a harassed woman she should wear longer skirts." (Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped, p.68)
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@BobBorsley
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2 years
@Gonzalo85307646 @McFaul Because countries which had been bullied and invaded by Russia for a couple of centuries wanted to stop that happening again.
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2 years
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@BobBorsley
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5 years
@make_trouble Just an older version of Williamson who has the advantage of looking more like an average grandfather and less like Voldemort.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
3 years
@mtracey Gonna go ahead and decline to take at face value the claim that there is someone called Michael Tracey.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@timmyvoe @DanielJHannan The people voted to leave once, and leaving was never defined. And most people think it's going badly. But Putin is quite pleased. Whatever he spent supporting Brexit was a great investment.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
R. S. Thomas on coronations and such like:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
1 year
An important observation by @Dannythefink in ‘Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad’ about interest in his parent’s’ stories:
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
4 years
@historyofarmani It is possible for more than one thing to be bad, you know.
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@BobBorsley
"Sources close to" Bob Borsley
2 years
@marcbennetts1 The people who lied for nearly 50 years about the Katyn murders should be assumed to be lying unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.
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