Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Roger Lancaster
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Roger Lancaster » Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:40 am

David Sedgwick wrote:
Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:17 pm
If anyone wanted proof that (some) members of this Forum are more gratuitously offensive than the average person, then I'd point them to this thread.
It's a small minority that is gratuitously offensive and, without wanting to get involved in what seem to me semantics in this case, I've known David long enough to have no concerns whatever about his integrity. As to the gist of this thread, urging the ECF to vote against Arkady Dvorkovich, the wider world took - entirely predictably - the opposite view and re-elected him by 157 votes to 16.

J T Melsom
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by J T Melsom » Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:03 am

I see some hypocrisy here in the debate about gratuitous offence, but almost everybody is guilty of that from time to time. I stand by my view that although composites can be a positive way to achieve outcomes, it is important that they are accurate otherwise they can appear to be a somewhat grubby deal from a smoke filled room. No doubt that objectivity can also be impacted by our perception of those leading the activity.

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:50 am

J T Melsom wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:03 am
I see some hypocrisy here in the debate about gratuitous offence, but almost everybody is guilty of that from time to time. I stand by my view that although composites can be a positive way to achieve outcomes, it is important that they are accurate otherwise they can appear to be a somewhat grubby deal from a smoke filled room. No doubt that objectivity can also be impacted by our perception of those leading the activity.
Noted. I feel that I have had my say.

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:54 am

Roger Lancaster wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:40 am
It's a small minority that is gratuitously offensive and, without wanting to get involved in what seem to me semantics in this case, I've known David long enough to have no concerns whatever about his integrity. As to the gist of this thread, urging the ECF to vote against Arkady Dvorkovich, the wider world took - entirely predictably - the opposite view and re-elected him by 157 votes to 16.
Roger, thank you for your personal support.

I imagine that you will have seen that I have commented about Arkady Dvorkovich's victory in the thread specifically about the FIDE elections.

Mick Norris
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Mick Norris » Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:37 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:44 pm
SNIP

Against that background, welcoming the election of Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE President in 2018 doesn’t seem so very terrible to me, especially as the alternative was Georgios Makropoulos.

SNIP
FIDE Council I note still has Makropoulos
Any postings on here represent my personal views

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:41 pm

Mick Norris wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:37 pm
David Sedgwick wrote:
Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:44 pm
SNIP

Against that background, welcoming the election of Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE President in 2018 doesn’t seem so very terrible to me, especially as the alternative was Georgios Makropoulos.

SNIP
FIDE Council I note still has Makropoulos
That's not quite right, Mick. He has made a comeback after four years.

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Mick Norris » Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:22 pm

Back? Blimey, that's worse than him just being there all the time
Any postings on here represent my personal views

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:49 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Sun Aug 07, 2022 5:14 pm
I think the point here (and again, I don't want to do too much thread diversion) is that opinion polling in the UK is almost entirely a postwar phenomenon and for this reason, while we can speak with confidence of the opinions of given individuals and their circles, we perhaps need to be much more cautious in declaring what the wider public view was on any given subject.
Justin is right about the history of opinion polling. Though there are some interesting antecedents.

One of these was the social research project that started in 1937, called Mass-Observation (which was a curious mix of gossip and oral history relating to people's opinions about everyday subjects and news):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation

I wasn't aware of that until I encountered it this past year, and I have just noticed that it was relaunched in July of this year.

If you read the newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s, you can get a flavour of what the press barons (though some newspapers were able to voice independent opinions) thought their readers should be told, and you can even see something from the readers' letters that were published (though these also have big caveats attached). Voting patterns can sometimes indicate trends in public opinions, but it is a difficult topic to tackle. If you read newspapers reports from different European countries on some topics in this period, you might sometimes be forgiven for thinking that they were talking about completely different things as the perspectives vary startlingly from country to country. This is sometimes the case today, even with more globalised perspectives (though there were far more, and more diverse, newspapers back then than there are now).

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:23 am

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:49 pm
One of these was the social research project that started in 1937, called Mass-Observation (which was a curious mix of gossip and oral history relating to people's opinions about everyday subjects and news):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation
That represents a contemporary source about what the British people or some of them at least thought about Chamberlain, Hitler, Munich etc. There were a number of post Munich by-elections as well where the issue of supportimg appeasement or otherwise was relevant.

For that matter television programmes of the 1960s and 1970s were able to interview the participants in the events of the period. I'm thinking in particular of the Thames TV series on "The World at War" made in the early 70s which is endlessly repeated and a staple of "on demand" services to this day. One thing they didn't investigate was why there were so many chess players in the same place. Those revelations had to wait until later in the 1970s.

It was a major shock to the establishments of the period that the Vietnam war unlike Korea and WW2 wasn't automatically supported. Arguably it was a pleasant surprise in 1982 that the Falklands conflict broadly received public support. Harold Wilson's government kept Britain out of Vietnam, which was good news to anyone like me born in 1951.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Chris Goodall » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:31 pm

What's certain is that the ruling classes will always be an unaccountable elite that rides roughshod over the will of the public. Unless the public happen to agree with them, in which case the ruling classes are triangulators devoid of principles who will say anything to get elected. Either way, they can't do nothin' right.
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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Gerard Killoran » Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:57 pm

Mass Observation was also one of the sources of inspiration for Orwell when writing 1984. You have to be careful, however, when using this as a source as it did not constitute a scientific cross-section of opinion or behaviour. It's also amazing how the notorious 'King and Country' debate at the Oxford Union was held up a some barometer of the views of the whole country. At the end of the war, it was generally held that Churchill would be returned a PM by a grateful electorate, when some of the first opinion polls predicted a Labour landslide, they were disbelieved.

I think this is worth a read, it's much better than vague memories of fifty year old documentaries.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publ ... onception/

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by David Sedgwick » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:18 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:44 pm
Dvorkovich has a forthcoming opportunity to prove me wrong, although not until after the FIDE elections. On the second day of the FIDE General Assembly, following the elections, the Russian Chess Federation are seeking to have Russian and Belarusian teams readmitted to FIDE events. Dvorkovich could state clearly and unequivocally that no such action should even be contemplated until after Russia has withdrawn from occupied Ukrainian territory.

But I am not holding my breath.
I have an update on this.

The Russian Chess Federation motion had not been submitted before the deadline for the Agenda, but I was concerned that Dvorkovich would allow it to be considered nevertheless.

To his credit, he did not do so. Instead, he proposed that the issue be reviewed by a working group, who are to report back to the FIDE Council later in the year. My understanding is that this group will be headed by Michael Khodarkovsky (USA), who is a native of Udesa, Ukraine.

One or two delegates clearly wished to readmit teams from Russia and Belarus immediately. However, brief but powerful speeches in favour of FIDE continuing to support the policy of the International Olympic Committee were made by Malcolm Pein and by Allan Herbert (Barbados). I had contacted Allan Herbert beforehand and I thank him for his support.

We await developments in a few months' time.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by Chris Goodall » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:33 pm

Gerard Killoran wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:57 pm
it's much better than vague memories of fifty year old documentaries.
You really do have a bee in your bonnet about this. What is so offensive about the idea that sometimes the people want left-leaning governments in charge, and sometimes right-leaning governments, and that those are their genuine and freely expressed wishes? "Oh, but the people's true preference is always for Labour" fails the falsifiability test, because any time they don't elect Labour you can just blame the media or FPTP or The System in general. It's a position that is corrosive to democracy.
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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by J T Melsom » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:41 pm

A question that has been floating around in my head for a while. The organisers of Wimbledon took steps to exclude Russian and Belarussian tennis players from the Grand Slam this year, a decision which went further than the other Grand Slams and the ATP and WTA. They were quite unashamed in stating this was what the Government wanted them to do. Other sports have specific rules about overt government interference in the operation of national bodies which can lead to them being suspended from international competition. What is the broad attitude of FIDE on the 'separation of sport and state bodies' '? and to what extent does the ECF consult with the FCO on its political stance - not just in respect of Ukraine but also other issues which might be regarded as sensitive?

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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions

Post by David Sedgwick » Wed Aug 10, 2022 5:50 pm

J T Melsom wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:41 pm
What is the broad attitude of FIDE on the 'separation of sport and state bodies' '?
Similar to that of other international sporting bodies.
J T Melsom wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:41 pm
and to what extent does the ECF consult with the FCO on its political stance - not just in respect of Ukraine but also other issues which might be regarded as sensitive?
I am sure that feelers would be put out if the ECF wished to do anything of which the FCO might disapprove.

In the specific case of Ukraine, the ECF are currently following FIDE policy and FIDE are currently following IOC policy. I don't envisage any problem with the UK government so long as that continues to be the case.

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