How so?
They would just end up back here.
Now, if they were sent to Antartica to count polar bears, that’s a plan I can get behind.
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Oh … well that’s OK then?
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Is at least this allowed?
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I hear Russia is lovely this time of year…
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No, why would it be?
Scottish twitter is like that. Didnae ye ken? 
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Are there any of those left?
Here’s why- the subject of the tweet in question was nigh-on beatified by the press, as the subject of a feel-good story at the height of the first lockdown. Any criticism of him was therefore responded to with the full force of hypocritical moral outrage that the tabloid press can summon. Never mind that his career was not as heroic as it was being painted, or that there were questions about his relatives making a good deal of cash out of the fundraising efforts. The press had decided that he was good, therefore all who were against him were bad.
It also fits neatly into the nasty campaign of US style military worship that the UK’s right wing have been trying to whip up in support of the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the nasty little law that will give UK soldiers immunity from prosecution for any war crimes they committed while on operations. They have been hyping up a frenzy of pro-imperial fervour around the military, so anyone who says something against them must be destroyed.
That’s the environment that this prosecution took place in. Also, I would note that reading mean tweets is easier work for the police than actually investigating crime, so I can see how these prosecutions are popular with them.
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I thought everyone on Scottish Twitter was a disgruntled tour guide named Craig?
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Yeah, frostbite season in Siberia is about to give way to mosquito season.
Still, while the leadership of Russia sucks bowling balls thru coffee stirrers, I don’t know what the average Russian has done to deserve having those people inflicted upon them.
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Russian history is sadly littered with asshole “leaders” who did everything in their power to fuck over the people. Catherine the Great is viewed as a good one, but shit was still feudal and most people suffered and struggled. Gorbachev may have been the only really good one.
Wasn’t there briefly another good one, who was also taken out by assholes? A guy who lasted like 5 minutes and had planned to reform everything?
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Khrushchev! He gave a speech denouncing Stalin after his death and started a round of liberalization, leaned into the space program, tried to thaw tensions with the US and was out of power by 1964 for his trouble…
My favorite communist leader after from Tito in Yugoslavia…
OH! If you never seen The Death of Stalin, do yourself a favor and check it out…
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Mom gleefully told me about Khruschev’s shoe-bangings, which U’ve brilliantly illo’d. She said during one speech, the camera pulled back a bit and panned down, showing he was indeed wearing both shoes, and had brought along a third fer ta do th’ bangin’ with
Thought there was another all-too-brief potential reformer in the 70s, but I may misremember. 
Oh, and apropos of nothing,
ETA: Meant to say, yes, we did see The Death of Stalin, and what a hoot it is!!! Hurt ourselves LOL’ing w/smoke and drink several times each 
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“Sure, Britain has few real free speech protections and its public sphere is fogged with vague sanctimonies about politeness and cilivity, all farted out by the same assholes who otherwise insist they’re being censored, and enforcement is an arbitrary and indifferent game of soggy biscuit played by its civics-illiterate politicians, police and press”
Spot on Rob, flawless depiction.
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Nikita had a flair for the dramatic…
They don’t make them like Nikita anymore, that’s for sure…
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If only our republic will survive to 300 years… 
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Are you thinking of Brezhnev? He was at the helm for détente.
Of course there were the dudes that lasted short whiles, Andropov and Chernenko. Both were older than the hills when named premiere.
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He was, but Khrushchev started that after the Cuban Missile crisis.
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The proper trolley answer to this is clearly Lavrentiy Beria.
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Not just Scottish twitter, they text like that too
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