In other news....Follow

Possibly, but opinion polls in Afghanistan are notoriously unreliable.



Yes, but the main problem is that any situation can change around extremely quickly. Afghan troops are turned extremely easily. There is no tradition of central government in Afghanistan, nor of a central army. The wages will be pittance and they can, and will, be turned by drugs money. I'm not saying its impossible to build a proper Afghan army, just that it will take much longer and cost much more than anyone is prepared to commit.



Again, it can turn very quickly. Public opinion in the UK is tiring of the war, and a few more body bags could do the trick. Unless the goals are clear and attainable, and Cameron does a great PR job of selling it, it wont be long before start to clamour to brings the troops home. I don't believe for one second that Cameron will increase significantly the numer of troops in Afghanistan. The army is stretched, ressources are low, and the next 5 years will be tight: there wont be much money available for anyone.



That's the crux, really. Pakistan is not only unwilling to take real action, it simply can't. Half of the Pakistan Secret Services support the Talibans. They created them. For Pakistan, Afghanistan is a sideshow compared to the real story, which is their relationship with India. Some within ISI still see the Talibans as useful allies against an emerging India. And the border is so porous that it would take a gigantic military operation to "clean-up" these areas. The death toll would be huge. The terrain is completely against us. It's more than an uphill struggle, its climbing a mountain barefeet.



In mine too. I just don't think we can do it. And even if we did, we would have low-intensity civil war for another decade. Which we will have regardless of whether we "win" or not, to be fair. Today, the Karzai government controls only Kabul. When Western news report talk about "Afghanistan", a lot of the time they really mean "Kabul". We can't hold anything outside of it without a high number of troops constantly present there.

We'll see. I can't see into the future. But I do think that drugs money + Pakistan + 8 years of presence there without any clear result = we're fucked. I think we might've had a chance, had we not gone into Iraq. But I think the best we can hope for now is that the Afghan government we leave in charge of the place will be rich enough to stay in power, and not quite as bad as the Taliban in terms of allowing AQ to operate from there. But still, its not much of a victory. AQ can and have relocated. The talibans will keep on fighting. Hopefully it'll remain at low intensity. I just can't sunmmon much optimism, simply because our strategy has been **** for 8 years, and history is pretty much against us. I do wish they'd sort it out though, I really wanna go to Afghanistan. But not in the state it's currently in, obviously.



I found some aspects of law interesting, and some mind-numbingly boring. Intresting was: Public international law, EU law, jurisprudence, medical/environmental law, all of that was a lot of fun. Boring was: tort law, contract law, business/financial law, and criminal law. Obviously, all of this is a matter of taste, but I found the intresting ones to require some reflection, and the boring ones to require mostly memory.

I only chose to study law because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and thought it was broad enough to let me do whatever I wanted to do later on. I also did a Masters in Public International Law, which I absolutely loved. I had a brilliant time, got a Distinction, and scored 76% on my dissertation. Moral of the story being: do something you enjoy.

Now I work for local government, as a sort of link between local government and the EU: I analyse EU legislation that's being prepared in certain areas (transport, health, migration & Asylum, and equalities), tell local government how it will affect them, hear their views on the subject, and then take it back to Brussles to do some lobbying, to try to get the views of local government incorporated in EU legislation. So, it's a mixture of analysis and lobbying, I really enjoy it. But before that, I worked for the Serious Fraud Office, and then worked for a think-tank.

If you're wondering what to study at Uni, then Law is a good bet if you're not sure waht you wanna do later on. 3 weeks in to my undergrad law degree, I knew I didn't want to be a sollicitor/barrister. But still, law is braod enough that it doesnt restrict you to those professions. But, I suppose, so is economics. I'd reccomend whichever of those you think you'll enjoy most.

I know 3 ginger people.

And own 2 brooms, though one of those is on its deathbed.



Suits every working day, unfortunately.

Sounds like we need to build more precision air support for urban conflicts. Contract season is a go?

First year will be boring. Like, standing-on-the-Tube-during-rush-hour-with-only-the-Yellow-Pages-to-read boring. It gets better once you start choosing your options in second year.

History will almost certainly be more fun.

Aside from the boringness factor, it depends what you want to do. Obviously, I take it you don't want to be a solicitor/barrister, otherwise you wouldn't be having this conundrum. The good thing about England is that most of the time, what you study doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with what you'll be doing professionaly. So, in that respect, I'd advise to take History if you think you're going to enjoy it more.

Having said that, studying law is something that looks very good on the CV, and it will be there for life. It's something to consider too.

I guess the last factor is where you'll be studying. If you end up at Oxford/Cambridge/LSE/UCL, etc... then it doesn't matter much what you choose: the prestige of the university will override the subject matter. If you're going to somewhere like Sussex, or Westminster, or any other University not in the top 5-10, and you're serious about your professional career, I'd suggest you pick Law. It will make things easier.

I hope this makes sense.



It's all of those things. The only good thing about wearing a suit is that I get looks from hot girls on the Tube. Other than that, it pretty much sucks.

I don't like being forced to wear one. I think they can look seriously classy and neat. But it's like everything, the obligation to wear one everyday kinda kills the charm.

Though sometimes I rebel and don't wear a tie. Take that, Head of Policy at the Local Government Association!

Flea ******* that my concept of dressing down is to wear khakis and a polo (or button down long-sleeve depending on the weather)

It's kind of hard to make a decision based on that, though. I mean, it's kind of a lottery. It'd be much easier if we'd had A* grades last year; I meet the reqs for English and History, which probably would be enough to ensure entrance into LSE or UCL unless they were ****** but as it is I have the standard three As thing, onbly with worse GCSEs than normal.

But yeah, I think that was helpful. I'm still not able to make a firm decision, but I feel helped. Thank you, monsieur.



Woah, back up, people look at each other on the tube?!

You can buy me a beer when I come to Cambridge

Don't like playing poker for a living?