The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
The other way of looking at it is that by that stage the economy was sufficiently well established and diversified that ending the trade wasn't going to make much difference - particularly as slavery elsewhere continued to underpin large sections of the British economy until 1865.
Meanwhile, it struck a far more damaging blow to France.
If the 12 per cent figure is correct, then it made 12 per cent difference.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
IIRC - and early modern history is not my strong point - although Henry VIII made some tentative moves on slave trading it was Elizabeth I who established it as a major economic concern. Hence the 'Royal' part. One of the key people involved was Drake.
Are there any movements afoot to remove statues of Drake and Elizabeth? If not, is it just because these people don't know, that they don't care, or that they're looking to cause trouble and embarrassment to current institutions for political reasons now than actually debate the past in a meaningful way?
TBF, I'm not a big fan of iconoclasm perpetrated by AFAICS mostly white muppets with violent tendencies anyway.
Is the master of Jesus College a white muppet? Moving something to a place where it can actually be given more context is also hardly "iconoclasm" - thought I don't think this guy should be any kind of icon if that is what mean.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
Really? Ending the slave trade was a 12% hit to British GDP? Doesn't sound right
No. I can't immediately find my source for 12% but it's a century earlier than abolition time
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
IIRC - and early modern history is not my strong point - although Henry VIII made some tentative moves on slave trading it was Elizabeth I who established it as a major economic concern. Hence the 'Royal' part. One of the key people involved was Drake.
Are there any movements afoot to remove statues of Drake and Elizabeth? If not, is it just because these people don't know, that they don't care, or that they're looking to cause trouble and embarrassment to current institutions for political reasons now than actually debate the past in a meaningful way?
TBF, I'm not a big fan of iconoclasm perpetrated by AFAICS mostly white muppets with violent tendencies anyway.
Yeah they had a pop at Drake in Tavistock. I muddied the waters by pointing out that he was a shit in other ways too, look at Rathlyn Island. Now they are putting up a board to explain everything next to the statue
My main concern was James 2 who was the boss of the Bristol chap and has a fine statchoo by the national gallery
Perhaps we could compromise and remove him on the grounds he was a coward who deserted his post?
I see Rustat and James were both Grinling Gibbons. This makes GG parasitic on the slave trade so should we cancel all his stuff too?
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
Most of the large companies on the Stock Exchange in the 17th century would have had some investment in slavery and the slave trade.
It was not the Church's argument as such, Justin Welby backed removing the memorial but the argument of the Judge at the Church Court. It was a sound one as Rustat was not a slave trader
You seem to be making the opposite argument to the one in the church court judgment. They are saying he had great wealth but most of it was unconnected to slavery, you are saying that all wealth at the time was connected to slavery. You can't both be right.
They are saying he still had some wealth connected to slavery, as did virtually anyone with significant capital at the time
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
The other way of looking at it is that by that stage the economy was sufficiently well established and diversified that ending the trade wasn't going to make much difference - particularly as slavery elsewhere continued to underpin large sections of the British economy until 1865.
Meanwhile, it struck a far more damaging blow to France.
If the 12 per cent figure is correct, then it made 12 per cent difference.
The peak of the slave trade was over long before 1807.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
Really? Ending the slave trade was a 12% hit to British GDP? Doesn't sound right
If we accept the 12 per cent figure. I've no way of knowing if that is correct but it comes from earlier in the thread.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
IIRC - and early modern history is not my strong point - although Henry VIII made some tentative moves on slave trading it was Elizabeth I who established it as a major economic concern. Hence the 'Royal' part. One of the key people involved was Drake.
Are there any movements afoot to remove statues of Drake and Elizabeth? If not, is it just because these people don't know, that they don't care, or that they're looking to cause trouble and embarrassment to current institutions for political reasons now than actually debate the past in a meaningful way?
TBF, I'm not a big fan of iconoclasm perpetrated by AFAICS mostly white muppets with violent tendencies anyway.
Is the master of Jesus College a white muppet? Moving something to a place where it can actually be given more context is also hardly "iconoclasm" - thought I don't think this guy should be any kind of icon if that is what mean.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
Really? Ending the slave trade was a 12% hit to British GDP? Doesn't sound right
If we accept the 12 per cent figure. I've no way of knowing if that is correct but it comes from earlier in the thread.
The 12% was claimed to be the peak percentage - was the peak when the slave trade was abolished? Surely not.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
Which you seem to disagree with. Fair enough. The court didn't and their opinion trumps yours.
Incidentally my 'white muppets' comment was directed at the wider movement not this particular case, and I'm perfectly content with it. If you think that's wrong, check out the Colston court case, look at their skin colour, and look at the defence they put up.
ETA - which, I would point out, another court accepted. Even though it was madder than making Dominic Cummings a government adviser.
Perhaps we should just accept there's a lot of funny business and weird rulings on all sides and move on?
Every time I speak to people in Ukraine, they always, always, always ask me to let people in Britain know how grateful they are for your support and the support from the British Government."
Is there a north south divide in Europe? Between us, Scandinavia, the Baltics and Poland on one side as the hawks and the rest as the doves? Not sure if all the scandis could be ascribed as hawks?
Hungary is a funny one. I notice Austria isn't in Nato either. Is this some sort of post imperial funk? Are Hungarians really on Putin's side vs Ukraine?
Hungary has elections on April 4th, and Orban has a commanding poll lead, which has if anything increased in recent weeks. It seems in Hungary, being a Putin apogist is not a vote loser.
It may not be in France either, nor a number of other countries, judging by the support for Le Pen and Melenchon. This may be part of why Macron has had to be a bit less aggressive with sanctions than some would like.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
Most of the large companies on the Stock Exchange in the 17th century would have had some investment in slavery and the slave trade.
It was not the Church's argument as such, Justin Welby backed removing the memorial but the argument of the Judge at the Church Court. It was a sound one as Rustat was not a slave trader
You seem to be making the opposite argument to the one in the church court judgment. They are saying he had great wealth but most of it was unconnected to slavery, you are saying that all wealth at the time was connected to slavery. You can't both be right.
All non agrarian wealth was connected to slavery
Was there no money in eg trading other things?
And weren't there any wealthy people who invested their wealth only in agrarian stuff?
Yes there was, but prior to the industrial revolution not all that much. Timber, spices
The 12% includes allied and ancillary trades, eg shipbuilding and shackle making
And yes probably there were landowners who stuck to land, but you'd be amazed how many of the very big estates in the UK were magically enlarged in the mid 1800s, investing the huge compensation they got for their slaving interests
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
I've never taken much notice of statues. They seem to be something the birds shit on, or I occasionally take directions from. Anybody who knows who they are, or worse, is upset by them, shoudn't be out on their own.
I suppose they're useful for identifying posh twats who like virtue-signalling, or Victorian heroines with a tendency to swoon. I don't know anyone else who takes much notice of them either. The exception is a classical, female nude but you only see them in museums.
Every time I speak to people in Ukraine, they always, always, always ask me to let people in Britain know how grateful they are for your support and the support from the British Government."
Is there a north south divide in Europe? Between us, Scandinavia, the Baltics and Poland on one side as the hawks and the rest as the doves? Not sure if all the scandis could be ascribed as hawks?
Hungary is a funny one. I notice Austria isn't in Nato either. Is this some sort of post imperial funk? Are Hungarians really on Putin's side vs Ukraine?
There are suggestions Orban has his eye on that little sliver of southwest Ukraine that used to be Hungarian in any post-war carve up.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
Don't tell Jacob Rees-Mogg they were illegal immigrants...it would confuse him.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
Really? Ending the slave trade was a 12% hit to British GDP? Doesn't sound right
If we accept the 12 per cent figure. I've no way of knowing if that is correct but it comes from earlier in the thread.
The 12% was claimed to be the peak percentage - was the peak when the slave trade was abolished? Surely not.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
Most of the large companies on the Stock Exchange in the 17th century would have had some investment in slavery and the slave trade.
It was not the Church's argument as such, Justin Welby backed removing the memorial but the argument of the Judge at the Church Court. It was a sound one as Rustat was not a slave trader
You seem to be making the opposite argument to the one in the church court judgment. They are saying he had great wealth but most of it was unconnected to slavery, you are saying that all wealth at the time was connected to slavery. You can't both be right.
They are saying he still had some wealth connected to slavery, as did virtually anyone with significant capital at the time
Just like most greens today, especially those working in the public sector, will own fossil fuel shares in their pension funds.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
I think the writing is on the wall. By the time they succeed dear old Katie is going to look like the desiccated mummy of Cruella de Ville, baldy is going to turn into fat Old Baldy, and the more they mishandle the whole piccaninny thang, the more shutting out (the admittedly ghastly) Meghan is going to look like a terrible mistake.
Some of the pictures were embarrassing and shameful and really did the royal family no favours
I have long been of the opinion that once HMQ goes so most countries will separate from the monarchy
It is becoming an anachronism
Whaaaaaaaaaat rubbish!
Anachronism? Why compare it to spiders?
Who are we as a people, as a nation? What direction do we want to go? Sure there comes a time when the most fundamental questions need to be addressed, no matter how challenging. Where One needs ones heart to follow an idea, it is the monarchy that is already bringing us together. Holding us together. A monarchy to unite Our colours, Our Faiths, our principles. Before us now is our future, a wider road upon which we seek one another in our aloneness, and we walk the road when we have no hearth to sit beside. Where we will live upon one another according to the law, ancient and timeless, and thus live together in loving kindness. A path To cross the divides of neighbourhoods. A way shared by all Cultures and religion. Our monarchy is that opening, an opportunity To Walk rough shod over the divide between us, as nations, and as people’s. When you are Venturing forth together into unknown territory. You cannot be an adventurer without an unknown to explore. Each and every one of us venturing now into a new landscape, we can only be guided by our hearts, our love, our faith. The monarchy let’s all hearts join with ours, it’s never been more relevant.
How BigG can call our beloved royal family an anachronism and still pretend he is a Tory is beyond me!!
How dare he call them an anachronism! !
2022.
Yes, it's 2022 - and that Landy still looks classy.
Those tyres are crackers.
Too much time spent on here about Red Wall and not enough on White Wall......
When the Jamaican PM said it was going to become a Republic, William just stood there and said nothing.
Well if there was a good reason for it remaining a Monarchy wouldn't William have said what it was?
Surely if anyone could think of a reason it would be William? After all he's almost 40 and has spent his whole life preparing to do the job and even he can't think of any positive reason for it?
What a total and utter farce. When someone actually bothers to challenge it it's immediately obvious that there's nothing there.
No, he correctly made clear it is a decision for Jamaicans.
However as any true monarchist knows, the monarch gets their post on a hereditary basis by grace of God. So they have no need to do anything so vulgar as to sell themselves to the public.
That is politicians job. We have a ceremonial monarch as head of state precisely to stop party politicians doing it
Wait.
Is is a decision for the Jamaicans, or for God? And how does it work when one King is (say) beheaded or exiled, and replaced by another? Does God bless the "transition"?
Isn't that the idea behind the mandate of heaven? Monarchs lose the favour of God and so lose their position, to be replaced by someone with the favour of God?
Gotcha.
So if there were a revolution, and Jeremy Corbyn were anointed Jeremy I (or Gavin, which would be his regnal name), he would therefore be the recipient of God's favor.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
I founded the anti daylight saving time movement Hora Solaris (“solar time” in Latin), because I am convinced that DST can no longer be allowed to exist and must be abolished in not just the UK, but every country implementing it.
Wait until he finds out that China has only one time zone!
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
Arab civilisation would have to go too as much of that and the Ottoman Empire was also built on slavery.
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
I founded the anti daylight saving time movement Hora Solaris (“solar time” in Latin), because I am convinced that DST can no longer be allowed to exist and must be abolished in not just the UK, but every country implementing it.
Wait until he finds out that China has only one time zone!
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
hence the sidesplitting joke, My ancestress went to the Caribbean
- Jamaica?
- No, a consortium of businessmen based in Bristol did.
What with transportation and clearances HYUFD's whiteys were by no means all volunteers, mind
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
TBF, the thought of Scott Morrison as President would make me think twice about voting for a republic.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
hence the sidesplitting joke, My ancestress went to the Caribbean
- Jamaica?
- No, a consortium of businessmen based in Bristol did.
What with transportation and clearances HYUFD's whiteys were by no means all volunteers, mind
Australian immigration official: 'do you have a criminal record?'
Every time I speak to people in Ukraine, they always, always, always ask me to let people in Britain know how grateful they are for your support and the support from the British Government."
Is there a north south divide in Europe? Between us, Scandinavia, the Baltics and Poland on one side as the hawks and the rest as the doves? Not sure if all the scandis could be ascribed as hawks?
Hungary is a funny one. I notice Austria isn't in Nato either. Is this some sort of post imperial funk? Are Hungarians really on Putin's side vs Ukraine?
There are suggestions Orban has his eye on that little sliver of southwest Ukraine that used to be Hungarian in any post-war carve up.
I don't think it territorial gain that motivates Orban, as much as sympathy with Putin's ethno-nationalism, authoritarianism and verkrampte attitudes.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
Gobsmacked by the CoE arguing that it's OK to be a slave trader if you don't make a profit ... though the question is admittedly whether Jesus College got money from the profits of slavery.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
Oh well, so long as it was just dabbling in slavery a bit that's fine.
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
Oh well, so long as it was just dabbling in slavery a bit that's fine.
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
Saturdays in your family sound kind of interesting
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
I thought the whole point about the white population in Canada, Aus and NZ was that they waould never have been there at all if the First Peoples were still the majority and hadn't been conquered/displaced/killed/etc./
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
Pretty sure most of the population of the Caribbean nations wouldn’t be there if British plantation owners and ‘businessmen’ hadn’t forcibly transported their ancestors there.
Gobsmacked by the CoE arguing that it's OK to be a slave trader if you don't make a profit ...
So you want to remove virtually every memorial to any 17th century figure of any significance then, including Charles and James IInd. Even if they were not slave traders but just investors. No surprise there then
Technically you are also being misleading, the Judge of the Church of England Court backed the Memorial's staying put, Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury supported its removal. However the Court made the right choice
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
I thought the whole point about the white population in Canada, Aus and NZ was that they waould never have been there at all if the First Peoples were still the majority and hadn't been conquered/displaced/killed/etc./
Yes that is true but they are there still that is the whole point.
Same goes for most of the majority white population in the USA, though more of them had ancestors who came from Germany than Britain unlike the white majority Commonwealth realms
Every time I speak to people in Ukraine, they always, always, always ask me to let people in Britain know how grateful they are for your support and the support from the British Government."
Is there a north south divide in Europe? Between us, Scandinavia, the Baltics and Poland on one side as the hawks and the rest as the doves? Not sure if all the scandis could be ascribed as hawks?
Hungary is a funny one. I notice Austria isn't in Nato either. Is this some sort of post imperial funk? Are Hungarians really on Putin's side vs Ukraine?
There are suggestions Orban has his eye on that little sliver of southwest Ukraine that used to be Hungarian in any post-war carve up.
I don't think it territorial gain that motivates Orban, as much as sympathy with Putin's ethno-nationalism, authoritarianism and verkrampte attitudes.
Probably correct, but then Putin didn't immediately start out with invading another country (Chechnya not being internationally recognised).
That Orban talked about the danger to the ethnic Hungarian minority if he have weapons to Ukraine might suggest he has territorial gains at the back of his mind though - at the least it shows that ethno national mindset which could become acquisitive.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
Oh well, so long as it was just dabbling in slavery a bit that's fine.
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
Slavery was a big part of the economic motivation of Roman conquest, particularly on a personal decision making level, of e.g. the generals in the Republican period wanting to make money for themselves and money to keep the legionary booties - or sandalies - happy. Ship them off to the slave markets at e.g. Delos and make a quick buck or rather as.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
I thought the whole point about the white population in Canada, Aus and NZ was that they waould never have been there at all if the First Peoples were still the majority and hadn't been conquered/displaced/killed/etc./
Yes that is true but they are there still that is the whole point
YOu said "If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there". Other way round.
Anyway bit unfair to blame the First Nations for not being royalist in the circs.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
All the whataboutry over other countries slave trading isn't really addressing our nation's role in it.
Sure, slaves existed all over the world in different economies and with varying degrees of appalling treatment. What we did though was to industrialise and monetise the Atlantic slave trade into a key part of the Eighteenth Century economy and the foundation of Empire.
As the country was an oligarchy of the rich at the time, those bear a more direct responsibility than those of us whose families were peasant farmers. At the top of that aristocracy of oligarchs sits the monarchy.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
When HMQ came to the throne most Commonwealth nations were Commonwealth realms and indeed many still part of the British Empire.
When HMQ dies virtually all Commonwealth nations will be independent and the majority no longer Commonwealth realms either.
The idea the Queen passing on symbols some huge change is laughable, the big change has already happened in her reign
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
Nothing to do with my voting at all, but it is to do with these countries self determination and your outdated attitude to subservience will fail and they will become republics
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
A bunch of places will become republican, others will raise the question but not bother, and a lot of commentators will write very silly articles about British decline, with a smaller group of silly people lamenting 'letting' places go republican.
It really wont be that big a deal, of course nations will look at their constitutional arrangements and some will make a different choice at that time.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
When HMQ came to the throne most Commonwealth nations were Commonwealth realms and indeed many still part of the British Empire.
When HMQ dies most Commonwealth nations will be independent and no longer realms.
The idea the Queen passing on symbols some huge change is laughable, the big change has already happened in her reign
A big change.
Change doesn't preclude more change; indeed, history suggests the opposite.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
Oh well, so long as it was just dabbling in slavery a bit that's fine.
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
Saturdays in your family sound kind of interesting
It's an unpopular opinion, but my morning cup of tea just doesn't taste the same without that element of human misery from an oppressed person picking it.
Any time anyone calls out Heathener for being a Russian troll, they throw their toys out the pram. Childish.
“Just because you’re loooosing!”
The normal pattern is to spend an hour or so making frequent posts winding up as many people as possible, then just as the kitchen is getting hot, she jumps out of the window.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
Why should Australia and New Zealand and Canada not continue with the British monarch as head of state? Most of their population would not be there if their ancestors had not come from the British Isles so a rather different context to the Caribbean nations most of whose population are still non white and not of British origin.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
They will become republics
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
They will, whether you like it or not
They won't, despite your desire as a former Labour general election voter that they do
I thought the whole point about the white population in Canada, Aus and NZ was that they waould never have been there at all if the First Peoples were still the majority and hadn't been conquered/displaced/killed/etc./
Yes that is true but they are there still that is the whole point
YOu said "If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there". Other way round.
Anyway bit unfair to blame the First Nations for not being royalist in the circs.
I never have but the point is they will be outvoted still by the white majority of British origin of those nations. See Australia for example which voted 55% to keep the monarchy in 1999 but with the Northern Territory, which had the highest percentage of Aborigines in its population, having an above average vote for a Republic.
In any case if not for the Empire and Commonwealth not only would Australia, Canada and New Zealand still be majority non white but the UK would still be virtually all white at the same time
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
I always like to raise “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” with "The past is never dead. It's not even past" (faulkner). With slavery the latter is true: the causal nexus between what Rustat did in the 1600s and what happened to George Floyd is absolutely solid.
There's a lot in HYUFD's point, though. The Royal African Company was called Royal for a reason. We did this as a nation, and we can hardly, cancel a whole century
Nevermind cancelling a whole century. Maybe we should just cancel our whole country. Or cancel the whole of civilisation, because the reality is that it is all built on slavery of various forms.
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
All civilisation in the west, surely? It derives from classical Hellenism and that was built on slavery.
don't think so. "Built on slavery" overstates the importance of it. neither Greeks nor romans afaik ever went to war with the *primary purpose* of scoring more slaves, unlike the Mesopotamians and Egyptians
Oh well, so long as it was just dabbling in slavery a bit that's fine.
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
Saturdays in your family sound kind of interesting
It's an unpopular opinion, but my morning cup of tea just doesn't taste the same without that element of human misery from an oppressed person picking it.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a national monument to Britain’s part in slavery and the slave trade (though I have suspicions verging on certainties).
If by some accident of history and geography the UK had been responsible for the Holocaust, all the people who had stolen Jewish property and moved into houses vacated by deported Jews would have been financially compensated, the British Armed forces would have flip flopped to roaming Europe to prevent pogroms and been held up as a virtuous ideal, the Royals would be dispatched to patronise the denuded shtetls of the east, and instead of a huge memorial to the attempted extermination of a race in our capital city there would be a few blue plaques.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
When HMQ came to the throne most Commonwealth nations were Commonwealth realms and indeed many still part of the British Empire.
When HMQ dies virtually all Commonwealth nations will be independent and the majority no longer Commonwealth realms either.
The idea the Queen passing on symbols some huge change is laughable, the big change has already happened in her reign
And a lot more to come after her reign is over as signalled by William in the Caribbean
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
He has been doing it a while, he is nearly 40.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
Any time anyone calls out Heathener for being a Russian troll, they throw their toys out the pram. Childish.
“Just because you’re loooosing!”
The normal pattern is to spend an hour or so making frequent posts winding up as many people as possible, then just as the kitchen is getting hot, she jumps out of the window.
Yes the job is to sow dischord and division, through triggering base emotions in both ends of an argument simultaneously.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
At peak slave trade, it amounted to about 12% gdp. In a massively agrarian economy they is pretty much everything which isn't farming. It is therefore quite likely that Rustat was say 10% slaves 90% landowner
Mind you HYUFD s claim doesn't excuse anything it just spreads the blame more widely
One corollary of those statistics is that Britain took a voluntary hit of 12% GDP in ending slavery and the slave trade. The country did the right thing — eventually! — knowing the cost.
Really? Ending the slave trade was a 12% hit to British GDP? Doesn't sound right
If we accept the 12 per cent figure. I've no way of knowing if that is correct but it comes from earlier in the thread.
The 12% was claimed to be the peak percentage - was the peak when the slave trade was abolished? Surely not.
The decision by the church of England Court to refuse Jesus College (Cambridge) request to remove a memorial to a slave trader from its chapel is a gem
"The true position, as set out in the historians’ expert reports and their joint statement, is that Rustat’s investments in the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa (the Royal Adventurers) brought him no financial returns at all; that Rustat only realised his investments in the Royal African Company in May 1691, some 20 years after he had made his gifts to the College, and some five years after the completion of the Rustat memorial and its inscription; and that any moneys Rustat did realise as a result of his involvement in the slave trade comprised only a small part of his great wealth, and they made no contribution to his gifts to the College."
It's ok so many of the slaves he "invested" in died en route that he didn't really make much money from it during his lifetime.
And
" I recognise also that it does not excuse Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade, although it may help to explain it, that, in the words of L. P. Hartley (in his 1953 novel, The Go-Between), “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
I'm sure the slaves themselves were fine with it for that very reason.
And the classic:
"... buying certain clothes or other consumer goods, or eating certain foods, or investing in the companies that produce them, we are ourselves contributing to, or supporting, conditions akin to modern slavery, or to the degradation and impoverishment of our planet."
As Jesus said: Let he who has never eaten anything be the first to ask us not commemorate a slave trader
Given almost anyone with any capital at all in the 17th century would have invested in a company with some connection to the slave trade, sound decision by the Church of England Court.
Otherwise there would be virtually no memorials to 17th century figures left.
Source for your claime? I'm not sure how that tallies with the church's own argument that investments in slavery were only an insignificant part of Rustat's "great wealth".
Most of the large companies on the Stock Exchange in the 17th century would have had some investment in slavery and the slave trade.
It was not the Church's argument as such, Justin Welby backed removing the memorial but the argument of the Judge at the Church Court. It was a sound one as Rustat was not a slave trader
You seem to be making the opposite argument to the one in the church court judgment. They are saying he had great wealth but most of it was unconnected to slavery, you are saying that all wealth at the time was connected to slavery. You can't both be right.
They are saying he still had some wealth connected to slavery, as did virtually anyone with significant capital at the time
Just like most greens today, especially those working in the public sector, will own fossil fuel shares in their pension funds.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a national monument to Britain’s part in slavery and the slave trade (though I have suspicions verging on certainties).
I'm genuinely surprised to learn from your post that there isnt. I think it's a good idea.
I suppose it's one of those things where if it doesnt happen in the immediate aftermath of the repudiation of bad thing/person then as time passes people are no more in favour of the bad thing, but see no reason to monumentalise now, or take things down etc.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
But you're making my point for me. "authority from the monarch". That's like saying that Mr Johnson or HMTQ should decide on philosophy, or nuclear physics, or medicine.
In any case, the bishops should not be in the HoL at all. "Yes, Officer, those Xboxes in their cartons in the back room I stole, but they are less than 5% of my net wealth."
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a national monument to Britain’s part in slavery and the slave trade (though I have suspicions verging on certainties).
If by some accident of history and geography the UK had been responsible for the Holocaust, all the people who had stolen Jewish property and moved into houses vacated by deported Jews would have been financially compensated, the British Armed forces would have flip flopped to roaming Europe to prevent pogroms and been held up as a virtuous ideal, the Royals would be dispatched to patronise the denuded shtetls of the east, and instead of a huge memorial to the attempted extermination of a race in our capital city there would be a few blue plaques.
Rubbish, the Holocaust happened less than a hundred years ago, within the lifetimes even of some Germans still alive today.
Britain ended slavery 200 years ago, nobody alive today, nor even their parents or grandparents, were involved in it.
In any case there already is a museum to it, the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
say what you like about flsoj, the odd phrase does cut through. They are trapped in piccaninny think. That Land Rover was a serious disaster.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
He has been doing it a while, he is nearly 40.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
I broadly agree with this. What we probably want, if we want to retain the Monarchy at all, is something more continental. A bit of pagentry for weddings, funerals, state occasions is nice but day to day life needs to be a bit more normal, like Princess Anne has managed. They would surely be happier too.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
He has been doing it a while, he is nearly 40.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
Yes, but he is still third tier, and is only recently getting the exposure that his presumed imminent promotion will attract.
You're right about the Palace, though. I had passing dealings with them in my old job, and to say that they are stuck in the past is an understatement.
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
I still don’t understand why there isn’t a national monument to Britain’s part in slavery and the slave trade (though I have suspicions verging on certainties).
If by some accident of history and geography the UK had been responsible for the Holocaust, all the people who had stolen Jewish property and moved into houses vacated by deported Jews would have been financially compensated, the British Armed forces would have flip flopped to roaming Europe to prevent pogroms and been held up as a virtuous ideal, the Royals would be dispatched to patronise the denuded shtetls of the east, and instead of a huge memorial to the attempted extermination of a race in our capital city there would be a few blue plaques.
Rubbish, the Holocaust happened less than a hundred years ago, within the lifetimes even of some Germans still alive today.
Britain ended slavery 200 years ago, nobody alive today, nor even their parents or grandparents, were involved in it
Not 200 years ago. ONly in 1838 (when the thinly disguised 'apprenticeship' scheme was abolished).
When the Jamaican PM said it was going to become a Republic, William just stood there and said nothing.
Well if there was a good reason for it remaining a Monarchy wouldn't William have said what it was?
Surely if anyone could think of a reason it would be William? After all he's almost 40 and has spent his whole life preparing to do the job and even he can't think of any positive reason for it?
What a total and utter farce. When someone actually bothers to challenge it it's immediately obvious that there's nothing there.
The whole tour has been excruciatingly embarrassing, hopefully it will be the last such "Royal" tour of the Caribbean
Lots of people twisting themselves in knots to defend what I think is a fairly bad decision by the church court, which was made with laughable justifications.
"white muppets" wrong "everyone was at it" not everyone "we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
My point is not to justify it because everyone was at it, quite the reverse. But it was a *national* enterprise, it is what we as a country fundamentally did. It therfore seems a bit pointless to pick off arbitrary individuals.
Yes, seems a pointless endeavour in that respect.
I suppose you drop litter everywhere because of the vast amounts of pollution that will still be made everywhere else.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
He has been doing it a while, he is nearly 40.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
I broadly agree with this. What we probably want, if we want to retain the Monarchy at all, is something more continental. A bit of pagentry for weddings, funerals, state occasions is nice but day to day life needs to be a bit more normal, like Princess Anne has managed. They would surely be happier too.
And the constitutional side would seem to be a hop skip and jump from resolution. There is an excellent briefing paper here
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
I think the truth is that young William is still learning on the job.
He has been doing it a while, he is nearly 40.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
I note a murmur on twitter that the current clusterfuck of royal pr is down to all the ‘good’ advisors being got rid of in 2017. I was unaware of this cull but I’m not sure that the huge, ramshackle Firm of Windsor can be marketed into relevance, nor if it’s all worth it just to prevent the supposed horror of an elected head of state.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
Rubbish, we had and have an established church to ensure its authority comes from the monarch not the Pope. The Parish system it provides also ensures any Parishioner can get married or buried in their Parish Church.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
Our whole constitutional arrangement centred around the monarch drawing their power from God is outdated:
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
Absolutely, and I am a little surprised how tone deaf the Palace has been to the issues. Perhaps if they still had Harry and Meghan in the room they might have addressed the issues a bit better. Not just the slavery one, but also the issues around post colonial development.
say what you like about flsoj, the odd phrase does cut through. They are trapped in piccaninny think. That Land Rover was a serious disaster.
Shaking hands with black children through a chain linkfence too. Ouch!
It seems my comments on the royal family last night triggered @HYUFD into a fierce debate which looks to have carried on into this morning
As I said last night I have been a republican most of my life but of recent times have had nothing but praise and admiration for HMQ but it has become an anachronism and the media coverage of William and Kate talking to children contained behind a wire fence and standing on the back of a land rover waving at the people gives credence to it
80% of my 78 years have been lived in Scotland and Wales and maybe I just do not get this Queen appointed by God and we are subservient to their position and must bow when meeting them etc
I am content for Charles to be king and William and Kate to succeed him but they do need to modernise and accept attitudes change
I give William full marks when he told the Caribbean nations that he will support any decisions to become republics and it is unthinkable that Australia, NZ, or Canada will continue indefinitely to have our monarch as their head of state
We are in a rapidly changing world and only those who accept change and even welcome it will survive
The Caribbean tour struggled to straddle the obvious fissures between the monarchy and the modern world, with only partial success. Once HMQ has risen to her throne in the sky, a lot of questions are going to come to the fore.
I think that's a key issue. There's enough accrued sentiment that it seems best to let her live our her life in peace rather than upset a very old lady. Not entirely rational, but a politically interfering middle-aged chap with a poor reputation for marital stability is a very different kettle of fish when ti comes to people claiming the Divine Right (prop: James VI and I). And remember the very concept of an Established Church, let alone one with the King or Queen as head and the bishops as state employees, was explosive politically from 1540s to the 20th century (and was resolved in part by eradicating the concept, as in Scotland). It's only because of the decline in religion that the insistence of retaining a mediaeval theocracy, complete with legislative seats for the shamans of only one religion out of many, is not still more explosive today.
I suspect that the only path to survival is a transition to what used to be called a bicycling monarchy.
But 'modernising' an archaic institution is tough to do. If you try to keep a lid on change, pressure builds up until suddenly too much change happens at once (cf. Tsar Alexander, Charles I, Louis the whatever). On the other hand, if you try to enact gradual change, it has a habit of running away from you (cf. Gorbachev) or not working out as you intended (cf. Cromwell)
Comments
"white muppets" wrong
"everyone was at it" not everyone
"we'd have to cancel a whole century" no we wouldn't
Just have a look at the case itself, and read the judgment itself.
Only 15 out of 54 Commonwealth nations remain Commonwealth realms as we near the end of the Queen's reign anyway
The whole thing is pathetic and tragic.
Incidentally my 'white muppets' comment was directed at the wider movement not this particular case, and I'm perfectly content with it. If you think that's wrong, check out the Colston court case, look at their skin colour, and look at the defence they put up.
ETA - which, I would point out, another court accepted. Even though it was madder than making Dominic Cummings a government adviser.
Perhaps we should just accept there's a lot of funny business and weird rulings on all sides and move on?
It may not be in France either, nor a number of other countries, judging by the support for Le Pen and Melenchon. This may be part of why Macron has had to be a bit less aggressive with sanctions than some would like.
The 12% includes allied and ancillary trades, eg shipbuilding and shackle making
And yes probably there were landowners who stuck to land, but you'd be amazed how many of the very big estates in the UK were magically enlarged in the mid 1800s, investing the huge compensation they got for their slaving interests
Don't forget either the Aztecs had slaves, so that leaves Mexico with a lot of issues.
Even some African chiefs were involved
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/18/africans-apologise-slave-trade
I suppose they're useful for identifying posh twats who like virtue-signalling, or Victorian heroines with a tendency to swoon. I don't know anyone else who takes much notice of them either. The exception is a classical, female nude but you only see them in museums.
I haven't seen "The Worst Person in the World" yet, but sounds a great film.
One question - what about Chinese civilisation? I know very little about the early history of China - did they have slavery?
I expect you have not visited these countries and are projecting your outdated attitude to the monarch and subservience
There are active indigenous movements in all these countries, and it may surprise for you to know that my daughter in law in Vancouver is of Ukraine heritage
Why don,t we just cancel all history to suit these halfwitted woke morons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_Hairless_Dog
I founded the anti daylight saving time movement Hora Solaris (“solar time” in Latin), because I am convinced that DST can no longer be allowed to exist and must be abolished in not just the UK, but every country implementing it.
Wait until he finds out that China has only one time zone!
What's amusing is that he links to this paper:
https://www.rospa.com/media/documents/road-safety/british-summertime-factsheet.pdf
But they're arguing for BST all-year round.
- Jamaica?
- No, a consortium of businessmen based in Bristol did.
What with transportation and clearances HYUFD's whiteys were by no means all volunteers, mind
https://www.smh.com.au/national/no-sense-of-momentum-poll-finds-drop-in-support-for-australia-becoming-a-republic-20210125-p56wpe.html.
If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there
Applicant: 'Didn't know I still needed one.'
They will, whether you like it or not
Personally I'm all for slavery so long as we make it non racist slavery. 10,000 years of tradition can't be wrong. And we treat the children making our clothes little better than slaves anyway.
Technically you are also being misleading, the Judge of the Church of England Court backed the Memorial's staying put, Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury supported its removal. However the Court made the right choice
Same goes for most of the majority white population in the USA, though more of them had ancestors who came from Germany than Britain unlike the white majority Commonwealth realms
That Orban talked about the danger to the ethnic Hungarian minority if he have weapons to Ukraine might suggest he has territorial gains at the back of his mind though - at the least it shows that ethno national mindset which could become acquisitive.
YOu said "If Indigenous peoples like the North American Indians, the Aborigines and Maori were still the majority in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most of the white population in those nations would no longer be there". Other way round.
Anyway bit unfair to blame the First Nations for not being royalist in the circs.
Sure, slaves existed all over the world in different economies and with varying degrees of appalling treatment. What we did though was to industrialise and monetise the Atlantic slave trade into a key part of the Eighteenth Century economy and the foundation of Empire.
As the country was an oligarchy of the rich at the time, those bear a more direct responsibility than those of us whose families were peasant farmers. At the top of that aristocracy of oligarchs sits the monarchy.
When HMQ dies virtually all Commonwealth nations will be independent and the majority no longer Commonwealth realms either.
The idea the Queen passing on symbols some huge change is laughable, the big change has already happened in her reign
The same Chancellor who was appointed specifically to be the PM's patsy, the incumbent having rejected becoming so.
What a weak leader Johnson is!
It really wont be that big a deal, of course nations will look at their constitutional arrangements and some will make a different choice at that time.
“Just because you’re loooosing!”
Change doesn't preclude more change; indeed, history suggests the opposite.
In any case if not for the Empire and Commonwealth not only would Australia, Canada and New Zealand still be majority non white but the UK would still be virtually all white at the same time
https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/anti-slavery-sugar-bowl/
If by some accident of history and geography the UK had been responsible for the Holocaust, all the people who had stolen Jewish property and moved into houses vacated by deported Jews would have been financially compensated, the British Armed forces would have flip flopped to roaming Europe to prevent pogroms and been held up as a virtuous ideal, the Royals would be dispatched to patronise the denuded shtetls of the east, and instead of a huge memorial to the attempted extermination of a race in our capital city there would be a few blue plaques.
A lot of the problem with the monarchy is not so much the individuals, flawed as they are, but the obsequious funkiest around the household. The archaic protocols and stuffy orders of precedence pander to the worst of the Royal individuals.
After all, there was no evidence at all that it would be like this.
I suppose it's one of those things where if it doesnt happen in the immediate aftermath of the repudiation of bad thing/person then as time passes people are no more in favour of the bad thing, but see no reason to monumentalise now, or take things down etc.
The Bishops represent less than 5% of a House of Lords which is still completely unelected anyway
In any case, the bishops should not be in the HoL at all. "Yes, Officer, those Xboxes in their cartons in the back room I stole, but they are less than 5% of my net wealth."
Britain ended slavery 200 years ago, nobody alive today, nor even their parents or grandparents, were involved in it.
In any case there already is a museum to it, the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool
You're right about the Palace, though. I had passing dealings with them in my old job, and to say that they are stuck in the past is an understatement.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1507628022152712194/photo/1
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03861/
The only gnarly bit, as I see it, is disentangling state wealth from private wealth.
“Of the 16% of people who define as belonging to the Church of England, 51.9% never attend services and in fact only 10.7% of people who identify with the Church of England report attending church at least weekly.”
The only reason we still have what we have is inertia and a lack of consensus on what to have instead. Rather like the Tory parliamentary party’s view of the PM incidentally.
But 'modernising' an archaic institution is tough to do. If you try to keep a lid on change, pressure builds up until suddenly too much change happens at once (cf. Tsar Alexander, Charles I, Louis the whatever). On the other hand, if you try to enact gradual change, it has a habit of running away from you (cf. Gorbachev) or not working out as you intended (cf. Cromwell)