ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
In that case, the C of E should go into the wedding venues business. Properly. Either be a religion, or a wedding venue rented out to all and sundry.
I don't mind the C of E being used by people who want to get hatched, matched and dispatched; it's the sort of being present for peoples' lives that the church should be about. Though saying that it's only for the beauty of the location feels a bit off. Besides, there are plenty of drab church buildings and properly attractive civic registry offices. (Though I'd like there to be more nice public buildings than we have... at some point we stopped doing them.)
The difficulty is that, even if you think the church has a ministry to everyone, it's increasingly hard to sustain, since it's very definitely not everyone paying to keep the roofs on and the clergy in rich tea biscuits. And whilst the CofE has lots of assets, a lot of them are pretty hard to realise and it also has a lot of liabilities. (Not quite at a "pension fund with a church attached" level, but not hugely far off.)
None of this has much to do with establishment, either.
It does as Parish weddings, for a fee and funerals keep churches active in their community, not just with services for the faithful
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
The Midlands and (and parts of the) north will stay with Boris.
Keith will have all sorts of problems with the "what is a woman" question and variations of it in a general election campaign...
I don't think he will.
The way things are looking the next GE will be a titanic contest over the economy as we face economic crisis.
The political class just has not got its head around how bad things are getting and will get in next couple of years.
If Tories think they can win on women's toilets while millions struggle to heat homes and send their kids off with a meal inside them, then good luck.
Well of course the economy is always important. That will be the deciding factor as it usually us.
But personalities will count (Keith is just soooo boring) and the Midlands and north won't vote en masse for someone that is unable to define a woman.
But yes, the economy will be the deciding factor ultimately. Expect loads of pre-election tax cuts and Boris to ditch the "green crap" at some point between now and autumn 2023...
The more boring man won the 1992 election, so Boris being more charismatic than Starmer isn't going to cut it alone. Labour definitely need to stay away from the woke stuff, mind.
I don't disagree that boring can win. But Kinnock lacked novelty as a very longstanding opposition leader, and attracted the (rather unfair) nickname "the Welsh Windbag".
Major was a grey man in some ways BUT relatively novel in 1992, played on his humble roots etc. He wasn't glamorous, certainly, but not was Kinnock by that stage.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
"We keep being told by military strategists that this is a very different proposition from the battleground in northern Ukraine and we should not assume that just because the Russians failed in their assault on Kyiv that they will fail to make progress in the Donbas."
There had also been some nervous pointing towards the potential for encirclement of the JFO before the withdrawal from around Kyiv.
There is a lot of uncertainty, and as I think one of the analysts on twitter said, "war is a series of contingent events," but if Ukraine are to emerge victorious then it's hard to think of a possible opening eight weeks to the war that would be more likely to lead them in that direction.
There is certainly a case for believing that the Russians are now pursuing their best strategy, having exhausted all the other possibilities.
Personally I think they have handed the West an extraordinary opportunity to give them a massive arse-kicking, without making it too embarrassingly obvious that is what is going on. Of course this isn't much solace to the poor sods caught up in the war, but at least the Ukranian Nation is likely to emerge very much stronger in the long run. It will be a tough journey, but they are likely to get there in the end.
Yes but why is the west being so half-hearted? Maybe they don't want to make a big thing about the support they are providing to Ukraine - spare parts but not actual fighter jets????? - but I'm starting to wonder if many in Nato really want Ukraine to win.
Did the Russians have any difficulty in providing direct assistance to the North Vietnamese.
I think it's the nuclear angle. There will be many worried at what Putin's reaction will be to a total defeat in Ukraine. Suppose the Russian army is bled dry in the Donbas, and then collapses, with the Ukrainians chasing them to the border, and towards Crimea - Putin might panic and turn to nuclear weapons.
It might then appear to be for the greater good for Ukraine only to fight Russia to a standstill, in the hopes of using sanctions and the failure of the Russian army as leverage to negotiate Russia out of Ukraine. Or, somewhat less negatively, a gradual Ukrainian victory, pushing Russia back bit by bit, would avoid a sudden catastrophic trigger that might lead to a nuclear response.
Given what Russia has done in occupied territory I find it hard to accept any continued Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory as an outcome that is for the greater good - but how to avoid the Russian use of nuclear weapons in the face of a conventional defeat?
The only other possibility that I can think of would be to have a nuclear power join the war on Ukraine's side, and place Ukraine under the defence of their nuclear deterrence.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
The US Episcopal church and Welsh Anglican church now do same sex weddings if ministers agree, I expect in time the C of E will follow and the law amended accordingly
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in (secular, civil) law, however. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
Like complaining that the local rugby club doesn't arrange 11 man a side matches where one side bowls leather balls at the other between the wickets during the summer months, because parliament has redefined rugby on a more inclusive basis. So what?
You are going to have to make that point a whole lot more intelligible before I am able to respond.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
Why on earth should he do anything other than resign
Because he doesn’t want to go. He wants to be PM, but these nasty people keep bringing up all this boring old rubbish.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
Re: condoms & Catholics, in the USA the Roman Catholic Church fought tooth and nail against condoms, and later the pill. For example, lobbying for state laws (such as in Connecticut) banning their sale.
Yet IIRC by 1970s approx. 90% of Catholic women in USA capable of childbearing were using the pill or condoms, and only small minority the church-approved rhythm method. Most did NOT tell their priest about it, or make a big deal about it socially or politically.
But they did it anyway. Most remaining committed Catholics - in belief that, on this issue, they are NOT the ones out of step with true religion.
Rather it's popes & priests who err - and despite what some of THEM think, they are NOT the Church.
Problem is the US is now stuffed full of doctors who won't prescribe birth control to women.
It's definitely an issue. But methinks "stuffed" is exaggerated.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
The US Episcopal church and Welsh Anglican church now do same sex weddings if ministers agree, I expect in time the C of E will follow and the law amended accordingly
The Welsh Anglican Church is of course disestablished.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
They certainly believe they will win. But it requires Nato countries to get serious about supporting them. Estonia has given more military aid than France! Germany is endlessly prevaricating.
Germany isn’t prevaricating. They are obfuscating. They have no intention of helping Ukraine
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it's not established, is it? You're talking more mince than a catering pack of Quorn from Farmfoods.
point of order here, a catering pack of Quorn contains zero percent mince, its sort of proverbial for it so the metaphor fails a little
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
People seem to get married in church for the building. I find it really odd that people who are not at all religious, don’t believe in god etc will make vows to the person they intend to be with for life that include a mystic sky fairy they don’t believe in. So they are lying at the point of making the vows... Is it any wonder the divorce rate is so high!
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
I can't see Starmer winning unless he can turn those Mids numbers around a bit more frankly.
Worth remembering that the Tories won the East Midlands by 54.9% - 31.8% and the West Midlands by 53.5% - 33.9% at GE2019. The swings to Labour in the Midlands do seem to be smaller in the polls than in other regions, but you're always going to have some variation around a mean.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
Brought to you by the low IQ section of the PB community.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
I know it’s a typo, but I love the idea of the Modlands. I can see the scooters now...
Re: condoms & Catholics, in the USA the Roman Catholic Church fought tooth and nail against condoms, and later the pill. For example, lobbying for state laws (such as in Connecticut) banning their sale.
Yet IIRC by 1970s approx. 90% of Catholic women in USA capable of childbearing were using the pill or condoms, and only small minority the church-approved rhythm method. Most did NOT tell their priest about it, or make a big deal about it socially or politically.
But they did it anyway. Most remaining committed Catholics - in belief that, on this issue, they are NOT the ones out of step with true religion.
Rather it's popes & priests who err - and despite what some of THEM think, they are NOT the Church.
Problem is the US is now stuffed full of doctors who won't prescribe birth control to women.
It's definitely an issue. But methinks "stuffed" is exaggerated.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I see.
StillWaters is right. Compared to outside expectations at the outset, Ukraine has done great things these last few weeks. That's a victory of sorts, albeit not a final one.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Considering the number of gay clergy, you might not be right about the institution.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
I know it’s a typo, but I love the idea of the Modlands. I can see the scooters now...
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
People seem to get married in church for the building. I find it really odd that people who are not at all religious, don’t believe in god etc will make vows to the person they intend to be with for life that include a mystic sky fairy they don’t believe in. So they are lying at the point of making the vows... Is it any wonder the divorce rate is so high!
Yes, I find that utterly crackers. They are making the most important commitment of their lives on what they hold to be a false premise. Why? As I say, there a hundreds of beautiful hotels in which one can marry, without the religious strings.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
I don't think the Tories will do that badly in Scotland, worse case scenario they lose 30 councillors or so (although Labour could narrowly come 2nd now) and are almost guaranteed to gain seats net on at least a few councils like Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway and Argyll and Bute to partially offset losses elsewhere particularly Edinburgh.
I don't think the Tories will do too badly in London either and should still get pretty solid results in outer London in councils like Hillingdon, Bexley and Bromley and could still narrowly save Barnet.
I am trying to imagine a three hour debate between Boris and Keir.
I imagine it would lead to mass suicide in the UK.
One is unbelievably dull so would send everyone to sleep. The other would be unable to remember which lies he’s told in the first hour, so would be telling more and different lies as it went on.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I see.
Yes.
There is no realistic scenario now in which Ukraine is conquered and absorbed by Russia. That was not the case when Russia invaded
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
The US Episcopal church and Welsh Anglican church now do same sex weddings if ministers agree, I expect in time the C of E will follow and the law amended accordingly
The Welsh Anglican Church is of course disestablished.
And smaller than the Roman Catholic church in Wales, there is also no right to a Church in Wales wedding for local people as there is to a Church of England wedding, albeit the Marriage (Wales) Act 2010 effectively mirrored the circumstances in England
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
The US Episcopal church and Welsh Anglican church now do same sex weddings if ministers agree, I expect in time the C of E will follow and the law amended accordingly
The Welsh Anglican Church is of course disestablished.
And smaller than the Roman Catholic church in Wales, there is also no right to a Church of Wales wedding for local people as there is to a Church of England wedding
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I see.
StillWaters is right. Compared to outside expectations at the outset, Ukraine has done great things these last few weeks. That's a victory of sorts, albeit not a final one.
"That is a victory of sorts, albeit not a final one."
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Considering the number of gay clergy, you might not be right about the institution.
The institution refuses to marry same sex couples, preferring to marry atheist mixed sex couples who believe its protagonist to be a false prophet.
Hard to infer much other than it must really hate gay people.
Re: condoms & Catholics, in the USA the Roman Catholic Church fought tooth and nail against condoms, and later the pill. For example, lobbying for state laws (such as in Connecticut) banning their sale.
Yet IIRC by 1970s approx. 90% of Catholic women in USA capable of childbearing were using the pill or condoms, and only small minority the church-approved rhythm method. Most did NOT tell their priest about it, or make a big deal about it socially or politically.
But they did it anyway. Most remaining committed Catholics - in belief that, on this issue, they are NOT the ones out of step with true religion.
Rather it's popes & priests who err - and despite what some of THEM think, they are NOT the Church.
Problem is the US is now stuffed full of doctors who won't prescribe birth control to women.
It's definitely an issue. But methinks "stuffed" is exaggerated.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
People seem to get married in church for the building. I find it really odd that people who are not at all religious, don’t believe in god etc will make vows to the person they intend to be with for life that include a mystic sky fairy they don’t believe in. So they are lying at the point of making the vows... Is it any wonder the divorce rate is so high!
Yes, I find that utterly crackers. They are making the most important commitment of their lives on what they hold to be a false premise. Why? As I say, there a hundreds of beautiful hotels in which one can marry, without the religious strings.
Mrs TT and I got married in a pub(kind of - they had a licensed room). One stop shop with service, room for food and then the evening shenanigans. Neither of us could countenance a church wedding for the reasons you’ve said and I alluded too.
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Considering the number of gay clergy, you might not be right about the institution.
It is not an issue I spend much time thinking about tbh. If there are so many gay clergy why don't they vote (can they?) to change Canon Law.
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
I know it’s a typo, but I love the idea of the Modlands. I can see the scooters now...
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I see.
The commander of Russia's original operation in Donbas thinks that Ukraine will soon be in a position to attack Russian forces across Russian territory. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that were planned for May 9th.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
Does the south worry you? 43:37 suggests red spots appearing or expanding in a lot of medium to large towns and cities - your Readings, Bournemouth's, Chatham's, Basildons, MK etc. etc. 10-15 gains plus a yellow squeeze and the South could be not much fun for your boys.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
They belong to the nation any church built before around 1836 or so which I believe was the date of the tithe commutation act.
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
Dull with no fireworks is a win for Macron me thinks? Steady as she goes...
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Considering the number of gay clergy, you might not be right about the institution.
It is not an issue I spend much time thinking about tbh. If there are so many gay clergy why don't they vote (can they?) to change Canon Law.
International concerns. Apparently we should accept bigotry in this country because we don't want to upset Ugandans.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I look forward to your calculations disaggregating those income sources over history
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
I don't think the Tories will do that badly in Scotland, worse case scenario they lose 30 councillors or so (although Labour could narrowly come 2nd now) and are almost guaranteed to gain seats net on at least a few councils like Aberdeenshire, Dumfries and Galloway and Argyll and Bute to partially offset losses elsewhere particularly Edinburgh.
I don't think the Tories will do too badly in London either and should still get pretty solid results in outer London in councils like Hillingdon, Bexley and Bromley and could still narrowly save Barnet.
They are on just 20% in that Deltapoll in London, on that swing Wandsworth, Barnet and Westminster will go Labour
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
I thought that was actually one of the stronger sections for her because Macron's answer was basically, "You are right, but that would unpick the single market." It was very reminiscent of Cameron's negative defence of the EU at the time of the referendum.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I think they would regard winning as getting the territorial position back to where it was on 24 February.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I look forward to your calculations disaggregating those income sources over history
I already posted I would limit it to churches built before 1836 or were started being built before 1836. ie most of them which was the date of the tithe commutation act
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
Considering the number of gay clergy, you might not be right about the institution.
It is not an issue I spend much time thinking about tbh. If there are so many gay clergy why don't they vote (can they?) to change Canon Law.
I am not an Anglican, but it ain't a democracy though there are elements in the Synod. Basically the laity are much more conservative than the clergy.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
If the Modlands breaks for Labour, it is landslide time.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
Absolutely not.
They are part of the core heritage of England as well as belonging to the Church to be places of worship as long as the Church wishes to use them.
In any case why should we care what someone of Muslim heritage like you thinks should be done with Church of England churches any more than we should care what someone of Christian heritage thinks if they want Mosques to be turned into flats?
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I look forward to your calculations disaggregating those income sources over history
I already posted I would limit it to churches built before 1836 or were started being built before 1836. ie most of them which was the date of the tithe commutation act
There were very substantial charitable donations made prior to then. Why should that be confiscated?
Le Pen's stance on Russia is going to sink her attempt to win the election. If she had a different view on that topic she'd probably have a 50/50 chance.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
They belong to the nation any church built before around 1836 or so which I believe was the date of the tithe commutation act.
In a lot of cases, the Church would be (secretly) fairly happy to let someone else have the buildings. Many of them really are money pits.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I look forward to your calculations disaggregating those income sources over history
I already posted I would limit it to churches built before 1836 or were started being built before 1836. ie most of them which was the date of the tithe commutation act
I would also offer first to the C of E to buy the churches at a fair market price first so they can keep the ones they feel important, after that they should be offered to the congregation to buy. Then if no takers they belong to the nation. That seems fair to me
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
Does the south worry you? 43:37 suggests red spots appearing or expanding in a lot of medium to large towns and cities - your Readings, Bournemouth's, Chatham's, Basildons, MK etc. etc. 10-15 gains plus a yellow squeeze and the South could be not much fun for your boys.
Most of those were Labour in 1997 before anyway, however in the Midlands we will hold most of the seats Blair gained then
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
The section on immigration was interesting. Le Pen seemed excessively keen on deportations of 'bad foreigners', even if some of them were actually French citizens, and on telling people what they can and can't wear in public spaces. Could go down well, but I reckon quite a few would be cautious of voting in favour of the internal conflict that would flow from her ideas.
She's still a racist, but is much better at hiding it.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
I think it's a mug's game trying to predict what's going to happen. There's probably nobody in the world that has the necessary information: emplacements, numbers, state of equipment, morale, political will, discipline. All of these things are subject to concealment and misinformation. You'd be lucky to find someone who had a good overview of all this on one side, let alone both.
A point which, when made weeks ago, was met with near universal condemnation on here.
That was because your spin was “all misinformation … can’t believe anything … no way is Ukraine winning”
Not at all. I queried the certainty with which people said Ukraine was winning. Is Ukraine winning?
Surviving is winning
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
I see.
The commander of Russia's original operation in Donbas thinks that Ukraine will soon be in a position to attack Russian forces across Russian territory. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that were planned for May 9th.
I keep saying that the big unknown is what is the size of the volunteer army Ukraine is training? I think that guy was suggesting 250-300k. It could easily be more.
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
Dull with no fireworks is a win for Macron me thinks? Steady as she goes...
The last debate in 2017 was much better as it was very bad tempered and fractious ! Not sure Macron should have mentioned civil war re the banning of the hijab proposed by Le Pen. This was an appeal to Mélenchons strong Muslim vote . Apart from that there was little controversy. I stuck through the whole thing but it was hard going !
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
Many of them would make excellent venues for club nights, due to their great acoustics.
Le Pen's stance on Russia is going to sink her attempt to win the election. If she had a different view on that topic she'd probably have a 50/50 chance.
Tell me, what was it that first attracted you to the callous murderer Vladimir Putin.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
"We keep being told by military strategists that this is a very different proposition from the battleground in northern Ukraine and we should not assume that just because the Russians failed in their assault on Kyiv that they will fail to make progress in the Donbas."
There had also been some nervous pointing towards the potential for encirclement of the JFO before the withdrawal from around Kyiv.
There is a lot of uncertainty, and as I think one of the analysts on twitter said, "war is a series of contingent events," but if Ukraine are to emerge victorious then it's hard to think of a possible opening eight weeks to the war that would be more likely to lead them in that direction.
There is certainly a case for believing that the Russians are now pursuing their best strategy, having exhausted all the other possibilities.
Personally I think they have handed the West an extraordinary opportunity to give them a massive arse-kicking, without making it too embarrassingly obvious that is what is going on. Of course this isn't much solace to the poor sods caught up in the war, but at least the Ukranian Nation is likely to emerge very much stronger in the long run. It will be a tough journey, but they are likely to get there in the end.
Yes but why is the west being so half-hearted? Maybe they don't want to make a big thing about the support they are providing to Ukraine - spare parts but not actual fighter jets????? - but I'm starting to wonder if many in Nato really want Ukraine to win.
Did the Russians have any difficulty in providing direct assistance to the North Vietnamese.
I think it's the nuclear angle. There will be many worried at what Putin's reaction will be to a total defeat in Ukraine. Suppose the Russian army is bled dry in the Donbas, and then collapses, with the Ukrainians chasing them to the border, and towards Crimea - Putin might panic and turn to nuclear weapons.
It might then appear to be for the greater good for Ukraine only to fight Russia to a standstill, in the hopes of using sanctions and the failure of the Russian army as leverage to negotiate Russia out of Ukraine. Or, somewhat less negatively, a gradual Ukrainian victory, pushing Russia back bit by bit, would avoid a sudden catastrophic trigger that might lead to a nuclear response.
Given what Russia has done in occupied territory I find it hard to accept any continued Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory as an outcome that is for the greater good - but how to avoid the Russian use of nuclear weapons in the face of a conventional defeat?
The only other possibility that I can think of would be to have a nuclear power join the war on Ukraine's side, and place Ukraine under the defence of their nuclear deterrence.
The greater good The greater good
Yes. It's a problematic concept, and not a calculus that I endorse using, but I think it is the sort of thinking that explains the reluctance of some to fully support Ukraine.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
The nation can choose whether to upkeep them or sell them off. Many churches are wonderful buildings worthy of keeping for our heritage....many others are not. As I said I would also offer first the CoE first refusal for sale then the congregation.
I do not despise christians in anyway, if the building is important to them they should get first crack at raising the money. However it remains true that while as someone pointed out there were charitable donations a lot of church buildings were raised on taxes wrested from the population regardless of how they felt. Where a church has a verified charitable donation to its building I would suggest that it can be offset against the purchase price either by church or congregation
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
Many of them would make excellent venues for club nights, due to their great acoustics.
Seem to recall an ex Glasgow church(Kirk?) now a boozer. IIRC near to the botanical gardens.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
The most historic ones could have more state funds for upkeep but I am firmly of the view every Parish should have an operational Church of England church, whether rural village or hamlet, market town, suburb or inner city
Pretty dull debate with few fireworks . Le Pen did much better than last time , Macron was pretty average but Le Pens anti EU feelings kept coming to the fore and the suspicion amongst many who might still be undecided was that she would engineer an EU exit .
The section on immigration was interesting. Le Pen seemed excessively keen on deportations of 'bad foreigners', even if some of them were actually French citizens, and on telling people what they can and can't wear in public spaces. Could go down well, but I reckon quite a few would be cautious of voting in favour of the internal conflict that would flow from her ideas.
She's still a racist, but is much better at hiding it.
A lot of the Melenchon voters are Muslim so might be motivated for the status quo.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
A good illustration of this is that Tony Blair won 18 of the 22 seats in Staffordshire (including the areas now in the West Midlands) three times in a row, most of them with pretty big majorities. Now Labour holds just 3 of them, in Warley, Walsall South and Wolverhampton SE. Most of the 15 they've lost now have large Tory majorities.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
Absolutely not.
They are part of the core heritage of England as well as belonging to the Church to be places of worship as long as the Church wishes to use them.
In any case why should we care what someone of Muslim heritage like you thinks should be done with Church of England churches any more than we should care what someone of Christian heritage thinks if they want Mosques to be turned into flats?
Re: condoms & Catholics, in the USA the Roman Catholic Church fought tooth and nail against condoms, and later the pill. For example, lobbying for state laws (such as in Connecticut) banning their sale.
Yet IIRC by 1970s approx. 90% of Catholic women in USA capable of childbearing were using the pill or condoms, and only small minority the church-approved rhythm method. Most did NOT tell their priest about it, or make a big deal about it socially or politically.
But they did it anyway. Most remaining committed Catholics - in belief that, on this issue, they are NOT the ones out of step with true religion.
Rather it's popes & priests who err - and despite what some of THEM think, they are NOT the Church.
Problem is the US is now stuffed full of doctors who won't prescribe birth control to women.
It's definitely an issue. But methinks "stuffed" is exaggerated.
Well tell that to the young women being forced to shop around for health services.
Said it's a problem. BIG problem for some for sure.
Just arguing re: scope of the problem nationally. Which is quite variable from state to state, highly regionalized & localized.
I came across an academic stat a while back that the abortion rate is 60% higher for Catholics than for Protestants (I don't recall how widely this was drawn but there weren't a large number of categories) and, in turn, 60% higher still for atheists in the US.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
Absolutely not.
They are part of the core heritage of England as well as belonging to the Church to be places of worship as long as the Church wishes to use them.
In any case why should we care what someone of Muslim heritage like you thinks should be done with Church of England churches any more than we should care what someone of Christian heritage thinks if they want Mosques to be turned into flats?
Ahh, your heritage is not my heritage.
I see now.
In terms of religion it is not, we are a Christian heritage nation not a Muslim heritage nation.
Much as I would have no right as a Christian to have a view on what happens to Mosques in Muslim heritage majority nations in the Middle East, or South Asia and North Africa
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
They should be privatised, sold off to construction firms to have flats built.
Absolutely not.
They are part of the core heritage of England as well as belonging to the Church to be places of worship as long as the Church wishes to use them.
In any case why should we care what someone of Muslim heritage like you thinks should be done with Church of England churches any more than we should care what someone of Christian heritage thinks if they want Mosques to be turned into flats?
Ahh, your heritage is not my heritage.
I see now.
I would like to apologise on behalf of my countrymen, you and I have had our differences. I have however never brought race, creed or nationality into it.
The host added that Trump initially tried to end the interview by declaring “That’s it!” but remained in his seat to discuss a recent hole-in-one he scored while playing golf. After that discussion, the former president stood up with a “hateful” look and ordered the crew members to turn the cameras off.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
A good illustration of this is that Tony Blair won 18 of the 22 seats in Staffordshire (including the areas now in the West Midlands) three times in a row, most of them with pretty big majorities. Now Labour holds just 3 of them, in Warley, Walsall South and Wolverhampton SE. Most of the 15 they've lost now have large Tory majorities.
Plus in 1997 Blair won seats in Essex from Harlow to Basildon, Castle Point, Thurrock and Clacton and Braintree, now all have big Tory majorities and the only marginal Labour has any chance of gaining next time in the county is Colchester, which was LD in 1997
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
Does the south worry you? 43:37 suggests red spots appearing or expanding in a lot of medium to large towns and cities - your Readings, Bournemouth's, Chatham's, Basildons, MK etc. etc. 10-15 gains plus a yellow squeeze and the South could be not much fun for your boys.
Most of those were Labour in 1997 before anyway, however in the Midlands we will hold most of the seats Blair gained then
I can't see Labour winning any north Kent seats any time soon although could still win South Thanet and Dover if they get an overall majority. I'm more cautiously optimistic about the former than the latter though (a combined Margate and Ramsgate seat would be even better for Labour). Overall yes I think the Tories should be more worried about the Southeast medium longterm more due to the LD threat in Surrey etc though.
- “… with his ratings and Tory voting numbers in apparent freefall…”
Five more Deltapoll-scale findings and I reckon he’s history. Tory MPs are clearly not interested in ethics, but the slimeballs won’t look forward to re-entering the jobs market just as England regains her Sick Man of Europe title.
London Lab 50% Con 20%
Rest of South Con 43% Lab 37%
Midlands Con 47% Lab 37%
North Lab 54% Con 24%
Scotland SNP 49% Lab 29% Con 15%
Wales Lab 56% PC 19% Con 13%
(Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday; Sample Size: 1,550; Fieldwork: 13th - 14th April 2022)
10% poll lead in the Midlands is hardly devastating for him
34% off the pace in Scotland is, though.
Boris: 10 points off the pace in England. 30 point off the pace in Scotland. 40 points off the pace in Wales. AWOL in Ireland.
Conservative MPs are out of their tiny minds.
What the feck is wrong with my fellow Midlanders? 47-37? Incredible given Johnson's last few weeks.
Brexit has, quite literally, turned some folk bonkers.
Someone needs to do some public polling of the Midlands and find out exactly why it's so out of kilter with the rest of the country. Unlike the North (where Labour are miles ahead), it seems the Brexit voters seem to be sticking with the Tories.
Don't forget the Midlands includes Tory heartlands of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcs, Warks, and rural Staffs, Notts, Leica and Derbyshire.
The industrial West Midlands has always been belweather territory and a sucker for populism, remember Peter Griffith's' victorious Smethwick by election "vote Labour get a .... for a neighboor".
Not sure if I can work out the East Midlands coalfields, they seem to remain staunchly Conservative.
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
I can see Labour winning 300 seats without doing particularly well in the Midlands but can now potentially see loads of seats in Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire reverting to Labour.
Really the Midlands and Scotland are a barrier to overall majority now. I don't see more than 5-10 seats in the latter TBH although could go possibly up to 15-20 at a subsequent election.
Indeed, the Tories likely face near wipeout in London next month and losses from a low base in the North and Scotland and Wales but better than expected results in the Midlands could save his bacon
Does the south worry you? 43:37 suggests red spots appearing or expanding in a lot of medium to large towns and cities - your Readings, Bournemouth's, Chatham's, Basildons, MK etc. etc. 10-15 gains plus a yellow squeeze and the South could be not much fun for your boys.
Most of those were Labour in 1997 before anyway, however in the Midlands we will hold most of the seats Blair gained then
I can't see Labour winning any north Kent seats any time soon although could still win South Thanet and Dover if they get an overall majority. I'm more cautiously optimistic about the former than the latter though (a combined Margate and Ramsgate seat would be even better for Labour). Overall yes I think the Tories should be more worried about the Southeast medium longterm more due to the LD threat in Surrey etc though.
Yes but note that is the LD threat in the South more than the Labour threat. In the Midlands the Tories doing far better than 1997. The only areas Starmer might do better than Blair did is Remain areas of London like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster and Chingford and Woodford Green and Chipping Barnet.
In 1997 in Kent too yes Blair won Gravesham, Gillingham, Dartford, Thanet South, Rochester, Dover etc. Now only Dover and Thanet S distant prospects for Labour (even if they have added Canterbury because of the student vote)
ROFL Johnson is about as reliable as a condom with a hole in it
A bloke I was at university with was enamoured of a strictly Catholic girlfriend and used to push pins through unopened condom packets in the hope of impregnating and therefore marrying her. It didn't happen. He is now married to someone else and has children. The takeaway being, condoms are impregnated (ironic word) with spermicide and quite useful even when holed.
hmmm so sex before marriage and using condoms....that is a very loose definition of the phrase "strictly catholic"
On a point of PB pedantry, Ishmael didn't say 'Roman'. She might have been C of E, especially on the High/Puseyite sense.
shrugs I cant keep all the denominations straight frankly, christians seem to be sects maniacs
If it's any consolation, it's only because of an active interest in local history that I've had to learn the very real differences. Which are seriously important for anyone doing 19th century history (and interested in anything earlier). It's still utterly f***ing outrageous that the C of E is allocated seats in a supposedly modern parliament, when nobody else, no Kirk ministers, Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, witches, shamans, or Jedi knights, gets places.
No it isn't as the Church of England is the established Church and the Monarch its Supreme Governor.
The Roman Catholic Church won't allow their bishops to be in the Lords anyway as it challenges the supremacy of the Vatican and the evangelicals have little interest in bishops anyway
Oh, so Mr Johnson has put himself under the supremacy of the Vatican? Dodgy, you say.
The whole point is that the C of E should not be an Established Church at all in the modern world. You know, we're not in the Tudor era any more. Or even the Stuart one. And look what happened to the Stuarts.
Yes it should, the whole point we have the established church is to stop Rome again being our main established Catholic church, as it is in Scotland for instance where there is only a choice between Roman Catholic Popery or Presbyterian evangelicals. The Scottish Episcopal Anglican church is just a small minority church now.
Not to mention the Parish system in England of the established church guarantees every Parishioner a church wedding or funeral regardless of how often they attend church
Trying to start the Gordon Riots again?
If I were an active Christian Scot I would be really angry at your description of Scottish religion as an Old Firm plus Partick Thistle. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that, starting with the Quakers.
And your latter point is utterly irrelevant to your political worldview. It's a moral and pastoral one. it doesn't mean that Mr J pp HMtQ has to be i/c the C of E. In any case, what't the point of a boss of the C of E who keeps slagging it off?
And there are numerous state and ex-state church arrangements across Europe that don't involve legislative power for bishops, and which aren't "Popery", to use HYUFD's sectarian slur.
Almost every other nation in Europe has the Roman Catholic church or the Orthodox Church as its largest church.
The main exceptions are nations like Norway and Denmark which also have the Protestant Lutheran church as their established church
Largest does not equate established.
It does, even in Germany and the Netherlands now, which used to be Protestant, they have the Roman Catholic church as their largest church as they have no established Protestant church like we, the Danes and Norwegians do
But it is pretty likely that the RCC has had the highest weekly attendance in England for a fair amount of the last 50 years, even if we don't have great stats on it. So what are you defending?
And almost none of the 47% go to church. I didn't know you were a fan of self-ID
What has that got to do with it? If the C of E was not the established church many would not even identify with it and the Roman Catholic church would again be our largest church.
Plus of course the end of the Parish system means no automatic right to church weddings or funerals for Parishioners for non church attendees
The last point is rather the point. I wouldn't rock up to the local Jedi temple and demand a burial if I had never been an active member.
Unless you think that being a member of the C of E is somehow, erm. 'English' in a way that other religions and non-religions are not.
As the established church the CofE has an obligation to marry anyone who wants to be married, subject to Canon Law.
What's wrong with the registry office? Strip religions of any marriage powers and keep it in the hands of the state. It's a legal contract (and always was in Scotland, not a religious sacrament).
Some people don't want a drab dull registry office, they want a wedding in a beautiful historic Medieval Parish Church of England church in a traditional English village, even if they are not that religious.
Only having an established church gives them that opportunity automatically as of right as Parishioners
Not 100% correct. They are still subject to Canon Law. So not automatically.
Engaged couples can be married in any Church of England church if they meet just one of these criteria, which include residence:
one of them was baptised or prepared for confirmation in the parish; one of them has ever lived in the parish for six months or more; one of them has at any time regularly attended public worship in the parish for six months or more; one of their parents has lived in the parish for six months or more in their child's lifetime; one of their parents has regularly attended public worship there for six months or more in their child's lifetime; their parents or grandparents were married in the parish.
Virtually nobody ever objects to weddings under Marriage Banns now
Not if they are of the same sex they can't. Nor if they are divorced.
Yes but most of those who are getting married will be mixed sex (albeit I expect in time same sex blessings will be allowed in C of E churches if the vicar is willing).
Divorcees already can get married in Church of England churches if the priest agrees
You said parishioners can automatically get married in the CofE. They can't. The CofE doesn't allow same sex marriages. As you say if the priest is ok with it Divorcees can be married. A same sex marriage in a CofE church would not be recognised in law. So you were wrong. Not a biggie though.
OK heterosexual parishioners (ie still the majority) can get married in C of E churches
Whew, thank goodness the majority are not affected by this discrimination. It's ok when it's only a minority.
I believe the church has every right to stick to marriage only being for heterosexual couples. As a religion it’s a belief system. The state allows marriage for same sex couples, rightly in my opinion, but there should be no compulsion for a religion to.
You do wonder why same sex couples would want to get married in and by an institution which so transparently loathes them.
People seem to get married in church for the building. I find it really odd that people who are not at all religious, don’t believe in god etc will make vows to the person they intend to be with for life that include a mystic sky fairy they don’t believe in. So they are lying at the point of making the vows... Is it any wonder the divorce rate is so high!
Marriage is a bit of a leap of faith, and so part of what is happening at a wedding is putting your trust in an idea (as well as the other person), and for many people the forms and traditions of the ceremony - including the church - will be a large part of the traditional idea that they are putting their trust in. So it doesn't seem hard for me to see why holding the wedding in a church is important even for many of those who are not actively religious.
The multi-faith celebrant who officiated at my wedding encouraged us to think about what was important to us when we planned our non-church wedding, which is why we ended up with a service that involved my daughter and a slip jig.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
Oh dear. This old nostrum.
Care to identify and delineate the subsidies?
(For the record, if we are on church buildings the CofE raises and spends something of the order of £100m to £200m a year on caring for the large stock of listed buildings in its care, as it has done for a very long time. Where will the funds come from otherwise?)
Do you similarly propose to confiscate all the buildings in the care of the National Trust? How will they be funded?
The basic issue is that listed buildings are very expensive and do not fund themselves.
(The Church of England is a good deal more efficient in looking after listed buildings.)
On wedding venues I argue that Cameron tripped over his own feet in his rush and missed some obvious steps. The legal bit of marriages / civil partnerships should have become a state secular rubber stamp thing, and the vicar as registrar role should have been removed.
The other aspects - venues and religious / philosophical ceremonies and so on - should be purely private matters for the relevant organisations.
For example, if people wish to pay 10% of their ceremony fee to support the British Humanist Association & the similar setups in eg Scotland, as I think is the current usual practice practice for 'humanist' weddings, that is a matter purely for them.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
"We keep being told by military strategists that this is a very different proposition from the battleground in northern Ukraine and we should not assume that just because the Russians failed in their assault on Kyiv that they will fail to make progress in the Donbas."
There had also been some nervous pointing towards the potential for encirclement of the JFO before the withdrawal from around Kyiv.
There is a lot of uncertainty, and as I think one of the analysts on twitter said, "war is a series of contingent events," but if Ukraine are to emerge victorious then it's hard to think of a possible opening eight weeks to the war that would be more likely to lead them in that direction.
There is certainly a case for believing that the Russians are now pursuing their best strategy, having exhausted all the other possibilities.
Personally I think they have handed the West an extraordinary opportunity to give them a massive arse-kicking, without making it too embarrassingly obvious that is what is going on. Of course this isn't much solace to the poor sods caught up in the war, but at least the Ukranian Nation is likely to emerge very much stronger in the long run. It will be a tough journey, but they are likely to get there in the end.
Yes but why is the west being so half-hearted? Maybe they don't want to make a big thing about the support they are providing to Ukraine - spare parts but not actual fighter jets????? - but I'm starting to wonder if many in Nato really want Ukraine to win.
Did the Russians have any difficulty in providing direct assistance to the North Vietnamese.
I think it's the nuclear angle. There will be many worried at what Putin's reaction will be to a total defeat in Ukraine. Suppose the Russian army is bled dry in the Donbas, and then collapses, with the Ukrainians chasing them to the border, and towards Crimea - Putin might panic and turn to nuclear weapons.
It might then appear to be for the greater good for Ukraine only to fight Russia to a standstill, in the hopes of using sanctions and the failure of the Russian army as leverage to negotiate Russia out of Ukraine. Or, somewhat less negatively, a gradual Ukrainian victory, pushing Russia back bit by bit, would avoid a sudden catastrophic trigger that might lead to a nuclear response.
Given what Russia has done in occupied territory I find it hard to accept any continued Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory as an outcome that is for the greater good - but how to avoid the Russian use of nuclear weapons in the face of a conventional defeat?
The only other possibility that I can think of would be to have a nuclear power join the war on Ukraine's side, and place Ukraine under the defence of their nuclear deterrence.
The greater good The greater good
Yes. It's a problematic concept, and not a calculus that I endorse using, but I think it is the sort of thinking that explains the reluctance of some to fully support Ukraine.
I'll be honest, I didn't even read your post. I just saw TGG and had to repeat it, Hot Fuzz style.
Now I've read your post, I largely agree with it. Indeed, I anticipated the problem before the most recent stage of this invasion began, and recommended we put troops inside Ukraine as a "trip wire" to prevent the Russian assault on Kiev. I think we missed an opportunity to prevent the atrocities in the first place. It wasn't a suggestion that went down well with others on here, but I've had ample opportunity to reconsider these last few weeks and have not changed my mind that it would have been the right thing to do. It was much, much easier to get Putin to back down before he crossed the latest line. Now bleaching his forces from Ukraine safely is tricky. We need an adult in charge in Moscow, really.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
Oh dear. This old nostrum.
Care to identify and delineate the subsidies?
(For the record, if we are on church buildings the CofE raises and spends something of the order of £100m and £200m a year on caring for the large stock of listed buildings in its care, as it has done for a very long time. Where will the funds come from otherwise?)
Do you similarly propose to confiscate all the buildings in the care of the National Trust?
On wedding venues I argue that Cameron tripped over his own feet in his rush. The legal bit of marriages / civil partnerships should have become a state secular rubber stamp thing, and the vicar as registrar role should have been removed.
The other aspects - venues and religious / philosophical ceremonies and so on - should be purely private matters for the relevant organisations.
If people wish to pay 10% of their ceremony fee to support the British Humanist Association & the similar setups in eg Scotland, as I think is the current usual practice practice for 'humanist' weddings, that is a matter purely for them.
Cameron cocked-up that one.
Till 1836 which was before most churches were built we had tithes in pla ce supplying the church with money. Which part are your calling an old nostrum. If a tax is levied on the british people to pay for assets in my view the assets belong to the state not some private organisation. Which part of that are you disagreeing with?
Can Labour remove the Tories from office without the Midlands? Yes, if the Tories get thrashed in the North and London, and lose seats in the South to Labour and the Lib Dems. But it pretty much rules out Labour getting more than 300 seats unless there's some incredibly significant recovery in Scotland.
Indeed, Blair and New Labour won the Midlands and Scotland comfortably in 1997.
Starmer it seems has zero chance of winning either, so while he can still become PM with SNP and/or LD support he is unlikely to win a majority let alone a 1997 style landslide
A good illustration of this is that Tony Blair won 18 of the 22 seats in Staffordshire (including the areas now in the West Midlands) three times in a row, most of them with pretty big majorities. Now Labour holds just 3 of them, in Warley, Walsall South and Wolverhampton SE. Most of the 15 they've lost now have large Tory majorities.
Plus in 1997 Blair won seats in Essex from Harlow to Basildon, Castle Point, Thurrock and Clacton and Braintree, now all have big Tory majorities and the only marginal Labour has any chance of gaining next time in the county is Colchester, which was LD in 1997
Thurrock, Colchester and Rochford and Southend E are probably the only seats Labour can potentially win in Essex and can only win all three if they get a majority.
Has anyone seen or heard from an expert predicting that the Russians are likely to make a major breakthrough in the Donbass? I'm struck by the near universal scepticism from pretty much everyone I listen to or read. At the start of the war many were predicting Kiev would fall in days and the whole country within weeks. Now I can hardly find anyone who thinks they'll get very far. Quite a turnaround. There is a difference between unlikely and impossible and wars are unpredictable beasts. I hope the pendulum hasn't swung back too far the other way and the experts aren't herding in their views.
"We keep being told by military strategists that this is a very different proposition from the battleground in northern Ukraine and we should not assume that just because the Russians failed in their assault on Kyiv that they will fail to make progress in the Donbas."
There had also been some nervous pointing towards the potential for encirclement of the JFO before the withdrawal from around Kyiv.
There is a lot of uncertainty, and as I think one of the analysts on twitter said, "war is a series of contingent events," but if Ukraine are to emerge victorious then it's hard to think of a possible opening eight weeks to the war that would be more likely to lead them in that direction.
There is certainly a case for believing that the Russians are now pursuing their best strategy, having exhausted all the other possibilities.
Personally I think they have handed the West an extraordinary opportunity to give them a massive arse-kicking, without making it too embarrassingly obvious that is what is going on. Of course this isn't much solace to the poor sods caught up in the war, but at least the Ukranian Nation is likely to emerge very much stronger in the long run. It will be a tough journey, but they are likely to get there in the end.
Yes but why is the west being so half-hearted? Maybe they don't want to make a big thing about the support they are providing to Ukraine - spare parts but not actual fighter jets????? - but I'm starting to wonder if many in Nato really want Ukraine to win.
Did the Russians have any difficulty in providing direct assistance to the North Vietnamese.
I think it's the nuclear angle. There will be many worried at what Putin's reaction will be to a total defeat in Ukraine. Suppose the Russian army is bled dry in the Donbas, and then collapses, with the Ukrainians chasing them to the border, and towards Crimea - Putin might panic and turn to nuclear weapons.
It might then appear to be for the greater good for Ukraine only to fight Russia to a standstill, in the hopes of using sanctions and the failure of the Russian army as leverage to negotiate Russia out of Ukraine. Or, somewhat less negatively, a gradual Ukrainian victory, pushing Russia back bit by bit, would avoid a sudden catastrophic trigger that might lead to a nuclear response.
Given what Russia has done in occupied territory I find it hard to accept any continued Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory as an outcome that is for the greater good - but how to avoid the Russian use of nuclear weapons in the face of a conventional defeat?
The only other possibility that I can think of would be to have a nuclear power join the war on Ukraine's side, and place Ukraine under the defence of their nuclear deterrence.
The greater good The greater good
Yes. It's a problematic concept, and not a calculus that I endorse using, but I think it is the sort of thinking that explains the reluctance of some to fully support Ukraine.
I'll be honest, I didn't even read your post. I just saw TGG and had to repeat it, Hot Fuzz style.
Now I've read your post, I largely agree with it. Indeed, I anticipated the problem before the most recent stage of this invasion began, and recommended we put troops inside Ukraine as a "trip wire" to prevent the Russian assault on Kiev. I think we missed an opportunity to prevent the atrocities in the first place. It wasn't a suggestion that went down well with others on here, but I've had ample opportunity to reconsider these last few weeks and have not changed my mind that it would have been the right thing to do. It was much, much easier to get Putin to back down before he crossed the latest line. Now bleaching his forces from Ukraine safely is tricky. We need an adult in charge in Moscow, really.
If the ukraine had been a little trickier it could have ceded a foot wide strip of land running around its border to any nato country.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
Oh dear. This old nostrum.
Care to identify and delineate the subsidies?
(For the record, if we are on church buildings the CofE raises and spends something of the order of £100m and £200m a year on caring for the large stock of listed buildings in its care, as it has done for a very long time. Where will the funds come from otherwise?)
Do you similarly propose to confiscate all the buildings in the care of the National Trust?
On wedding venues I argue that Cameron tripped over his own feet in his rush. The legal bit of marriages / civil partnerships should have become a state secular rubber stamp thing, and the vicar as registrar role should have been removed.
The other aspects - venues and religious / philosophical ceremonies and so on - should be purely private matters for the relevant organisations.
If people wish to pay 10% of their ceremony fee to support the British Humanist Association & the similar setups in eg Scotland, as I think is the current usual practice practice for 'humanist' weddings, that is a matter purely for them.
Cameron cocked-up that one.
Till 1836 which was before most churches were built we had tithes in pla ce supplying the church with money. Which part are your calling an old nostrum. If a tax is levied on the british people to pay for assets in my view the assets belong to the state not some private organisation. Which part of that are you disagreeing with?
The Tithes were paid gladly by the overwhelmingly Christian population of the time as the Bible told them to do.
In any case many churches were originally built in the Middle Ages by the then dominant Roman Catholic Church not the Church of England but became C of E at the Reformation
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
The nation can choose whether to upkeep them or sell them off. Many churches are wonderful buildings worthy of keeping for our heritage....many others are not. As I said I would also offer first the CoE first refusal for sale then the congregation.
I do not despise christians in anyway, if the building is important to them they should get first crack at raising the money. However it remains true that while as someone pointed out there were charitable donations a lot of church buildings were raised on taxes wrested from the population regardless of how they felt. Where a church has a verified charitable donation to its building I would suggest that it can be offset against the purchase price either by church or congregation
Why should the burden of proof be on the church? And how about the investment returns they will have made?
For example the National Churches Trust has roots going back 2 centuries and more
My guess a bit of tactics conspiring to make this debate so boring. Macron is holding onto a 12 point lead. The debate won't improve his position but could undermine it so the fewer hostages to fortune, and indeed people watching, the better. Le Pen wants to be sees as a serious (and boring) politician who doesn't frighten people off.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
I think that many in the CoE would jump at the chance of the state paying the upkeep of its many historic but empty churches.
The nation can choose whether to upkeep them or sell them off. Many churches are wonderful buildings worthy of keeping for our heritage....many others are not. As I said I would also offer first the CoE first refusal for sale then the congregation.
I do not despise christians in anyway, if the building is important to them they should get first crack at raising the money. However it remains true that while as someone pointed out there were charitable donations a lot of church buildings were raised on taxes wrested from the population regardless of how they felt. Where a church has a verified charitable donation to its building I would suggest that it can be offset against the purchase price either by church or congregation
Why should the burden of proof be on the church? And how about the investment returns they will have made?
For example the National Churches Trust has roots going back 2 centuries and more
Why should the burden not be. Church records of donations tend to be meticulous. I doubt the state actually recorded most of those donations. Investment returns are money the church has made not lost. So I discount those in the favour of the church. Likewise all the collection money and charging for weddings, funerals etc. Lets keep it simple. Built before 1836 you can buy it for market price minus inflation adjusted charitable donations whether CoE or the congregation. Sometimes you just have to make thinks simpler rather than calculate every penny.
Don’t know where this idea comes from that it’s a binary choice between church or a dowdy registry office. Plenty of absolutely beautiful, glamorous hotels to get married in, without the boring long ceremony associated with religious venues.
English churches have been subsidised by the state and british people for years and should be confiscated off the C of E and designated as belonging to the nation and all and sundry should be able to use them as wedding venues. If the C of E wants churches it can build their own using money donated by those practising christians not the money stolen from british people over centuries.
Oh dear. This old nostrum.
Care to identify and delineate the subsidies?
(For the record, if we are on church buildings the CofE raises and spends something of the order of £100m and £200m a year on caring for the large stock of listed buildings in its care, as it has done for a very long time. Where will the funds come from otherwise?)
Do you similarly propose to confiscate all the buildings in the care of the National Trust?
On wedding venues I argue that Cameron tripped over his own feet in his rush. The legal bit of marriages / civil partnerships should have become a state secular rubber stamp thing, and the vicar as registrar role should have been removed.
The other aspects - venues and religious / philosophical ceremonies and so on - should be purely private matters for the relevant organisations.
If people wish to pay 10% of their ceremony fee to support the British Humanist Association & the similar setups in eg Scotland, as I think is the current usual practice practice for 'humanist' weddings, that is a matter purely for them.
Cameron cocked-up that one.
Till 1836 which was before most churches were built we had tithes in pla ce supplying the church with money. Which part are your calling an old nostrum. If a tax is levied on the british people to pay for assets in my view the assets belong to the state not some private organisation. Which part of that are you disagreeing with?
The Tithes were paid gladly by the overwhelmingly Christian population of the time as the Bible told them to do.
In any case many churches were originally built in the Middle Ages by the then dominant Roman Catholic Church not the Church of England but became C of E at the Reformation
You have any proof those tithes were paid gladly? Some polls from 1802 perhaps? Or just your assumption? I suspect the latter as I am pretty sure people not eating properly were so absolutely glad to have to give money to the church instead
Comments
Major was a grey man in some ways BUT relatively novel in 1992, played on his humble roots etc. He wasn't glamorous, certainly, but not was Kinnock by that stage.
The greater good
It this a 3-line whip? Consequences/reprisals for the SCon leader?
Every day they hold the line in Donbas is a day closer to freedom
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/refusing-provide-health-services
I imagine it would lead to mass suicide in the UK.
Though I think the currently quoted figures do represent quite a swing.
I don't think the Tories will do too badly in London either and should still get pretty solid results in outer London in councils like Hillingdon, Bexley and Bromley and could still narrowly save Barnet.
There is no realistic scenario now in which Ukraine is conquered and absorbed by Russia. That was not the case when Russia invaded
I agree.
Hard to infer much other than it must really hate gay people.
Just arguing re: scope of the problem nationally. Which is quite variable from state to state, highly regionalized & localized.
They are part of the core heritage of England as well as belonging to the Church to be places of worship as long as the Church wishes to use them.
In any case why should we care what someone of Muslim heritage like you thinks should be done with Church of England churches any more than we should care what someone of Christian heritage thinks if they want Mosques to be turned into flats?
She's still a racist, but is much better at hiding it.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/20/trump-walks-out-of-piers-morgan-interview-after-being-pressed-on-2020-election/
I do not despise christians in anyway, if the building is important to them they should get first crack at raising the money. However it remains true that while as someone pointed out there were charitable donations a lot of church buildings were raised on taxes wrested from the population regardless of how they felt. Where a church has a verified charitable donation to its building I would suggest that it can be offset against the purchase price either by church or congregation
One wonders if we on PB are the only ones still watching.
I see now.
In fact, I wonder whether NI reflects similar.
Much as I would have no right as a Christian to have a view on what happens to Mosques in Muslim heritage majority nations in the Middle East, or South Asia and North Africa
Lol.
The industrial West Midlands has always been belweather territory and a sucker for populism, remember Peter Griffith's' victorious Smethwick by election "vote Labour get a .... for a neighboor".
Not sure if I can work out the East Midlands coalfields, they seem to remain staunchly Conservative.
In 1997 in Kent too yes Blair won Gravesham, Gillingham, Dartford, Thanet South, Rochester, Dover etc. Now only Dover and Thanet S distant prospects for Labour (even if they have added Canterbury because of the student vote)
The multi-faith celebrant who officiated at my wedding encouraged us to think about what was important to us when we planned our non-church wedding, which is why we ended up with a service that involved my daughter and a slip jig.
Care to identify and delineate the subsidies?
(For the record, if we are on church buildings the CofE raises and spends something of the order of £100m to £200m a year on caring for the large stock of listed buildings in its care, as it has done for a very long time. Where will the funds come from otherwise?)
Do you similarly propose to confiscate all the buildings in the care of the National Trust? How will they be funded?
The basic issue is that listed buildings are very expensive and do not fund themselves.
(The Church of England is a good deal more efficient in looking after listed buildings.)
On wedding venues I argue that Cameron tripped over his own feet in his rush and missed some obvious steps. The legal bit of marriages / civil partnerships should have become a state secular rubber stamp thing, and the vicar as registrar role should have been removed.
The other aspects - venues and religious / philosophical ceremonies and so on - should be purely private matters for the relevant organisations.
For example, if people wish to pay 10% of their ceremony fee to support the British Humanist Association & the similar setups in eg Scotland, as I think is the current usual practice practice for 'humanist' weddings, that is a matter purely for them.
Cameron badly cocked-up that one.
Now I've read your post, I largely agree with it. Indeed, I anticipated the problem before the most recent stage of this invasion began, and recommended we put troops inside Ukraine as a "trip wire" to prevent the Russian assault on Kiev. I think we missed an opportunity to prevent the atrocities in the first place.
It wasn't a suggestion that went down well with others on here, but I've had ample opportunity to reconsider these last few weeks and have not changed my mind that it would have been the right thing to do. It was much, much easier to get Putin to back down before he crossed the latest line. Now bleaching his forces from Ukraine safely is tricky. We need an adult in charge in Moscow, really.
In any case many churches were originally built in the Middle Ages by the then dominant Roman Catholic Church not the Church of England but became C of E at the Reformation
For example the National Churches Trust has roots going back 2 centuries and more
Macron : 59 %
Le Pen : 39 %
For comparison the same poll in 2017 was:
Macron : 63 %
Le Pen : 34 %