"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
My view on it is the same as my view on leaving the EU. I am not massively in favour and not massively against. Nonetheless, it would be a totally unnecessary constitutional change, so the change and upheaval is pointless. The House of Lords on the other hand...
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
I think Carnyx was being facetious. The comment was top 3 parties in favour of monarchy, then his comment was "Oh, LDs not then?. I took that to mean a genial poke at the libdems losing 3rd party status in Westminster.
Quite. I was mildly surprised and wondered if I had missed something amongst the sandal folk.
This should be of huge significance. While it’s a compromise to accommodate Russia friendly Hungary, it affects two thirds or more of oil exports to the EU.
Nevertheless they will be importing oil from somewhere and the oil market is a global market. Russia can sell its oil elsewhere, just with a bit of inconvenience. An ineffective policy masquerading as 'something' for the something-must-be-done mindset. Gas is different.
One difficulty is that dislike of what Russia is doing is mostly a European and North American thing. Africa, Middle East and Latin America are more mixed in opinion, and India remains pro-Russian.
My enemy's enemy is my friend is the prevailing attitude of "anti-colonialists". They don't care about the rights and wrongs of an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country.
I think anti-colonialists care deeply about the wrongs of an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country, specifically their own peaceful country that was invaded without provocation by an imperial power. I think they should care more about the imperialist invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but I can understand if they have a different perspective on the topic than the West.
Maybe, but it does undercut if they should seek to claim a moral high ground on such issues in future, given the lack of overt concern showed. Take a cold practical view, as nations typically do, and dont be surprised if attempts to play the moral card later, about historical wrongs which they want present action over, dont work. Of course we face that outcome ourselves.
Many nations that were once colonies are probably receptive to the Russian argument that the boundaries are wrong.
Their own boundaries are often squiggles on a map, handed down by the former colonial powers.
So, it is not too surprising that Africa, Middle East and Latin America are more mixed in their opinion.
(I don't think boundaries should be changed by war, but it is perfectly reasonable to question whether the existing boundaries of a country are justified).
Including when you're a colonial power claiming that territory ? Seems a daft rationalisation to me.
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
Why they built the French national stadium in - literally - the worst, most dangerous part of France - is quite the mystery. I guess they hoped it would boost the area?
Now it’s a source of national humiliation
It made no sense at all to build the stadium where they did, without also clearing the slums actively regenerating the whole area around it.
Indeed. Stratford was hardly a desirable location when we built ours.
Istr Stratford was touted as one of the last places in London you could get a flat for under 100,000 in early 2000s before the Olympic announcement
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
Why they built the French national stadium in - literally - the worst, most dangerous part of France - is quite the mystery. I guess they hoped it would boost the area?
Now it’s a source of national humiliation
It made no sense at all to build the stadium where they did, without also clearing the slums actively regenerating the whole area around it.
It was opened in 1998.
Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris from 197x to 1995, and it was not known as being a period entirely free from corruption.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
I'm happy to leave well alone. In principle I am a republican because of my liberal views, but this is so low on any to do list it would never get done because in the words of Douglas Adams they are mostly harmless and I would add bring some joy to many. And I really quite like most of them. Even Andrew is a hoot.
I think St Denis is a bigger dump than anywhere in London or the UK quite frankly, comparisons with Brixton, Stratford, Moss Side or Bootle don't really capture the squalor there...
In 2017, the area was the theatre of 18% of all drug offences in metropolitan France.
Bugger. Now scouring the internet for 'I went to Berlin and all I got was lousy Covid' t shirts.
Get well soon
As someone travelling a lot right now, do you have a suspicion as to where you caught it? Plane? U-bahn?
Thanks.
Dunno, FFP2 mask wearing is still mandatory on public transport (though I saw no official enforcers) and was pretty much observed, hardly at all elsewhere. Short and useless answer, could have been anywhere!
Still have a gnawing suspicion that sitting in a metal tube of recycled air for a couple of hours is fairly high risk, masks notwithstanding.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
You changed tack to that but your original statement was clearly suggesting LD voters were anti monarchy and Davey could not dictate LD policy over that
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
I'd have thought the policing would be different given that people going to the Olympics don't tend to spend the preceding five hours drinking in the city.
However, the Stade de France isn't in a purpose built Olympic Park. It isn't a particularly nice location, so all the other stuff to do with the locals, could be an issue.
The challenges of an Olympic Games are very different - crowds aren't segregated and you don't really get the boisterous behaviour that comes with football (not saying that was to blame here but it's an issue that needs to be managed with such crowds).
However, what this does demonstrate is a potentially very serious problem in the planning, decision making and command structure. The response was straightforwardly chaotic. There's no point "blaming" fake tickets - the fact is both that there were problems long before that, and the turnstiles weren't allowing the expected numbers through leading to a dangerous situation. It doesn't matter if that was due to fake tickets, a computer glitch, or something else - it's the sort of problem that can happen, and it's how you plan for and manage it.
So where is the risk register and what was the plan? It SURELY wasn't to disperse the crowd with pepper spray - but if it was something else, why wasn't that enacted on the ground?
These are really serious questions. The risk register and the challenges won't be the same for the Olympics... but there does need to be confidence in it, and there can't be at the moment.
Before we get too smug, of course, there were similar crises of confidence pre-2012 with contractor problems leading to the Army being brought in, and concerns over handling of the London Riots not all that long before the Olympics. So this isn't specific to France. But they do need to move on from denial and learn some lessons pretty fast.
@leon makes the pertinent point here. This poll comes after the money has been splashed. Suggests the public may have made up their minds. I expected a large swingback after the cash. Nowt at all. Opinions seem to range between. Not before time. Why does X get Y and I only get Z? To those who say we can't afford it at all. That's the problem when your big reveal is exactly what everyone expected.
I think its also that if you tie a dead weight on (Johnson remains) to your safety float you still sink. Had this been announced after a defenestration as a reboot (we have lanced the boil, now to help everyone) it would have seen a massive boost. Wasted on trying saving an already dead large dog
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
My best guess of the two that make it to the membership vote: Wallace and Hunt.
I don't think Wallace is PM material but at least he has a functioning brain.
Similarly I always found Hunt rather a slippery character but he is at least competent.
Either would be an improvement.
I've made a start on Jeremy Hunt's new book, Zero, about reducing accidents in the NHS. It is better than I'd expected, at least for the couple of chapters read so far.
Cynics would point to the serendipity of a prominent leadership contender publishing just last week a serious book about policy and politics.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
I'm happy to leave well alone. In principle I am a republican because of my liberal views, but this is so low on any to do list it would never get done because in the words of Douglas Adams they are mostly harmless and I would add bring some joy to many. And I really quite like most of them. Even Andrew is a hoot.
I'm not that fussed either. But if there were a binary Ref, keep v not, I'd vote not. I just thought about it properly this morning and slightly surprised myself with that conclusion.
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
Why they built the French national stadium in - literally - the worst, most dangerous part of France - is quite the mystery. I guess they hoped it would boost the area?
Now it’s a source of national humiliation
It made no sense at all to build the stadium where they did, without also clearing the slums actively regenerating the whole area around it.
Indeed. Stratford was hardly a desirable location when we built ours.
The French decided to take the equivalent of a random 150m x 100m piece of land between Brixton and Streatham, and put the national stadium there, with no other improvements to the area, making sure that all the stadium’s visitors would have to park in or walk through the dodgiest part of the city to get there.
My best guess of the two that make it to the membership vote: Wallace and Hunt.
I don't think Wallace is PM material but at least he has a functioning brain.
Similarly I always found Hunt rather a slippery character but he is at least competent.
Either would be an improvement.
I've made a start on Jeremy Hunt's new book, Zero, about reducing accidents in the NHS. It is better than I'd expected, at least for the couple of chapters read so far.
Cynics would point to the serendipity of a prominent leadership contender publishing just last week a serious book about policy and politics.
Given the electorate, I doubt if it would have a significant impact either way.
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
Why they built the French national stadium in - literally - the worst, most dangerous part of France - is quite the mystery. I guess they hoped it would boost the area?
Now it’s a source of national humiliation
It made no sense at all to build the stadium where they did, without also clearing the slums actively regenerating the whole area around it.
It was opened in 1998.
Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris from 197x to 1995, and it was not known as being a period entirely free from corruption.
Stade de France isn't in Paris though. Paris itself is largely kept for the well-to-do. The "issues" of a big city are pushed beyond the official city limits. You see similar in some US cities. Greater London doesn't have this problem
If the tories want to win the next election, the time to act is now.
The cabinet need a good sweeping out and a roll of the dice for replacements. Rees-Mogg, Patel, Dorries, all need to be ditched.
But will he lose a conf vote if it happens?
What's your gut feel on this? I'm about 75% lose, 25% win.
I appreciate you werent asking me but fwiw my own feeling is they will definitely take the chance once 54 reached. I think Brady might even delay the vote a few days to give cabinet/the suits the chance to convince him out before a vote takes place, or indeed ministers resign from govt and force the issue
I think St Denis is a bigger dump than anywhere in London or the UK quite frankly, comparisons with Brixton, Stratford, Moss Side or Bootle don't really capture the squalor there...
In 2017, the area was the theatre of 18% of all drug offences in metropolitan France.
That's an astonishing statistic.
Far more likely 18% of convictions. But point taken.
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
Why they built the French national stadium in - literally - the worst, most dangerous part of France - is quite the mystery. I guess they hoped it would boost the area?
Now it’s a source of national humiliation
It made no sense at all to build the stadium where they did, without also clearing the slums actively regenerating the whole area around it.
Indeed. Stratford was hardly a desirable location when we built ours.
The French decided to take the equivalent of a random 150m x 100m piece of land between Brixton and Streatham, and put the national stadium there, with no other improvements to the area, making sure that all the stadium’s visitors would have to park in or walk through the dodgiest part of the city to get there.
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
I'd have thought the policing would be different given that people going to the Olympics don't tend to spend the preceding five hours drinking in the city.
However, the Stade de France isn't in a purpose built Olympic Park. It isn't a particularly nice location, so all the other stuff to do with the locals, could be an issue.
The challenges of an Olympic Games are very different - crowds aren't segregated and you don't really get the boisterous behaviour that comes with football (not saying that was to blame here but it's an issue that needs to be managed with such crowds).
However, what this does demonstrate is a potentially very serious problem in the planning, decision making and command structure. The response was straightforwardly chaotic. There's no point "blaming" fake tickets - the fact is both that there were problems long before that, and the turnstiles weren't allowing the expected numbers through leading to a dangerous situation. It doesn't matter if that was due to fake tickets, a computer glitch, or something else - it's the sort of problem that can happen, and it's how you plan for and manage it.
So where is the risk register and what was the plan? It SURELY wasn't to disperse the crowd with pepper spray - but if it was something else, why wasn't that enacted on the ground?
These are really serious questions. The risk register and the challenges won't be the same for the Olympics... but there does need to be confidence in it, and there can't be at the moment.
Before we get too smug, of course, there were similar crises of confidence pre-2012 with contractor problems leading to the Army being brought in, and concerns over handling of the London Riots not all that long before the Olympics. So this isn't specific to France. But they do need to move on from denial and learn some lessons pretty fast.
Agree. I think the fans' behaviour is not the issue.
The boisterous behaviour last w/e was local criminal gangs, locals breaking into the stadium, and police pepper spraying people doing nothing wrong as if they were watering the garden.
Plus things like security threatening journalists with being prevented entering the stadium if they did not delete their footage.
Plus the stuff like forcing 20k of people through a couple of narrow gaps.
That's institutional reform, culture change and development of professionalism in the authorities needed, which is far trickier to do in 2 years. Even without the Government standing on their head in a bucket.
One difference is that the counterparty will be the Olympic Organising Committee not UEFA.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Tom Larkin @TomLarkinSky · 40m Just a week ago Andrea Leadsom told LBC: "I sincerely hope that tomorrow we can put it behind us and move on". Now appears that she's changed her mind...
Bugger. Now scouring the internet for 'I went to Berlin and all I got was lousy Covid' t shirts.
Oh no, hope you are OK! My mum has just got it for the first time, I am guessing my dad will follow. A reminder it is still around. Take care of yourself - tea and paracetamol!
Tom Larkin @TomLarkinSky · 40m Just a week ago Andrea Leadsom told LBC: "I sincerely hope that tomorrow we can put it behind us and move on". Now appears that she's changed her mind...
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
They're still objectively the UK's 3rd party
Not on voteshare
You support FPTP, you don't care about vote share
As I have already said on here I don't absolutely, I was one of the minority who voted for AV in 2011
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Boris will see his old boss the Telegraph's sniffing at his imperial-measures revolution - something he'd have assumed was the very essence of Brexit for its readers - as a bitter blow. How must that man be feeling this morning?
What strikes me is the pathetic inertia and complacency of the UEFA and FIFA officials, even when told of the horrible chaos outside the stadium, going on there and then. Shameful
The Olympic Games will be fun in 2024.
Rugby World Cup there first. Saturday will ultimately save France from a worse bashing - they will throw everything at it to ensure nothing like it happens during the World Cup - I imagine the police will be ringing the whole area to avoid the mugging etc rather than focussing onwards on the fans.
If that sort of behaviour happened at the World Cup then it would point to the police/authorities but if they do everything to avoid it they will no doubt say “see, we told you it was those naughty Liverpool fans”.
I see the French sports minister has doubled down blaming it on Liverpool “letting their fans out into the wild”. If that’s the case they seem to have encountered the savages of St Denis on this safari. Who knew that the suburbs of Paris were the “wilds”?
The French public and media are not buying the minister’s feeble diversions, however. He’s getting fierce criticism from Left and Right. The Left are blaming the government and police, the Right are blaming the scum of the suburbs, and the socialists that try to excuse them
Virtually no one - in France - is blaming the Liverpool fans. Across all the newspapers it is “France wins the trophy for incompetence “ or “France is humiliated on the world stage”. They are taking it seriously and it is still front page news
And the Spanish media is filled with similar accounts of chaos and mugging gangs.
Must be quite a shock for Macron and friends that the strategy of "1) Blame the Brits" followed by "2) Lie your heads off" has stopped working.
Even France 24 are calling them out on it.
I think the thing that will hurt is questions about whether this will happen at the 2024 Olympics. eg Will anybody standing in a queue or presenting a ticket at a turnstyle at Paris 2024 be at risk of random assault by Police Officers with Pepper Spray, and how will such police officers be held to account.
I'd have thought the policing would be different given that people going to the Olympics don't tend to spend the preceding five hours drinking in the city.
However, the Stade de France isn't in a purpose built Olympic Park. It isn't a particularly nice location, so all the other stuff to do with the locals, could be an issue.
The challenges of an Olympic Games are very different - crowds aren't segregated and you don't really get the boisterous behaviour that comes with football (not saying that was to blame here but it's an issue that needs to be managed with such crowds).
However, what this does demonstrate is a potentially very serious problem in the planning, decision making and command structure. The response was straightforwardly chaotic. There's no point "blaming" fake tickets - the fact is both that there were problems long before that, and the turnstiles weren't allowing the expected numbers through leading to a dangerous situation. It doesn't matter if that was due to fake tickets, a computer glitch, or something else - it's the sort of problem that can happen, and it's how you plan for and manage it.
So where is the risk register and what was the plan? It SURELY wasn't to disperse the crowd with pepper spray - but if it was something else, why wasn't that enacted on the ground?
These are really serious questions. The risk register and the challenges won't be the same for the Olympics... but there does need to be confidence in it, and there can't be at the moment.
Before we get too smug, of course, there were similar crises of confidence pre-2012 with contractor problems leading to the Army being brought in, and concerns over handling of the London Riots not all that long before the Olympics. So this isn't specific to France. But they do need to move on from denial and learn some lessons pretty fast.
Agree. I think the fans' behaviour is not the issue.
The boisterous behaviour last w/e was local criminal gangs, locals breaking into the stadium, and police pepper spraying people doing nothing wrong as if they were watering the garden.
Plus things like security threatening journalists with being prevented entering the stadium if they did not delete their footage.
Plus the stuff like forcing 20k of people through a couple of narrow gaps.
That's institutional reform, culture change and development of professionalism in the authorities needed, which is far trickier to do in 2 years. Even without the Government standing on their head in a bucket.
One difference is that the counterparty will be the Olympic Organising Committee not UEFA.
There is something deeply, deeply wrong with the French police. They make our own issues with the Met look almost laughable in comparison.
Bugger. Now scouring the internet for 'I went to Berlin and all I got was lousy Covid' t shirts.
Bad luck. Hope it is just a mild case.
I have been snotty for the past 5 or 6 days, but the LFT says it isn't Covid.
Hope you get through ok and quickly.
Anecdote from the weekend - one of our cricketers missed the match due to covid. When we mentioned this to the other side, one piped up 'who's testing now?'
I suspect for a lot of people covid is over. There is a danger in that for sure, but its also quite refreshing.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
There are probably a whole load of people there who have had their wives, sisters, daughters shagged or propositioned by the Shagger-in-Chief
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
I think the Danish Empire at peak (Greenland and presences in Africa and South America) could be easily compared to the German Empire. The Swedish Empire also.
Then there is the Dutch Empire, monarchy, and the Japanese Empire on top.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
If it becomes better managed and less populist then fine. It is currently a compete joke.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
This is the nub of the issue though, isn't it? There are two metrics of "conservative". One is socially. It would be difficult for a new leader to ratchet a Culture War upwards. The second is economically. Which means removing Rishi money and radically slashing already creaking spending on services. Which would go down great with the wider public right now.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
Traditionally the Tories were partnered with Ulster Unionists and Labour SDLP. But I think you knew that anyway.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
My view on it is the same as my view on leaving the EU. I am not massively in favour and not massively against. Nonetheless, it would be a totally unnecessary constitutional change, so the change and upheaval is pointless. The House of Lords on the other hand...
I've been struck at the response in a Yorkshire village I know. Bunting everywhere and the high street to be closed for a street party. Obvs everyone is up for a celebration etc, and HMQ is v popular personally but, all the same, any serious attempt to do away the monarchy would be highly divisive. No sensible politician will go anywhere near it. And the succession is secured by William and Kate, even if Charles isn't so popular. This is really a non-issue.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
Traditionally the Tories were partnered with DUP and Labour SDLP. But I think you knew that anyway.
Quite, but it instantly refutes HYUFD's criterion that somehow the UK is what he wants it to be. In any case, on his own criteria, that instantly also excludes the LDs. So he's contradicting himself.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Pritis 24 election manifesto will be led by the restoration of the death penalty, not just for cop killers but also random foxes.
Allowing fox-hunting seems morally unsound to me on two grounds, but why should I be surprised at anything this administration does?
a) Always look for any upper class/lower class differential in any 'morality'-driven regulation. Cf. divorce under the C of E of old (Scotland was a bit more sensible, not sure about Wales). In this case fox hunting is definitely toff territory, largely upper class/snobbish activity (albeit with quite a few prole followers) - but why allow nobby blood sports when banning working class ones such as cock fighting and bull baiting?
b) foxes obv don't like being hunted*, but cockerels are only too happy to have a scrap, like squaddies of different regiments in an Aldershot pub, so who's being unkind to whom?
*On empirical grounds. They run away. Cf. M. S. Dawkins's 1970s/1980s research on hens, which showed that they preferred not to live in a battery cage but in the more old fashioned alternative, simply by giving them the option.
There is plenty of treatment of animals which people disagree over. Look at the cracking social media campaign that VFC is conducting right now.
One of the criteria to be applied to any activity, from riding ponies to foxhunting to keeping goldfish to having a domestic dog to having a dairy herd to zapping a fly should be - is it cruel.
And it was determined that foxhunting was not cruel.
That said, now is not the time to have a vote to bring back foxhunting. Not least because it would be defeated. Badly.
Well said. People who think fox hunting was cruel never bothered to read the burns report because they were far too consumed by their prejudice and general hatred of genuinely rural people that don't share their plastic view of the countryside.
Quality erasure of "genuinely rural people" who think fox hunting is a bag of shite.
Or are you only genuinely rural if you think fox hunting is good?
The genuinely rural realise that death and suffering among foxes has rocketed since the hunting act because people used to want there to be some foxes. Now they don't farmers and pheasant shoots splat them with nightsights by the dozen. The wounded ones die of gangrene because they don't lick their wounds (only tamed canids do)
I am sure a countryman like you knows all that. But hey, increased animal suffering Vs spiting the toffs...
Yes, famously farmers upon seeing a fox would think "I could shoot this fucker worrying my livestock right now but I better leave it around for some wankers to chase in 3 months time".
It's more complicated than that. First off the hunt spends a lot of time visiting said farmer (who might easily hunt or have a hunting daughter/family himself) for precisely these reasons. To ensure that there is understanding and agreement (areas to avoid, making good afterwards, etc). Farmers who are anti-hunting are left alone and no one goes near their land.
And of course there are people who live in the countryside who are anti-hunting. Not everyone outside the cities and suburbs supports hunting, and that's fine. Plenty do, however.
But the bigger point is more important, and you make it yourself - you accept that one way or another the fox gets it. Either by being shot (good luck with that but of course it happens) or snaring or gassing or being hunted by hounds.
And funnily enough of all of those methods the only one AFAIA that has had a whole enquiry dedicated to it is the last, hunting by hounds, and that enquiry determined that such activity was not cruel.
The enquiry determined there was not enough evidence to say whether it was cruel or not. That is a different thing.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
The Conservative Party of NI certainly do stand there, all the other 2 parties stand throughout GB unlike the SNP and in NI via their sister parties the SDLP and Alliance
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
Traditionally the Tories were partnered with Ulster Unionists and Labour SDLP. But I think you knew that anyway.
The Conservatives do stand in NI. With a stunning lack of success.
Edit. Oops. Meant to reply to the preceding post on this topic.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
My view on it is the same as my view on leaving the EU. I am not massively in favour and not massively against. Nonetheless, it would be a totally unnecessary constitutional change, so the change and upheaval is pointless. The House of Lords on the other hand...
I've been struck at the response in a Yorkshire village I know. Bunting everywhere and the high street to be closed for a street party. Obvs everyone is up for a celebration etc, and HMQ is v popular personally but, all the same, any serious attempt to do away the monarchy would be highly divisive. No sensible politician will go anywhere near it. And the succession is secured by William and Kate, even if Charles isn't so popular. This is really a non-issue.
I hope that when William accedes (is that the right word?) he will de-pomp. That might be sensible. Personally I think having a family of minor aristocrats from Germany as our head of state somewhat absurd, but there are worse things, so best leave it as is.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Not necessarily. They might conclude that tax-and-spend populism plus Woke Wars is these days the only viable formula for the political Right. It just needs to be better managed.
On Russian state TV, they discuss not only what it would take to destroy the United States, but also how many Ukrainians have to be massacred. One lawmaker came up with a figure: 2 million. No one in the studio blinked or objected—including the host, who is himself a Duma member. https://mobile.twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1531301883628986368
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
You changed tack to that but your original statement was clearly suggesting LD voters were anti monarchy and Davey could not dictate LD policy over that
No it wasn't you Pillock. How can you so obviously misunderstand just 14 words. I'm not even anti and had no idea what LD voters views were.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
The Conservative Party of NI certainly do stand there, all the other 2 parties stand throughout GB unlike the SNP and in NI via their sister parties the SDLP and Alliance
SDLP and Alliance are not the same parties as their so-called 'sisters' (your expression). Look at the Electoral Commission criteria. You're fiddling things yet again becvause you can't bear to be caught out in a schoolchild error about politics.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
That is little different to the UK union, it is not a grand global imperial past like that of Britain or Germany or France or even a large European empire like that of Austria.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
My view on it is the same as my view on leaving the EU. I am not massively in favour and not massively against. Nonetheless, it would be a totally unnecessary constitutional change, so the change and upheaval is pointless. The House of Lords on the other hand...
My views would be to structure things so as to preserve as much of the current status quo as possible under democratic consent.
For royalty, I would elect the head of the privy council on a long tenure, who would be understood to step in as political head of state in any republican settlement. I'd then put some kind of public acclamation vote on a new head of state in the first few years of reign and perhaps at long periods thereafter. Failure of acclamation would put a stronger onus on the privy council, but only repeat losses would lead to a vote on the monarchy itself. I'd also remove the disbarment of Catholics, and allow for separation in who would succeed as religious head of state in those circumstances.
For the Lords, I would go for a Regional PR system (close to EU election system), with parties having regional appointment committees. Lords elections would coincide with GEs, but then Lords would only be appointed to rebalance from the lists annually, based on aggregate 15 year results (30 per yr X 15 yr tenure). Cross-bench lists would be a baked in feature, and a transition period with 1/15 of current peers retiring annually to be replaced in proportion to the last 15 years GE results to be started. (this could also incorporate legal, spiritual and hereditary strands in the closed lists if necessary).
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Or Sweden
Denmark: we claim Greenland! HYUFD: not a real empire Italy: we claim a quarter of the Sahara desert! HYUFD: [places forehead on the floor]
Greeland is still part of the 3 kingdoms of Denmark, it is not really an ex colony
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
That is little different to the UK union, it is not a grand global imperial past like that of Britain or Germany or France or even a large European empire like that of Austria.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
Some UK subjects might differ. They might quite like to be proper citizens instead of being expected to cringe to people who went to posh schools and posh unis.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
The Conservative Party of NI certainly do stand there, all the other 2 parties stand throughout GB unlike the SNP and in NI via their sister parties the SDLP and Alliance
SDLP and Alliance are not the same parties as their so-called 'sisters' (your expression). Look at the Electoral Commission criteria. You're fiddling things yet again becvause you can't bear to be caught out in a schoolchild error about politics.
You wrongly stated the Conservatives do not stand in NI for which you still have not apologised and you talk about schoolboy errors!
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
That is little different to the UK union, it is not a grand global imperial past like that of Britain or Germany or France or even a large European empire like that of Austria.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
The US Virgin Islands were Danish from 1754 to 1917.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
My view on it is the same as my view on leaving the EU. I am not massively in favour and not massively against. Nonetheless, it would be a totally unnecessary constitutional change, so the change and upheaval is pointless. The House of Lords on the other hand...
My views would be to structure things so as to preserve as much of the current status quo as possible under democratic consent.
For royalty, I would elect the head of the privy council on a long tenure, who would be understood to step in as political head of state in any republican settlement. I'd then put some kind of public acclamation vote on a new head of state in the first few years of reign and perhaps at long periods thereafter. Failure of acclamation would put a stronger onus on the privy council, but only repeat losses would lead to a vote on the monarchy itself. I'd also remove the disbarment of Catholics, and allow for separation in who would succeed as religious head of state in those circumstances.
For the Lords, I would go for a Regional PR system (close to EU election system), with parties having regional appointment committees. Lords elections would coincide with GEs, but then Lords would only be appointed to rebalance from the lists annually, based on aggregate 15 year results (30 per yr X 15 yr tenure). Cross-bench lists would be a baked in feature, and a transition period with 1/15 of current peers retiring annually to be replaced in proportion to the last 15 years GE results to be started. (this could also incorporate legal, spiritual and hereditary strands in the closed lists if necessary).
Failing all that I am happy to nominate myself as Lord Protector. Much simpler. Maybe a little divisive though, but those who disagree I will send to Rwanda.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
You changed tack to that but your original statement was clearly suggesting LD voters were anti monarchy and Davey could not dictate LD policy over that
No it wasn't you Pillock. How can you so obviously misunderstand just 14 words. I'm not even anti and had no idea what LD voters views were.
You really are mad.
You made that comment specifically because you assumed LD voters disagreed with Davey's support for the constitutional monarchy, as the polling evidence I produced showed you you were wrong!
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
You'd vote to keep this full monty anachronism then? No slimming down or reform?
I'd think Hunt and Wallace appeal to the same "serious common sense" sector of the party, which is probably more represented in the Parliamentary party than the wider membership, who are more into "serious conservatism". So I'd have thought a Hunt vs Truss final was more likely than a Hunt vs Wallace one. But others here are better-placed to judge, eh?
Certainly betting on a VONC happening seems a strong option, but beware of Betfair's market on this - you're betting on whether the VONC succeeds, perhaps a more iffy proposition.
A new leader will certainly give a temporary bounce - lots of people like BigG and dyedwoolie are natural Conservatives who would return to the fold. But the situation is objectively difficult, so the new person will struggle to come up with bright new prospects. From that viewpoint, the Tories might be best off with a change next year, by which time the energy price spike may have unwound, giving the new leader an aura of miraculous success. Either way it does seem to me that the dominant public view is that the Conservatives have run out of steam, much as they felt about Labour in 2009-10.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Pritis 24 election manifesto will be led by the restoration of the death penalty, not just for cop killers but also random foxes.
Allowing fox-hunting seems morally unsound to me on two grounds, but why should I be surprised at anything this administration does?
a) Always look for any upper class/lower class differential in any 'morality'-driven regulation. Cf. divorce under the C of E of old (Scotland was a bit more sensible, not sure about Wales). In this case fox hunting is definitely toff territory, largely upper class/snobbish activity (albeit with quite a few prole followers) - but why allow nobby blood sports when banning working class ones such as cock fighting and bull baiting?
b) foxes obv don't like being hunted*, but cockerels are only too happy to have a scrap, like squaddies of different regiments in an Aldershot pub, so who's being unkind to whom?
*On empirical grounds. They run away. Cf. M. S. Dawkins's 1970s/1980s research on hens, which showed that they preferred not to live in a battery cage but in the more old fashioned alternative, simply by giving them the option.
There is plenty of treatment of animals which people disagree over. Look at the cracking social media campaign that VFC is conducting right now.
One of the criteria to be applied to any activity, from riding ponies to foxhunting to keeping goldfish to having a domestic dog to having a dairy herd to zapping a fly should be - is it cruel.
And it was determined that foxhunting was not cruel.
That said, now is not the time to have a vote to bring back foxhunting. Not least because it would be defeated. Badly.
Well said. People who think fox hunting was cruel never bothered to read the burns report because they were far too consumed by their prejudice and general hatred of genuinely rural people that don't share their plastic view of the countryside.
Quality erasure of "genuinely rural people" who think fox hunting is a bag of shite.
Or are you only genuinely rural if you think fox hunting is good?
The genuinely rural realise that death and suffering among foxes has rocketed since the hunting act because people used to want there to be some foxes. Now they don't farmers and pheasant shoots splat them with nightsights by the dozen. The wounded ones die of gangrene because they don't lick their wounds (only tamed canids do)
I am sure a countryman like you knows all that. But hey, increased animal suffering Vs spiting the toffs...
Yes, famously farmers upon seeing a fox would think "I could shoot this fucker worrying my livestock right now but I better leave it around for some wankers to chase in 3 months time".
Absolutely fucking monumental fail because, yes, that is largely right, with various payoffs which have been explained to you. You might not like it but it is just how things were.
Never seen anyone embarrass himself so badly on here. You are like a self proclaimed member of the cricketing community who thinks the game is played with an oval ball.
You can't even get the dates right. Hunting ends as lambing begins, and three months time is in midsummer.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
I'm happy to leave well alone. In principle I am a republican because of my liberal views, but this is so low on any to do list it would never get done because in the words of Douglas Adams they are mostly harmless and I would add bring some joy to many. And I really quite like most of them. Even Andrew is a hoot.
I'm not that fussed either. But if there were a binary Ref, keep v not, I'd vote not. I just thought about it properly this morning and slightly surprised myself with that conclusion.
I'd think Hunt and Wallace appeal to the same "serious common sense" sector of the party, which is probably more represented in the Parliamentary party than the wider membership, who are more into "serious conservatism". So I'd have thought a Hunt vs Truss final was more likely than a Hunt vs Wallace one. But others here are better-placed to judge, eh?
Certainly betting on a VONC happening seems a strong option, but beware of Betfair's market on this - you're betting on whether the VONC succeeds, perhaps a more iffy proposition.
A new leader will certainly give a temporary bounce - lots of people like BigG and dyedwoolie are natural Conservatives who would return to the fold. But the situation is objectively difficult, so the new person will struggle to come up with bright new prospects. From that viewpoint, the Tories might be best off with a change next year, by which time the energy price spike may have unwound, giving the new leader an aura of miraculous success. Either way it does seem to me that the dominant public view is that the Conservatives have run out of steam, much as they felt about Labour in 2009-10.
Wallace should shave off his remaining hair. Much edgier and he needs to differentiate himself from IDS
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Further right?
Truss for example is far more of a tax cutter and spending slasher than Johnson, Wallace is also more socially conservative than Johnson and voted against gay marriage for instance (even if he accepts it now).
Hunt and Wallace are also more pro life than Johnson. Patel is harder line on immigration than Johnson
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Pritis 24 election manifesto will be led by the restoration of the death penalty, not just for cop killers but also random foxes.
Allowing fox-hunting seems morally unsound to me on two grounds, but why should I be surprised at anything this administration does?
a) Always look for any upper class/lower class differential in any 'morality'-driven regulation. Cf. divorce under the C of E of old (Scotland was a bit more sensible, not sure about Wales). In this case fox hunting is definitely toff territory, largely upper class/snobbish activity (albeit with quite a few prole followers) - but why allow nobby blood sports when banning working class ones such as cock fighting and bull baiting?
b) foxes obv don't like being hunted*, but cockerels are only too happy to have a scrap, like squaddies of different regiments in an Aldershot pub, so who's being unkind to whom?
*On empirical grounds. They run away. Cf. M. S. Dawkins's 1970s/1980s research on hens, which showed that they preferred not to live in a battery cage but in the more old fashioned alternative, simply by giving them the option.
There is plenty of treatment of animals which people disagree over. Look at the cracking social media campaign that VFC is conducting right now.
One of the criteria to be applied to any activity, from riding ponies to foxhunting to keeping goldfish to having a domestic dog to having a dairy herd to zapping a fly should be - is it cruel.
And it was determined that foxhunting was not cruel.
That said, now is not the time to have a vote to bring back foxhunting. Not least because it would be defeated. Badly.
Well said. People who think fox hunting was cruel never bothered to read the burns report because they were far too consumed by their prejudice and general hatred of genuinely rural people that don't share their plastic view of the countryside.
Quality erasure of "genuinely rural people" who think fox hunting is a bag of shite.
Or are you only genuinely rural if you think fox hunting is good?
The genuinely rural realise that death and suffering among foxes has rocketed since the hunting act because people used to want there to be some foxes. Now they don't farmers and pheasant shoots splat them with nightsights by the dozen. The wounded ones die of gangrene because they don't lick their wounds (only tamed canids do)
I am sure a countryman like you knows all that. But hey, increased animal suffering Vs spiting the toffs...
Yes, famously farmers upon seeing a fox would think "I could shoot this fucker worrying my livestock right now but I better leave it around for some wankers to chase in 3 months time".
It's more complicated than that. First off the hunt spends a lot of time visiting said farmer (who might easily hunt or have a hunting daughter/family himself) for precisely these reasons. To ensure that there is understanding and agreement (areas to avoid, making good afterwards, etc). Farmers who are anti-hunting are left alone and no one goes near their land.
And of course there are people who live in the countryside who are anti-hunting. Not everyone outside the cities and suburbs supports hunting, and that's fine. Plenty do, however.
But the bigger point is more important, and you make it yourself - you accept that one way or another the fox gets it. Either by being shot (good luck with that but of course it happens) or snaring or gassing or being hunted by hounds.
And funnily enough of all of those methods the only one AFAIA that has had a whole enquiry dedicated to it is the last, hunting by hounds, and that enquiry determined that such activity was not cruel.
The enquiry determined there was not enough evidence to say whether it was cruel or not. That is a different thing.
"In a later debate in the House of Lords, the inquiry chairman, Lord Burns, also stated that "Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty. It is a complex area."[7]"
I'd think Hunt and Wallace appeal to the same "serious common sense" sector of the party, which is probably more represented in the Parliamentary party than the wider membership, who are more into "serious conservatism". So I'd have thought a Hunt vs Truss final was more likely than a Hunt vs Wallace one. But others here are better-placed to judge, eh?
Certainly betting on a VONC happening seems a strong option, but beware of Betfair's market on this - you're betting on whether the VONC succeeds, perhaps a more iffy proposition.
A new leader will certainly give a temporary bounce - lots of people like BigG and dyedwoolie are natural Conservatives who would return to the fold. But the situation is objectively difficult, so the new person will struggle to come up with bright new prospects. From that viewpoint, the Tories might be best off with a change next year, by which time the energy price spike may have unwound, giving the new leader an aura of miraculous success. Either way it does seem to me that the dominant public view is that the Conservatives have run out of steam, much as they felt about Labour in 2009-10.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Not necessarily. They might conclude that tax-and-spend populism plus Woke Wars is these days the only viable formula for the political Right. It just needs to be better managed.
It's a tempting comfort blanket, Johnsonism without Johnson. Does that favour Truss in the ensuing scramble?
The downside is that it's not a slam-dunk formula for electoral success- see Australia. Or France. But it's not obvious that there's another big idea out there at the moment, or anyone really trying to come up with one. Charlotte Ivers was bewailing the lack of ideas on the right in the Sunday Times this week. Come to think of it, Gyles Brandreth was noting the same thing in his diaries as the 1997 debacle unfolded.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Further right?
Truss for example is far more of a tax cutter and spending slasher than Johnson, Wallace is also more socially conservative than Johnson and voted against gay marriage for instance (even if he accepts it now).
Hunt and Wallace are also more pro life than Johnson. Patel is harder line on immigration than Johnson
And yet none of them are fat lazy lying law-breaking idiots. Even Patel would be an improvement (OK, OK, maybe not, but you know what I mean)
HY is always correct and never gets it wrong. And certainly wouldn't pompously insist he is right regardless of the evidence or the laughter. So in this jubilee week we can Prove for a Fact that there was no Danish empire. Remember the tale in our royal family's past?
King Harold, daughter of a Dane, direct blood descendent of King Cnut the Great - a Viking- who only a few decades earlier had directly ruled England as part of his Danish Empire after centuries of Viking rule. Harold who fights off the King of Norway - a Viking - only to then be defeated by William. Who was a direct descendant of Rollo the Viking who had conquered Normandy. Nor Man. North men. Vikings.
So yes. HY is right and there was never a Danish empire and certainly not one big enough to seed the English royal family, create English cities that still stand, name hundreds of places and provide words and grammatical rules to the language. And living in Thornaby-on-Tees as I did I was very clear that Thornaby wasn't founded as Thormod (a Viking)'s Farmstead. No sir.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Pritis 24 election manifesto will be led by the restoration of the death penalty, not just for cop killers but also random foxes.
Allowing fox-hunting seems morally unsound to me on two grounds, but why should I be surprised at anything this administration does?
a) Always look for any upper class/lower class differential in any 'morality'-driven regulation. Cf. divorce under the C of E of old (Scotland was a bit more sensible, not sure about Wales). In this case fox hunting is definitely toff territory, largely upper class/snobbish activity (albeit with quite a few prole followers) - but why allow nobby blood sports when banning working class ones such as cock fighting and bull baiting?
b) foxes obv don't like being hunted*, but cockerels are only too happy to have a scrap, like squaddies of different regiments in an Aldershot pub, so who's being unkind to whom?
*On empirical grounds. They run away. Cf. M. S. Dawkins's 1970s/1980s research on hens, which showed that they preferred not to live in a battery cage but in the more old fashioned alternative, simply by giving them the option.
There is plenty of treatment of animals which people disagree over. Look at the cracking social media campaign that VFC is conducting right now.
One of the criteria to be applied to any activity, from riding ponies to foxhunting to keeping goldfish to having a domestic dog to having a dairy herd to zapping a fly should be - is it cruel.
And it was determined that foxhunting was not cruel.
That said, now is not the time to have a vote to bring back foxhunting. Not least because it would be defeated. Badly.
Well said. People who think fox hunting was cruel never bothered to read the burns report because they were far too consumed by their prejudice and general hatred of genuinely rural people that don't share their plastic view of the countryside.
Quality erasure of "genuinely rural people" who think fox hunting is a bag of shite.
Or are you only genuinely rural if you think fox hunting is good?
The genuinely rural realise that death and suffering among foxes has rocketed since the hunting act because people used to want there to be some foxes. Now they don't farmers and pheasant shoots splat them with nightsights by the dozen. The wounded ones die of gangrene because they don't lick their wounds (only tamed canids do)
I am sure a countryman like you knows all that. But hey, increased animal suffering Vs spiting the toffs...
Yes, famously farmers upon seeing a fox would think "I could shoot this fucker worrying my livestock right now but I better leave it around for some wankers to chase in 3 months time".
It's more complicated than that. First off the hunt spends a lot of time visiting said farmer (who might easily hunt or have a hunting daughter/family himself) for precisely these reasons. To ensure that there is understanding and agreement (areas to avoid, making good afterwards, etc). Farmers who are anti-hunting are left alone and no one goes near their land.
And of course there are people who live in the countryside who are anti-hunting. Not everyone outside the cities and suburbs supports hunting, and that's fine. Plenty do, however.
But the bigger point is more important, and you make it yourself - you accept that one way or another the fox gets it. Either by being shot (good luck with that but of course it happens) or snaring or gassing or being hunted by hounds.
And funnily enough of all of those methods the only one AFAIA that has had a whole enquiry dedicated to it is the last, hunting by hounds, and that enquiry determined that such activity was not cruel.
The enquiry determined there was not enough evidence to say whether it was cruel or not. That is a different thing.
"In a later debate in the House of Lords, the inquiry chairman, Lord Burns, also stated that "Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty. It is a complex area."[7]"
wiki
One does have to admit, that 'question' and 'no' are ambiguous.
We were not implying ...? Hunting is not cruel ...?
I'd normally go higher up in the sentence, and assume that 'no' wa sin response to 'people ask [us]'
They seem to have called all the seats in Oz. Labor majority of three. Not sure how Gilmore is Labor with a 242 vote lead and 10% still to be counted, but there we go.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
You'd vote to keep this full monty anachronism then? No slimming down or reform?
I agree with the Prince Charles proposed reforms ie open up the Palaces more to the public, make Balmoral a museum to the Queen and cut down the Royal family to the inner core of him and Camilla, the Cambridges and Anne and Edward.
William has also said he may not automatically head the Commonwealth either, it could be rotated amongst Commonwealth heads of state for example
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Pritis 24 election manifesto will be led by the restoration of the death penalty, not just for cop killers but also random foxes.
Allowing fox-hunting seems morally unsound to me on two grounds, but why should I be surprised at anything this administration does?
a) Always look for any upper class/lower class differential in any 'morality'-driven regulation. Cf. divorce under the C of E of old (Scotland was a bit more sensible, not sure about Wales). In this case fox hunting is definitely toff territory, largely upper class/snobbish activity (albeit with quite a few prole followers) - but why allow nobby blood sports when banning working class ones such as cock fighting and bull baiting?
b) foxes obv don't like being hunted*, but cockerels are only too happy to have a scrap, like squaddies of different regiments in an Aldershot pub, so who's being unkind to whom?
*On empirical grounds. They run away. Cf. M. S. Dawkins's 1970s/1980s research on hens, which showed that they preferred not to live in a battery cage but in the more old fashioned alternative, simply by giving them the option.
There is plenty of treatment of animals which people disagree over. Look at the cracking social media campaign that VFC is conducting right now.
One of the criteria to be applied to any activity, from riding ponies to foxhunting to keeping goldfish to having a domestic dog to having a dairy herd to zapping a fly should be - is it cruel.
And it was determined that foxhunting was not cruel.
That said, now is not the time to have a vote to bring back foxhunting. Not least because it would be defeated. Badly.
Well said. People who think fox hunting was cruel never bothered to read the burns report because they were far too consumed by their prejudice and general hatred of genuinely rural people that don't share their plastic view of the countryside.
Quality erasure of "genuinely rural people" who think fox hunting is a bag of shite.
Or are you only genuinely rural if you think fox hunting is good?
The genuinely rural realise that death and suffering among foxes has rocketed since the hunting act because people used to want there to be some foxes. Now they don't farmers and pheasant shoots splat them with nightsights by the dozen. The wounded ones die of gangrene because they don't lick their wounds (only tamed canids do)
I am sure a countryman like you knows all that. But hey, increased animal suffering Vs spiting the toffs...
Yes, famously farmers upon seeing a fox would think "I could shoot this fucker worrying my livestock right now but I better leave it around for some wankers to chase in 3 months time".
It's more complicated than that. First off the hunt spends a lot of time visiting said farmer (who might easily hunt or have a hunting daughter/family himself) for precisely these reasons. To ensure that there is understanding and agreement (areas to avoid, making good afterwards, etc). Farmers who are anti-hunting are left alone and no one goes near their land.
And of course there are people who live in the countryside who are anti-hunting. Not everyone outside the cities and suburbs supports hunting, and that's fine. Plenty do, however.
But the bigger point is more important, and you make it yourself - you accept that one way or another the fox gets it. Either by being shot (good luck with that but of course it happens) or snaring or gassing or being hunted by hounds.
And funnily enough of all of those methods the only one AFAIA that has had a whole enquiry dedicated to it is the last, hunting by hounds, and that enquiry determined that such activity was not cruel.
The enquiry determined there was not enough evidence to say whether it was cruel or not. That is a different thing.
I'd think Hunt and Wallace appeal to the same "serious common sense" sector of the party, which is probably more represented in the Parliamentary party than the wider membership, who are more into "serious conservatism". So I'd have thought a Hunt vs Truss final was more likely than a Hunt vs Wallace one. But others here are better-placed to judge, eh?
Certainly betting on a VONC happening seems a strong option, but beware of Betfair's market on this - you're betting on whether the VONC succeeds, perhaps a more iffy proposition.
A new leader will certainly give a temporary bounce - lots of people like BigG and dyedwoolie are natural Conservatives who would return to the fold. But the situation is objectively difficult, so the new person will struggle to come up with bright new prospects. From that viewpoint, the Tories might be best off with a change next year, by which time the energy price spike may have unwound, giving the new leader an aura of miraculous success. Either way it does seem to me that the dominant public view is that the Conservatives have run out of steam, much as they felt about Labour in 2009-10.
Tbf Nick even my dislike of Labour is starting to feel like not enough regardless of what the Tories do for next time. I quite like imperial measurements, so does my butcher for example, however bringing them back in some triumphant flag waving weirdness whilst we are mired in war, economic crisis and coming out of a really depressing 2 years makes the Cones Hotline look good politics.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
That is little different to the UK union, it is not a grand global imperial past like that of Britain or Germany or France or even a large European empire like that of Austria.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
Some UK subjects might differ. They might quite like to be proper citizens instead of being expected to cringe to people who went to posh schools and posh unis.
Some far left Scottish Nationalists like you but we don't care what you think.
In any case plenty of Presidents around the world went to posh schools and posh unis
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
And what on earth has that got to do with what I said? Your response had no relevance to the point I was making. I was simply pointing out that as usual you are in awe of the people at the top of the hierarchy. All I care about is his views are largely in accordance with the party and liberal philosophy. I am not in awe of our lord's and masters.
You were suggesting most LDs were republicans and disagreed with Davey, I was showing on the contrary most LD voters like Davey support our constitutional monarchy
No I wasn't. It is amazing how you can misread posts. Your ability to misunderstand stuff is truly awesome.
I was simply pointing out that we LDs are not in awe of our betters like you, i.e. Davey isn't god. We all think for ourselves and are not guided by our supreme leader.
Hmm, HYUFD rather missed my point that he should have said "four main parties". Unless he thinks Scotland is a republic?
The SNP do not stand in the UK as a whole unlike the main 3, only in Scotland and even Sturgeon has said she would not remove the monarchy as a priority even if Scotland became independent
The Tories don't stand in NI, neither do the LDs - I think Labour do?
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
The Conservative Party of NI certainly do stand there, all the other 2 parties stand throughout GB unlike the SNP and in NI via their sister parties the SDLP and Alliance
SDLP and Alliance are not the same parties as their so-called 'sisters' (your expression). Look at the Electoral Commission criteria. You're fiddling things yet again becvause you can't bear to be caught out in a schoolchild error about politics.
You wrongly stated the Conservatives do not stand in NI for which you still have not apologised and you talk about schoolboy errors!
I'll apologise for that (zero MPs) when you apologise for
(a) confusing the UK and England when you claimed 3 main parties and that Mr Davey was leader of the third (b) claiming specifically that there are three main parties UK wide including NI when you have only evidence for one. At least I got that number right even if I muddled Labour and the Tories in NI.
Even the Brexitgraph doesn't like to be associated with an incompetent loser it seems. Rats and sinking ships
This isn't particularly new. There has been a steady stream of columnists attacking Johnson, particularly over failure to actually be a conservative for weeks now. Heath, Johnston, Timothy etc etc.
Of course the likelihood is if Johnson goes the Conservative Party will shift further right, especially on economics
Further right?
Truss for example is far more of a tax cutter and spending slasher than Johnson, Wallace is also more socially conservative than Johnson and voted against gay marriage for instance (even if he accepts it now).
Hunt and Wallace are also more pro life than Johnson. Patel is harder line on immigration than Johnson
These guys may talk a good game of slashing this and that, but try taking a look at what they do, and what they permit the CotE to do. A proper slasher would have resigned from the Cabinet over last week's bonanza.
"I'm not leaving until the bailiffs come". That was the latest email sent to me from a tenant. This is the third tenant this year I am evicting due to rent arrears.
In my entire landlord career of 20 years, I have never seen an environment turn so quickly and so badly – and that includes the financial crisis and pandemic. The amount of money owed in rental arrears is in the thousands of pounds and quickly rising. Supposedly good tenants are souring quickly and I am left wondering who I can trust."
That’s worrying, especially that this downturn doesn’t appear (yet!) to have high unemployment associated with it.
Is it a warning of unemployment to come, or is it a regulatory issue, that tenants have collectively realised they can get away for months without paying rent before they get evicted?
Markets including markets in loopholes tend to be efficient. If you want your theory to stand up you need to point to some recent, major, tenant friendly (ie UnConservative) change in the law. I don't know of any. I f it were a longer standing thing they'd have been doing it already.
Certainly in Scotland emergency provisions brought in for Covid made the payment of rent an optional extra for most, inevitably catapulting arrears into the stratosphere. Free lunches come to mind.
"It is a moment often seen in the downward trajectory of embattled prime ministers: a whirl of new policy ideas intended to appeal to voters, but which are in fact more often aimed at placating their own MPs. Boris Johnson is, some would argue, approaching this point.
In recent days Downing Street has briefed in favour of grammar schools and imperial measurements. Earlier weeks saw forays into other Conservative comfort zones, including bashing the EU and talking up fossil fuels.
Such nostalgia politics is routinely promoted by Conservative backbenchers. But it is one of the paradoxes of Tory party politics that the more secure a prime minister is in office, the less they have to indulge these ideas."
If Johnson loses both by-elections he'll have to go Full Tonto and offer a vote on fox hunting.
Our best hope there is: monarchy abolished, SF start taking seats, hold whip hand in minority government. In the meantime there's always the Emerald Isle. Begorrah.
None of the 3 main party leaders now want to abolish the monarchy, nor is it even a priority for SF who just want to be governed by Dublin not London
You do know that Davey isn't god don't you. He doesn't decide LD policy.
62% of LD voters also want to keep the monarchy, significantly higher than the 43% of Labour voters who want to keep the monarchy even if not quite as high as the 86% of Conservative voters who want to keep the monarchy
It's not a massive issue for me but if perchance there was a Referendum on keeping the monarchy I think I'd vote No. That's a change of heart compared to say 10 years ago.
The reason? Because the institution we have with its pomp and scale is really a hangover from our grand imperial past. It feels out of time now. More than this, it feels absurd and just a touch embarrassing. I get that feeling more than I do the rather heavier sense of it reinforcing white supremacy and class privilege. I also think it infantilizes us a bit. Along with the harmless and positive aspects it does that. Which is not a great thing esp when we have a PM doing the same albeit in a different way.
So, on balance with the monarchy, a la Duncan Bannatyne on Dragons Den - it's a No from me.
We had a monarchy centuries before we had an Empire or even a Union, many nations without imperial pasts eg Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Jordan also have constitutional monarchies
Wait, you think Denmark doesn't have an imperial past? Good god man, can you get ANYTHING right?
Compared to the Spanish Empire, the Russian Empire, the French Empire, the British Empire, the German Empires or even the Italian and Austrian empires no it doesn't.
Most of those are republics
That wasn't the question, anyway. Denmark's main 'imperialism' might be a bit further back, although the sovereign of Denmark was also that of Iceland until 1944 or so, and Norway until 1905. In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
That is little different to the UK union, it is not a grand global imperial past like that of Britain or Germany or France or even a large European empire like that of Austria.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
Some UK subjects might differ. They might quite like to be proper citizens instead of being expected to cringe to people who went to posh schools and posh unis.
Some far left Scottish Nationalists like you but we don't care what you think.
In any case plenty of Presidents around the world went to posh schools and posh unis
Hey, if you think I'm far left, you'd better start worrying about your appeal to voters.
Comments
Seems a daft rationalisation to me.
Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris from 197x to 1995, and it was not known as being a period entirely free from corruption.
In 2017, the area was the theatre of 18% of all drug offences in metropolitan France.
That's an astonishing statistic.
Dunno, FFP2 mask wearing is still mandatory on public transport (though I saw no official enforcers) and was pretty much observed, hardly at all elsewhere. Short and useless answer, could have been anywhere!
Still have a gnawing suspicion that sitting in a metal tube of recycled air for a couple of hours is fairly high risk, masks notwithstanding.
However, what this does demonstrate is a potentially very serious problem in the planning, decision making and command structure. The response was straightforwardly chaotic. There's no point "blaming" fake tickets - the fact is both that there were problems long before that, and the turnstiles weren't allowing the expected numbers through leading to a dangerous situation. It doesn't matter if that was due to fake tickets, a computer glitch, or something else - it's the sort of problem that can happen, and it's how you plan for and manage it.
So where is the risk register and what was the plan? It SURELY wasn't to disperse the crowd with pepper spray - but if it was something else, why wasn't that enacted on the ground?
These are really serious questions. The risk register and the challenges won't be the same for the Olympics... but there does need to be confidence in it, and there can't be at the moment.
Before we get too smug, of course, there were similar crises of confidence pre-2012 with contractor problems leading to the Army being brought in, and concerns over handling of the London Riots not all that long before the Olympics. So this isn't specific to France. But they do need to move on from denial and learn some lessons pretty fast.
Had this been announced after a defenestration as a reboot (we have lanced the boil, now to help everyone) it would have seen a massive boost.
Wasted on trying saving an already dead large dog
Cynics would point to the serendipity of a prominent leadership contender publishing just last week a serious book about policy and politics.
Paris itself is largely kept for the well-to-do.
The "issues" of a big city are pushed beyond the official city limits. You see similar in some US cities.
Greater London doesn't have this problem
The boisterous behaviour last w/e was local criminal gangs, locals breaking into the stadium, and police pepper spraying people doing nothing wrong as if they were watering the garden.
Plus things like security threatening journalists with being prevented entering the stadium if they did not delete their footage.
Plus the stuff like forcing 20k of people through a couple of narrow gaps.
That's institutional reform, culture change and development of professionalism in the authorities needed, which is far trickier to do in 2 years. Even without the Government standing on their head in a bucket.
One difference is that the counterparty will be the Olympic Organising Committee not UEFA.
Most of those are republics
@TomLarkinSky
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Just a week ago Andrea Leadsom told LBC: "I sincerely hope that tomorrow we can put it behind us and move on". Now appears that she's changed her mind...
Mort au gros garcon
Andrea Leadsom, loyalist who put her reputation on the line for PM during Owen Paterson debacle, accuses him of 'unacceptable favours of leadership'
William Hague says PM in 'very serious trouble' & predicts no confidence vote by end of June
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1531573389172826112
Anecdote from the weekend - one of our cricketers missed the match due to covid. When we mentioned this to the other side, one piped up 'who's testing now?'
I suspect for a lot of people covid is over. There is a danger in that for sure, but its also quite refreshing.
Then there is the Dutch Empire, monarchy, and the Japanese Empire on top.
Unless NI isn't part of the UK?
There are two metrics of "conservative". One is socially. It would be difficult for a new leader to ratchet a Culture War upwards.
The second is economically.
Which means removing Rishi money and radically slashing already creaking spending on services. Which would go down great with the wider public right now.
In 'early modern' times Sweden was very aggressive in Mid and Eastern Europe.
Edit. See also Greenland for Denmark, upthread!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_Conservatives
Edit.
Oops. Meant to reply to the preceding post on this topic.
https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1531576052845264897
https://mobile.twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1531301883628986368
You really are mad.
Certainly being a republican because of your nation's imperial past is ludicrous, France had a big imperial past and is a republic with an imperial presidency, see Bastille Day
H is the view to get if he's in a candid helpful mood.
For royalty, I would elect the head of the privy council on a long tenure, who would be understood to step in as political head of state in any republican settlement. I'd then put some kind of public acclamation vote on a new head of state in the first few years of reign and perhaps at long periods thereafter. Failure of acclamation would put a stronger onus on the privy council, but only repeat losses would lead to a vote on the monarchy itself. I'd also remove the disbarment of Catholics, and allow for separation in who would succeed as religious head of state in those circumstances.
For the Lords, I would go for a Regional PR system (close to EU election system), with parties having regional appointment committees. Lords elections would coincide with GEs, but then Lords would only be appointed to rebalance from the lists annually, based on aggregate 15 year results (30 per yr X 15 yr tenure). Cross-bench lists would be a baked in feature, and a transition period with 1/15 of current peers retiring annually to be replaced in proportion to the last 15 years GE results to be started. (this could also incorporate legal, spiritual and hereditary strands in the closed lists if necessary).
@sturdyAlex These charts will hurt him. He’s not interested in policy but popularity charts get him going…and he appointed a bunch of subservient mediocrities partly so he would shine by comparison and top these charts.
https://twitter.com/steverichards14/status/1531577498466754560
Certainly betting on a VONC happening seems a strong option, but beware of Betfair's market on this - you're betting on whether the VONC succeeds, perhaps a more iffy proposition.
A new leader will certainly give a temporary bounce - lots of people like BigG and dyedwoolie are natural Conservatives who would return to the fold. But the situation is objectively difficult, so the new person will struggle to come up with bright new prospects. From that viewpoint, the Tories might be best off with a change next year, by which time the energy price spike may have unwound, giving the new leader an aura of miraculous success. Either way it does seem to me that the dominant public view is that the Conservatives have run out of steam, much as they felt about Labour in 2009-10.
Never seen anyone embarrass himself so badly on here. You are like a self proclaimed member of the cricketing community who thinks the game is played with an oval ball.
You can't even get the dates right. Hunting ends as lambing begins, and three months time is in midsummer.
https://twitter.com/JayMitchinson/status/1531370957683793922
Hunt and Wallace are also more pro life than Johnson. Patel is harder line on immigration than Johnson
wiki
The downside is that it's not a slam-dunk formula for electoral success- see Australia. Or France. But it's not obvious that there's another big idea out there at the moment, or anyone really trying to come up with one. Charlotte Ivers was bewailing the lack of ideas on the right in the Sunday Times this week. Come to think of it, Gyles Brandreth was noting the same thing in his diaries as the 1997 debacle unfolded.
King Harold, daughter of a Dane, direct blood descendent of King Cnut the Great - a Viking- who only a few decades earlier had directly ruled England as part of his Danish Empire after centuries of Viking rule. Harold who fights off the King of Norway - a Viking - only to then be defeated by William. Who was a direct descendant of Rollo the Viking who had conquered Normandy. Nor Man. North men. Vikings.
So yes. HY is right and there was never a Danish empire and certainly not one big enough to seed the English royal family, create English cities that still stand, name hundreds of places and provide words and grammatical rules to the language. And living in Thornaby-on-Tees as I did I was very clear that Thornaby wasn't founded as Thormod (a Viking)'s Farmstead. No sir.
We were not implying ...?
Hunting is not cruel ...?
I'd normally go higher up in the sentence, and assume that 'no' wa sin response to 'people ask [us]'
Labor majority of three.
Not sure how Gilmore is Labor with a 242 vote lead and 10% still to be counted, but there we go.
William has also said he may not automatically head the Commonwealth either, it could be rotated amongst Commonwealth heads of state for example
What do we think, genuine tickets or fakes?
https://chorus.stimg.co/23597235/merlin_67575797.jpg?fit=crop&crop=faces
That is sufficient...
I quite like imperial measurements, so does my butcher for example, however bringing them back in some triumphant flag waving weirdness whilst we are mired in war, economic crisis and coming out of a really depressing 2 years makes the Cones Hotline look good politics.
In any case plenty of Presidents around the world went to posh schools and posh unis
(a) confusing the UK and England when you claimed 3 main parties and that Mr Davey was leader of the third
(b) claiming specifically that there are three main parties UK wide including NI when you have only evidence for one. At least I got that number right even if I muddled Labour and the Tories in NI.