All rather imperial today, stuck in the century before last. Or (almost) a millennium ago. Empire this, Victoria that, some mediaeval king's ladyfriend's lingerie next.
The point that he himself got where he is through inbuilt advantages is well-taken, but several of the points he makes in the article are reasonably good, and at least his business does seem to be genuinely helping a lot of unqualified school-leavers into better jobs.
The proud advertisng of living the high life inherited from his father I find a bit odd.
I would credit the businesses and politicians who pay and levy the compulsory training fund. Hopefully there is more to his wealth than grabbing government subsidy spending.
He does seem to be a sort of digital enabler, hooking google up with various businesses.
I looked at this some time ago. This is a skeptical evaluation.
AIUI it grew off the back of the Apprenticeship Levy, the training tax imposed by the Govt on all larger employers, raising several billion a year, and provides a link for potential staff and all those companies who have paid the tax and get can part of it back if they spend it on training.
So an apprentice -> employer link was required. It really imo functioned at that time as an outsourced part of the Apprenticeship offering.
Unless they diversify the model is fragile. So I think the £700m value is a touch hypothetical.
It's dependent on a temporary govt policy and could go pop if the next govt change tack, so he needs to diversify or get money out before the Apprenticeship Levy dependent cash firehose vanishes.
It somewhat reminds me of a Training Provider or several under New Labour who got government contracts to train unemployed people and got rich, then an honour and faded. I recall one that was based in Sheffield, but not the name.
He now has money from tax-subsidised rises in high end London property prices.
This is an entrepreneurial thing, chasing subsidies from government initiatives. And maybe the government would say that is the point of them, or at least a fraction of the point.
I oppose the Royal Family on principle but I have no interest in seeing them removed.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Pride, misty eyed patriotism, bemusement, hatred, vitriol, boredom, irrelevance, pageant and swans in equal measure
So, the Jube is here and the weather playing ball. Turns out the road next to us is having a 'street party'. Found this out just yesterday. I was pretty mortified at first but I guess no harm. Might show my face briefly.
Anything that gets people socialising with their neighbours sounds good to me. And if you're mortified I have some worrying news for you. There are far worse things going on in the world.
My pattern was identical. Are your first words something certain people are allergic to and somewhere people live?
No, WorLdle, with an extra "L". You are shown the silhouette of a country or territory, and have to guess which one it is. If you guess wrong you are shown a distance and an arrow pointing towards where the actual answer is. 6 attempts allowed. Only Anguilla has defeated me so far.
Oh that, yes. I play worldle too, with the children. Tradle is the best though. Richer and more complex information.
My question was about the previous post about wordle so I was responding to the wrong one.
And one I am surprised a well read person hasn't heard of. Mind you. As I age I'm finding what folk know and don't know increasingly perplexing.
of course I've heard of it, I bloody love CCR, and had it down as some kind of geographical feature. Just never bothered to narrow it down beyond that.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
I believe in taking my thoughts straight to the enemy's stronghold, not just sniping opportunistically when the bootlickers are lost in the forest of trying explain away Andrew's sweaty, wandering hands.
This republican stands by his principles in any weather.
Yes.
You're the guy who charges straight at the machine gun nest across 400 yards of no man's land in full view, in the middle of the day, dressed in bright orange whilst carrying a pompous placard and an unloaded antique pistol.
We feel so sorry for you we don't even shoot you.
We just laugh at you as you flounder in the mud half-day across and wait for you to go home again.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
I oppose the Royal Family on principle but I have no interest in seeing them removed.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Pride, misty eyed patriotism, bemusement, hatred, vitriol, boredom, irrelevance, pageant and swans in equal measure
I remember when Mrs Phillips had her first (?) baby. One of my fellow students asked me to have a drink to celebrate. I didn't have the heart to explain that I was a Scottish republican ... anyway we had a very pleasant drink. But that's my sum total of toasts to royalty.
I oppose the Royal Family on principle but I have no interest in seeing them removed.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
Point of order: it's 1 extra bank holiday. The other one was just moved from May.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
So 16 months from taking the job to Coronation. Is that par for the course? Have any British monachs popped their clog in that gap?
I oppose the Royal Family on principle but I have no interest in seeing them removed.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
Point of order: it's 1 extra bank holiday. The other one was just moved from May.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
I oppose the Royal Family on principle but I have no interest in seeing them removed.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
A practical horse speaks. I tend to agree.
Political parties exist to get into Government and to make change, in my case I support progressive change.
In Government we must always be practical and do things that actually enact change. We stay true to our principles but we do things that help, not just for the sake of ideology.
I'm at Trooping the Colour and it's complete and utter chaos. We're in a massive queue for ticket holders and there are just swarms of unticketed people swarming down Great George Street swamping the queue. No barriers, marshals or any form of crowd control. Loads of elderly veterans getting swamped and jostled. I thought we were supposed to be good at this kind of thing.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in
And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale
It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation
This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”
“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne@mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”
Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us
They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93
Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.
When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.
I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.
Really? Had some mates in Catford in the 90's. We always thought it had an unusual air of respectable, dull suburbia for Central London. Either it's gone downhill, or the rest of London has exploded in wealth. Probably the latter.
It may be a bit of both. It's not got a very respectable feel currently, at least not in the central section round the world famous gyratory.
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Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
So 16 months from taking the job to Coronation. Is that par for the course? Have any British monachs popped their clog in that gap?
No, but one abdicated (Edward VIII) and one was usurped (Edward V).
Until the twentieth century it was normal to hold coronations very punctually, as that marked the actual de jure start of the reign and usually a regent had to fill in until it took place (e.g. in 1509 Margaret Beaufort acted as regent for three months until Henry VIII could be crowned, then died the evening of his coronation).
That became less important as time went on and by 1901 more time needed to be allowed for representatives from distant parts of the Empire to get here, so it became more normal to wait about a year.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
So 16 months from taking the job to Coronation. Is that par for the course? Have any British monachs popped their clog in that gap?
Edward VIII did even worse.
Re crownings, James VII never got crowned in Scotland. Neither did anyone else thereafter.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
I used to think this way about the Royals as a young man. I don't now, having rather belatedly matured, both emotionally and intellectually, but I can still relate to the sentiment which I wouldn't mock or denigrate.
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Yuu're lucky. Friend of mine had his sister and b-i-l coming (for a local funeral) last week. Easyjet pulled the key out of the clockwork - they had to drive up from the south pdq.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
I believe in taking my thoughts straight to the enemy's stronghold, not just sniping opportunistically when the bootlickers are lost in the forest of trying explain away Andrew's sweaty, wandering hands.
This republican stands by his principles in any weather.
Yes.
You're the guy who charges straight at the machine gun nest across 400 yards of no man's land in full view, in the middle of the day, dressed in bright orange whilst carrying a pompous placard and an unloaded antique pistol.
We feel so sorry for you we don't even shoot you.
We just laugh at you as you flounder in the mud half-day across and wait for you to go home again.
"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy. On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
So here I am. Yes, on This Of All Days. Just to remind the quiet 25% that they aren't alone. Have a lovely day.
What’s the problem? All they have to do it Arm The Patients. Maybe even give a couple of guns to the dead
We once had an American doctor visit, from Cook County Hospital, a rough inner city part of Chicago. We asked him if he saw many shootings in their Emergency Dept. He replied one a week or so.
We looked at each other non-pluseed, having expecting many more. Then the penny dropped. He meant one a week being shot actually within the Emergency Dept...
It was a very good symposium on managing major trauma, but the carnage in his pictures was appalling, only topped by the guy speaking from Soweto Hospital.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in
And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale
It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation
This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”
“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne@mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”
Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us
They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93
Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.
When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.
I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.
I once lived near there. I remember it for that cat statue and the dog track - my last visit to which left me with itchy skin for a few days. Think it's closed now, sadly, which maybe does point to gentrification. You probably shouldn't have a dog track if you want to gentrify.
Bit too suburban to be the new Peckham I think. But it has solid Edwardian housing stock and decent rail links. More like the new Walthamstow or new Balham.
I think the bearded hipster threshold will stay along the Hither Green/ Ladywell/Crofton Park/Nunhead demarcation line. Beyond that they don’t thrive.
Ha ha, you may be right, although hipsters eventually get forced out by boring rich people so I am sure they will have to move on eventually. Catford is only 2 minutes by train from Crofton Park so it really is the next territory to be conquered. Catford pubs already have a load of craft ales in tap, so they are readying themselves for the invasion.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
The succession happens when the prevous one pops clogs so yes - probably you
I read that "Mall" as Mail. Someone on PB praising the Mail?
In answer to your question, the last time the Tories lost two by elections on the same day was the 7th of November 1991 when the Tories lost Langbaurgh and Kincardine & Deeside to Labour and the Lib Dems respectively.
And then the tories got the most votes ever. Its almost like midterm losses are not a prediction for the next GE
In answer to your question, the last time the Tories lost two by elections on the same day was the 7th of November 1991 when the Tories lost Langbaurgh and Kincardine & Deeside to Labour and the Lib Dems respectively.
And then the tories got the most votes ever. Its almost like midterm losses are not a prediction for the next GE
It's a fair point.
But if you look at approval ratings, Johnson is at Corbyn levels now. I believed for a while Corbyn could pull it back - but they predicted his big loss well over a year before it happened.
My flats are having a free buffet with wine at 6pm. I shall be overfilling my boots regardless of my personal opinions. It's entirely in keeping with my strict moral code.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
So, the Jube is here and the weather playing ball. Turns out the road next to us is having a 'street party'. Found this out just yesterday. I was pretty mortified at first but I guess no harm. Might show my face briefly.
Anything that gets people socialising with their neighbours sounds good to me.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
Thats the Georgian flag.
Pfff, cultural appropriation if you ask me. Next those pesky foreigners will be laying claim to St George!!!
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
Thats the Georgian flag.
I'm sure after mutiple days in Tblisi that will have been a compelte shock.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
So 16 months from taking the job to Coronation. Is that par for the course? Have any British monachs popped their clog in that gap?
It was about the same 'gap' as intended for Edward VIII, but the latter preferred the charms of Wallis Simpson to being King, so George VI took the date.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in
And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale
It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation
This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”
“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne@mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”
Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us
They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93
Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.
When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.
I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.
I once lived near there. I remember it for that cat statue and the dog track - my last visit to which left me with itchy skin for a few days. Think it's closed now, sadly, which maybe does point to gentrification. You probably shouldn't have a dog track if you want to gentrify.
Good point.
They got rid of the dog tracks at Hackney Wick and Clapton just before gentrification began.
And Walthamstow - the Royal Ascot of greyhound racing. No fleas there.
I used to go to the dogs quite regularly in my 20s and 30s.
I used to go Southend track OUAT. Quite enjoy dog racing, provided one realises it can be just a tiny bit iffy!
Yes, I was quite into it at one time. I owned a dog, actually, but only got to see 2 runs before it died in a training accident.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
Thats the Georgian flag.
No, it's five English flags in one. The only true ENGLISH patriot is a Georgian.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
Thats the Georgian flag.
OMG. I’ve literally made this joke about half a dozen times and you still don’t get it
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Yes, they are rude, humourless, joyless, self-obsessed and rather pompous people.
Nobody can watch Trooping the Colour today and tell us that a republic would better; still less an elected head of state that would command neither the history, prestige or magic of a monarchial family stretching back 1,000 years nor provide its continuity or unity. It wouldn't help in providing a unifying role for the State above the dirty squabbles and pettiness of day to day politics and political behaviour. And nor would it aid Britain in enhancing its profile and admiration around the world.
Republics are either political and divisive, or entirely forgettable and boring.
I have no desire to replace something so magical and wonderful that works so well for us to satisfy the neurosis and insecurities of a small minority.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
The Prince of Wales, Princess Anne and the Duke of Cambridge arrive on the horseguards parade ground as Trooping the Colour gets under way, the first official event of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
I knew they missed a trick in not naming one of Will's children a good Scottish monarch name like Alexander, David, or Malcolm, then you'd have been on side
Food and drinks may not be available on your flight, we're very sorry about any inconvenience this may cause. We recommend that you bring your own food and soft drinks for the flight.
Please remember that if you buy alcohol before your flight, you won’t be able to drink it on board.
easyJet Customer Services
Yuu're lucky. Friend of mine had his sister and b-i-l coming (for a local funeral) last week. Easyjet pulled the key out of the clockwork - they had to drive up from the south pdq.
Yes, but that hasn't not happened to me yet. And I can hardly drive to Catania if it does.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Yes, they are rude, humourless, joyless, self-obsessed and rather pompous people.
Nobody can watch Trooping the Colour today and tell us that a republic would better; still less an elected head of state that would command neither the history, prestige or magic of a monarchial family stretching back 1,000 years nor provide its continuity or unity. It wouldn't help in providing a unifying role for the State above the dirty squabbles and pettiness of day to day politics and political behaviour. And nor would it aid Britain in enhancing its profile and admiration around the world.
Republics are either political and divisive, or entirely forgettable and boring.
I have no desire to replace something so magical and wonderful that works so well for us to satisfy the neurosis and insecurities of a small minority.
The Prince of Wales, Princess Anne and the Duke of Cambridge arrive on the horseguards parade ground as Trooping the Colour gets under way, the first official event of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Yes, they are rude, humourless, joyless, self-obsessed and rather pompous people.
I thought for a moment you meant the royal family, and I was about to say that seemed a bit unfair.
"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy. On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
.
Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.
What’s the problem? All they have to do it Arm The Patients. Maybe even give a couple of guns to the dead
We once had an American doctor visit, from Cook County Hospital, a rough inner city part of Chicago. We asked him if he saw many shootings in their Emergency Dept. He replied one a week or so.
We looked at each other non-pluseed, having expecting many more. Then the penny dropped. He meant one a week being shot actually within the Emergency Dept...
It was a very good symposium on managing major trauma, but the carnage in his pictures was appalling, only topped by the guy speaking from Soweto Hospital.
One measure of American gun violence: Baltimore, St Louis, San Juan and Detroit all have homicide rates worse than Johannesburg
In fact Cape Town is the only AFRICAN city with more murders per capita than St Louis
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Good answers, I'd vote for that platform.
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
Food and drinks may not be available on your flight, we're very sorry about any inconvenience this may cause. We recommend that you bring your own food and soft drinks for the flight.
Please remember that if you buy alcohol before your flight, you won’t be able to drink it on board.
easyJet Customer Services
Yuu're lucky. Friend of mine had his sister and b-i-l coming (for a local funeral) last week. Easyjet pulled the key out of the clockwork - they had to drive up from the south pdq.
Yes, but that hasn't not happened to me yet. And I can hardly drive to Catania if it does.
Food and drinks may not be available on your flight, we're very sorry about any inconvenience this may cause. We recommend that you bring your own food and soft drinks for the flight.
Please remember that if you buy alcohol before your flight, you won’t be able to drink it on board.
easyJet Customer Services
Does this mean the real possibility of a flight without the option of a bloody mary?
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Yes, they are rude, humourless, joyless, self-obsessed and rather pompous people.
Nobody can watch Trooping the Colour today and tell us that a republic would better; still less an elected head of state that would command neither the history, prestige or magic of a monarchial family stretching back 1,000 years nor provide its continuity or unity. It wouldn't help in providing a unifying role for the State above the dirty squabbles and pettiness of day to day politics and political behaviour. And nor would it aid Britain in enhancing its profile and admiration around the world.
Republics are either political and divisive, or entirely forgettable and boring.
I have no desire to replace something so magical and wonderful that works so well for us to satisfy the neurosis and insecurities of a small minority.
Many would say the same about yanking us out of the EU.
The Prince of Wales, Princess Anne and the Duke of Cambridge arrive on the horseguards parade ground as Trooping the Colour gets under way, the first official event of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend
Any sign of the paedophile?
My local Spoons is having a "Dress as your favourite Royal" competition. The opportunities are endless.
Tips on what to see in Lisbon please - 2 and a bit days
Tips on what to see in Faro please - 3 hours, near train station
Cheers all.
Lisbon:
the Old Town (obvs)
The Jeronimos Monastery
One of the famous custard cake shops
The big square by the sea: Praca de Comercio. Have some white wine from Alentejano. Don’t slip on the shiny cobbles
Faro:
Hmm. Not that much. Have a cataplana - they are delicious (like a juicy seafoody paella)
Lisbon Time Out Food Hall is fantastic. Gulbenkian if you like your art. And a weird one, if you have wide feet Guimaraes have the best selection of wide mens shoes I have found in a shop.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Good answers, I'd vote for that platform.
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
Although they would have to say where taxes would rise elsewhere to pay for it.
I would suggest a political free hit for Labour is merging NI and IT. Those who would lose out mostly vote Tory anyway and it would be a vast improvement on the current tax arrangements.
The Prince of Wales, Princess Anne and the Duke of Cambridge arrive on the horseguards parade ground as Trooping the Colour gets under way, the first official event of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend
Any sign of the paedophile?
My local Spoons is having a "Dress as your favourite Royal" competition. The opportunities are endless.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
What spending will you cut in the emergency budget after the Sterling crisis and government debt crisis?
There really is no money left this time. The fiscal outlook is a lot worse than in 2010.
The main source of potential extra tax revenues - the vast accumulated store of unearned housing wealth - would be more politically toxic to tax than kicking kittens.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Good answers, I'd vote for that platform.
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
Thank you. I agree on the VAT side.
I think FTTP is the real levelling up to be honest and I have thought so for a long time. And to be fair the Tories don't seem to be entirely fucking it up just yet, so I wonder why they don't talk about it more.
But they still have not assured 100% FTTP to all, which is necessary. It should not matter where you live.
"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy. On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
.
Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.
Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.
Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Good answers, I'd vote for that platform.
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
Good job we Brexited.
Still in the EU we could not lower VAT below 17%.
If that loses half of VAT revenue, the Govt will need an extra £66 billion from somewhere per annum to make up the difference.
One of the biggest pluses in the Starmer column is that he does seem to have moved away from ideology for the sake of it, which I think the 2017 manifesto did quite well but then 2019 gave up and went full scale ideology ideology ideology.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
Somebody brought up the 1997 New Labour pledge card the other day with 5 concrete pledges. Compare that to the less than, err, concrete "pledges" on the 2015 EdStone.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would cut VAT to 10% or lower.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Good answers, I'd vote for that platform.
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
Although they would have to say where taxes would rise elsewhere to pay for it.
I would suggest a political free hit for Labour is merging NI and IT. Those who would lose out mostly vote Tory anyway and it would be a vast improvement on the current tax arrangements.
Quite. Tories don't, or won't, then count under the constitutional theory propounded by at least one person on here that a political party is elected solely to benefit its own voters and screw those who voted for the other lot.
Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?
Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.
It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.
It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.
Do Tobias Ellwood's comments on the single market create a problem for Keir Starmer? If he doesn't at least match the offer of rejoining the single market then committed Labour-voting Rejoiners will become disillusioned.
"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy. On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
.
Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.
Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.
My gut feeling, without looking at stats, is that politically engaged people are more likely to be republicans on the basis it is a quite political issue. Some are very firmly in favour on the monarchy, and a large group are content with it and the status quo. The latter are probably persuadable, but perhaps not as easily as some republicans think - since the core arguments are more abstract than anything else, equality and so on, and in practice its possible not much would change, as the many presidents residing in palaces, inspecting the troops and giving out awards could show. So the urgency is not there, and people in general are reluctant to change the status quo without a need.
My own position is I think it works, more or less, and I'm content with that, and I defend the system but try not to be weird about it.
Do Tobias Ellwood's comments on the single market create a problem for Keir Starmer? If he doesn't at least match the offer of rejoining the single market then committed Labour-voting Rejoiners will become disillusioned.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
This one involves random police violence (yes - Paris, I know), in addition to robbery, sexual assault and the rest, by criminal gangs. It is also 2 years before the same place is the main Olympic Stadium. That is a somewhat different category to political violence.
Here's a link I posted the other day - blind fans with their white sticks subjected to clouds of tear gas at an official gate for disabled people, in a queue with wheelchair users.
Macron's big risk is his own political situation, and the Olympics - now that the story has broken through.
Well, not really. There is no danger to the Olympics, because policing of football matches has always been more difficult and aggressive than other sporting events. Football fans have a reputation, one that crosses borders and has endured through modern times.
In the UK crowds have become more middle class and family oriented, in part because of the costs involved, but the Ultras are usually working class men. Supporting a football team is a semi-authorised outlet for aggression, as we see every week in chants, verbal abuse and now social media abuse. It is all part of the atmosphere at big matches. There are few other places where you can shout insults at people in public.
It isn't surprising that it overspills the boundaries to violence at times. It is a difficult situation to police, and it does seem as if the reputation of Liverpool fans caused rather an overreaction by the French Police and SdF management. What looks like exuberent to fans can look potentially riotous to police.
What a farcically pointless misinformed comment. Like a 3 year old trying to explain compound interest
I have been to about 25 football matches a year for the last couple of decades, so have a fair amount of direct observation.
I was at the World Cup in St Petersburg and Moscow in 2018 too. The Russians ran it very well, no issues with crowd control or policing at all. Perhaps the CL final should have stayed in StP.
This has got fuck all to do with football per se and a lot more to do with the ethnic minorities in St Denis and French attitudes to them, accusatory and exculpatory by turns, AND their animosity to the French states, AND the particular history of brutal French policing, AND the history of terrorism at St Denis causing very specific crowd problems, and so on and so forth
Not for the first time, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, you stupid, myopic, bum-faced, wobble-bottomed, morally narcissistic old quack, so shut the fuck up or I shall be forced into rudeness
I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure it's treason to talk like that on This Of All Days. Shouldn't you be eating imperial vanilla iced slices round a plyboard table in the drizzle?
Bit difficult in sunny Tbiiisi. But you have a point. Maybe I should have a glass of Saperavi on my terrace?
i must say the Mall looks pretty splendid from this distance, with all the scrambled eggs on the guardly shoulders on the horses in the sun,..
is there a moment which is Actual Jubilee? Like, when we can say: this is it. This is when they put the crown on her head, a billion years ago. Like 11am on November 11?
The coronation was 2 June, but 1953, so 69 years today. Has someone miscounted 🤔
No, it's just nobody wanted a bank holiday in the middle of February. Better to hold it in the summer and have a nice jolly.
So 16 months from taking the job to Coronation. Is that par for the course? Have any British monachs popped their clog in that gap?
It was about the same 'gap' as intended for Edward VIII, but the latter preferred the charms of Wallis Simpson to being King, so George VI took the date.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Yes, they are rude, humourless, joyless, self-obsessed and rather pompous people.
Nobody can watch Trooping the Colour today and tell us that a republic would better; still less an elected head of state that would command neither the history, prestige or magic of a monarchial family stretching back 1,000 years nor provide its continuity or unity. It wouldn't help in providing a unifying role for the State above the dirty squabbles and pettiness of day to day politics and political behaviour. And nor would it aid Britain in enhancing its profile and admiration around the world.
Republics are either political and divisive, or entirely forgettable and boring.
I have no desire to replace something so magical and wonderful that works so well for us to satisfy the neurosis and insecurities of a small minority.
Many would say the same about yanking us out of the EU.
Rog, mate, leave it. You're right, but leave it. Today.
Good morning from Old Tbilisi, and a happy Jubilee to everyone, monarchist, anarchist, Fascist, communist….. even republican
To veer slightly off topic, I recall there were some people on here dismissing the Stade de France story as “a scuffle at a football game, will be forgotten in two days”. i said that was not the case, it is indeed not the case. From the Spectator
“The shambles at the Stade de France on Saturday night took a sinister turn on Wednesday as allegations emerged of incidents of sexual assault committed against supporters by gangs of local youths.
“What unfolded outside France’s national stadium on Saturday evening as Liverpool and Real Madrid met inside in the final of the Champions League has dominated the news in France ever since. Most of the criticism for what is seen as a national humiliation is directed at Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, who since Saturday evening has insisted that Liverpool supporters were predominantly to blame for the trouble. On Wednesday he received the indirect support of his boss, Emmanuel Macron, via his official spokeswoman, Olivia Grégoire, who assured reporters the president is ‘totally’ behind his beleaguered minister.”
There's rugby and kickball internationals at the SdF, so a complete coin toss which was going on last Saturday, no?
No.
Hooligans gonna hooligan, Paris police gonna do what they do best, and life being the harsh struggle against unfair odds, rounded off by a cheap funeral, that it is, Liverpool fans no matter how saintly gonna have the sins of their fathers visited upon them.
Your normal lazy, low-watt, misinformed take on what is now a huge story - in France
You’re also wrong about the footie/rugby thing. It turns out there have been similar problems at Stade de France at rugby matches too. They have just never been reported as they have been on a smaller scale, and rugby is less salient than soccer
Huge story in France that the banlieus are bandit country? I should get a job at Le Monde, I could have told them that 25 years ago
It's pretty unfortunate because it brings to the fore issues France/Macron would rather just ignore. Juxtaposed with what should have been a French triumph.
Echoes of the 2011 riots?
Exactly. it’s a big story by itself - thousands of people attacked, dozens of children molested, etc etc - but it throws uncomfortable light on an even bigger story, which Macron is desperate not to talk about
Remember that the Interior Minister’s FIRST version of events was that the problems all came from “thousands of British fans trying to get in without tickets and violating stewards”
A complete load of astonishing bollocks from beginning to end.
He also tried to support this ludicrous version of events by saying “most of the people arrested are English”.
However since then French journalists have dug into the truth and revealed that most people arrested are “Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian” etc.
His response to this, last night, when it was pointed out at a press conference? “It is nauseous [ie racist] to talk about the nationality of suspects”. Even tho he was quite happy to call them “English” when it suited him. Incroyable
It looks like his career is going to be truncated, he will be the sacrificial lamb to propitiate the angry gods. However Macron won’t sack him immediately because, elections
Yeah it's fucking carnage out there though. Have a guess before looking at the death and injury count over the last 4 years in gilets jaunes carry ons
and hugely ironically, when I was googling for dangers in Paris generally, I find (Nov 2015)
Three explosions occurred near the country's national sports stadium, the Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis, resulting in four deaths, including the three suicide bombers.[66] The explosions happened at 21:16, 21:19,[note 1] and 21:53.[67] At the time, the stadium was hosting an international friendly football match between France and Germany, which President Hollande was attending.[68][69] The suicide bombers arrived slightly late for the game, and eyewitness reports indicated they did not have tickets, resulting in them being turned away by security guards several times.[65]
The first explosion near the stadium occurred about 20 minutes after the start of the game.[68][69] The first bomber was prevented from entering the stadium again after a security guard patted him down and found the explosive vest.[70] A few seconds after being turned away, he detonated the vest outside the security gate, killing himself and a bystander.[65][71] Investigators later surmised that the first suicide bomber had planned to detonate his vest within the stadium, triggering the crowd's panicked exit onto the streets where two other bombers were lying in wait.[72] Three minutes after the first bombing, the second bomber blew himself up outside another security gate.[note 1][65] Another 23 minutes after that, the third bomber's vest detonated near the stadium. According to some reports, the location of the third explosion was at a McDonald's restaurant, where over 50 people were injured, seven seriously;[65][70][73] others state the bomb detonated some distance away from any discernible target.[74]
The irony being, nobody has commented on the precedent/parallel because NOBODY REMEMBERED IT. And it's a lot more memorable than last weekend's nonsense
Yes, some of the problems seem to come from the Stade de France changing its crowd management policies, after the terror attacks. Eg there are few if any reports of crowd difficulties before the big attacks of 2015, they all date from after then, when the authorities got paranoid about the wrong people getting in
And of course you’re right that is a bigger story than last weekend, but last weekend is still pretty bloody serious. 1000s of people robbed, attacked and traumatised, and dozens if not hundreds of sexual assaults - with police officers saying they have never witnessed anything on this scale
It looks like the French now have a toxic cocktail of near-impossible crowd management problems in the face of terrorism, and all of this with a stadium surrounded by Islamist migrants, and on top of that they now have the threat of constant Cologne style mass robbery and sexual molestation
This is a French paper speculating that the mess might cost Macron “fifty deputies”
“It will end up costing us 50 deputies like the social VAT of Borloo”, fears a senior officer of the macronie. Darmanin in the middle of the fire lopinion.fr/politique/stad… by @LVigogne@mdeprieck Drawing @MonsieurKak”
Personally, I would not go to the Stade de France to watch anything, not now. And I would have been happy to do so, before, because I was oblivious, like all of us
They really should not have built that stadium in Paris 93
Yet. Has been noted before. Stratford wasn't ritzy when we built ours there. It was a dump in the 90's.
When I was living in London in the period around 2000, 3 bed semis in decent streets in Stratford for £70k or so were one hot tip from the London Property Guide.
I reckon Catford might be the next gentrification target. I went out for a drink and a meal with a mate there last night. It's really quite ropey but has excellent transport links into central London with two train stations side by side. There's a bizarrely good and cheap Italian restaurant there too - two pizzas, two deserts and a nice bottle of Primitivo for a bit over £50. Catford is the new Peckham - you heard it here first.
No tube station. Areas that don't have tube or overground struggle to gentrify. It's only when the overground was properly revamped that the eastern bit of London where I grew up really started to gentrify. Before that it was a no go area and my parents couldn't leave fast enough when my dad got his chartership and a good job.
Have to say, whatever you think of the monarchy, however cynical you are or down on Britain the Trooping of the Colour is bloody magnificent as a spectacle.
It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.
It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.
OTOH the horses sort of got outdated in September 1939. And it's not as if the MoD had had the sense to keep some old Churchill tanks for parades. They do those things better in Burma.
I’m afraid the endearing ineptitude of that makes me more of a monarchist
Republicans always get their timing, tone and arguments wrong. Always wrong.
They will try again at the next coronation, and lose then too.
They will always lose.
Yep
The genius of a monarchy is its predictably human unpredictability. So it has inherent drama, like a soap opera, and we are all addicted, even when it takes a dark turn
So you get periods when it’s awful, ugh, Prince Andrew is a fiddler, yuk, and the Queen is nearly dead, oh no, and then suddenly you get a birth or a birthday or a wedding and then Yay, look, the Mall is lovely in the sun! - it reminds me of having a baby which is exactly like Brexit, no, it’s like bringing up a baby - you have periods when it is all nappies and what the F and then you get the first smile or the first word and happiness is unconfined
Except for the churlish, joyless republicans, but then I suspect they get a secret surly joy out of being churlish and joyless, so it’s all good
Joyless my arse , you slaver over a bunch of grifters, crooked, sexual deviants , ne'er do wells etc. A pox on your Royals.
See, you enjoyed writing that. QED
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
Are you staying in a shanty town?
One mans shanty town is anothers vernacular architecture. You have to think like a travel writer on a freebie.
So, the Jube is here and the weather playing ball. Turns out the road next to us is having a 'street party'. Found this out just yesterday. I was pretty mortified at first but I guess no harm. Might show my face briefly.
Why are you mortified?
Should I, as an atheist, be upset that the Seventh Day Adventist church round the corner uses impromptu food bank they run outside their church as a proselytizing operation?
Meanwhile. It is silent out there. Literally no one around. No kids playing. No lawns mowed. No traffic. No pedestrians. Beautiful sunshine. Where's everyone gone?
"No man's land" is surprisingly crowded these days. A good one in six are undecided on keeping the monarchy. On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
.
Really? That sounds a bit dramatic to me, I've never noticed republicans having difficulty getting heard in any context.
Perhaps it's just a perception bias. I was surprised to find that there's as much support as there is for a republic. I thought, much like Casino_Royale, that numbers were small.
22% support a republic in a Yougov poll this week, so even less than the LDs got in 2010.
Those numbers are driven by Labour voters, 37% of Labour voters back a republic, compared to just 9% of Conservative voters and 26% of LDs.
London is the most republican region of the UK, 33% of Londoners now want a republic, compared to just 19% in the South and North and 20% in the Midlands and Wales who are republicans. In fact even more Londoners are republicans than the 32% of Scots who are pro republic
Comments
All rather imperial today, stuck in the century before last. Or (almost) a millennium ago. Empire this, Victoria that, some mediaeval king's ladyfriend's lingerie next.
I have always believed that we should do things that reduce inequality, increase opportunity and create a better society for all. Removing the Royal Family achieves none of those things.
I will enjoy my extra bank holidays with pleasure, thanks Queenie.
Mind you. As I age I'm finding what folk know and don't know increasingly perplexing.
What’s the problem? All they have to do it Arm The Patients. Maybe even give a couple of guns to the dead
My question was about the previous post about wordle so I was responding to the wrong one.
You're the guy who charges straight at the machine gun nest across 400 yards of no man's land in full view, in the middle of the day, dressed in bright orange whilst carrying a pompous placard and an unloaded antique pistol.
We feel so sorry for you we don't even shoot you.
We just laugh at you as you flounder in the mud half-day across and wait for you to go home again.
I tend to agree.
If it doesn't have any of those in that narrows it down quite a lot.
In Government we must always be practical and do things that actually enact change. We stay true to our principles but we do things that help, not just for the sake of ideology.
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Until the twentieth century it was normal to hold coronations very punctually, as that marked the actual de jure start of the reign and usually a regent had to fill in until it took place (e.g. in 1509 Margaret Beaufort acted as regent for three months until Henry VIII could be crowned, then died the evening of his coronation).
That became less important as time went on and by 1901 more time needed to be allowed for representatives from distant parts of the Empire to get here, so it became more normal to wait about a year.
Re crownings, James VII never got crowned in Scotland. Neither did anyone else thereafter.
Labour has only ever won when it has moved away from the abstract and into reality. We must not lose sight.
LOOK. Even the Georgians are celebrating your majestic English Queen 👑👑🥂🥂
On my side of the lines, we've got about a quarter of the population.
Surprised? Me too. Seems like there's a problem with those voices of republicans getting heard despite our numbers growing.
So here I am. Yes, on This Of All Days. Just to remind the quiet 25% that they aren't alone. Have a lovely day.
We looked at each other non-pluseed, having expecting many more. Then the penny dropped. He meant one a week being shot actually within the Emergency Dept...
It was a very good symposium on managing major trauma, but the carnage in his pictures was appalling, only topped by the guy speaking from Soweto Hospital.
I read that "Mall" as Mail. Someone on PB praising the Mail? Did not try that one until today.
Wordle 347 4/6
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Logical endpoint of the, "guns aren't the problem people are," argument. And then someone hacks one.
But if you look at approval ratings, Johnson is at Corbyn levels now. I believed for a while Corbyn could pull it back - but they predicted his big loss well over a year before it happened.
I shall be overfilling my boots regardless of my personal opinions. It's entirely in keeping with my strict moral code.
the Old Town (obvs)
The Jeronimos Monastery
One of the famous custard cake shops
The big square by the sea: Praca de Comercio. Have some white wine from Alentejano. Don’t slip on the shiny cobbles
Faro:
Hmm. Not that much. Have a cataplana - they are delicious (like a juicy seafoody paella)
Nobody can watch Trooping the Colour today and tell us that a republic would better; still less an elected head of state that would command neither the history, prestige or magic of a monarchial family stretching back 1,000 years nor provide its continuity or unity. It wouldn't help in providing a unifying role for the State above the dirty squabbles and pettiness of day to day politics and political behaviour. And nor would it aid Britain in enhancing its profile and admiration around the world.
Republics are either political and divisive, or entirely forgettable and boring.
I have no desire to replace something so magical and wonderful that works so well for us to satisfy the neurosis and insecurities of a small minority.
If Labour can provide actual answers to the cost of living crisis and how to actually improve life for the majority in the UK, they will win.
I would invest heavily in renewables to create new jobs.
I would invest heavily in defence.
I would commit to 100% FTTP to every property, obligating Openreach to upgrade their copper USO to FTTP.
Barrier jumpIng not recommended.
I can't believe how sour you are. Cheer up.
I'm just watching for the fainting/horse bolting drama.
In fact Cape Town is the only AFRICAN city with more murders per capita than St Louis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rate
Especially the cut in VAT to 10% - a hideously regressive tax that impacts the poorest in society the most.
I'd struggle to embark on such an undertaking.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/02/protesters-tackled-to-ground-by-armed-police-after-jumping-over-fences-on-mall-16755333/?ito=socialmetrouktwitter
The opportunities are endless.
I would suggest a political free hit for Labour is merging NI and IT. Those who would lose out mostly vote Tory anyway and it would be a vast improvement on the current tax arrangements.
There really is no money left this time. The fiscal outlook is a lot worse than in 2010.
The main source of potential extra tax revenues - the vast accumulated store of unearned housing wealth - would be more politically toxic to tax than kicking kittens.
We're in a desperate situation.
I think FTTP is the real levelling up to be honest and I have thought so for a long time. And to be fair the Tories don't seem to be entirely fucking it up just yet, so I wonder why they don't talk about it more.
But they still have not assured 100% FTTP to all, which is necessary. It should not matter where you live.
Still in the EU we could not lower VAT below 17%.
If that loses half of VAT revenue, the Govt will need an extra £66 billion from somewhere per annum to make up the difference.
https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1532291365345927168
It knocks those big presidential parades such as Red Dquare and the French Bastille parade into a cocked hat - there’s something Victorian about it still so a gentle bit of time travel.
It’s almost, hopefully not being too wanky, a demonstration of an iron fist in a velvet glove by the military rather than the in your face bombast of other parades where they drive the tanks etc etc.
I will resist, this time.
My own position is I think it works, more or less, and I'm content with that, and I defend the system but try not to be weird about it.
Turkey in English is now officially ‘Türkiye’.
Now, where's the Umlaut on my keyboard?
How does one pronounce "iye" - is it like the first part of E-I-E-I-O from Old MacDonald?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/2/un-registers-turkiye-as-new-country-name-for-turkey
Should I, as an atheist, be upset that the Seventh Day Adventist church round the corner uses impromptu food bank they run outside their church as a proselytizing operation?
Or should I smile at them?
Those numbers are driven by Labour voters, 37% of Labour voters back a republic, compared to just 9% of Conservative voters and 26% of LDs.
London is the most republican region of the UK, 33% of Londoners now want a republic, compared to just 19% in the South and North and 20% in the Midlands and Wales who are republicans. In fact even more Londoners are republicans than the 32% of Scots who are pro republic
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2022/06/01/platinum-jubilee-where-does-public-opinion-stand-m