"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I read about this case earlier. The situation was miserable and clearly extremely frustrating for the passenger, but nor was this the fault of the platform staff, who appear to have acted correctly (at least with regard to refusing to carry the man, although we'll come back to the available alternatives later.)
I'm not sure what was expected of the workers in this case: was one of them meant to throw the passenger over his or her shoulder and lug him up and down flights of stairs in a fireman's carry, or was a team of them meant to grab a limb each and get him from A to B that way?
Picking people up and carrying them to get around a broken lift is something to be done in case of emergency, and preferably by personnel assessed physically capable of lifting an (at a guess) 80kg human being safely, and appropriately trained to do so. Otherwise you end up with your makeshift porter collapsed halfway up a staircase with a slipped disc and the passenger dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. The entire episode will then, of course, be blamed on the member of staff, who gets fired, and the train company becomes liable for shelling out a huge sum in compensation to the grieving family of the deceased.
If the layout of the station is such that it is impossible for a disabled passenger to get to the right platform without using a lift, and that lift is knackered, then the passenger can't travel where they want to go from the station. The real question that ought therefore to be asked, given that the passenger would've had a reasonable expectation of being able to travel, is not "why didn't the staff lug the passenger up and down the stairs?" It's "why didn't the stingy train company pay for the passenger to take a taxi," either to an alternative station with working access nearer to their destination, or all the way to where they were going?
One assumes that there aren't thousands of wheelchair users transiting through Milton Keynes every day. It wouldn't have bankrupted them.
A relative was summarily fired from a care job for moving a patient from her bed to a wheelchair, by herself. There were no other staff - due to a shortage and the patient was in distress.
never really understood the ruling on prisoners voting from the ECHR - Sounds a fudge to me given its logical that prisoners shoudl not have the vote or they do have the vote - Surely its just shifting this stuff about not allowing blanket bans on voting to allowing blanket bans on certain categories of prisoners . Ie all those serving (say) five years or more cannot vote - well thats just as much a blanket ban on those prisoners as it is on all prisoners.
Never really respected the law courts (of whatever form) as much as others do on here tbh
I asked the lawyer I had a chat with, about the idea of saying that it wasn't a blanket ban - just applied to prisoners who were in jail for more than 10 seconds.
He seemed to think that such a work around was an insult to the court. But couldn't explain why.
The only logical conclusion is surely that the judges and lawyers wanted some prisoners to have the vote.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I read about this case earlier. The situation was miserable and clearly extremely frustrating for the passenger, but nor was this the fault of the platform staff, who appear to have acted correctly (at least with regard to refusing to carry the man, although we'll come back to the available alternatives later.)
I'm not sure what was expected of the workers in this case: was one of them meant to throw the passenger over his or her shoulder and lug him up and down flights of stairs in a fireman's carry, or was a team of them meant to grab a limb each and get him from A to B that way?
Picking people up and carrying them to get around a broken lift is something to be done in case of emergency, and preferably by personnel assessed physically capable of lifting an (at a guess) 80kg human being safely, and appropriately trained to do so. Otherwise you end up with your makeshift porter collapsed halfway up a staircase with a slipped disc and the passenger dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. The entire episode will then, of course, be blamed on the member of staff, who gets fired, and the train company becomes liable for shelling out a huge sum in compensation to the grieving family of the deceased.
If the layout of the station is such that it is impossible for a disabled passenger to get to the right platform without using a lift, and that lift is knackered, then the passenger can't travel where they want to go from the station. The real question that ought therefore to be asked, given that the passenger would've had a reasonable expectation of being able to travel, is not "why didn't the staff lug the passenger up and down the stairs?" It's "why didn't the stingy train company pay for the passenger to take a taxi," either to an alternative station with working access nearer to their destination, or all the way to where they were going?
One assumes that there aren't thousands of wheelchair users transiting through Milton Keynes every day. It wouldn't have bankrupted them.
A relative was summarily fired from a care job for moving a patient from her bed to a wheelchair, by herself. There were no other staff - due to a shortage and the patient was in distress.
never really understood the ruling on prisoners voting from the ECHR - Sounds a fudge to me given its logical that prisoners shoudl not have the vote or they do have the vote - Surely its just shifting this stuff about not allowing blanket bans on voting to allowing blanket bans on certain categories of prisoners . Ie all those serving (say) five years or more cannot vote - well thats just as much a blanket ban on those prisoners as it is on all prisoners.
Never really respected the law courts (of whatever form) as much as others do on here tbh
I asked the lawyer I had a chat with, about the idea of saying that it wasn't a blanket ban - just applied to prisoners who were in jail for more than 10 seconds.
He seemed to think that such a work around was an insult to the court. But couldn't explain why.
The only logical conclusion is surely that the judges and lawyers wanted some prisoners to have the vote.
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
It's very hard for aggressors to win wars, because victory means so much more for those defending.
The US couldn't win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia couldn't win Afghanistan.
The question is can the Ukrainian determination (and ability) to fight last long enough for the Russians to run out of weapons or men or simply will.
The Soviet Union collapsed, at least in part, because of Afghanistan. At some point continuing the war becomes too expensive for Russia. Ukrainians will die to defend their country. Russians will not die to satisfy Putin's ego. Or at least, they will not do so indefinitely.
That's the brutal war of attrition.
A very insightful post.
Where are the examples of aggressive invasions that succeeded in the long-term?
If we exclude colonisation of less developed countries by those with clear technological superiority, successful invasions are very rare indeed.
England was on the receiving end of one in 1066; beyond that, not many spring to mind.
What?? There are lots of successful invasions. History is full of them. Lands are conquered, empires are built
And yes, usually the militarily superior side wins. That’s how it works
Survivorship bias.
You're remembering all the successful invasions.
Indeed. States that launch a war and then fail tend not to survive very long. Vide Galtieri in 1982.
Successful invasions are very common. I'd recommend Max Boot's book "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present ". Insurgents lose most of the time. Guerillas are rarely able to beat conventional armies, and when they do, it's usually because they have the backing of conventional armies, and/or substantial backing from foreign governments.
If Ukraine repels Russian aggression (as I hope they do) it will be because of conventional strength, not partisan warfare.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Another fact to remember is that the French have a low threshold of complaint, but an even lower threshold of tolerance for paying for things. Add an inflationary environment challenging everyone from Biden to Johnson and the situation becomes rocky.
Still, Ensemble still finished in first place, and their main party is a purely personalist bloc for Macron, so there's no clear message about what people want beyond "emmerder".
Not to get all Tom Friedman, but I had a conversation with a very talented French artisan of my acquaintance today. She confided that she could never practice her craft in her home country because her countrymen will not pay the prices you can charge in Copenhagen or Cambridge, let alone London.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Another fact to remember is that the French have a low threshold of complaint, but an even lower threshold of tolerance for paying for things. Add an inflationary environment challenging everyone from Biden to Johnson and the situation becomes rocky.
Still, Ensemble still finished in first place, and their main party is a purely personalist bloc for Macron, so there's no clear message about what people want beyond "emmerder".
They’ve successfully hobbled Macron, tho. He won’t be able to lead the EU as he has done. Everyone will know he is weakened, and cannot guarantee that any law or policy will pass
"Germany, a long-time heavy user of Russian gas, began cutting down on imports after the latest invasion Ukraine. Its climate target to phase out coal by 2030 remains in place, as does its policy to shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants by 2023."
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
"Germany, a long-time heavy user of Russian gas, began cutting down on imports after the latest invasion Ukraine. Its climate target to phase out coal by 2030 remains in place, as does its policy to shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants by 2023."
I think it's easier to understand if you remember the Chancellor is a duplicitous self-serving fool and the Greens hold the portfolios for Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Environment.
That doesn't mean it makes sense, just explains why it doesn't.
The coal policy does make sense, whilst (based on a limited understanding, and I stand to be corrected on this,) the nuclear plant shutdown was a policy inherited from Merkel, made as a result of a post-Fukushima panic about accidents, and commanding broad popular support.
What never made sense in the first place was placing Germany's energy supply at the mercy of the poisonous autocrat of Moscow. The Chancellor has been reluctantly dragged in the direction of correcting this mistake (the greatest champion of which was ex-SPD predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, of course,) but IIRC the Greens have actually been taking the lead in forcing him to do so, as the more pro-Ukrainian element of the German coalition.
"Germany, a long-time heavy user of Russian gas, began cutting down on imports after the latest invasion Ukraine. Its climate target to phase out coal by 2030 remains in place, as does its policy to shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants by 2023."
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
It is curious that my apparently silly questions are unable to be answered. In fact they are the fundamental questions arising from the inherent tension between a sovereign government and law. In the past governments were sovereign and free to do whatever they wanted on their own territory to their own citizens, no matter how awful. Then WW2 and the world took a different tack and sought to apply some basic principles which all governments, in theory, signed up to. The ECHR principles and the UN Declaration of Human Rights are very similar in substance.
In practice lots of governments have ignored these principles. But Britain has tried not to.
Now I am very sympathetic to the idea that the ECHR should be domesticated and decided on by British courts. That is precisely what the Human Rights Act was designed to do. The intention was that since British judges would be deciding cases and were well able to interpret Convention rights, there would be little need to go to the Court in Strasbourg. As a factual point, the Court in Strasbourg does not automatically hear all cases, so in practice the British courts are the courts of last resort.
The Human Rights Act was opposed by the Tory party which has ever since sought to amend it, weaken it or get rid of it altogether. So I am afraid I view with a bucketload of salt the claims by Tory supporters and sympathisers on here that they really want the Convention rights domesticated. They have been.
As for the right to vote for prisoners and the right to liberty, the Convention makes it clear that so long as there is a right to trial a person's liberty can be curtailed. Many democracies in the West allow prisoners to vote: France, Norway, Canada, for instance.
The decision on votes for prisoners was misreported in the press here. It did not require the British government to give votes to prisoners. What it said was that a blanket ban was not acceptable. The government had to consider in what circumstances it was appropriate to deny prisoners the right to vote and had to balance competing rights. It had not done so. It was asked to do so.
As for the claim that I am being hyperbolic, well, what can I say. A court issues an injunction to preserve the status quo for a whole three weeks pending a full hearing in the British courts and immediately the British government and its supporters demand departure from a Convention which Britain largely wrote and has been party to for 71 years. It's that reaction which has been hyperbolic.
The bit I have italicised in Cyclefree's comment is to many people's minds, including my very liberal one, a good example of why we should sit very loose to the ECHR as interpreted by its court. It is absolutely a state's right to decide that not being allowed to vote is one of the punishments attaching to a prison sentence.
I can't say I agree that the issue was especially misreported. Sure, not entirely correct, but the basic point as cyclefree states was that the court said a blanket ban was not acceptable when the government, and many others, would argue a blanket ban is acceptable. The difference between what was reported and what was was a difference of degree, not of kind, about whether denying the vote to all was acceptable or not. It was definitely reported that not all prisoners would have to be given the vote, because the government contemplated various options about limiting it to the smallest number possible.
Personally I would also say a blanket ban is acceptable, and so disagreed with the court, but don't regard that as good reason to junk the whole process. I also agree that the risks of taking such a decisive step could be severe so, even if considered somewhat hyperbolic by some, it should be treated as significant.
But I think it is a little unreasonable to present any expression of discontent with the rulings of the court as being only for reasons of malice or incomprehension. It appears that the argument being made is that any concern is akin to those who want to abandon the court altogether.
I had an interesting conversation on the prisoner voting thing with a lawyer.
I took the point of view that the blanket ban on prisoners voting had been in place in many countries for many years within the ECHR - so what had changed? I was told that the law had progressed. I pointed out that the law hadn't been amended, just the interpretation. He said that was the point.
I asked what limits were on such interpretations? He was of the view that lawyers know which way progress is. I pointed out that it is perfectly possible to pick the "right" judges - isn't it better to legislate in the legislature?
I think there are two basic issues with human rights: (1) gradual creep in the scope and breadth of the right, such that it ends up conflicting with other rights and those of democratic politics, which -remember - is also a right, and, (2) absolutism of applicability, where we basically can't return anyone to anywhere who doesn't subscribe or adhere to the ECHR or a charter of rights of a similar standard - which is a great many places.
Both need qualifying. So on the former the Right to Family Life should grant a right to enjoy family relationships without interference from government, but should not be used as a Trojan Horse to get round migration laws through arguing, for example, for reunification with relatives already here. Similarly, on the latter, if there's real evidence someone is at real risk of torture or abuse, based on past experience, and is a genuine exile then we should be generous but we shouldn't avoid deporting anyone to any country that doesn't maintain our standards, particularly when this appeal is made late in the day and only when such deportation looks likely.
In general I'd take a dim view of any asylum seeker who crossed the channel and didn't first raise or register such a claim in France or any other safe European country and increase the burden of proof on them because at the moment they can play the game and we are always obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I read about this case earlier. The situation was miserable and clearly extremely frustrating for the passenger, but nor was this the fault of the platform staff, who appear to have acted correctly (at least with regard to refusing to carry the man, although we'll come back to the available alternatives later.)
I'm not sure what was expected of the workers in this case: was one of them meant to throw the passenger over his or her shoulder and lug him up and down flights of stairs in a fireman's carry, or was a team of them meant to grab a limb each and get him from A to B that way?
Picking people up and carrying them to get around a broken lift is something to be done in case of emergency, and preferably by personnel assessed physically capable of lifting an (at a guess) 80kg human being safely, and appropriately trained to do so. Otherwise you end up with your makeshift porter collapsed halfway up a staircase with a slipped disc and the passenger dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. The entire episode will then, of course, be blamed on the member of staff, who gets fired, and the train company becomes liable for shelling out a huge sum in compensation to the grieving family of the deceased.
If the layout of the station is such that it is impossible for a disabled passenger to get to the right platform without using a lift, and that lift is knackered, then the passenger can't travel where they want to go from the station. The real question that ought therefore to be asked, given that the passenger would've had a reasonable expectation of being able to travel, is not "why didn't the staff lug the passenger up and down the stairs?" It's "why didn't the stingy train company pay for the passenger to take a taxi," either to an alternative station with working access nearer to their destination, or all the way to where they were going?
One assumes that there aren't thousands of wheelchair users transiting through Milton Keynes every day. It wouldn't have bankrupted them.
A relative was summarily fired from a care job for moving a patient from her bed to a wheelchair, by herself. There were no other staff - due to a shortage and the patient was in distress.
never really understood the ruling on prisoners voting from the ECHR - Sounds a fudge to me given its logical that prisoners shoudl not have the vote or they do have the vote - Surely its just shifting this stuff about not allowing blanket bans on voting to allowing blanket bans on certain categories of prisoners . Ie all those serving (say) five years or more cannot vote - well thats just as much a blanket ban on those prisoners as it is on all prisoners.
Never really respected the law courts (of whatever form) as much as others do on here tbh
I asked the lawyer I had a chat with, about the idea of saying that it wasn't a blanket ban - just applied to prisoners who were in jail for more than 10 seconds.
He seemed to think that such a work around was an insult to the court. But couldn't explain why.
The only logical conclusion is surely that the judges and lawyers wanted some prisoners to have the vote.
The reasoning, as I understand it, is that although the Convention allows punishment including imprisonment the punishment must be directly related to the offence. The purpose of punishment is to rehabilitate the offender and bring him or her back into society as a useful member. Excluding the prisoner from voting inhibits that objective because it excludes them from participation in society and is therefore not a justified punishment in terms of the Convention.
Personally, I think this is bollocks. It is up to a state to determine whether or not someone who has committed a crime worthy of imprisonment should, for the duration of their incarceration, not have the privilege of voting. I would not go as far many US states who provide that you never get to vote again (especially if you are black, natch) but this seems to me something legislatures have the right to decide.
"Germany, a long-time heavy user of Russian gas, began cutting down on imports after the latest invasion Ukraine. Its climate target to phase out coal by 2030 remains in place, as does its policy to shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants by 2023."
I think it's easier to understand if you remember the Chancellor is a duplicitous self-serving fool and the Greens hold the portfolios for Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Environment.
That doesn't mean it makes sense, just explains why it doesn't.
The coal policy does make sense, whilst (based on a limited understanding, and I stand to be corrected on this,) the nuclear plant shutdown was a policy inherited from Merkel, made as a result of a post-Fukushima panic about accidents, and commanding broad popular support.
What never made sense in the first place was placing Germany's energy supply at the mercy of the poisonous autocrat of Moscow. The Chancellor has been reluctantly dragged in the direction of correcting this mistake (the greatest champion of which was ex-SPD predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, of course,) but IIRC the Greens have actually been taking the lead in forcing him to do so, as the more pro-Ukrainian element of the German coalition.
But you can't have both a weaning off Russian gas and cut off your other major sources of power.
I don't like nuclear, but it would be better to keep their plants open for now and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Similarly I can see an argument for closing nuclear and coal and choosing gas for other reasons.
But not all at the same time. That's what doesn't make sense and that's because Schulz prizes short term political gains above longer term goals and his ministers are obsessed with carbon targets.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I have been delayed from disembarking a train at Waterloo for 10 mins because the member of staff I asked said he was "not trained to put the ramp out" and therefore "not allowed to do it".
I don't know whether he was telling the truth but he did at least eventually find someone who was a fully signed-off 'ramp-putter-outer'. And at least at Waterloo the train wasn't going anywhere for half an hour - at the other end I have several times missed my station 'cos 'no ramp' and had to be collected by Mrs P from the next station.
Minor examples of this are sadly only too common in my experience.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I think it should be obvious that citizenship confers rights that are not available to non-citizens.
"Germany, a long-time heavy user of Russian gas, began cutting down on imports after the latest invasion Ukraine. Its climate target to phase out coal by 2030 remains in place, as does its policy to shut down its three remaining nuclear power plants by 2023."
I think it's easier to understand if you remember the Chancellor is a duplicitous self-serving fool and the Greens hold the portfolios for Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Environment.
That doesn't mean it makes sense, just explains why it doesn't.
The coal policy does make sense, whilst (based on a limited understanding, and I stand to be corrected on this,) the nuclear plant shutdown was a policy inherited from Merkel, made as a result of a post-Fukushima panic about accidents, and commanding broad popular support.
What never made sense in the first place was placing Germany's energy supply at the mercy of the poisonous autocrat of Moscow. The Chancellor has been reluctantly dragged in the direction of correcting this mistake (the greatest champion of which was ex-SPD predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, of course,) but IIRC the Greens have actually been taking the lead in forcing him to do so, as the more pro-Ukrainian element of the German coalition.
But you can't have both a weaning off Russian gas and cut off your other major sources of power.
I don't like nuclear, but it would be better to keep their plants open for now and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Similarly I can see an argument for closing nuclear and coal and choosing gas for other reasons.
But not all at the same time. That's what doesn't make sense and that's because Schulz prizes short term political gains above longer term goals and his ministers are obsessed with carbon targets.
IANAE but I assume that, given that you've just told us that coal isn't going until the end of the decade, the Germans have some sort of a plan to replace it - and, even if that plan is gas and much of it was meant to be Russian, that still gives them a number of years to secure alternative supplies. They're not entirely clueless. I'm sure they'll manage for the time being.
In the medium term I'd agree with you that nuclear generation would appear to make sense as a means to generate reliable baseload until someone cracks the problem of what to do when you're overly reliant on wind turbines and the wind won't blow hard enough for long enough. True, it's also very expensive, but so are the consequences of global heating. However, if the Germans have a workable plan for managing without it, which doesn't involve declining to decarbonise and continuing to burn natural gas for a long time, then I'd be intrigued to know what it is.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1538360937480179716 You've probably heard On Here in the wake of Uvalde that cops have no legal duty to protect you. The case establishing that rule, though, is even worse than you think. This is a thread on the 2005 SCOTUS case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.…
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I think it should be obvious that citizenship confers rights that are not available to non-citizens.
Let me be specific.
Which of the Convention rights would you deny to someone in this country who is not a British citizen?
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian military, that more than 1.9 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, over 307,000 of them children. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1538461156544847872
Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian military, that more than 1.9 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, over 307,000 of them children. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1538461156544847872
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
I've lived in the Languedoc and my sister much longer than I: for many years. I mean by that lived as opposed to dipping in and out for a few days or weeks and thinking you are suddenly the world expert on a place.
It's no bed of roses for many reasons, French bureaucracy being high among them.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
Well, I'd still call them; they can tell me that to my face.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I have been delayed from disembarking a train at Waterloo for 10 mins because the member of staff I asked said he was "not trained to put the ramp out" and therefore "not allowed to do it".
I don't know whether he was telling the truth but he did at least eventually find someone who was a fully signed-off 'ramp-putter-outer'. And at least at Waterloo the train wasn't going anywhere for half an hour - at the other end I have several times missed my station 'cos 'no ramp' and had to be collected by Mrs P from the next station.
Minor examples of this are sadly only too common in my experience.
Just as a counter-balance to this anti-legal angle, a wheelchair user died at Gatwick this week when they decided to do their own thing after growing tired of the delays.
But my anecdote suggests that Russians do have the will.
I'd suggest your anecdote suggests they don't. Because if they did, you wouldn't HAVE the anecdote, because this well educated Russian would've gone back to Russia to fight and die in Ukraine.
That he didn't is similar to many keyboard warriors. Likes to say they support something, but doesn't actually want to do anything about it.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police?
I just want to understand the specific practical implications of what you see as the difference between citizens and those who aren't.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I read about this case earlier. The situation was miserable and clearly extremely frustrating for the passenger, but nor was this the fault of the platform staff, who appear to have acted correctly (at least with regard to refusing to carry the man, although we'll come back to the available alternatives later.)
I'm not sure what was expected of the workers in this case: was one of them meant to throw the passenger over his or her shoulder and lug him up and down flights of stairs in a fireman's carry, or was a team of them meant to grab a limb each and get him from A to B that way?
Picking people up and carrying them to get around a broken lift is something to be done in case of emergency, and preferably by personnel assessed physically capable of lifting an (at a guess) 80kg human being safely, and appropriately trained to do so. Otherwise you end up with your makeshift porter collapsed halfway up a staircase with a slipped disc and the passenger dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. The entire episode will then, of course, be blamed on the member of staff, who gets fired, and the train company becomes liable for shelling out a huge sum in compensation to the grieving family of the deceased.
If the layout of the station is such that it is impossible for a disabled passenger to get to the right platform without using a lift, and that lift is knackered, then the passenger can't travel where they want to go from the station. The real question that ought therefore to be asked, given that the passenger would've had a reasonable expectation of being able to travel, is not "why didn't the staff lug the passenger up and down the stairs?" It's "why didn't the stingy train company pay for the passenger to take a taxi," either to an alternative station with working access nearer to their destination, or all the way to where they were going?
One assumes that there aren't thousands of wheelchair users transiting through Milton Keynes every day. It wouldn't have bankrupted them.
A relative was summarily fired from a care job for moving a patient from her bed to a wheelchair, by herself. There were no other staff - due to a shortage and the patient was in distress.
never really understood the ruling on prisoners voting from the ECHR - Sounds a fudge to me given its logical that prisoners shoudl not have the vote or they do have the vote - Surely its just shifting this stuff about not allowing blanket bans on voting to allowing blanket bans on certain categories of prisoners . Ie all those serving (say) five years or more cannot vote - well thats just as much a blanket ban on those prisoners as it is on all prisoners.
Never really respected the law courts (of whatever form) as much as others do on here tbh
I asked the lawyer I had a chat with, about the idea of saying that it wasn't a blanket ban - just applied to prisoners who were in jail for more than 10 seconds.
He seemed to think that such a work around was an insult to the court. But couldn't explain why.
The only logical conclusion is surely that the judges and lawyers wanted some prisoners to have the vote.
The reasoning, as I understand it, is that although the Convention allows punishment including imprisonment the punishment must be directly related to the offence. The purpose of punishment is to rehabilitate the offender and bring him or her back into society as a useful member. Excluding the prisoner from voting inhibits that objective because it excludes them from participation in society and is therefore not a justified punishment in terms of the Convention.
Personally, I think this is bollocks. It is up to a state to determine whether or not someone who has committed a crime worthy of imprisonment should, for the duration of their incarceration, not have the privilege of voting. I would not go as far many US states who provide that you never get to vote again (especially if you are black, natch) but this seems to me something legislatures have the right to decide.
'The purpose of punishment is to rehabilitate the offender and bring him or her back into society as a useful member.'
Is that actually what is stated? I'm not sure that is the only or indeed the main reason for punishment. They are punished because that is seen to be justice. There would be outrage amongst victims and their families if that wasn't the case. The state would lose legitimacy. There is also the issue of deterrence and keeping dangerous people off the streets (which bluntly seems to have been the main purpose of our justice policy in recent years).
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
Well, I'd still call them; they can tell me that to my face.
Thing about firefighters is. They'd probably do it. Because they are kind hearted macho working class types. But they really oughtn't to. They are needed for emergencies.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
Well, I'd still call them; they can tell me that to my face.
Thing about firefighters is. They'd probably do it. Because they are kind hearted macho working class. But they really oughtn't to. They are needed for emergencies.
Mate, if I am stuck on a railway platform with no way off, trust me, that's an emergency to me.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
I have been delayed from disembarking a train at Waterloo for 10 mins because the member of staff I asked said he was "not trained to put the ramp out" and therefore "not allowed to do it".
I don't know whether he was telling the truth but he did at least eventually find someone who was a fully signed-off 'ramp-putter-outer'. And at least at Waterloo the train wasn't going anywhere for half an hour - at the other end I have several times missed my station 'cos 'no ramp' and had to be collected by Mrs P from the next station.
Minor examples of this are sadly only too common in my experience.
Just as a counter-balance to this anti-legal angle, a wheelchair user died at Gatwick this week when they decided to do their own thing after growing tired of the delays.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
Well, I'd still call them; they can tell me that to my face.
Thing about firefighters is. They'd probably do it. Because they are kind hearted macho working class. But they really oughtn't to. They are needed for emergencies.
Mate, if I am stuck on a railway platform with no way off, trust me, that's an emergency to me.
Of course. I get that. It just isn't the Fire Services job to sort out an issue for train companies.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
They are generally termed 'Fire and Rescue' Services. As BenPointer suggests being trapped on a railway platform with no way off would mean being in need of rescue.
Should someone else be available to provide assistance? Sure, but in their absence calling the Fire and Rescue Service would make sense.
Cats can get down from trees perfectly well. It's just that they are such prima donnas if they can get someone else to do something for them they will.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police?
I just want to understand the specific practical implications of what you see as the difference between citizens and those who aren't.
Also: British excludes Irish, at least in a strict interpretation. Presumably UK subject is meant rather than British citizen.
Regarding this ECHR thing. There's a couple of our chaps whom Putin's stooges want to execute. We don't have much hope to save them except to appeal to international law. And by good luck Russia is still subject to the ECHR until September. So it doesn't seem the best time to publicly disrespect their them (even if we think they are wassocks).
Oh Russia is subject to the ECHR? That is "good luck" isn't it.
There was me thinking that Russia is an inhumane, totalitarian dictatorship, that has shut down all free speech, political opponents have been prosecuted and murdered and extrajudicial killings routinely occur.
But it turns out that Russia is a font of human rights, enshrined by its membership of the completely not a miserable failure ECHR.
How fortunate to learn that. Every day is a school day on this site.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
If there were no viable alternative then they would have to effect a rescue, but I'd imagine that'd be unlikely. If a train delivers a disabled passenger to a platform that cannot be escaped from without recourse either to stairs or lift, and the lift was out of service and unable to be immediately fixed, then in the first instance one would've thought it would be up to the train company to put the passenger back on another service, get them to a platform elsewhere that was accessible, and then order them a cab (at the expense said company) to allow them to complete their journey.
What would probably happen in practice, of course, is that once the passenger got to the alternative station they'd be left to arrange and shell out for the onward journey themselves. As we all know standards of customer service are variable to say the least, are especially likely to be poor in monopoly providers with captive markets, and excuses are legion. If you tried to get the train company to cough up there's a distinct possibility that the member of the staff approached about the matter would stonewall you, or give you an expense reclaim form to fill out in the vague hope of getting some money back in six months' time, or obfuscate and mutter something about it all being the fault of Covid, or possibly some combination of the three.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
That's remarkably well remembered. Just went and checked his profile. Last active about four years ago. So, to answer your question, not the foggiest.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Interesting. Last time I went most people didn't want to speak English.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
That's remarkably well remembered. Just went and checked his profile. Last active about four years ago. So, to answer your question, not the foggiest.
Feels like just yesterday. Then again, several years of Covid interrupting ordinary life means a lot of things seem like they were on pause, and so some long gaps have not felt like it.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
If there were no viable alternative then they would have to effect a rescue, but I'd imagine that'd be unlikely. If a train delivers a disabled passenger to a platform that cannot be escaped from without recourse either to stairs or lift, and the lift was out of service and unable to be immediately fixed, then in the first instance one would've thought it would be up to the train company to put the passenger back on another service, get them to a platform elsewhere that was accessible, and then order them a cab (at the expense said company) to allow them to complete their journey.
What would probably happen in practice, of course, is that once the passenger got to the alternative station they'd be left to arrange and shell out for the onward journey themselves. As we all know standards of customer service are variable to say the least, are especially likely to be poor in monopoly providers with captive markets, and excuses are legion. If you tried to get the train company to cough up there's a distinct possibility that the member of the staff approached about the matter would stonewall you, or give you an expense reclaim form to fill out in the vague hope of getting some money back in six months' time, or obfuscate and mutter something about it all being the fault of Covid, or possibly some combination of the three.
And if there were a fire, nuclear meltdown, terrorist attack or plane crash, and no engines were available due to cats and rail incompetence, and the closure of stations, then the fire service would get the blame.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Interesting. Last time I went most people didn't want to speak English.
They’ve realised English is the lingua Franca of tourism, and accepted the fact, perhaps belatedly
Those refugee stats from Ukraine are numbingly horrible
“By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country”
What a bleak bleak statistic. My god. All those kids
I know a Ukrainian lady, early 20s, did so SMM work for us as a contractor. Her and her parents fled, and have been put up in Berlin by the German government, while her two brothers have stayed to fight.
It's pretty horrendous.
But - assuming Ukraine wins the war - they'll be going back. There's a steely determination not to let their country be taken away. (And there's a realisation that if you're not a part of the fight, you're probably better off not being there.)
“Assuming Ukraine wins the war”
How the heck does that happen? You really think Ukraine can defeat…. Russia?
I got totally wasted with a youngish Russian couple last night. Emigres from the war hiding out in Armenia. We drank vodka late into the night and they revealed some fascinating stuff
I’ll go into details some other time but what struck me was the guy, 38, smart, IT dude, who told me he hated the war but “in the end I want Russia to win it. Russia is my country”
And this is a highly intelligent westernised critic of the war?
Putin has successfully framed the war as Russia V the West. Not Ukraine. Russia will not and cannot lose in that situation.
The best we can hope for is both sides get bogged down and eventually sue for peace with the territorial gains for Russia largely where they are now
The worst (and much less likely thankfully) is that Ukraine collapses completely
Either way I cannot see Ukraine “winning” and Russia “losing”, except perhaps over many many years if and when Ukraine resists like Afghanistan.
You could of course compare your 38 year old emigre to all those men of a similar age in Ukraine who have enlisted in the military. Russia has raised the maximum age for a new recruit in it army to 50 and they are having to pay them big bucks. That doesn't indicate a lot of 'will' to me.
Whilst people can talk about what they like on here , on this railway passenger issue I am just going to limit my contribution to the below challenge of whether fire people actually do rescue cats? .Why? Well tbh we get a lot of these types of stories in the media , more so than ever as twitter , facebook feed the mainstream media with them . On the face of it there is always an injustice or a nasty or jobsworth employee and some unfortunate is left high and dry . Then again in a population of 60 odd million , upteen train journeys , 1000s of disabled people going about their business daily sometimes a bit of shit will happen to someone. Its nothing to really analyse though for trends or for whether its the fault of nationalisation or privatisation it just is life in all its random good and bad.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police? ...
Neither of those things are rights in the US. For citizens.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
That's remarkably well remembered. Just went and checked his profile. Last active about four years ago. So, to answer your question, not the foggiest.
Feels like just yesterday. Then again, several years of Covid interrupting ordinary life means a lot of things seem like they were on pause, and so some long gaps have not felt like it.
I cannot believe the last post was four years ago. Blimey.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Interesting. Last time I went most people didn't want to speak English.
I've never had an issue with speaking English in France. I have also found everyone helpful. I take a stance of genuine embarrassment at my inability and do my best to communicate and it seems to be appreciated.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1538360937480179716 You've probably heard On Here in the wake of Uvalde that cops have no legal duty to protect you. The case establishing that rule, though, is even worse than you think. This is a thread on the 2005 SCOTUS case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.…
A 7-2 majority on SCOTUS, I read - and therefore clearly not just "right wing jurisprudence".
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
If there were no viable alternative then they would have to effect a rescue, but I'd imagine that'd be unlikely. If a train delivers a disabled passenger to a platform that cannot be escaped from without recourse either to stairs or lift, and the lift was out of service and unable to be immediately fixed, then in the first instance one would've thought it would be up to the train company to put the passenger back on another service, get them to a platform elsewhere that was accessible, and then order them a cab (at the expense said company) to allow them to complete their journey.
What would probably happen in practice, of course, is that once the passenger got to the alternative station they'd be left to arrange and shell out for the onward journey themselves. As we all know standards of customer service are variable to say the least, are especially likely to be poor in monopoly providers with captive markets, and excuses are legion. If you tried to get the train company to cough up there's a distinct possibility that the member of the staff approached about the matter would stonewall you, or give you an expense reclaim form to fill out in the vague hope of getting some money back in six months' time, or obfuscate and mutter something about it all being the fault of Covid, or possibly some combination of the three.
Tbf whenever there has been a breakdown or an 'alternate bus service' the train companies have ordered a pre-paid taxi for me and any other wheelchair passengers (which is odd because the buses are usually wheechair accessible these days).
It would be a mistake to leave the ECHR but it is a far more honest policy than pretending to implement laws that are not consistent with it and then moaning about the left establishment, judges and even the EU which is not involved.
I see no problem with negotiating with others to try and update the ECHR to reflect modern life but very much doubt the current lot in power have any interest in the hard work that involves or the patience to make such a tactic work. A serious govt should be doing that and using UK soft power to progress it, whilst accepting and understanding it might take several years for the right international conditions for progress to be met.
Far easier to abdicate responsibility by deliberately creating laws they know will get struck down so the reason the problems are seen to get worse over time lies with the courts rather than government. So I expect we will continue to talk about leaving the ECHR, perhaps a little more loudly over time, but not actually leave it or do anything constructive to reform it.
Or we could just leave the ECHR and have Parliament change the law subject to democratic consent.
If the ECHR needs to be updated to reflect modern life then we should do that via Parliament, not negotiations.
As I said, although it would be a mistake, that approach would be a far honest policy. That means it is unlikely to be the chosen path of this particular government. Also I don't think it would be part of a manifesto that could get a majority (unless against another Corbyn type of course).
I think it's complicated in the UK by the lack of a written constitution.
Imagine a government was elected with 326 MPs in the UK that changed the law so that Jews no longer got the vote. Or that people born in Australia could not own property.
In the US, this wouldn't be possible because there is something above the decisions of Parliament/Congress - the Constitution - that cannot easily be overridden by 51% of those elected. (Who might - as in 2005 - be those chosen by just 35% of voters.)
The goal is to ensure that certain rights cannot be stripped from the 49% by the 51%.
If you wish to rid us of the foreign oversight of the EHCR, then - to my mind - we need to solve this issue.
Completely disagreed. The USA ought to have shown in recent years just how useless a written constitution is in protecting civil liberties, if the government wants to water down or reverse those liberties then whoever controls the courts controls how the constitution is interpreted. See the USA or the ECHR Victor Orban's Hungary.
The way to ensure that we have a liberal society is to value Jews and others so that we won't elect a government that would do that, and if an horrendous government tried to do that, then we'd oust them and reverse it - not put our faith in documents like constitutions or international courts etc that are not accountable.
I'm not saying that the US system is perfect (it's clearly not). But your idea of protection of rights is ensuring that someone illeberal doesn't get elected. That's not protection, that's hope and pray.
In the US, during the Trump era, the Supreme Court repeatedly stepped in and said "no, that would be unconstitutional".
Most political systems have checks and balances. That's not an accident.
You seem to propose getting rid of all checks and balances.
And, by the way, this is a particular issue in the UK, because FPTP can create very disproportionate results. In 2005, a Labour government got a majority not very different to Boris Johnson's on just 35% of the vote.
Sorry @rcs1000 but I wholeheartedly and completely disagree with you.
For roughly 800+ years of English/British history we have, with a few exceptions, evolved our rights in a positive direction, democratically. Key to that has for most of that time, but especially post-Cromwell been a strong Parliament subject to democratic oversight. Of course the demos evolved over time too, but it has worked. We have checks and balances, they're called MPs and General Elections. The ability to 'kick the bastards out' provides a level of oversight, check and balance that keeps our politics by and large honest and allows us to kick out the buggers that aren't.
...
Yes, democracy may be flawed, and it isn't perfect. Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried, in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends democracy is all perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government - except for all the others that have been tried from time to time ...
RCS100 is quite correct.
It is a conventional conservative position to support checks and balances.
Your idea that "the Mother of all Parliaments" will provide the necessary oversight has a curiously 19th century feeling to it.
If you have been arguing that Parliament should enjoy more powers to improve oversight, I apologise. But it seems you took another view during the impasse under May.
It is also an argument that would facilitate an elective dictatorship.
You just have to ask yourself how you would like the opposition leader of your nightmares (mine is Farage, yours is Ed Balls) to enjoy three terms in office with no constraints.
The only checks and balance that exists is the people, and Parliament. The idea that "international law" will provide the necessary oversight has a curiously 20th century feeling to it, which is quite clearly not the case in reality.
You do remember wrong during the impasse under May, considering I was on the side of May's opponents I was fully endorsing the oversight that was happening. Just as I now endorse opponents to Boris too.
The notion of an "elective dictatorship" is totally erroneous since even when eg an 80 seat majority is won, it only takes ~40 critics on the backbenches to force the government to u-turn. If you want to see what an actual dictatorship looks like, don't look at Parliament, look at the past couple of decades in Russia . . . all while under the jurisdiction of the ECHR.
Democracy is a constraint. The ECHR is not a constraint, as shown by the fact we can leave it if we want to - and ignore it and blackmail it (as per Russia) if we want to further make a mockery out of it while not technically leaving it.
You're completely right that I would dislike an Ed Balls led government having three terms of office, constrained only by Parliament, but if he were elected, I would respect it. Accepting your opponents winning elections is a fundamental principle in democracies and we lose that at our peril - see America. But to answer your question, even if a government I dislike were constrained only by Parliament - I would have the opportunity to oust it and replace it with a government I'd prefer.
I would prefer a government led by Jeremy Corbyn with John McDonnell as Chancellor of the Exchequer, constrained by Parliament, than a Russia-style end of democracy with PM for life David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, unchecked by democracy but 'checked' by the ECHR.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Interesting. Last time I went most people didn't want to speak English.
My experience, rural France, is that most people cannot speak English, not that they don't want to.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police? ...
Neither of those things are rights in the US. For citizens.
But they are in the UK. So should they be denied to those people who are here but whose right to be in the country has yet to be established?
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
It’s my experience, and I have travelled widely in France. The change has been palpable in the last ten years
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
Whilst people can talk about what they like on here , on this railway passenger issue I am just going to limit my contribution to the below challenge of whether fire people actually do rescue cats? .Why? Well tbh we get a lot of these types of stories in the media , more so than ever as twitter , facebook feed the mainstream media with them . On the face of it there is always an injustice or a nasty or jobsworth employee and some unfortunate is left high and dry . Then again in a population of 60 odd million , upteen train journeys , 1000s of disabled people going about their business daily sometimes a bit of shit will happen to someone. Its nothing to really analyse though for trends or for whether its the fault of nationalisation or privatisation it just is life in all its random good and bad.
Fair point. It does seem to happen to me more than average though.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
I think @leon is correct provided you don't act in an arrogant way by expecting it. Unfortunately I have witnessed several Brits who just do seem to think it is their right to shout in English and be understood. Under those scenarios you will encounter a lack of comprehension and deservingly so.
“An average of 57.25 percent of people in France have 'reasonable proficiency' in English, rising to 60.28 percent in Paris. The report doesn't break down age groups, but anecdotal evidence suggests that young people in France speak better English than their parents, so the improvement is likely to continue.”
This suggests I am right. The large majority of young French people will have some command of English
Cats can get down from trees perfectly well. It's just that they are such prima donnas if they can get someone else to do something for them they will.
"[W]hen you yell at a dog, his tail will go between his legs and cover his genitals, his ears will go down. A dog is very easy to break, but cats make you work for their affection. They don't sell out the way dogs do." - Robert De Niro in "Meet the Parents".
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
The Fire Service really dislike being assumed to be able to deal with random tasks others can't be arsed dealing with. Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars. Cats and train lifts no.
If there were no viable alternative then they would have to effect a rescue, but I'd imagine that'd be unlikely. If a train delivers a disabled passenger to a platform that cannot be escaped from without recourse either to stairs or lift, and the lift was out of service and unable to be immediately fixed, then in the first instance one would've thought it would be up to the train company to put the passenger back on another service, get them to a platform elsewhere that was accessible, and then order them a cab (at the expense said company) to allow them to complete their journey.
What would probably happen in practice, of course, is that once the passenger got to the alternative station they'd be left to arrange and shell out for the onward journey themselves. As we all know standards of customer service are variable to say the least, are especially likely to be poor in monopoly providers with captive markets, and excuses are legion. If you tried to get the train company to cough up there's a distinct possibility that the member of the staff approached about the matter would stonewall you, or give you an expense reclaim form to fill out in the vague hope of getting some money back in six months' time, or obfuscate and mutter something about it all being the fault of Covid, or possibly some combination of the three.
And if there were a fire, nuclear meltdown, terrorist attack or plane crash, and no engines were available due to cats and rail incompetence, and the closure of stations, then the fire service would get the blame.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
You might be disappointed. The food really HAS declined. It’s partly a relative decline - so much of the world has caught up (or overtaken) in matters gastronomic ergo France no longer stands out, and it’s partly an absolute decline - things like French labour laws have made it hard for those tiny rural places (once such a joy, I agree) to do what they did. A lot of them now serve microwave food sent from huge factories near Paris. Ugh!
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Interesting. Last time I went most people didn't want to speak English.
They’ve realised English is the lingua Franca of tourism, and accepted the fact, perhaps belatedly
This year's Eurovision was the first ever without any French-language songs. The French entry was actually sung in Breton.
It is at this juncture that we must remind ourselves that Nigel Farage actually won the biggest share of votes and seats, in nationwide parliamentary elections in the UK under a proportional system. Twice. Though, granted, the circumstances of the second win were farcical.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1538360937480179716 You've probably heard On Here in the wake of Uvalde that cops have no legal duty to protect you. The case establishing that rule, though, is even worse than you think. This is a thread on the 2005 SCOTUS case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.…
A 7-2 majority on SCOTUS, I read - and therefore clearly not just "right wing jurisprudence".
The opinion was written by Scalia, so literally so.
And which of these other than Breyer are liberals? Scalia, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
It’s my experience, and I have travelled widely in France. The change has been palpable in the last ten years
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
If you speak French with an English accent in any remotely touristy area, odds are good that they will reply in English.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1538360937480179716 You've probably heard On Here in the wake of Uvalde that cops have no legal duty to protect you. The case establishing that rule, though, is even worse than you think. This is a thread on the 2005 SCOTUS case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.…
A 7-2 majority on SCOTUS, I read - and therefore clearly not just "right wing jurisprudence".
The opinion was written by Scalia, so literally so.
And which of these other than Breyer are liberals? Scalia, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer
It is remarkable just how much dominance the GOP has had over SCOTUS for many decades, considering the hold on the Presidency hasn't been anything like as dominant.
I suspect probably because once a majority is achieved, its easier to be kept, by elderly Justices retiring while their side holds the Oval Office and is in a position to choose their successor - something RBG refused to do ending up with Trump choosing her successor as a result.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
It’s my experience, and I have travelled widely in France. The change has been palpable in the last ten years
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
If you speak French with an English accent in any remotely touristy area, odds are good that they will reply in English.
Yes, it’s now a basic requirement for anyone working in tourism or tourist-oriented hospitality - in France, and around the world. A decent grasp of English
Indeed these days in France you sometimes get the opposite reaction from the old Gallic shrug. You ask them “do you speak English” and they smile and tut and say “of course” as if you have just slightly insulted them
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police? ...
Neither of those things are rights in the US. For citizens.
But they are in the UK. So should they be denied to those people who are here but whose right to be in the country has yet to be established?
No, of course not. The US is, of course, extremely reluctant to admit any principles of rights other than its own. It is a sovereignty maximalist.
Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian military, that more than 1.9 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, over 307,000 of them children. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1538461156544847872
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
It’s my experience, and I have travelled widely in France. The change has been palpable in the last ten years
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
If you speak French with an English accent in any remotely touristy area, odds are good that they will reply in English.
Yes, it’s now a basic requirement for anyone working in tourism or tourist-oriented hospitality - in France, and around the world. A decent grasp of English
Indeed these days in France you sometimes get the opposite reaction from the old Gallic shrug. You ask them “do you speak English” and they smile and tut and say “of course” as if you have just slightly insulted them
I got that response in the Netherlands when I went there as a student in 2001. The idea of not speaking English was utterly alien to them.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
i find it quite bewildering as France seems, at least at first glance, such a fortunate country, for the most part
Eg I look at the map of France and I see some of my favourite places on earth, like Pyrenees Orientales (which includes the idyllic seaside town of Collioure, and lots of other lovely spots) and then I notice that it voted for Le Pen?! WTF? Life is obviously not as sweet as it appear, and something is happening that my superficial traveling brain does not perceive
I don't understand it, but, France has always had wildly strange and subversive politics, and plenty of revolutions, for centuries now.
Trouble is that when Paris sneezes Europe catches a cold.
Also, France successfully hides its problems away from the more casual visitor. That’s why Stade de France was such a shocking revelation, outsiders got to see what the French have known for many years: parts of their outlying suburbs are seriously deprived, and lawless
Rural France likewise has its problems. The tranquility of the countryside adored by visitors is often caused by depopulation and stagnation
Still don’t get Pyrenees Orientales, tho
For all its undoubted problems France doesn't do too badly though does it?
The food is not what it was, the famous wine is overpriced… but otherwise, bien sur
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
There's always a good chance of a sublime lunch in the most unremarkable-looking places in rural France.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Complete tosh I'm afraid
It’s my experience, and I have travelled widely in France. The change has been palpable in the last ten years
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
If you speak French with an English accent in any remotely touristy area, odds are good that they will reply in English.
Yes, it’s now a basic requirement for anyone working in tourism or tourist-oriented hospitality - in France, and around the world. A decent grasp of English
Indeed these days in France you sometimes get the opposite reaction from the old Gallic shrug. You ask them “do you speak English” and they smile and tut and say “of course” as if you have just slightly insulted them
And not just for the benefit of native anglophones - I've lost count of the number of times in various countries I've seen native service staff conversing with tourists in English because, whilst clearly the native tongue of neither, it's the language they have most of in common.
"Wheelchair user dragged himself up stairs ‘after rail staff refused to help’ Chris Nicholson was left stranded on platform at Milton Keynes station in 31C heat"
Tbh, if a situation occurred where I was stuck on the platform and needed to lifted up a flight of stairs to exit, I'd really want a group of people with some sort of training not a bunch of novices who might put me and themselves in danger.
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
What happened to the poster on here who was in fire service, i think in sheffield? His tag was @TwistedFireStopper ?
Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian military, that more than 1.9 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, over 307,000 of them children. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1538461156544847872
We cannot appease this Macron.
Europe will never be safe again.
Macron ?
Yes.
Macron is the one wanting to appease this. Macron needs to realise we can't and shouldn't.
It tells you all you need know about Mélenchon that he responded to his second place, somewhat ahead of Le Pen's huge bloc, with "we have succeeded" because Ensemble lost a majority. (Note, he had also been telling people a few days ago that he was still running for Prime Minister.)
I’m just reading about him now. Uncannily similar to Corbyn, right down to the alleged anti-Semitism
He’s horrible
French politics is being assailed by the far-right and the far-left at the same time.
It is in a terrible place.
BTW nice to see you on here again. If you have time I had some questions for you in relation to a comment you made on the migration thread the other day and I would be genuinely interested in your answers, if and when you have the time.
Thanks for your kind words.
I'm on holiday in Bulgaria at the moment, up at my parents-in-law's villa in a small village in the hills overlooking the Thracian plain, so only dropping in from time to time but I'd be happy to take a look if you'd remind me?
Doesn't mean I'll have the answers mind. It's a desperately complex issue but one we have to try and solve, and I've found the debate on here interesting.
Gosh, enjoy your holiday! It sounds lovely.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I'd like everyone in the world to enjoy decent rights but I don't think it's sustainable to say that all of our rights apply, in full, immediately to anyone who turns up within our territorial jurisdiction until their status has first been established.
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
You are talking about migrants rather than, say, an Italian citizen legally living here, I assume. It's just that you keep referring to British citizens and I am not clear whether you think that even non-British citizens living here legally should be denied certain rights and, if so, which ones.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police?
I just want to understand the specific practical implications of what you see as the difference between citizens and those who aren't.
Also: British excludes Irish, at least in a strict interpretation. Presumably UK subject is meant rather than British citizen.
Britain is synonymous with UK; Great Britain is not. The Good Friday Agreement gives the people of Northern Ireland a Schrödinger-esque nationality: British; Irish; both.
Comments
If Ukraine repels Russian aggression (as I hope they do) it will be because of conventional strength, not partisan warfare.
Still, Ensemble still finished in first place, and their main party is a purely personalist bloc for Macron, so there's no clear message about what people want beyond "emmerder".
I doubt it.
What never made sense in the first place was placing Germany's energy supply at the mercy of the poisonous autocrat of Moscow. The Chancellor has been reluctantly dragged in the direction of correcting this mistake (the greatest champion of which was ex-SPD predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, of course,) but IIRC the Greens have actually been taking the lead in forcing him to do so, as the more pro-Ukrainian element of the German coalition.
Monbiot for one has called for nukes as an emergency climate measure iirc.
Food, wine, weather, cheeses, mountains, charcuterie, history, pre-history, art, roads, railways, rivers, chateaux, restaurants, beaches, bistros... (did I mention the food?)
Both need qualifying. So on the former the Right to Family Life should grant a right to enjoy family relationships without interference from government, but should not be used as a Trojan Horse to get round migration laws through arguing, for example, for reunification with relatives already here. Similarly, on the latter, if there's real evidence someone is at real risk of torture or abuse, based on past experience, and is a genuine exile then we should be generous but we shouldn't avoid deporting anyone to any country that doesn't maintain our standards, particularly when this appeal is made late in the day and only when such deportation looks likely.
In general I'd take a dim view of any asylum seeker who crossed the channel and didn't first raise or register such a claim in France or any other safe European country and increase the burden of proof on them because at the moment they can play the game and we are always obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Personally, I think this is bollocks. It is up to a state to determine whether or not someone who has committed a crime worthy of imprisonment should, for the duration of their incarceration, not have the privilege of voting. I would not go as far many US states who provide that you never get to vote again (especially if you are black, natch) but this seems to me something legislatures have the right to decide.
I don't like nuclear, but it would be better to keep their plants open for now and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Similarly I can see an argument for closing nuclear and coal and choosing gas for other reasons.
But not all at the same time. That's what doesn't make sense and that's because Schulz prizes short term political gains above longer term goals and his ministers are obsessed with carbon targets.
This was the comment. I sort of understand where you are coming from ie that being a British citizen should mean something.
"If @Casino_Royale is around, I'd be interested in what he means by this comment on a previous thread:
"Random Johnnys from around the world who turn up illicitly on our shores having illegally entered the country should not be entitled to the full panoply of human rights enjoyed by existing citizens.
This stuff isn't hard."
Are only British citizens to have human rights?
Which human rights are to be denied to people who have arrived "illegally"?
Are they to be denied the right to prove that they have a right to be here?
As I understand it, an asylum-seeker is person who has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination and everybody has a right to seek asylum in another country. So until that process has been concluded I am not clear how you can say that a person is illegal.
If you mean people who come here without seeking asylum and wishing to enter the "black economy" and live here away from the prying eyes of the state, how does the state deny them human rights if it does not know of their existence?
And how then do you take action against traffickers or gang masters or those practising modern slavery or people abusing trafficked girls in prostitution if those victims -here illegally - do not have the same human rights as citizens?"
Have fun.
I don't know whether he was telling the truth but he did at least eventually find someone who was a fully signed-off 'ramp-putter-outer'. And at least at Waterloo the train wasn't going anywhere for half an hour - at the other end I have several times missed my station 'cos 'no ramp' and had to be collected by Mrs P from the next station.
Minor examples of this are sadly only too common in my experience.
In the medium term I'd agree with you that nuclear generation would appear to make sense as a means to generate reliable baseload until someone cracks the problem of what to do when you're overly reliant on wind turbines and the wind won't blow hard enough for long enough. True, it's also very expensive, but so are the consequences of global heating. However, if the Germans have a workable plan for managing without it, which doesn't involve declining to decarbonise and continuing to burn natural gas for a long time, then I'd be intrigued to know what it is.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1538360937480179716
You've probably heard On Here in the wake of Uvalde that cops have no legal duty to protect you. The case establishing that rule, though, is even worse than you think. This is a thread on the 2005 SCOTUS case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.…
They are of a different status to British citizens who have right of abode here and the government does not owe them the same duty of care; it has to balance their rights with the rights of its own citizens to have effective border control - confidence in the government over who has the right to enter and settle here. I don't think anyone who's not a British citizen has a right to be here - that's our decision.
I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this but I think that balance needs revisiting.
Which of the Convention rights would you deny to someone in this country who is not a British citizen?
If money was not an issue and I could live anywhere on earth, Provence or Languedoc would be high on my list
I think I'd call the Fire Service - I suspect their crews have some relevant training, and if they're prepared to rescue cats from trees, I am sure they'd rescue man a in wheelchair from a railway platform.
Lefty spilts == popcorn sales.
https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1538609898400931840
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1538461156544847872
Europe will never be safe again.
Fires yes. And getting folk out of smashed up cars.
Cats and train lifts no.
It's no bed of roses for many reasons, French bureaucracy being high among them.
Or at least there was, it's a few years since we were there. We're back there in September - I'm hoping it's not another of those "things I thought would last forever but are now disappearing/disappeared".
Btw did you catch Stanley Tucci's series on Italian Food on BBC recently? There's another country with wonderful cuisine.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10925327/Disabled-passenger-suffers-fatal-injuries-falling-Gatwick-Airport-escalator.html
That he didn't is similar to many keyboard warriors. Likes to say they support something, but doesn't actually want to do anything about it.
Re migrants: do you think that they should have the right to have their claim to be considered for settlement here properly and fairly considered? (I am not BTW disputing your statement that a country has the right to reject such a claim. It's the process for reaching that decision I am interested in.)
If they were injured in an accident or beaten up or the victim of crime do you think that they should have a right to health care or the assistance of the police?
I just want to understand the specific practical implications of what you see as the difference between citizens and those who aren't.
Is that actually what is stated? I'm not sure that is the only or indeed the main reason for punishment. They are punished because that is seen to be justice. There would be outrage amongst victims and their families if that wasn't the case. The state would lose legitimacy. There is also the issue of deterrence and keeping dangerous people off the streets (which bluntly seems to have been the main purpose of our justice policy in recent years).
Because they are kind hearted macho working class types.
But they really oughtn't to. They are needed for emergencies.
It just isn't the Fire Services job to sort out an issue for train companies.
Should someone else be available to provide assistance? Sure, but in their absence calling the Fire and Rescue Service would make sense.
There was me thinking that Russia is an inhumane, totalitarian dictatorship, that has shut down all free speech, political opponents have been prosecuted and murdered and extrajudicial killings routinely occur.
But it turns out that Russia is a font of human rights, enshrined by its membership of the completely not a miserable failure ECHR.
How fortunate to learn that. Every day is a school day on this site.
What would probably happen in practice, of course, is that once the passenger got to the alternative station they'd be left to arrange and shell out for the onward journey themselves. As we all know standards of customer service are variable to say the least, are especially likely to be poor in monopoly providers with captive markets, and excuses are legion. If you tried to get the train company to cough up there's a distinct possibility that the member of the staff approached about the matter would stonewall you, or give you an expense reclaim form to fill out in the vague hope of getting some money back in six months' time, or obfuscate and mutter something about it all being the fault of Covid, or possibly some combination of the three.
In my experience the best places are the massive old brasseries. They are still a joy, and serve reliable delicious French comfort food
The towns and landscapes remain bewitching, the people are still faintly irritating - but friendlier than they were, and almost everyone under 40 speaks English, and doesn’t mind doing so
Then again in a population of 60 odd million , upteen train journeys , 1000s of disabled people going about their business daily sometimes a bit of shit will happen to someone. Its nothing to really analyse though for trends or for whether its the fault of nationalisation or privatisation it just is life in all its random good and bad.
Given the way most discussions go, a button saying that something is On Topic would be more appropriate.
Most threads are entirely Off Topic.
PS Will my stalker will mark this as Off Topic too?
Seems she/he has not been active for four years.
I feel old...
You do remember wrong during the impasse under May, considering I was on the side of May's opponents I was fully endorsing the oversight that was happening. Just as I now endorse opponents to Boris too.
The notion of an "elective dictatorship" is totally erroneous since even when eg an 80 seat majority is won, it only takes ~40 critics on the backbenches to force the government to u-turn. If you want to see what an actual dictatorship looks like, don't look at Parliament, look at the past couple of decades in Russia . . . all while under the jurisdiction of the ECHR.
Democracy is a constraint. The ECHR is not a constraint, as shown by the fact we can leave it if we want to - and ignore it and blackmail it (as per Russia) if we want to further make a mockery out of it while not technically leaving it.
You're completely right that I would dislike an Ed Balls led government having three terms of office, constrained only by Parliament, but if he were elected, I would respect it. Accepting your opponents winning elections is a fundamental principle in democracies and we lose that at our peril - see America. But to answer your question, even if a government I dislike were constrained only by Parliament - I would have the opportunity to oust it and replace it with a government I'd prefer.
I would prefer a government led by Jeremy Corbyn with John McDonnell as Chancellor of the Exchequer, constrained by Parliament, than a Russia-style end of democracy with PM for life David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, unchecked by democracy but 'checked' by the ECHR.
Jeez.
Is there no end to the 2020s madness?
Australia still has only counted less than 90% of the vote.
France makes us look tardy.
I can’t remember the last time i got that peevish sigh and a shake of the head when I asked parley vous - not from anyone under 40 anyway
However, I accept you may have a deeper experience, having lived there
That might be due to the wheelchair I guess;)
Way to go.
“An average of 57.25 percent of people in France have 'reasonable proficiency' in English, rising to 60.28 percent in Paris. The report doesn't break down age groups, but anecdotal evidence suggests that young people in France speak better English than their parents, so the improvement is likely to continue.”
This suggests I am right. The large majority of young French people will have some command of English
- Robert De Niro in "Meet the Parents".
Most to come are in Paris and Ile de France.
Still a lot. And way above expectations.
And quite appropriately too.
And which of these other than Breyer are liberals?
Scalia, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PDmZnG8KsM
I suspect probably because once a majority is achieved, its easier to be kept, by elderly Justices retiring while their side holds the Oval Office and is in a position to choose their successor - something RBG refused to do ending up with Trump choosing her successor as a result.
Maybe we need a Conservative, like Thatcher, to take us into the Common Market...
Indeed these days in France you sometimes get the opposite reaction from the old Gallic shrug. You ask them “do you speak English” and they smile and tut and say “of course” as if you have just slightly insulted them
The US is, of course, extremely reluctant to admit any principles of rights other than its own. It is a sovereignty maximalist.
Macron is the one wanting to appease this. Macron needs to realise we can't and shouldn't.