Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
So, you're objecting to the fact that a British history class focuses on the actions of the British?
This isn't fair I don't think. In my reading @Leon's objection is to the lack of context. The Atlantic slave trade is no less repulsive if compared to other slave trades, but if this is seen as a global moral problem not an exclusively European one we can make different, better conclusions as to what to learn from that period of our history.
I know little about the Islamic trade in slaves, but @Leon's comments are prompting me to try to find out.
That is just wrong. The wholesale commoditisation of slaves to facilitate an entirely new and frivolous trade, by a supposedly enlightened and Christian society which had abandoned slavery for half a millennium, was a whole new ball game. Doesn't matter what the Arabs were up to.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
Returning to the rental sector that existed from 1965-88 with sitting tenants and "fair" rents is utterly stupid. Ultimately, you finish up with the sector dominated by shitbags like Hoogrstaaten who buy up freeholds cheaply, and then evict the tenants with menaces.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 3m Average of 5 latest polls 17-24 Jun Lab 39% 311 seats Con 33% 249 Lib Dem 12% 16 Green 5% 1 Starmer PM with Lib Dem support
Personally I am not a fan of “poll of polls” or “average of last 5 polls” type of thing, for example is Rentoul including the Opinium with built in swingback in that? Or worse, different firms methodologies mean different average what time of month you cut it. For example we have got Kantor and an Opinium out the way in last few days, very unlikely to get a John Owls asking Starmer fans to explain for at least two weeks now. The mirror of that is polls should say 6 point or more lead for next few weeks now as fools gold excitement for Labour fans.
After Kantor and Opinium who next give the lowest lead? Yougov don’t count due to inconsistency, we could get a 2 from them but either side 7. Probably techne?
Techne 6, survation 7. ComRes are as up and down as YouGov (11, 6, 11), just leaves Redfield 9 and the last MORI mid May at 6
The mori is once a month and comes with reams of ratings and is one I have a lot of faith in.
Different methodology again. Based on 10/10 certainty to vote which should deflate the Tory score mid term in government. It was them that gave Cameron's Tories the infamous 52 to 24 lead over Labour in 2008 and 'Con GAIN Glasgow South' Much more reliable as we approach a vote and opinion firms imo
Which brings us nicely to the Mori 10/10 certain (which as you say should weed out the unlikely to vote respondents whilst on eve of election) and the Opinium 9% lead response tinkered down to three in what they call swingback - do both these methods only account on the headline voting, or tinkered all down in the satisfaction ratings? Because best PM had Boris up there with labour does it have swingback built into that too?
I dunno. Redfield only has Starmer a small % ahead.
I think Mike Smithson posted it’s not often Loto get much lead as it’s rating that favours incumbent. HY too stands up for Starmer saying logo’s don’t often get a long lead in this one.
True, although i think there is a Boris factor at play here. He seems particularly divisive
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
The 1807 did not abolish slavery but did put significant obstacles in the way of the salve trade. The actual abolition of the trade was in 1832 and it was not a Tory government that did it
Canada abolished slavery in the 1790s so Britain was not the first, but slavery had no legal basis in the UK from the dark ages onward
Lots of nuances...
French abolished it 1795 but NB reinstated it
The British claim that it was never OK *in Britain* doesn't get them off any hooks that I can see
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
On topic, I disagree. The startling arithmetic is sooooo in favour of the Tories, Lab and Lib starting so far behind, incumbency bonus, if swap out Boris for Mourdant current polls like those quoted in header could soon change and the Tories hold onto a bit of their majority is not out of the question by any means.
Replacing Boris could be enough.
Seriously?
Sort of, yes. We can’t rule it entirely out. Penny is very popular on PB. If she has a good 18 months and the public like her, as I said with landslide majority to defend, opposition not cutting through, incumbency bonus too (Davison Bishop Aukland and fletcher bullsover are brilliant) there’s a chance changing leader could be enough to hold on to power.
Sort of no, although a % chance of this, I have it below 50% happening, firstly someone else could get the crown, Rishi and Truss, and the public likely not to trust them as it appears today, and secondly does anyone really want it right now, with the tanking economy likely lead to a difficult election, if you were serious about your stint of leader you would look for election to remove Boris, likely a hung Parliament and fantastic opportunity for a fresh start.
I think PB Tories becoming resigned to no saviour coming this side of the election now.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did something similar for A level in 1961. Also Europe 800-1492 - lots about Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
Slavery reaped incredible profits for a very small number of people. It did not create wealth, but rather redistributed it upwards.
All the evidence is that slavery retards overall economic development. The beneficiaries tend to waste the profits in competitive, conspicuous consumption. A bigger country mansion, better racehorses, more lavish entertainments etc.
There's a reason why the US South lagged so far behind the North in terms of industrialisation, and the amount of capital tied up in slave plantations is at the heart of it. Working, building up businesses, inventing things does far more to boost the economy than living in luxury while your overseers lash people to grow cash crops.
Lucy Fisher @LOS_Fisher 👀 Alistair Carmichael hints Lib Dems cd entertain coalition at next elxn w/ Tories if Johnson goes
At present idea not a ‘realistic prospect’, but if Tories do ‘sensible, honourable thing’ & oust Johnson, ‘we cd be presented with a v different political landscape’
It is conceivable that after the next election, neither the Conservatives nor a Labour/Lib Dem coalition could command a majority without the support of, for example, the SNP.
Many Lib Dem voters, let alone Lib Dem MPs, would prefer working with Conservatives over an agreement with the SNP. I would assume that most Lib Dem voters in Scotland are likely to be unionists.
There are still members of the current Conservative government who served in the Coalition government - it's not inconceivable that behind all of the public vitriol they have a reasonable relationship with their Orange-Booker, former cabinet colleague, Ed Davey.
Carmichael's sin may be to think out loud, but the idea that the party should only entertain the notion of coalition with Labour rather than Conservatives rather defeats the purpose of the Lib Dems being their own seperate party to start with.
After all, despite what the Conservatives say, this is not a formal Lib Dem/Labour alliance - so the Lib Dems wouldn't be betraying any kind of agreement with Labour.
It would have to be a major about face on Europe for the LDs to support a Conservative minority government. Either could change policy, but neither is going to change in the next decade, so it isn't going to happen.
The problem with any history syllabus is that there's so much darned history, and the bastards keep on making more of it.
Take GCSE maths. It should be fairly easy to decide what is in a GCSE maths syllabus (will get harder at A-level though). Numbers, algebra, statistics, geometry, graphs, etc, at a basic level. A pass mark in GCSE maths should mean a pupil has enough maths skills to cope with everyday life.
But history... what do you teach about history? Of the massive amount of history out there, what do you choose to teach? And why those particular choices?
It is not just that there is lots of history; after all, there are lots of French words and even more numbers. In olden times, history was taught as a gentle amble through the history of wherever you lived and then Britain, in chronological order, with emphasis on regnal dates and battles. That is what Michael Gove wanted to return to. It will have included slavery.
Now, GCSE history has been chopped up into modules, presented out of order. Lots is left out; some is included about foreigners like the unification of Italy; some barely history at all like Middle East wars since the 1990s. Maybe Prince Charles is saying there should be a compulsory slavery topic; possibly he is struggling to remember what he learned at school in 1960s Scotland.
There is also the problem that history does not get harder in the same way that other subjects do, like maths or physics (even though those subjects are taught in opposite directions) so if you did teach in chronological order, children will necessarily be younger at the slave trade than at the Holocaust, although they might have dropped history by then.
Lots is left out in any presentation of history. The older way of teaching history, the gentle amble you refer to, left lots out. It focused on a few battles that supported a national myth, while ignoring other periods of history, and ignoring the perspectives of the peasants, of women, of those who were colonised, and ignoring the role of changing trade patterns and how economic systems evolved, and ignoring the role of technological innovation (except for the long bow!), etc.
Are the Middle East wars of the 1990s history? When I was at school in the 1970s, people did the run-up to World War II in history class, events ~40 years before. The First Gulf War was 32 years ago, not much closer to now.
History absolutely gets harder as other subjects do. One needs to go from thinking of history as a set of facts about the past to understanding that history is necessarily a set of varied perspectives built on limited and unreliable information that is routinely abused to tell myths about the modern world. This latter understanding seems rarely to have been achieved by those who decry any teaching of history that deviates from their nostalgic memories of childhood.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
So, you're objecting to the fact that a British history class focuses on the actions of the British?
This isn't fair I don't think. In my reading @Leon's objection is to the lack of context. The Atlantic slave trade is no less repulsive if compared to other slave trades, but if this is seen as a global moral problem not an exclusively European one we can make different, better conclusions as to what to learn from that period of our history.
I know little about the Islamic trade in slaves, but @Leon's comments are prompting me to try to find out.
That is just wrong. The wholesale commoditisation of slaves to facilitate an entirely new and frivolous trade, by a supposedly enlightened and Christian society which had abandoned slavery for half a millennium, was a whole new ball game. Doesn't matter what the Arabs were up to.
You might well be right. And of course someon has to pick what to teach and what not to teach. But a lesson or two in schools comparing the Altantic slave trade to other slave trades is still important, even if (especially if) the conclusion is as you say.
Of course, it could just be another case of whataboutery. But then a history class could call that out, which in itself would be really valuable.
Mr. Mark, the letters only matter if the rules change, though. Or the PM goes first.
The 22 Rules won't even consider being changed to allow an earlier vote until they reach a number which suggests a different outcome.
If they reach those levels, Brady will tell the PM the game is up. He will give Boris 48 hours to get his affairs in order, as a courtesy. But if he doesn't see the podium out in Downing Street within those 48 hours, the 22 will meet to arrange a second vote - on the back of overwhelming disquiet amongst the Parliamentary Party. Which will be cited as the reason.
And not to forget fury in the constituency committee and chairs
Wasn't he around last night? I wasn't so, I don't know!
Anyway he's probably at church.
He was on first thing this morning (as in, 1.20 am) according to his profile, but didn’t post.
Quick offering on Roe, I think. Popped in, said what the SC has gone and done is liked by many (with a poll) and popped out again. Didn't take questions.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
And pays off the mortgages...
He will have needed 25% deposit on them so he's looking at towards a million in equity post sale even if they were all bought recently.
Depends how he bought them - if he used equity withdrawal to raise the subsequent deposits then extracting yourself from the mess as HMRC chase money could be difficult
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
White=Bad is ridiculous. But the Atlantic trade took things to new levels of evil (just as there was no shortage of pogroms before the 1930s and 40s), and we don't teach the good points of the Nazi regime. The Raj on the other hand...
I don't think there's any form of chattel slavery that's anything other than evil. There's often a notion that it wasn't that bad in the ancient world. In reality, it was horrific.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
You wouldn't. You ceased to be a Scot Nat campaigner here a long time ago, because you began to enjoy commenting and reading for their own sakes. It's the same in all cases, regardless of whatever 'good fight' you came here to fight. You should just embrace it.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Lucy Fisher @LOS_Fisher 👀 Alistair Carmichael hints Lib Dems cd entertain coalition at next elxn w/ Tories if Johnson goes
At present idea not a ‘realistic prospect’, but if Tories do ‘sensible, honourable thing’ & oust Johnson, ‘we cd be presented with a v different political landscape’
It is conceivable that after the next election, neither the Conservatives nor a Labour/Lib Dem coalition could command a majority without the support of, for example, the SNP.
Many Lib Dem voters, let alone Lib Dem MPs, would prefer working with Conservatives over an agreement with the SNP. I would assume that most Lib Dem voters in Scotland are likely to be unionists.
There are still members of the current Conservative government who served in the Coalition government - it's not inconceivable that behind all of the public vitriol they have a reasonable relationship with their Orange-Booker, former cabinet colleague, Ed Davey.
Carmichael's sin may be to think out loud, but the idea that the party should only entertain the notion of coalition with Labour rather than Conservatives rather defeats the purpose of the Lib Dems being their own seperate party to start with.
After all, despite what the Conservatives say, this is not a formal Lib Dem/Labour alliance - so the Lib Dems wouldn't be betraying any kind of agreement with Labour.
It would have to be a major about face on Europe for the LDs to support a Conservative minority government. Either could change policy, but neither is going to change in the next decade, so it isn't going to happen.
By that logic, given that Kier Starmer is committing no return to free movement, would that not also rule out a coalition with Labour?
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
You wonder though what will happen to his tenants.
If 40% of the rental market vanishes in short order, it's going to be very difficult for them to afford rents.
In which case they may be homeless AND down the food bank in short order.
Unless Housing Associations take up the slack, but I really don't see how they can. They simply haven't got the resources.
If Gove's reforms to bring in lower rents and more security lead to higher rents and mass evictions - well, all I can say is, how typical of Gove's ability to achieve the opposite of what he wanted.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
And pays off the mortgages...
He will have needed 25% deposit on them so he's looking at towards a million in equity post sale even if they were all bought recently.
Depends how he bought them - if he used equity withdrawal to raise the subsequent deposits then extracting yourself from the mess as HMRC chase money could be difficult
Ooh, that’s a good point. If he started a decade or more ago, and kept his mortgages as high as possible on each property to fund the next purchase, he’ll also be facing a large CGT bill on each sale.
It’s an unsustainable business model once interest rates start heading up, as will inevitably keep happening over the summer.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
And pays off the mortgages...
He will have needed 25% deposit on them so he's looking at towards a million in equity post sale even if they were all bought recently.
Depends how he bought them - if he used equity withdrawal to raise the subsequent deposits then extracting yourself from the mess as HMRC chase money could be difficult
Well if he's an idiot then he doesn't deserve much sympathy really. Complicated arrangements for a couple of properties because you're concerned about retirement, understandable. 30 properties as a retirement plan under tenuous and risky financial arrangements? Greed. Edit - if he has taken a massive gamble then im afraid one outcone of that can be ruin. Have smaller, more safely attainable dreams.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
White=Bad is ridiculous. But the Atlantic trade took things to new levels of evil (just as there was no shortage of pogroms before the 1930s and 40s), and we don't teach the good points of the Nazi regime. The Raj on the other hand...
I don't think there's any form of chattel slavery that's anything other than evil. There's often a notion that it wasn't that bad in the ancient world. In reality, it was horrific.
It varied. Cicero's Tiro did OK. Laureion silver miners not so much. But the ancient world had a few excuses (always done it; can't afford to keep people idle in prison; needed for the grain harvest) not available to get rich quick C17th or 18th entrepreneurs.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did something similar for A level in 1961. Also Europe 800-1492 - lots about Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy.
The other striking thing about my History O level was its Anglocentricity. Scotland, Ireland and Wales didn't really feature at all.
I was at school in Georgia 1975-1979 so did cover slavery in an American context, and of course "Roots" was a very big TV phenomenon at the time, and heavily discussed. A lot of it is fiction, but it did illustrate how slavery worked, and also the post slavery African-American experience.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
You wouldn't. You ceased to be a Scot Nat campaigner here a long time ago, because you began to enjoy commenting and reading for their own sakes. It's the same in all cases, regardless of whatever 'good fight' you came here to fight. You should just embrace it.
I stand to be corrected but I assumed Stuart meant he’d be offski from the SNP.
The problem with any history syllabus is that there's so much darned history, and the bastards keep on making more of it.
Take GCSE maths. It should be fairly easy to decide what is in a GCSE maths syllabus (will get harder at A-level though). Numbers, algebra, statistics, geometry, graphs, etc, at a basic level. A pass mark in GCSE maths should mean a pupil has enough maths skills to cope with everyday life.
But history... what do you teach about history? Of the massive amount of history out there, what do you choose to teach? And why those particular choices?
It is not just that there is lots of history; after all, there are lots of French words and even more numbers. In olden times, history was taught as a gentle amble through the history of wherever you lived and then Britain, in chronological order, with emphasis on regnal dates and battles. That is what Michael Gove wanted to return to. It will have included slavery.
Now, GCSE history has been chopped up into modules, presented out of order. Lots is left out; some is included about foreigners like the unification of Italy; some barely history at all like Middle East wars since the 1990s. Maybe Prince Charles is saying there should be a compulsory slavery topic; possibly he is struggling to remember what he learned at school in 1960s Scotland.
There is also the problem that history does not get harder in the same way that other subjects do, like maths or physics (even though those subjects are taught in opposite directions) so if you did teach in chronological order, children will necessarily be younger at the slave trade than at the Holocaust, although they might have dropped history by then.
Lots is left out in any presentation of history. The older way of teaching history, the gentle amble you refer to, left lots out. It focused on a few battles that supported a national myth, while ignoring other periods of history, and ignoring the perspectives of the peasants, of women, of those who were colonised, and ignoring the role of changing trade patterns and how economic systems evolved, and ignoring the role of technological innovation (except for the long bow!), etc.
Are the Middle East wars of the 1990s history? When I was at school in the 1970s, people did the run-up to World War II in history class, events ~40 years before. The First Gulf War was 32 years ago, not much closer to now.
History absolutely gets harder as other subjects do. One needs to go from thinking of history as a set of facts about the past to understanding that history is necessarily a set of varied perspectives built on limited and unreliable information that is routinely abused to tell myths about the modern world. This latter understanding seems rarely to have been achieved by those who decry any teaching of history that deviates from their nostalgic memories of childhood.
Then you must despise the current GCSEs and A-levels, devised by the egregious Mr Gove and his even stupider acolytes Cummings and Spielman, which do exactly the opposite. In one feedback to one of the exam boards I compared their questions unfavourably to those of a Year 6 SATS test in English.
I must admit though as somebody who has taught history for 16 years at all levels from primary to postgrads, I don't recognise what John is saying about the school curriculum. History has always been taught in modules. And it can currently be taught chronologically or thematically, as it always could be. There are actually quite significant disadvantages to teaching it chronologically, not least that ancient history and medieval history are often much harder to understand because they are very alien to our own lived experience and you need a degree of maturity to avoid the 'Noddy' view that people in the past were thick because they didn't have computers.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
You wouldn't. You ceased to be a Scot Nat campaigner here a long time ago, because you began to enjoy commenting and reading for their own sakes. It's the same in all cases, regardless of whatever 'good fight' you came here to fight. You should just embrace it.
I meant I’d leave the SNP the minute the ink was dry.
As for commenting on this daft, obscure blog, who knows. Who cares.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
The unsaid bit, it that it’s probably a very leveraged investment, with say 25% in cash and 75% in mortgage on each property.
It’s a business model that only works with interest rates on the floor.
He’s likely still got a million in cash though, which is easy enough to make 5% from more traditional investments for a decent retirement income.
30 properties must be getting on for £10mn surely? Even with leverage he must have at least a couple of million in equity. And does being forced to let his tenants have pets and being unable to chuck them out on a whim really invalidate the whole business model?
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
And pays off the mortgages...
He will have needed 25% deposit on them so he's looking at towards a million in equity post sale even if they were all bought recently.
Depends how he bought them - if he used equity withdrawal to raise the subsequent deposits then extracting yourself from the mess as HMRC chase money could be difficult
Ooh, that’s a good point. If he started a decade or more ago, and kept his mortgages as high as possible on each property to fund the next purchase, he’ll also be facing a large CGT bill on each sale.
It’s an unsustainable business model once interest rates start heading up, as will inevitably keep happening over the summer.
There was another story a few years ago about a couple who had bought 37 properties and with changes in market conditions were afraid of losing their own home because they were so overstretched financially.
Lucy Fisher @LOS_Fisher 👀 Alistair Carmichael hints Lib Dems cd entertain coalition at next elxn w/ Tories if Johnson goes
At present idea not a ‘realistic prospect’, but if Tories do ‘sensible, honourable thing’ & oust Johnson, ‘we cd be presented with a v different political landscape’
It is conceivable that after the next election, neither the Conservatives nor a Labour/Lib Dem coalition could command a majority without the support of, for example, the SNP.
Many Lib Dem voters, let alone Lib Dem MPs, would prefer working with Conservatives over an agreement with the SNP. I would assume that most Lib Dem voters in Scotland are likely to be unionists.
There are still members of the current Conservative government who served in the Coalition government - it's not inconceivable that behind all of the public vitriol they have a reasonable relationship with their Orange-Booker, former cabinet colleague, Ed Davey.
Carmichael's sin may be to think out loud, but the idea that the party should only entertain the notion of coalition with Labour rather than Conservatives rather defeats the purpose of the Lib Dems being their own seperate party to start with.
After all, despite what the Conservatives say, this is not a formal Lib Dem/Labour alliance - so the Lib Dems wouldn't be betraying any kind of agreement with Labour.
It would have to be a major about face on Europe for the LDs to support a Conservative minority government. Either could change policy, but neither is going to change in the next decade, so it isn't going to happen.
By that logic, given that Kier Starmer is committing no return to free movement, would that not also rule out a coalition with Labour?
No, because the Labour Party is committed to reducing the obstacles to trade put up by Brexit. The direction of travel is the same. The speed and ultimate destination is the contrast. The incompatibility with the Tories on European policy is total.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
White=Bad is ridiculous. But the Atlantic trade took things to new levels of evil (just as there was no shortage of pogroms before the 1930s and 40s), and we don't teach the good points of the Nazi regime. The Raj on the other hand...
I don't think there's any form of chattel slavery that's anything other than evil. There's often a notion that it wasn't that bad in the ancient world. In reality, it was horrific.
It varied. Cicero's Tiro did OK. Laureion silver miners not so much. But the ancient world had a few excuses (always done it; can't afford to keep people idle in prison; needed for the grain harvest) not available to get rich quick C17th or 18th entrepreneurs.
People like Tiro and Narcissus were outliers. IMHO, the senatorial and knightly slave drivers of the last century of the Republic were very much like their 17th and 18th century counterparts. From slavery being about a farmer having a couple of labourers who he worked alongside, it became an industry. The costs of pursuing a political career in Rome skyrocketed, and waging war to get slaves became a way of paying for that career. Tax farming and moneylending at massive rates of interest, often resulted in communities selling their poorer members. Caesar was probably the greatest slaver in history. Rich Romans bought out their peasant neighbours who were frequently serving in the army for years abroad, and worked their growing estates with slaves.
And, for most, it meant being worked to death in chain gangs on estates, and in mills, or being used for sex.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
The unsaid bit, it that it’s probably a very leveraged investment, with say 25% in cash and 75% in mortgage on each property.
It’s a business model that only works with interest rates on the floor.
He’s likely still got a million in cash though, which is easy enough to make 5% from more traditional investments for a decent retirement income.
30 properties must be getting on for £10mn surely? Even with leverage he must have at least a couple of million in equity. And does being forced to let his tenants have pets and being unable to chuck them out on a whim really invalidate the whole business model?
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
The 1807 did not abolish slavery but did put significant obstacles in the way of the salve trade. The actual abolition of the trade was in 1832 and it was not a Tory government that did it
Canada abolished slavery in the 1790s so Britain was not the first, but slavery had no legal basis in the UK from the dark ages onward
Lots of nuances...
Indeed. The Normans abolished slavery after invading in 1066, considering it un-Christian and barbaric. I did not learn this in school. It’s an important part of the history. Often we focus on the abolition of slavery, treating slavery as some ill inherited from the past, but the Atlantic slave trade came after centuries of slavery already being illegal. It re-invented, re-created slavery.
The problem with any history syllabus is that there's so much darned history, and the bastards keep on making more of it.
Take GCSE maths. It should be fairly easy to decide what is in a GCSE maths syllabus (will get harder at A-level though). Numbers, algebra, statistics, geometry, graphs, etc, at a basic level. A pass mark in GCSE maths should mean a pupil has enough maths skills to cope with everyday life.
But history... what do you teach about history? Of the massive amount of history out there, what do you choose to teach? And why those particular choices?
It is not just that there is lots of history; after all, there are lots of French words and even more numbers. In olden times, history was taught as a gentle amble through the history of wherever you lived and then Britain, in chronological order, with emphasis on regnal dates and battles. That is what Michael Gove wanted to return to. It will have included slavery.
Now, GCSE history has been chopped up into modules, presented out of order. Lots is left out; some is included about foreigners like the unification of Italy; some barely history at all like Middle East wars since the 1990s. Maybe Prince Charles is saying there should be a compulsory slavery topic; possibly he is struggling to remember what he learned at school in 1960s Scotland.
There is also the problem that history does not get harder in the same way that other subjects do, like maths or physics (even though those subjects are taught in opposite directions) so if you did teach in chronological order, children will necessarily be younger at the slave trade than at the Holocaust, although they might have dropped history by then.
Lots is left out in any presentation of history. The older way of teaching history, the gentle amble you refer to, left lots out. It focused on a few battles that supported a national myth, while ignoring other periods of history, and ignoring the perspectives of the peasants, of women, of those who were colonised, and ignoring the role of changing trade patterns and how economic systems evolved, and ignoring the role of technological innovation (except for the long bow!), etc.
Are the Middle East wars of the 1990s history? When I was at school in the 1970s, people did the run-up to World War II in history class, events ~40 years before. The First Gulf War was 32 years ago, not much closer to now.
History absolutely gets harder as other subjects do. One needs to go from thinking of history as a set of facts about the past to understanding that history is necessarily a set of varied perspectives built on limited and unreliable information that is routinely abused to tell myths about the modern world. This latter understanding seems rarely to have been achieved by those who decry any teaching of history that deviates from their nostalgic memories of childhood.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
And pays off the mortgages...
He will have needed 25% deposit on them so he's looking at towards a million in equity post sale even if they were all bought recently.
Depends how he bought them - if he used equity withdrawal to raise the subsequent deposits then extracting yourself from the mess as HMRC chase money could be difficult
Ooh, that’s a good point. If he started a decade or more ago, and kept his mortgages as high as possible on each property to fund the next purchase, he’ll also be facing a large CGT bill on each sale.
It’s an unsustainable business model once interest rates start heading up, as will inevitably keep happening over the summer.
There was another story a few years ago about a couple who had bought 37 properties and with changes in market conditions were afraid of losing their own home because they were so overstretched financially.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
The unsaid bit, it that it’s probably a very leveraged investment, with say 25% in cash and 75% in mortgage on each property.
It’s a business model that only works with interest rates on the floor.
He’s likely still got a million in cash though, which is easy enough to make 5% from more traditional investments for a decent retirement income.
If he's built his portfolio over many years he'll be sitting pretty. Liquidate in calm organized manner, switch the net proceeds into other assets. I find it an odd story. Almost like it's clickbait.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
The 1807 did not abolish slavery but did put significant obstacles in the way of the salve trade. The actual abolition of the trade was in 1832 and it was not a Tory government that did it
Canada abolished slavery in the 1790s so Britain was not the first, but slavery had no legal basis in the UK from the dark ages onward
Lots of nuances...
Indeed. The Normans abolished slavery after invading in 1066, considering it un-Christian and barbaric. I did not learn this in school. It’s an important part of the history. Often we focus on the abolition of slavery, treating slavery as some ill inherited from the past, but the Atlantic slave trade came after centuries of slavery already being illegal. It re-invented, re-created slavery.
They got around the prohibition on the basis that the slaves were pagans.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
The 1807 did not abolish slavery but did put significant obstacles in the way of the salve trade. The actual abolition of the trade was in 1832 and it was not a Tory government that did it
Canada abolished slavery in the 1790s so Britain was not the first, but slavery had no legal basis in the UK from the dark ages onward
Lots of nuances...
Indeed. The Normans abolished slavery after invading in 1066, considering it un-Christian and barbaric. I did not learn this in school. It’s an important part of the history. Often we focus on the abolition of slavery, treating slavery as some ill inherited from the past, but the Atlantic slave trade came after centuries of slavery already being illegal. It re-invented, re-created slavery.
William the Conqueror abolished the death penalty. It was brought back pronto after he died though and he wasn’t averse to some judicial maiming.
Lucy Fisher @LOS_Fisher 👀 Alistair Carmichael hints Lib Dems cd entertain coalition at next elxn w/ Tories if Johnson goes
At present idea not a ‘realistic prospect’, but if Tories do ‘sensible, honourable thing’ & oust Johnson, ‘we cd be presented with a v different political landscape’
It is conceivable that after the next election, neither the Conservatives nor a Labour/Lib Dem coalition could command a majority without the support of, for example, the SNP.
Many Lib Dem voters, let alone Lib Dem MPs, would prefer working with Conservatives over an agreement with the SNP. I would assume that most Lib Dem voters in Scotland are likely to be unionists.
There are still members of the current Conservative government who served in the Coalition government - it's not inconceivable that behind all of the public vitriol they have a reasonable relationship with their Orange-Booker, former cabinet colleague, Ed Davey.
Carmichael's sin may be to think out loud, but the idea that the party should only entertain the notion of coalition with Labour rather than Conservatives rather defeats the purpose of the Lib Dems being their own seperate party to start with.
After all, despite what the Conservatives say, this is not a formal Lib Dem/Labour alliance - so the Lib Dems wouldn't be betraying any kind of agreement with Labour.
I just don't see what the problem with the SNP would be. Yes, it is likely they would demand a indie ref as the price of coalition but so what? Do we seriously think the Westminster government can hold the line against another vote for another five year parliament? Personally, I don't think so. And the honest truth is Sturgeon wants the vote to be "coming soon' but not actually happen because she knows she would lose it.
For starters, if Labour said they wouldn't do a deal pre-election with the SNP, then did one with them afterwards, there's probably quite a few voters who would be pissed that Labour took them for fools. That would not be good for Labour's prospects at the winning the GE afterwards. But I think the main problem with a deal with the SNP is this. Imagine Labour did agree to an indyref as part of a deal with the SNP and yes won. SKS would have to resign as PM and be would forever known as the PM who lost the union. His successor, meanwhile, would have to enter into independence negotiations with the SNP, who could threaten to pull the plug on their government unless Labour gave them everything they wanted in the 'divorce' negotiations. And the Conservative Party, the Mail, Sun etc. would be constantly reminding the electorate about this. Labour would be destroyed at the following GE and out of power for a generation, most likely.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
My teaching (at Comprehensives in the Seventies and Eighties) was pretty free of either pride or shame. It wasn't taught that way. The same too in America, with the exception of the American Revolution etc. In Georgia even the origins of the American Civil War were taught neutrally, indeed perhaps too neutrally!
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
The unsaid bit, it that it’s probably a very leveraged investment, with say 25% in cash and 75% in mortgage on each property.
It’s a business model that only works with interest rates on the floor.
He’s likely still got a million in cash though, which is easy enough to make 5% from more traditional investments for a decent retirement income.
If he's built his portfolio over many years he'll be sitting pretty. Liquidate in calm organized manner, switch the net proceeds into other assets. I find it an odd story. Almost like it's clickbait.
Absolutely. There is no 'hidden pain of the property magnates' aspect here.
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
I would call Hannan a stupid person's idea of intelligent person, but Leon got triggered last time I said that. Perhaps in the interests of community harmony I will just call him a twat.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
WWII.
I'm assuming you didn't partake in the Second World War. If so why are you proud of that but not ashamed of slavery? I'm not being churlish: just wondering what drives having the one emotion but not the other.
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
Hannan’s in the Telegraph today, attacking the government from the right.
“But ministers did not need to make a virtue of public spending. They made a choice to boast about successive budget rises rather than presenting them as a regrettable contingencies. Even now, the “line to take” documents put out by CCHQ are often a self-satisfied list of spending rises – as if the money committed, rather than the results secured, was what counted.
“Unsurprisingly, this prodigality encourages a belief that every problem can be solved by moolah. Or, to put it more precisely, when voters see the Centre-Right party, the party they associate with fiscal rectitude, gaily splashing billions around – not just on Covid response measures, but on discretionary schemes like HS2, net zero, levelling up and social care – they assume that there must be plenty in the kitty.
“Boris Johnson’s pledge to “put our arms around people, just as we did during the pandemic” raises expectations. Voters respond by expecting the government to “do something” about price rises. By “something”, they don’t mean tackling the problem at source; they mean more handouts – even though that means higher taxes and so a worse squeeze on living standards. “We have already put £22 billion into tackling people’s costs” says the PM, as if the way to tackle inflation were through spending.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/25/britain-falling-apart-tories-paying-price/
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
WWII.
I'm assuming you didn't partake in the Second World War. If so why are you proud of that but not ashamed of slavery? I'm not being churlish: just wondering what drives having the one emotion but not the other.
Because growing up, I was able to meet and talk to a lot of veterans of that conflict, and it was something my older relatives had lived through. Whereas, I've never encountered anyone who was either a slave, or a slave owner. WWII was part of the lived experience of most people who were alive in the 1970's, and there were loads of comics and films about it.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
Prince Charles is in serious danger of sparking a republican movement on the right.
He's gone up in my estimation though.
Our estimation of the suitability if future monarchs should not be based on whether they agree or disagree with us in their public utterances, but whether they can successfully say nothing at all. Because if they can't, they and their institution are doomed.
Unfortunately, Prince Charles labours under the misapprehension that people are interested in what he thinks and what he has to say.
If you have no interest, why all the above comments ? And if no one has any interest in what he has to say, why do his comments matter at all ? (I actually agree with the point, which is why his comments don’t bother me in the slightest.)
The problem for most republicans is that, being progressive, they have to grit their teeth and admit that Prince Charles has long been on “their” side on many issues.
Oh, and the slave trade should be taught in schools. As it, er… actually is. My daughters learnt all about the triangular trade. They even appreciated my story about giving a lesson on it way back in the day…
I'd argue that more can be learnt about Britain today by learning about the triangular trade than can be learnt from anything (everything?) from 1066 to Lizzie I. So many areas of interest can spring off it: not just slavery, but the way empires grow, spread and decay; the rise of different countries; wealth; even the start of the industrial revolution (via resources and finance).
I think it's much more complicated than that.
The triangular trade ended in Britain in 1807 when the industrial revolution was only really just getting started, and the vast majority of our rise in national wealth happened well after abolition. European countries later achieved the same industrialisation and rise incomes without any recourse to slavery.
Slavery was an ethics-free solution to a labour problem in a really quite primitive global pre-capitalist economy; later, capital and the market economy proved a much better way of attracting people to do hard labour for low wages, with movement around the world to suit, that affected people in the British isles as well as overseas, and that persisted until we became more well-off and enlightened to reform.
It's a hugely complex and hotly contested period of history but no more significant than any other; I want my children to be taught about it - as I have no doubt that children are today, as I was - but have no desire it to be propagandised into stark simplicities that are grounded in our gross discomforts about the politics of the present day and manipulated by some who have more sinister motives.
The part played by modern economics and accounting - which showed that slave labour was actually less efficient is not taught enough.
The 1807 did not abolish slavery but did put significant obstacles in the way of the salve trade. The actual abolition of the trade was in 1832 and it was not a Tory government that did it
Canada abolished slavery in the 1790s so Britain was not the first, but slavery had no legal basis in the UK from the dark ages onward
Lots of nuances...
French abolished it 1795 but NB reinstated it
The British claim that it was never OK *in Britain* doesn't get them off any hooks that I can see
I never said that they should be let off the hook. Some of the wealthiest cities of the time like Liverpool and Bristol were largely built with slave money. There is even a Slavery Tour you can go on in Liverpool where the tour guide will point out major buildings with slave motifs on them because the original builders were so proud of their slave empires. It is an eye-opener!
Quite. Even small ports can have the most astounding linkages. I have been doing some helping with research on slavery and the wider implications (e.g. sugar trade, supplies for the plantations) in Scotland and it was absolutely fascinating digging into the details.
Oh yes, but thanks for checking anyway. Also the Univ of London (? - going from memory) index to those who owned enslaved people, benefited financially, etc. Superb resource.
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
Hannan’s in the Telegraph today, attacking the government from the right.
“But ministers did not need to make a virtue of public spending. They made a choice to boast about successive budget rises rather than presenting them as a regrettable contingencies. Even now, the “line to take” documents put out by CCHQ are often a self-satisfied list of spending rises – as if the money committed, rather than the results secured, was what counted.
“Unsurprisingly, this prodigality encourages a belief that every problem can be solved by moolah. Or, to put it more precisely, when voters see the Centre-Right party, the party they associate with fiscal rectitude, gaily splashing billions around – not just on Covid response measures, but on discretionary schemes like HS2, net zero, levelling up and social care – they assume that there must be plenty in the kitty.
“Boris Johnson’s pledge to “put our arms around people, just as we did during the pandemic” raises expectations. Voters respond by expecting the government to “do something” about price rises. By “something”, they don’t mean tackling the problem at source; they mean more handouts – even though that means higher taxes and so a worse squeeze on living standards. “We have already put £22 billion into tackling people’s costs” says the PM, as if the way to tackle inflation were through spending.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/25/britain-falling-apart-tories-paying-price/
Sorry, but until Brexit starts delivering undeniable financial positives for the British Economy Hannan can keep his mouth shut about 'fiscal rectitude'.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
You wouldn't. You ceased to be a Scot Nat campaigner here a long time ago, because you began to enjoy commenting and reading for their own sakes. It's the same in all cases, regardless of whatever 'good fight' you came here to fight. You should just embrace it.
Could be wrong, but I think most Nat posters would likely leave PB following independence. Why would you care about what England was up to following independence?
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
I can only assume the editor (or someone senior) is a buy-to-let magnate. Who else would be lapping up this utter guff?
Seriously, selling his 30 homes and has no idea what he will do with his money?
The unsaid bit, it that it’s probably a very leveraged investment, with say 25% in cash and 75% in mortgage on each property.
It’s a business model that only works with interest rates on the floor.
He’s likely still got a million in cash though, which is easy enough to make 5% from more traditional investments for a decent retirement income.
If he's built his portfolio over many years he'll be sitting pretty. Liquidate in calm organized manner, switch the net proceeds into other assets. I find it an odd story. Almost like it's clickbait.
The article is certainly clickbait, but the subject is likely in a lot of financial trouble if he’s kept re-mortgaging over the years to leverage new investments. His mortgage interest payments will have doubled in the last few months, and more interest rate rises before he can start liquidating assets could have in underwater in total, once the taxman takes his share of the price rises.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
WWII.
I'm assuming you didn't partake in the Second World War. If so why are you proud of that but not ashamed of slavery? I'm not being churlish: just wondering what drives having the one emotion but not the other.
Because growing up, I was able to meet and talk to a lot of veterans of that conflict, and it was something my older relatives had lived through. Whereas, I've never encountered anyone who was either a slave, or a slave owner. WWII was part of the lived experience of most people who were alive in the 1970's, and there were loads of comics and films about it.
Yes, WW2 was pretty ubiquitous in my schools, not least because nearly all the male teachers were WW2 veterans, so it popped up quite a lot in assembly and the like, as well as via hobbies like making airfix kits or playing with Action Man.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
WWII.
I'm assuming you didn't partake in the Second World War. If so why are you proud of that but not ashamed of slavery? I'm not being churlish: just wondering what drives having the one emotion but not the other.
I guess I would get away from emotions if possible, but talk about consequences.
In vast generalisation: one consequence of WW2 was that Europe wasn't subsumed under fascism. That's something I personally benefit from.
One consequence of the Altantic slave trade is a widening of wealth disparities globally, which is also something I personally benefit from. I don't feel guilty about that, but do recognise that it is an important part of history for me as a British person, and rightly places certain responsibilities on me as one of those beneficiaries.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
My teaching (at Comprehensives in the Seventies and Eighties) was pretty free of either pride or shame. It wasn't taught that way. The same too in America, with the exception of the American Revolution etc. In Georgia even the origins of the American Civil War were taught neutrally, indeed perhaps too neutrally!
I tend to think there was probably more unconscious bias and attraction to a story rather than ideological mind forming, though the end results might be similar.
It’s still quite mystifying to me why I spent a year on a history project in a draughty NE of Scotland primary school on the Spanish Armada, not even ‘British’ history. It was a VERY long time ago but I remember the emphasis being on plucky Sir Francis with his bowl playing and fire ships battling against the odds rather than fortune hunting, slave trading murderous Franny.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
Isn't shame the (necessary and healthy) other cheek to pride? If you can feel pride in your country for its achievements why shouldn't you feel shame for its crimes?
I really don't see the problem. The problem would be more if someone is only capable of the pride or only capable of the shame. That would be odd and unhealthy. Such a person would have only one cheek.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but... If he sells 30 BTL's, he won't be down the food bank in short order will he?
You wonder though what will happen to his tenants.
If 40% of the rental market vanishes in short order, it's going to be very difficult for them to afford rents.
In which case they may be homeless AND down the food bank in short order.
Unless Housing Associations take up the slack, but I really don't see how they can. They simply haven't got the resources.
If Gove's reforms to bring in lower rents and more security lead to higher rents and mass evictions - well, all I can say is, how typical of Gove's ability to achieve the opposite of what he wanted.
If 40% of the rental market vanishes, those properties will have been sold, house prices will collapse and lots of people renting will be able to buy instead.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Were there aspects of British history that you were taught to feel proud of?
WWII.
I'm assuming you didn't partake in the Second World War. If so why are you proud of that but not ashamed of slavery? I'm not being churlish: just wondering what drives having the one emotion but not the other.
Because growing up, I was able to meet and talk to a lot of veterans of that conflict, and it was something my older relatives had lived through. Whereas, I've never encountered anyone who was either a slave, or a slave owner. WWII was part of the lived experience of most people who were alive in the 1970's, and there were loads of comics and films about it.
The last person who had been enslaved in the US to die did so in 1972. The emancipation was, of course, farther back in time than World War II, but not that much farther back.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
I was taught about the Triangular Trade when I was ten. But, I wasn't taught to feel guilty about it.
Me neither. But I have since rectified that. Feeling some guilt about Empire and Slavery is one of the things I've learnt in my later years. It's not the longest of lists, I'm sorry to say, but that is on there.
'I don't know how I'll support my family': landlords' retirement dreams in tatters
Hundreds of thousands of property investors will need to find an income from elsewhere
Hundreds of thousands of pension plans are at risk as the Government’s rental sector overhaul derails the buy-to-let business model, landlords have warned.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has announced sweeping reforms of the rental sector to boost tenants’ rights. These include scrapping Section 21 “no‑fault” evictions and getting rid of fixed-term tenancies.
Two fifths of England’s landlords have invested in property to contribute to their pension, according to the Government’s English Private Landlord Survey. Across the 1.5 million landlords, this means 600,000 people will see their retirement plans affected.
Ben Cameron*, 60, has now decided to sell his 30 buy-to-lets, a portfolio he had built to fund retirement. “It is the final nail in the coffin. The Government is derailing my pension plan. I have no idea what I will do to look after my family or where I will go for security now,” he said.
My heart pumps custard. This country’s obsession with property is damaging to the wider economy. It would be a good time to align CGT rates with IT rates as well.
Absolutely, but a referendum announcement usually prompts a flurry of polls. We have… none. Which looks suspicious.
They know it is just more bluff to keep kicking it down the road . She is running out of road, all the stolen money , perjury case et c can only be held up for so long. Many of these crooks will get their day in court.
Sorry Malc, I am genuinely losing the plot. You are pro-independence but anti-Sturgeon, have I got that right?
Yes indeed, she is all talk and no action and crooked into the bargain. She is wrecking scotland, her and her bunch of self id creeps and gravy trainers. They have no principles.
Ok, interesting.
Presumably, if and when Scotland became independent, the SNP would fragment anyway. I can't see a one-party state happening.
The best , indeed only, way to get rid of the SNP is independence. I’ll be offski as soon as the ink is dry.
You wouldn't. You ceased to be a Scot Nat campaigner here a long time ago, because you began to enjoy commenting and reading for their own sakes. It's the same in all cases, regardless of whatever 'good fight' you came here to fight. You should just embrace it.
Could be wrong, but I think most Nat posters would likely leave PB following independence. Why would you care about what England was up to following independence?
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
Hannan’s in the Telegraph today, attacking the government from the right.
“But ministers did not need to make a virtue of public spending. They made a choice to boast about successive budget rises rather than presenting them as a regrettable contingencies. Even now, the “line to take” documents put out by CCHQ are often a self-satisfied list of spending rises – as if the money committed, rather than the results secured, was what counted.
“Unsurprisingly, this prodigality encourages a belief that every problem can be solved by moolah. Or, to put it more precisely, when voters see the Centre-Right party, the party they associate with fiscal rectitude, gaily splashing billions around – not just on Covid response measures, but on discretionary schemes like HS2, net zero, levelling up and social care – they assume that there must be plenty in the kitty.
“Boris Johnson’s pledge to “put our arms around people, just as we did during the pandemic” raises expectations. Voters respond by expecting the government to “do something” about price rises. By “something”, they don’t mean tackling the problem at source; they mean more handouts – even though that means higher taxes and so a worse squeeze on living standards. “We have already put £22 billion into tackling people’s costs” says the PM, as if the way to tackle inflation were through spending.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/25/britain-falling-apart-tories-paying-price/
Sorry, but until Brexit starts delivering undeniable financial positives for the British Economy Hannan can keep his mouth shut about 'fiscal rectitude'.
Besides, "Let's spend more money on us" was literally the top slogan of Vote Leave.
Dan Hannan may not like that (I think the evidence is that Conservative Right Leavers hated the campaign Cummings came up with), but it's what got him what he wanted for so long.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I was taught about the slave triangle at about the age of 9 but purely as a geographical-economic phenomenon - never a hint there was moral question marks over any of it
Charles is of course right. The slave trade was morally on a par with the holocaust, and wins by a country mile in terms of total human misery produced, despite the revoltingly batty Nazi death camp bad, splendid Empire death camp good mentality one quite often comes across.
He’s right if you include ALL the slave trades
My objection to the way it is taught is that total focus on the Atlantic slave trade (which was of course repulsive) at the exclusion of all the others. i was taught a lot about the slave trade at my state schools, and I was definitely taught it was bad, but if I had not gone on to read around the subject as an adult I would be blissfully unaware the the Islamic trade in slaves (African and white European) was much older, longer lasting, and considerably larger in absolute terms. And arguably even crueller (the use of automatic castration, for example)
But the Woke educators don’t want kids to know about this. They just want to teach White = Bad
White=Bad is ridiculous. But the Atlantic trade took things to new levels of evil (just as there was no shortage of pogroms before the 1930s and 40s), and we don't teach the good points of the Nazi regime. The Raj on the other hand...
I don't think there's any form of chattel slavery that's anything other than evil. There's often a notion that it wasn't that bad in the ancient world. In reality, it was horrific.
I had the misfortune to read the National Trust's infamous empire and slavery report in full.
I remember a paragraph where it acknowledged that slavery existed in the Roman Empire "but it wasn't racially bound".
In other words: enslaving anyone and everyone regardless of race is somehow less bad than enslaving one particular race.
Horrors of slavery should be taught alongside Holocaust, says Prince Charles
The Prince of Wales wants slavery to be publicly acknowledged, taught in schools and given the same national level of importance as the Holocaust.
Charles, who spoke of his “personal sorrow” at the UK’s historical links with the slave trade during his visit to Rwanda last week, will campaign for greater public awareness of slavery, which has dogged the royal family’s recent overseas tours.
I’m a long time out of school, but when I was there, there seemed a massive amount of time devoted to the Nazis. Now this was the 80’s, and thus the holocaust etc was more recent and in the minds of those setting the syllabus. Some argue it’s a antique evil, but I’m not so sure. Reframing our past to look critically at the whole world and the whole of history is not easy. Was it worse to be worked to death as a slave in a roman tin mine or on a Caribbean sugar plantation? But there certainly should be balance - you should teach the British empire story, but all sides of it. Don’t celebrate Wiberforce without wondering why it was necessary.
My O level history was driven entirely by the syllabus: Britain and Europe 1815 to 1914. I learnt more about the unification of Germany and Italy than I ever did about slavery.
Edit: The unification of Germany and the unification of Italy, not the two together - at least not as I learnt it!
Pretty much ditto - we did nothing on slavery or the Holocaust. I remember a lot on the Peninsular war, the creation of Belgium and the Reform Acts! A levels was 1848, Napoleon III, the Paris Commune, the Risorgimento and German unification.
My O level in 1981 was on British economic and social history 1700-1913. Basically enclosures, Chartism, Poor laws, canals, turnpikes, and related aspects of the industrial revolution. A bit dry at times, very little politics or military, but has been very useful for understanding modern Britain.
I did all of the above in my lessons at school, and my Oxford children's history of Britain volumes (published 1983) pulled no punches about slavery.
But, you've got to understand this isn't really about teaching slavery in schools: it's about teaching it incessantly and in a certain way in order to inculcate a sense of shame about Britain and guilt about its past into future generations, and is thus highly political.
Isn't shame the (necessary and healthy) other cheek to pride? If you can feel pride in your country for its achievements why shouldn't you feel shame for its crimes?
I really don't see the problem. The problem would be more if someone is only capable of the pride or only capable of the shame. That would be odd and unhealthy. Such a person would have only one cheek.
I'm not proud of Britain's role in the slave trade, it is something we never should have done, just as I'm not proud of our record in the Irish potato famine or how we dealt with civilians in the Boer War.
But, I don't think our whole national history should be framed through it.
Brexit is, quite literally, becoming tragic. Recall that Leavers really did proclaim Rees-Mogg to be the intellectual shining light of their movement. Has it really degenerated into the low farce of exploding fizzy-wine bottles? I'm struggling to believe it myself.
Mogg, yes, but I think the true intellectual powerhouse of the movement - its Derrida if you will - was Daniel Hannan. His stuff was pitched beyond what most of the followers could fully comprehend, nevertheless they got the gist.
Hannan’s in the Telegraph today, attacking the government from the right.
“But ministers did not need to make a virtue of public spending. They made a choice to boast about successive budget rises rather than presenting them as a regrettable contingencies. Even now, the “line to take” documents put out by CCHQ are often a self-satisfied list of spending rises – as if the money committed, rather than the results secured, was what counted.
“Unsurprisingly, this prodigality encourages a belief that every problem can be solved by moolah. Or, to put it more precisely, when voters see the Centre-Right party, the party they associate with fiscal rectitude, gaily splashing billions around – not just on Covid response measures, but on discretionary schemes like HS2, net zero, levelling up and social care – they assume that there must be plenty in the kitty.
“Boris Johnson’s pledge to “put our arms around people, just as we did during the pandemic” raises expectations. Voters respond by expecting the government to “do something” about price rises. By “something”, they don’t mean tackling the problem at source; they mean more handouts – even though that means higher taxes and so a worse squeeze on living standards. “We have already put £22 billion into tackling people’s costs” says the PM, as if the way to tackle inflation were through spending.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/25/britain-falling-apart-tories-paying-price/
Sorry, but until Brexit starts delivering undeniable financial positives for the British Economy Hannan can keep his mouth shut about 'fiscal rectitude'.
Besides, "Let's spend more money on us" was literally the top slogan of Vote Leave.
Dan Hannan may not like that (I think the evidence is that Conservative Right Leavers hated the campaign Cummings came up with), but it's what got him what he wanted for so long.
Hannan is an idiot. Was he the best brain Brexit had? No wonder it’s a shit show.
Comments
Sort of no, although a % chance of this, I have it below 50% happening, firstly someone else could get the crown, Rishi and Truss, and the public likely not to trust them as it appears today, and secondly does anyone really want it right now, with the tanking economy likely lead to a difficult election, if you were serious about your stint of leader you would look for election to remove Boris, likely a hung Parliament and fantastic opportunity for a fresh start.
I think PB Tories becoming resigned to no saviour coming this side of the election now.
Does this answer your question okay 🙂.
Slavery reaped incredible profits for a very small number of people. It did not create wealth, but rather redistributed it upwards.
All the evidence is that slavery retards overall economic development. The beneficiaries tend to waste the profits in competitive, conspicuous consumption. A bigger country mansion, better racehorses, more lavish entertainments etc.
There's a reason why the US South lagged so far behind the North in terms of industrialisation, and the amount of capital tied up in slave plantations is at the heart of it. Working, building up businesses, inventing things does far more to boost the economy than living in luxury while your overseers lash people to grow cash crops.
Are the Middle East wars of the 1990s history? When I was at school in the 1970s, people did the run-up to World War II in history class, events ~40 years before. The First Gulf War was 32 years ago, not much closer to now.
History absolutely gets harder as other subjects do. One needs to go from thinking of history as a set of facts about the past to understanding that history is necessarily a set of varied perspectives built on limited and unreliable information that is routinely abused to tell myths about the modern world. This latter understanding seems rarely to have been achieved by those who decry any teaching of history that deviates from their nostalgic memories of childhood.
Of course, it could just be another case of whataboutery. But then a history class could call that out, which in itself would be really valuable.
I don't think there's any form of chattel slavery that's anything other than evil. There's often a notion that it wasn't that bad in the ancient world. In reality, it was horrific.
Zero fucks given. At the age of 60 he should have moved much of his portfolio into something less risky anyway.
You shouldn't be in business unless you are prepared to lose your shirt.
And in any case... who at 60 has a family to support? His kids are probably all adults.
If 40% of the rental market vanishes in short order, it's going to be very difficult for them to afford rents.
In which case they may be homeless AND down the food bank in short order.
Unless Housing Associations take up the slack, but I really don't see how they can. They simply haven't got the resources.
If Gove's reforms to bring in lower rents and more security lead to higher rents and mass evictions - well, all I can say is, how typical of Gove's ability to achieve the opposite of what he wanted.
It’s an unsustainable business model once interest rates start heading up, as will inevitably keep happening over the summer.
Edit - if he has taken a massive gamble then im afraid one outcone of that can be ruin. Have smaller, more safely attainable dreams.
I was at school in Georgia 1975-1979 so did cover slavery in an American context, and of course "Roots" was a very big TV phenomenon at the time, and heavily discussed. A lot of it is fiction, but it did illustrate how slavery worked, and also the post slavery African-American experience.
I must admit though as somebody who has taught history for 16 years at all levels from primary to postgrads, I don't recognise what John is saying about the school curriculum. History has always been taught in modules. And it can currently be taught chronologically or thematically, as it always could be. There are actually quite significant disadvantages to teaching it chronologically, not least that ancient history and medieval history are often much harder to understand because they are very alien to our own lived experience and you need a degree of maturity to avoid the 'Noddy' view that people in the past were thick because they didn't have computers.
As for commenting on this daft, obscure blog, who knows. Who cares.
To which my answer was, I fear, 'idiots.'
And, for most, it meant being worked to death in chain gangs on estates, and in mills, or being used for sex.
WWII.
But I think the main problem with a deal with the SNP is this. Imagine Labour did agree to an indyref as part of a deal with the SNP and yes won. SKS would have to resign as PM and be would forever known as the PM who lost the union. His successor, meanwhile, would have to enter into independence negotiations with the SNP, who could threaten to pull the plug on their government unless Labour gave them everything they wanted in the 'divorce' negotiations. And the Conservative Party, the Mail, Sun etc. would be constantly reminding the electorate about this. Labour would be destroyed at the following GE and out of power for a generation, most likely.
“But ministers did not need to make a virtue of public spending. They made a choice to boast about successive budget rises rather than presenting them as a regrettable contingencies. Even now, the “line to take” documents put out by CCHQ are often a self-satisfied list of spending rises – as if the money committed, rather than the results secured, was what counted.
“Unsurprisingly, this prodigality encourages a belief that every problem can be solved by moolah. Or, to put it more precisely, when voters see the Centre-Right party, the party they associate with fiscal rectitude, gaily splashing billions around – not just on Covid response measures, but on discretionary schemes like HS2, net zero, levelling up and social care – they assume that there must be plenty in the kitty.
“Boris Johnson’s pledge to “put our arms around people, just as we did during the pandemic” raises expectations. Voters respond by expecting the government to “do something” about price rises. By “something”, they don’t mean tackling the problem at source; they mean more handouts – even though that means higher taxes and so a worse squeeze on living standards. “We have already put £22 billion into tackling people’s costs” says the PM, as if the way to tackle inflation were through spending.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/25/britain-falling-apart-tories-paying-price/
In vast generalisation: one consequence of WW2 was that Europe wasn't subsumed under fascism. That's something I personally benefit from.
One consequence of the Altantic slave trade is a widening of wealth disparities globally, which is also something I personally benefit from. I don't feel guilty about that, but do recognise that it is an important part of history for me as a British person, and rightly places certain responsibilities on me as one of those beneficiaries.
It’s still quite mystifying to me why I spent a year on a history project in a draughty NE of Scotland primary school on the Spanish Armada, not even ‘British’ history. It was a VERY long time ago but I remember the emphasis being on plucky Sir Francis with his bowl playing and fire ships battling against the odds rather than fortune hunting, slave trading murderous Franny.
I really don't see the problem. The problem would be more if someone is only capable of the pride or only capable of the shame. That would be odd and unhealthy. Such a person would have only one cheek.
NEW THREAD
Dan Hannan may not like that (I think the evidence is that Conservative Right Leavers hated the campaign Cummings came up with), but it's what got him what he wanted for so long.
I remember a paragraph where it acknowledged that slavery existed in the Roman Empire "but it wasn't racially bound".
In other words: enslaving anyone and everyone regardless of race is somehow less bad than enslaving one particular race.
But, I don't think our whole national history should be framed through it.
Was he the best brain Brexit had?
No wonder it’s a shit show.