"The King's top aide, his principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, said in the letter to staff that the change in role for the former Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall meant that Clarence House would be "closed down".
He said the former Prince of Wales's personal interests and former activities would no longer be carried out.
"It is therefore expected that the need for the posts principally based at Clarence House whose work supports these areas, will no longer be needed.""
Goodness me, all these activities must be vitally important if a decision can simply be taken to terminate them all immediately, without even bothering to consider passing any of them on to anyone else.
What a perfect way to sum up the pointlessness of the whole thing.
Shame they couldn't have given Clarence House to Harry and Meghan...
Updated 5m ago 2% REPORTED (including partial returns from six towns including capital Concord & biggest Manchester) Donald Bolduc (MAGA but not endorsed by Trump) 1,017 37.7% Chuck Morse (establishment GOP endorsed by Gov. Sununu) 873 32.3% Kevin Smith (former town manager of Londonderry - NH not NI) 358 13.3%
SSI - my gut is rumbling that General Bolduc prevails, in part because the Smith vote is not inconsequential AND is mostly coming out of Morse's hide methinks.
votes just beginning to trickle in from Rhode Island nothing yet from Delaware.
Republican GOP Governor - just 3% reported but Ashley Kalus is getting 85% of it and is clearly gonna win the nomination.
Democratic GOP Governor - NYT says Gov. "Daniel McKee, the former lieutenant governor, is seeking his first full term after replacing Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration. He faces four challengers in the Democratic primary."
with 15% reported Helena Foulkes 7,185 33.7% Daniel McKee* 6,690 31.4% Nellie Gorbea 5,142 24.1% Total reported 21,296
NYT blog - Is there a bellwether town in N.H. to watch for how the night is going in the G.O.P. primaries? Dante Scala, a political science professor, told NHJournal he would be watching Bedford because “it’s a large Republican town where no major candidate has a ‘home field’ advantage.”
SSI - no votes reported yet from Bedford which is suburb of Manchester
NH 1st Congressional District - GOP with 7% reported
Karoline Leavitt 1,282 32.6% Matt Mowers 1,064 27.0% Gail Huff Brown 688 17.5% Total reported 3,934
Leavitt is former Trump administration official (PR) and so is Mowers (State Dept) but Leavitt has been out-Trumping him and is leading him in early results.
Incumbent Chris Pappas is unopposed for Democratic nomination in this key swing district.
The ban doesn't bother me. Nor is the US the only country I'm banned from. It isn't a country I'd plan to visit, although if I were to be allowed to go there and did actually want to, it would be NYC that I'd stay in. Every film I've seen based in NYC (probably about 60% of the ones I've seen set in the US) plays crudely on a contrast between two different parts of the city. If the Bronx is shown, it's almost always by depicting young Hispanic lads playing basketball behind a high wire fence on a housing scheme. Really toe-curling stereotyping. Doubtless they think they've moved on from depicting Mexico in early films by showing a sombrero on a wall and playing a soundtrack of a cicada, but have they? :-) In some films there's contrast between the city and upstate NY boondocks or between the city and some ultra-nobby place on Long Island. Bow Bridge in Central Park is almost always featured. Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is literally always featured, in the films I've watched anyway. The various boroughs are always represented the same way: Brooklyn as full of young small business types running twee retail operations, with perhaps a few retired well-heeled types living in mansions; Queens as like a big version of an Aldi supermarket. The other contrast that often features is between NYC as a "European" or "Anglo" city where people pronounce or spell words in what's seen as an English way, and the rest of the US. Such a highly limited range of references, but I'm sure NYC is much more interesting in real life than its depiction in films. Central Park has the other Cleopatra's Needle. Did you know NYC is named after the slaveowning Duke of York (he used to have his slaves branded "DY") who became king James III? It's not "woke" to want it renamed. The name simply breaks the "don't commemorate perpetrators of crimes against humanity" rule.
Updated 5m ago 2% REPORTED (including partial returns from six towns including capital Concord & biggest Manchester) Donald Bolduc (MAGA but not endorsed by Trump) 1,017 37.7% Chuck Morse (establishment GOP endorsed by Gov. Sununu) 873 32.3% Kevin Smith (former town manager of Londonderry - NH not NI) 358 13.3%
SSI - my gut is rumbling that General Bolduc prevails, in part because the Smith vote is not inconsequential AND is mostly coming out of Morse's hide methinks.
Meet the new nominee. "It seems like you’re saying to the people of NH that if you are elected, & are serving in 2024, when certification comes before the Senate again, you wouldn’t just talk the talk—you would walk the walk. Is that accurate?"
Note Trump has started wearing Q lapel buttons recently.
A key pattern I have found in studying QAnon is how adherents shift their perception of good and evil over time. E.G. A conspiracy theory circulating in the ecosystem at the moment is that Trump, Xi Ji Ping, Putin and Kim Jong-Un are working together to take down the cabal https://twitter.com/_MAArgentino/status/1569844737229594625
In liberated Balakliya, a destroyed school, bodies buried on the edge of town, and a “torture chamber” interrogation room point to Russia’s violent rule. “It was all a nightmare, it couldn’t have been worse.” https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1569842989379514368
Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/ken-starr-jeffrey-epstein-book Ken Starr, the lawyer who hounded Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, waged a “scorched-earth” legal campaign to persuade federal prosecutors to drop a sex-trafficking case against the billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein relating to the abuse of multiple underaged girls, according to a new book.
In Perversion of Justice the Miami Herald reporter Julie K Brown writes about Starr’s role in securing the secret 2008 sweetheart deal that granted Epstein effective immunity from federal prosecution. The author, who is credited with blowing open the cover-up, calls Starr a “fixer” who “used his political connections in the White House to get the Justice Department to review Epstein’s case”.…
The delay, disclosed earlier this month by the Department of State Health Services, means lawmakers won’t likely be able to use the analysis, covering deaths from 2019, until the 2025 legislative cycle. The most recent state-level data available is nine years old.…
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
I think the 'value' in this market is in backing Johnson as PM after the next general election. Its a higher than 1.18% chance that he makes a comeback and then goes on to win again, in my view.
If this Telegram map is to be believed, the Russians have completely abandoned Kharkiv and the land north of Luhansk (i.e. almost everything gained in the battle of Donbas).
And are sizing up to protect Donetsk at all cost. Will be interesting to see if Ukraine attempt a grand encirclement or settle down for the winter with these gains.
The ban doesn't bother me. Nor is the US the only country I'm banned from. It isn't a country I'd plan to visit, although if I were to be allowed to go there and did actually want to, it would be NYC that I'd stay in. Every film I've seen based in NYC (probably about 60% of the ones I've seen set in the US) plays crudely on a contrast between two different parts of the city. If the Bronx is shown, it's almost always by depicting young Hispanic lads playing basketball behind a high wire fence on a housing scheme. Really toe-curling stereotyping. Doubtless they think they've moved on from depicting Mexico in early films by showing a sombrero on a wall and playing a soundtrack of a cicada, but have they? :-) In some films there's contrast between the city and upstate NY boondocks or between the city and some ultra-nobby place on Long Island. Bow Bridge in Central Park is almost always featured. Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is literally always featured, in the films I've watched anyway. The various boroughs are always represented the same way: Brooklyn as full of young small business types running twee retail operations, with perhaps a few retired well-heeled types living in mansions; Queens as like a big version of an Aldi supermarket. The other contrast that often features is between NYC as a "European" or "Anglo" city where people pronounce or spell words in what's seen as an English way, and the rest of the US. Such a highly limited range of references, but I'm sure NYC is much more interesting in real life than its depiction in films. Central Park has the other Cleopatra's Needle. Did you know NYC is named after the slaveowning Duke of York (he used to have his slaves branded "DY") who became king James III? It's not "woke" to want it renamed. The name simply breaks the "don't commemorate perpetrators of crimes against humanity" rule.
New York was a city that surprised me, not least because of its familiarity from film and TV. Surprisingly small in Midtown with everything easy walking distance. Times Square and the famous shops like Bloomingdales and Macys were disappointing, but I was pretty impressed with other places such as MOMA, and the Natural History Museum. We had a very pleasant week there, though the airports were amongst the worst that I have seen in a developed country.
I was pleasantly surprised by Moscow too when I was there. I expected it to be interesting, but was surprised at its beauty. One think about the imminent collapse of Putins regime is that my planned tour of Russia might be back on sooner than I thought.
I think the 'value' in this market is in backing Johnson as PM after the next general election. Its a higher than 1.18% chance that he makes a comeback and then goes on to win again, in my view.
I think there is zero chance of that. A good bet to lay, if you have enough stake.
Yes, even the wooden Starmer starts to look good when up against the gawky Truss. I am no fan and won't be voting Labour, but he will be a decent PM, though managing NOM will be his biggest problem.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Inflation: August figures from @ONS: CPI 9.9%, down from 10.1%. RPI 12.3%, unchanged from July. CPIH which no-one uses (except Ofwat) 8.6%, down from 8.8% Next month's CPI is the one used to increase benefits and pensions in April
Inflation: August figures from @ONS: CPI 9.9%, down from 10.1%. RPI 12.3%, unchanged from July. CPIH which no-one uses (except Ofwat) 8.6%, down from 8.8% Next month's CPI is the one used to increase benefits and pensions in April
Much better than feared and the substantial drop in commodities still to come. I am sure I said that those forecasts of 18%+ were complete nonsense. Have we seen the peak? Maybe not, but we are certainly close to it.
Sitting here in Brighton hospital waiting for wife to be discharged. Was signed out this morning at 10am.
The reason we are blocking a bed is apparently there is just ONE medic covering the wards able to sign the paperwork.
We have to self discharge and come back tomorrow to pick up drugs. 2:30 round trip and more time off work.
Still the NHS saved her life. The agony and ecstasy of the NHS.
Not dissimilar to my recent experience. Shambles on arrival (24h waiting for a bed in A&E), discharge delayed by 2 days because they couldn’t get all the paperwork sorted out (far from atypical on my ward, so at least I was prepared) and post-op follow up has been patchy at best, BUT, the really important bit where I had two operations went very well and I’m now well on the road to recovery.
A 1.3% lead for the Democrats in the House probably translates into a ten seat lead or so, for the Republicans.
I think more, in 2012 the Dems has a 1.1 point lead and the GOP got a 33 seat majority. A GOP 1.1 point lead in 2016 meant a 47 seat GOP majority.
The Supreme Court blocking the Dems attempts at carefully considered Congressional District Boundadry adjustment whilst waving through various foul gerrymandering attempts by the GOP means that anything sub 3% lead for the Dems is a clear GOP win for me.
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
For all the proclaimed decline in British soft power we do appear to live rent free in the heads of several dictatorships…..it’s a mystery.
I think the 'value' in this market is in backing Johnson as PM after the next general election. Its a higher than 1.18% chance that he makes a comeback and then goes on to win again, in my view.
My father told me that the unofficial motto of the British army was hurry up and wait, meaning get into the right position fast but then pause. I think this is the same idea of tempo. I think there will now be a period of consolidation south of Kharkov and attention will return to Kherson.
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
For all the proclaimed decline in British soft power we do appear to live rent free in the heads of several dictatorships…..it’s a mystery.
The Death of Her Maj shows that UK Soft Power is absolutely not in decline. If anything, it is more pervasive than anyone imagined
I had no idea, for instance, that the UK looms so large in the American subconscious. The NYT is not an outlier, it turns out, more a bellwether
The American relationship to the UK is strikingly, complexly filial. Child to parent. Sometimes patronising - “silly old person that talks to bees” - yet simultaneously awed, despite itself
I think the 'value' in this market is in backing Johnson as PM after the next general election. Its a higher than 1.18% chance that he makes a comeback and then goes on to win again, in my view.
Why do we have a road called Constitution Hill? We don't have a Constitution and it's barely a hilll.
We do have a constitution - just not codified
All constitutions are written. A constitution is a body of higher law that other laws have to comply with and can only itself be changed by a more stringent procedure than the other laws.
Almost every country in the world has one.
The question of whether Britain has a constitution is a litmus test. Those who can think for themselves try to define constitution and then look at whether anything in Britain matches up. The other 99.9% know that they're supposed to say Britain has an unwritten constitution, so they either parrot that line as if the person who can think for himself had never heard it before, or else if they "fancy themselves" they start thinking up "reasons" to justify the idiotic "unwritten constitution" position that obviously they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.
This is why you are a bot not a person. A well designed one.
You’ve written a paragraph on “unwritten constitutions” and used it to take a swipe.
But I didn’t say “unwritten constitution”. I specifically wrote that we don’t have a CODIFIED constitution.
Of cause we have a constitution - Blackwood, Dicey, Bagehot, Erskine May, precedent and tradition all form part of it. It’s wonderfully flexible and more or less works most of the time
It’s been a while since we’ve had a homocidal maniac in charge.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Excellent, we are starting to get the Ukrainian analysis of the Kharkiv operation (actually linked Kherson-Kharkiv operations), and its important to pay alot of attention. The Ukrainian position has been often overlooked in western reporting (to its great detriment).
Yet another shocking example of New York Times's rampant Anglophobia:
NYT - When the Queen died, someone had to tell the bees
LONDON — As news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II reverberated through the world, a headline over the weekend puzzled many on social media: The Daily Mail’s exclusive that the “royal beekeeper has informed the Queen’s bees that the Queen has died.”
Did bees need to be told about human affairs? Would they have any sort of opinion on the matter?
But some beekeepers, backed by folklore historians, say “telling the bees” is a standard practice that goes back centuries, with potentially grave consequences if not followed.
“It’s a very old and well-established tradition but not something that’s very well-known,” said Mark Norman, a folklorist and the author of “Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Crafts.”
The tradition holds that bees, as members of the family, should be informed of major family events, especially births and deaths. Beekeepers would knock on each hive, deliver the news and possibly cover the hive with a black cloth during a mourning period. The practice is more commonly known in Britain but is also found in the United States and other parts of Europe, Norman said.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was believed that neglecting to tell the bees could lead to various misfortunes, including their death or a failure to make honey. Nowadays, beekeepers might be less likely to believe they risk bad luck, but they continue to follow the tradition as “a mark of respect,” Norman said.
Stephen Fleming, a beekeeper for 25 years and the co-editor of BeeCraft, a magazine for British beekeepers, said he once performed the tradition after a friend died. He went to the friend’s bees, quietly knocked on the hives and told them the news, he said.
“It was just something I thought my friend would have enjoyed,” he added.
After BeeCraft published an article about telling the bees in 2019, several people wrote in with their own stories of doing the task. One reader, addressing someone else’s bees, spoke in rhyme to tell them their master had died: “Honeybees, honeybees, hear what I say. Your master [name] has now passed away.”
John Chapple, the beekeeper at Buckingham Palace, declined to comment. The Daily Mail reported that he had placed black ribbons tied into bows on the hives before telling them in hushed tones that the queen had died and that they would have a new master.
Fleming said most beekeepers would most likely be aware of the tradition, but not as many would practice it.
“It’s generally thought to be a good and nice thing to do,” he said.
The rhythms and rhymes of rural life. It’s a sweet thing to do
It’s been a while since we’ve had a homocidal maniac in charge.
Say “hi” to Vlad for me
You're very polite. I'd want him to say, 'So Vlad, how does it feel both to have the world's smallest dick AND to be a complete loser who can't beat a former comedian?'
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
The BBC is great, no one has its breadth or reach. Why the Tories are against it is quite beyond me. Fund it properly, conquer the world.
I'm not sure that it's not funded 'properly' already, but I agree that its potential as an engine of British commercial success and crucible of British talent is not being recognised currently.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
For all the proclaimed decline in British soft power we do appear to live rent free in the heads of several dictatorships…..it’s a mystery.
The Death of Her Maj shows that UK Soft Power is absolutely not in decline. If anything, it is more pervasive than anyone imagined
I had no idea, for instance, that the UK looms so large in the American subconscious. The NYT is not an outlier, it turns out, more a bellwether
The American relationship to the UK is strikingly, complexly filial. Child to parent. Sometimes patronising - “silly old person that talks to bees” - yet simultaneously awed, despite itself
And that’s just the USA
If you ask in foreign countries about Britain, the vast majority of the responses are that we are quaint, eccentric, snobby, and alternately pompous or self depreciatingly humorous.
We are just living up to that stereotype, and that plays well to expectations.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Yet another shocking example of New York Times's rampant Anglophobia:
NYT - When the Queen died, someone had to tell the bees
LONDON — As news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II reverberated through the world, a headline over the weekend puzzled many on social media: The Daily Mail’s exclusive that the “royal beekeeper has informed the Queen’s bees that the Queen has died.”
Did bees need to be told about human affairs? Would they have any sort of opinion on the matter?
But some beekeepers, backed by folklore historians, say “telling the bees” is a standard practice that goes back centuries, with potentially grave consequences if not followed.
“It’s a very old and well-established tradition but not something that’s very well-known,” said Mark Norman, a folklorist and the author of “Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Crafts.”
The tradition holds that bees, as members of the family, should be informed of major family events, especially births and deaths. Beekeepers would knock on each hive, deliver the news and possibly cover the hive with a black cloth during a mourning period. The practice is more commonly known in Britain but is also found in the United States and other parts of Europe, Norman said.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was believed that neglecting to tell the bees could lead to various misfortunes, including their death or a failure to make honey. Nowadays, beekeepers might be less likely to believe they risk bad luck, but they continue to follow the tradition as “a mark of respect,” Norman said.
Stephen Fleming, a beekeeper for 25 years and the co-editor of BeeCraft, a magazine for British beekeepers, said he once performed the tradition after a friend died. He went to the friend’s bees, quietly knocked on the hives and told them the news, he said.
“It was just something I thought my friend would have enjoyed,” he added.
After BeeCraft published an article about telling the bees in 2019, several people wrote in with their own stories of doing the task. One reader, addressing someone else’s bees, spoke in rhyme to tell them their master had died: “Honeybees, honeybees, hear what I say. Your master [name] has now passed away.”
John Chapple, the beekeeper at Buckingham Palace, declined to comment. The Daily Mail reported that he had placed black ribbons tied into bows on the hives before telling them in hushed tones that the queen had died and that they would have a new master.
Fleming said most beekeepers would most likely be aware of the tradition, but not as many would practice it.
“It’s generally thought to be a good and nice thing to do,” he said.
The rhythms and rhymes of rural life. It’s a sweet thing to do
Also sensible. If the bees go on strike, we all die. Who knows how the Hive Mind works. Best be careful. This is Pascal’s Wager. Nothing to lose by being respectful to these mysteriously powerful creatures, a lot to gain
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens, whose existence you always seaem to be unaware of. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
Is that why Salmond is slavering over the monarchy? Taking the opportunity to remind us of his great SNPness?
Sitting here in Brighton hospital waiting for wife to be discharged. Was signed out this morning at 10am.
The reason we are blocking a bed is apparently there is just ONE medic covering the wards able to sign the paperwork.
We have to self discharge and come back tomorrow to pick up drugs. 2:30 round trip and more time off work.
Still the NHS saved her life. The agony and ecstasy of the NHS.
Not dissimilar to my recent experience. Shambles on arrival (24h waiting for a bed in A&E), discharge delayed by 2 days because they couldn’t get all the paperwork sorted out (far from atypical on my ward, so at least I was prepared) and post-op follow up has been patchy at best, BUT, the really important bit where I had two operations went very well and I’m now well on the road to recovery.
I'm very glad to hear it. I wonder if the emphasis on "front line staff" is leading to inefficient savings in administrative staff - a unit may be more effective with 4 nurses and an adminstrator than 5 nurses with one doing the admin when there's a moment to spare. You see the same in much of private industry, where PAs are a thing of the past below Director level, so highly-paid managers queue for the scanner and spend time pondering the delights of Expedia and the rail network.
"The King's top aide, his principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, said in the letter to staff that the change in role for the former Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall meant that Clarence House would be "closed down".
He said the former Prince of Wales's personal interests and former activities would no longer be carried out.
"It is therefore expected that the need for the posts principally based at Clarence House whose work supports these areas, will no longer be needed.""
Goodness me, all these activities must be vitally important if a decision can simply be taken to terminate them all immediately, without even bothering to consider passing any of them on to anyone else.
What a perfect way to sum up the pointlessness of the whole thing.
Fundamentally you had 3 Households (buck house, Clarence House and KP). You now only need 2. So, for example, the finance function is no longer needed at Clarence House
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens, whose existence you always seaem to be unaware of. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
Is that why Salmond is slavering over the monarchy? Taking the opportunity to remind us of his great SNPness?
Oh, it's real - he apparently got on well with HM, for one thing having the ponies to talk about. But as for the SNP, he's not in the party hierarchy and I'm not sure he is even a member.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
The ban doesn't bother me. Nor is the US the only country I'm banned from. It isn't a country I'd plan to visit, although if I were to be allowed to go there and did actually want to, it would be NYC that I'd stay in. Every film I've seen based in NYC (probably about 60% of the ones I've seen set in the US) plays crudely on a contrast between two different parts of the city. If the Bronx is shown, it's almost always by depicting young Hispanic lads playing basketball behind a high wire fence on a housing scheme. Really toe-curling stereotyping. Doubtless they think they've moved on from depicting Mexico in early films by showing a sombrero on a wall and playing a soundtrack of a cicada, but have they? :-) In some films there's contrast between the city and upstate NY boondocks or between the city and some ultra-nobby place on Long Island. Bow Bridge in Central Park is almost always featured. Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is literally always featured, in the films I've watched anyway. The various boroughs are always represented the same way: Brooklyn as full of young small business types running twee retail operations, with perhaps a few retired well-heeled types living in mansions; Queens as like a big version of an Aldi supermarket. The other contrast that often features is between NYC as a "European" or "Anglo" city where people pronounce or spell words in what's seen as an English way, and the rest of the US. Such a highly limited range of references, but I'm sure NYC is much more interesting in real life than its depiction in films. Central Park has the other Cleopatra's Needle. Did you know NYC is named after the slaveowning Duke of York (he used to have his slaves branded "DY") who became king James III? It's not "woke" to want it renamed. The name simply breaks the "don't commemorate perpetrators of crimes against humanity" rule.
Paragraphs PLEASE! But interesting points - do our US residents agree?
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" and spend in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
Yet another shocking example of New York Times's rampant Anglophobia:
NYT - When the Queen died, someone had to tell the bees
LONDON — As news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II reverberated through the world, a headline over the weekend puzzled many on social media: The Daily Mail’s exclusive that the “royal beekeeper has informed the Queen’s bees that the Queen has died.”
Did bees need to be told about human affairs? Would they have any sort of opinion on the matter?
But some beekeepers, backed by folklore historians, say “telling the bees” is a standard practice that goes back centuries, with potentially grave consequences if not followed.
“It’s a very old and well-established tradition but not something that’s very well-known,” said Mark Norman, a folklorist and the author of “Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Crafts.”
The tradition holds that bees, as members of the family, should be informed of major family events, especially births and deaths. Beekeepers would knock on each hive, deliver the news and possibly cover the hive with a black cloth during a mourning period. The practice is more commonly known in Britain but is also found in the United States and other parts of Europe, Norman said.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was believed that neglecting to tell the bees could lead to various misfortunes, including their death or a failure to make honey. Nowadays, beekeepers might be less likely to believe they risk bad luck, but they continue to follow the tradition as “a mark of respect,” Norman said.
Stephen Fleming, a beekeeper for 25 years and the co-editor of BeeCraft, a magazine for British beekeepers, said he once performed the tradition after a friend died. He went to the friend’s bees, quietly knocked on the hives and told them the news, he said.
“It was just something I thought my friend would have enjoyed,” he added.
After BeeCraft published an article about telling the bees in 2019, several people wrote in with their own stories of doing the task. One reader, addressing someone else’s bees, spoke in rhyme to tell them their master had died: “Honeybees, honeybees, hear what I say. Your master [name] has now passed away.”
John Chapple, the beekeeper at Buckingham Palace, declined to comment. The Daily Mail reported that he had placed black ribbons tied into bows on the hives before telling them in hushed tones that the queen had died and that they would have a new master.
Fleming said most beekeepers would most likely be aware of the tradition, but not as many would practice it.
“It’s generally thought to be a good and nice thing to do,” he said.
The rhythms and rhymes of rural life. It’s a sweet thing to do
Also sensible. If the bees go on strike, we all die. Who knows how the Hive Mind works.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
The influential 79 Group were Republican though, weren’t they? and Salmond was a leading figure in the 79 Group.
Sitting here in Brighton hospital waiting for wife to be discharged. Was signed out this morning at 10am.
The reason we are blocking a bed is apparently there is just ONE medic covering the wards able to sign the paperwork.
We have to self discharge and come back tomorrow to pick up drugs. 2:30 round trip and more time off work.
Still the NHS saved her life. The agony and ecstasy of the NHS.
Not dissimilar to my recent experience. Shambles on arrival (24h waiting for a bed in A&E), discharge delayed by 2 days because they couldn’t get all the paperwork sorted out (far from atypical on my ward, so at least I was prepared) and post-op follow up has been patchy at best, BUT, the really important bit where I had two operations went very well and I’m now well on the road to recovery.
I'm very glad to hear it. I wonder if the emphasis on "front line staff" is leading to inefficient savings in administrative staff - a unit may be more effective with 4 nurses and an adminstrator than 5 nurses with one doing the admin when there's a moment to spare. You see the same in much of private industry, where PAs are a thing of the past below Director level, so highly-paid managers queue for the scanner and spend time pondering the delights of Expedia and the rail network.
In my wife’s case, the problem was a shortage of medics. Someone was required to sit quietly for 30 mins, review the notes, wrap the case and prescribe whatever meds were required. The one doctor available was stabilising patients at acute risk. If they had one more doctor it would have unblocked the system allowing a flow of patients.
"The King's top aide, his principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, said in the letter to staff that the change in role for the former Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall meant that Clarence House would be "closed down".
He said the former Prince of Wales's personal interests and former activities would no longer be carried out.
"It is therefore expected that the need for the posts principally based at Clarence House whose work supports these areas, will no longer be needed.""
Goodness me, all these activities must be vitally important if a decision can simply be taken to terminate them all immediately, without even bothering to consider passing any of them on to anyone else.
What a perfect way to sum up the pointlessness of the whole thing.
Fundamentally you had 3 Households (buck house, Clarence House and KP). You now only need 2. So, for example, the finance function is no longer needed at Clarence House
I though the new Prince of Wales would move into Clarence House. And then there was talk that the King would stay there and Buckingham Palace would cease to be a Royal residence and he would just keep an office there.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Redwood: 'Look Liz, when I was talking about cutting fat, I didn't mean cut the anti-fat campaigns!'
This is where deregulation always hits the rocks.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
To be fair, we don't know if we would be fatter still without the anti-obesity strategy.
I think that we can very reasonably question the content of that strategy, but we certainly should have a strategy for the country's main public health issue.
As someone who is technically 'obese' but is not noticeably 'fat'; I find the normalisation of obesity very annoying. It isn't a good path to be going on. Having the 'calories counted' in food when eating out is helpful. I would find it annoying if these changes get rolled back. I would actually see it as a concession to the 'woke' / 'fat studies' crowd, rather than any sort of progress against the 'nanny state' or 'deregulation of business'.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens, whose existence you always seaem to be unaware of. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
Is that why Salmond is slavering over the monarchy? Taking the opportunity to remind us of his great SNPness?
Oh, it's real - he apparently got on well with HM, for one thing having the ponies to talk about. But as for the SNP, he's not in the party hierarchy and I'm not sure he is even a member.
Oh, he's a member. The court case proved that.
Whether he's linked to the SNP is a different question
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
But I don’t think that’s what’s driving Truss here…
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Redwood: 'Look Liz, when I was talking about cutting fat, I didn't mean cut the anti-fat campaigns!'
This is where deregulation always hits the rocks.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A political party ignores consumers at its peril.
Nobody is going to suffer from lack of the Government telling them to eat less. It's a huge waste of money.
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
For all the proclaimed decline in British soft power we do appear to live rent free in the heads of several dictatorships…..it’s a mystery.
The Death of Her Maj shows that UK Soft Power is absolutely not in decline. If anything, it is more pervasive than anyone imagined
I had no idea, for instance, that the UK looms so large in the American subconscious. The NYT is not an outlier, it turns out, more a bellwether
The American relationship to the UK is strikingly, complexly filial. Child to parent. Sometimes patronising - “silly old person that talks to bees” - yet simultaneously awed, despite itself
And that’s just the USA
If you ask in foreign countries about Britain, the vast majority of the responses are that we are quaint, eccentric, snobby, and alternately pompous or self depreciatingly humorous.
We are just living up to that stereotype, and that plays well to expectations.
The psychodynamics at play are SO much deeper and vastly more interesting than that. But, you are a well meaning, quite parochial, deeply unimaginative doctor from Leicester. So, it’s all good
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
As someone who is technically 'obese' but is not noticeably 'fat'; I find the normalisation of obesity very annoying. It isn't a good path to be going on. Having the 'calories counted' in food when eating out is helpful. I would find it annoying if these changes get rolled back. I would actually see it as a concession to the 'woke' / 'fat studies' crowd, rather than any sort of progress against the 'nanny state' or 'deregulation of business'.
Indeed accurate labelling so people know what they are getting is a key part of a functioning free market.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" and spend in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
Is it costing the government anything? I think the objection on the part of government is that it is a 'cost to business'.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
This is so bad it could almost be a parody of a 'Kremlin fake'.
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
For all the proclaimed decline in British soft power we do appear to live rent free in the heads of several dictatorships…..it’s a mystery.
The Death of Her Maj shows that UK Soft Power is absolutely not in decline. If anything, it is more pervasive than anyone imagined
I had no idea, for instance, that the UK looms so large in the American subconscious. The NYT is not an outlier, it turns out, more a bellwether
The American relationship to the UK is strikingly, complexly filial. Child to parent. Sometimes patronising - “silly old person that talks to bees” - yet simultaneously awed, despite itself
And that’s just the USA
If you ask in foreign countries about Britain, the vast majority of the responses are that we are quaint, eccentric, snobby, and alternately pompous or self depreciatingly humorous.
We are just living up to that stereotype, and that plays well to expectations.
The psychodynamics at play are SO much deeper and vastly more interesting than that. But, you are a well meaning, quite parochial, deeply unimaginative doctor from Leicester. So, it’s all good
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
The influential 79 Group were Republican though, weren’t they? and Salmond was a leading figure in the 79 Group.
That was a long time ago (it ceased in 1982). Rather longer ago than, say, Ms Truss and her republicanism. He certainly changed his tune in recent decades.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" and spend in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
Is it costing the government anything? I think the objection on the part of government is that it is a 'cost to business'.
red tape costs both government (or taxpayer) and business .Put it this way when you invite guests around for a dinner party do you think they woudl appreciate you putting little cards next to the servings telling them how many calories are in the food? Its nannying in the sense of the government thinking they can do something about it when it is down to individuals own respeonsibility for their health - as i said the best way for government to approach this is to not intervene but tax less healthy activity
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Redwood: 'Look Liz, when I was talking about cutting fat, I didn't mean cut the anti-fat campaigns!'
This is where deregulation always hits the rocks.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A political party ignores consumers at its peril.
Nobody is going to suffer from lack of the Government telling them to eat less. It's a huge waste of money.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
See also Sinn Fein.
Agreed - personal graciousness goes a long way in making people reassess how they categorise you. At a trivial level, I remember failing to recognise Martin McGuinness at a Sinn Fein conference where I was running a charity stand (it had been a long day...). His assistant was OUTRAGED but he couldn't have been nicer about it - "Ah, we can't remember everyone all the time". Yes, a former terrorist, but a recognisable human being.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
A commentator on the Beeb the other day, can't remember her name, was discussing support for the monarchy amongst the different parties in Scotland. She said that SNP official policy is pro-monarchy but support amongst members/voters was in the 20s percent. I missed the detail of whether it was members or voters. And don't know her source to try verify.
Makes sense not to scare royalists away when it isn't really the key issue for the party.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" and spend in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
Physical activity is very important for health and should be encouraged, but obesity is much more to do with intake than exercise. Most public health analysts think government hasn’t tried enough to reduce obesity, so I don’t see the rationale for your “let’s give up” attitude.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Redwood: 'Look Liz, when I was talking about cutting fat, I didn't mean cut the anti-fat campaigns!'
This is where deregulation always hits the rocks.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A political party ignores consumers at its peril.
Nobody is going to suffer from lack of the Government telling them to eat less. It's a huge waste of money.
First of all it’s not even expensive. We’re talking rounding errors while this new government throws over 100bn at the energy sector. You know and I know that it’s just virtue signalling to the libertarian right who put her in position.
Secondly obesity costs us as a country vast amounts in healthcare spending and lost productivity. Nobody’s suggesting government healthy eating campaigns are a silver bullet but we need to start, as has already been commented on, fighting against the normalisation of obesity. It’s not normal, it’s a fatal preventable disease like lung cancer from smoking.
Sitting here in Brighton hospital waiting for wife to be discharged. Was signed out this morning at 10am.
The reason we are blocking a bed is apparently there is just ONE medic covering the wards able to sign the paperwork.
We have to self discharge and come back tomorrow to pick up drugs. 2:30 round trip and more time off work.
Still the NHS saved her life. The agony and ecstasy of the NHS.
Not dissimilar to my recent experience. Shambles on arrival (24h waiting for a bed in A&E), discharge delayed by 2 days because they couldn’t get all the paperwork sorted out (far from atypical on my ward, so at least I was prepared) and post-op follow up has been patchy at best, BUT, the really important bit where I had two operations went very well and I’m now well on the road to recovery.
I'm very glad to hear it. I wonder if the emphasis on "front line staff" is leading to inefficient savings in administrative staff - a unit may be more effective with 4 nurses and an adminstrator than 5 nurses with one doing the admin when there's a moment to spare. You see the same in much of private industry, where PAs are a thing of the past below Director level, so highly-paid managers queue for the scanner and spend time pondering the delights of Expedia and the rail network.
In my wife’s case, the problem was a shortage of medics. Someone was required to sit quietly for 30 mins, review the notes, wrap the case and prescribe whatever meds were required. The one doctor available was stabilising patients at acute risk. If they had one more doctor it would have unblocked the system allowing a flow of patients.
Part of the problem is the lack of continuity. While the long hours when I were House Doctor were cruel, I did know every patient, so writing discharge summary was easy.
Often the problem is delays from pharmacy, discharge arrangements for District Nurses and other unglamorous stuff like that.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
The influential 79 Group were Republican though, weren’t they? and Salmond was a leading figure in the 79 Group.
That was a long time ago (it ceased in 1982). Rather longer ago than, say, Ms Truss and her republicanism. He certainly changed his tune in recent decades.
I can't remember who suggested it yesterday but I've decided to leave a digital message of condolence from my family and donate to some of The Queen's charities instead of buying flowers and adding them to the pile.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
The influential 79 Group were Republican though, weren’t they? and Salmond was a leading figure in the 79 Group.
That was a long time ago (it ceased in 1982). Rather longer ago than, say, Ms Truss and her republicanism. He certainly changed his tune in recent decades.
I understand that Alba is explicitly republican…?
Salmond isn't though and was even at the Accession Council. Only the Greens leadership and membership are explicitly pro Republic
The ban doesn't bother me. Nor is the US the only country I'm banned from. It isn't a country I'd plan to visit, although if I were to be allowed to go there and did actually want to, it would be NYC that I'd stay in. Every film I've seen based in NYC (probably about 60% of the ones I've seen set in the US) plays crudely on a contrast between two different parts of the city. If the Bronx is shown, it's almost always by depicting young Hispanic lads playing basketball behind a high wire fence on a housing scheme. Really toe-curling stereotyping. Doubtless they think they've moved on from depicting Mexico in early films by showing a sombrero on a wall and playing a soundtrack of a cicada, but have they? :-) In some films there's contrast between the city and upstate NY boondocks or between the city and some ultra-nobby place on Long Island. Bow Bridge in Central Park is almost always featured. Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is literally always featured, in the films I've watched anyway. The various boroughs are always represented the same way: Brooklyn as full of young small business types running twee retail operations, with perhaps a few retired well-heeled types living in mansions; Queens as like a big version of an Aldi supermarket. The other contrast that often features is between NYC as a "European" or "Anglo" city where people pronounce or spell words in what's seen as an English way, and the rest of the US. Such a highly limited range of references, but I'm sure NYC is much more interesting in real life than its depiction in films. Central Park has the other Cleopatra's Needle. Did you know NYC is named after the slaveowning Duke of York (he used to have his slaves branded "DY") who became king James III? It's not "woke" to want it renamed. The name simply breaks the "don't commemorate perpetrators of crimes against humanity" rule.
James III ???? who he?
James III of Scotland died in 1488 - well over a century before the Dutch established themselves on the tip of Manhattan. There was no James III of England or Great Britain, except in the minds of the Old Pretender's supporters - but James Francis Edward, the son of James II of England, was never appointed Duke of York.
New York was named after James, a younger son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria: appointed Duke of York at birth in 1633 and granted much of the American East Coast in 1664 by his older brother Charles II. On the death of Charles in 1685, the then Duke of York assumed the throne as James II of England and James VII of Scotland. James II then lost the throne in 1688, but descendants living in Catholic Europe claimed the throne until 1807. Off topic, the most bizarre relic of the century of Pretension is the chapel housing the tomb of Henry Benedict Stuart, known in the Vatican as Cardinal Duke of York, in Rome's Santa Maria in Trastevere. Almost surreally, the chapel's entrance is crowned with Henry Stuart's coat of arms as cardinal - essentially the British monarch's - though no foreign power supported his claims to the throne
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
A commentator on the Beeb the other day, can't remember her name, was discussing support for the monarchy amongst the different parties in Scotland. She said that SNP official policy is pro-monarchy but support amongst members/voters was in the 20s percent. I missed the detail of whether it was members or voters. And don't know her source to try verify.
Makes sense not to scare royalists away when it isn't really the key issue for the party.
The BBC royal commentary has not always been very informed on Scotland - there was a huge howler in a comment about Knox driving out the Catholics from Scotland, followed by some highly inappropriate lauighter, for instance ...
In this instance, the statement doesn't ring any bells, but that isn't too out of kilter with the voting population. The figures for the support of monarchy aren't that great in Scotland (and were taken in QE2's time, the ones here, in 2021 or 2022, sources below). Only 45% of voters in Scotland want to keep the monarchy anyway, which is pretty remarkable in the context of what has been said ad libitum in recent days. And if one takes out the UK link by forcing a question on what people would prefer after independence, only 54% of the declared No to indyref2 voters would want the momarchy, and 24% DK. That really does surprise me.
We need polling in the Carribean realms. A lot of their governments get tempted to fire from the hip - I suspect it's not a slam dunk in Antigua or even Jamaica.
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
There is a longstanding part of 'woke' thinking that essentially glorifies obesity, trying to suggest it is a social construct rather than a medical problem. The alternative 'fattylmpics' in 2012; along with the emergence of an academic discipline of 'fat studies' over the past 2 decades was an early manifestation of this. It is now mainstreamed with this idea of body positivity, people being obese and thinking that there is nothing wrong with it, that the problem is with 'society' and it all being reducible to a question of identity, with them being 'victims'. There is a good chapter on it in 'cynical theories' by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
It is clearly not good for either the individual or society if you are obese . That said government "intervention" and spend in this area clearly has not worked so why bother ? Better to spend the dosh on making sport participation zero rated for VAT
Is it costing the government anything? I think the objection on the part of government is that it is a 'cost to business'.
red tape costs both government (or taxpayer) and business .Put it this way when you invite guests around for a dinner party do you think they woudl appreciate you putting little cards next to the servings telling them how many calories are in the food? Its nannying in the sense of the government thinking they can do something about it when it is down to individuals own respeonsibility for their health - as i said the best way for government to approach this is to not intervene but tax less healthy activity
About .01% of what obesity and its consequences cost the NHS.
People may think the extent is too much, personal taste will vary, but I find it hard to believe when people act surprised that others are not just going 'Oh, she had a great life'. It was the Head of State, in a place where Heads of State do not change often. It's not just some random very old lady dying.
It's not mad. Or even if it is, it is not hard to understand.
I dunno, I do find it a bit hard to understand at the more extreme end, ie not just "it really affected me" but "willing to be in a multi hour queue across London". That seems not merely like heartfelt grief but a kind of public acting out and display of emotion that is alien to me. (The grief I have less trouble with understanding -- clearly other people felt a closer connection to the monarch than I ever have.)
Yep. I tend to see royalism a bit the same as religion, ie not my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat just as long as you DON’T FECKING EVANGELISE. The present spasm seems towards the cultish ends of things, and of course the monarchy and how it expresses itself is entwined with the way we’re governed whether we like it or not.
I think other PBers should understand that this is a uniquely difficult week for republican Scottish nationalists. Sturgeon singing GSTK and pledging to uphold the Protestant religion...ouch.
I don't think it is difficult for them at all. With the exception of a few extremists both the Nats and the Republicans have understood that the best way to advance their cause is to allow Monarchists and Unionists to have their time of grief for the old Monarch and happiness for the new one. No one (with the exception of the terminally thick like Dynamo and Dura) enjoys seeing people grieving, even if they may not share that grief or necessarily agree with it. Sturgeon wants to represent all of the people of Scotland - and we know that around about 50% of them are Unionists and a large majority of them were very fond of the Queen. So she represents them in her actions even if, after a suitable period, she returns to her political beliefs of independence and republicanism.
I think that, on the whole, Republicans and Scots Nationalists have done their cause no harm at all by showing understanding and compassion.
Could be wrong, but I don't think Sturgeon is a republican. Unlike Alba and the Greens, the SNP want to keep the monarchy
I think it's a particulary English view to think of support for the monarchy in binary Y/N terms.
Pretty sure Salmond is more monarchist than Sturgeon, in any case he seems very possessive of his connection to HMQ.
Salmond is certainly still pro monarchy even if most of his party aren't
You're talking nonsense again. Probably muddling the SNP with the Scottish Greens [edited - excellent, you have acknowledged their existence for once, in another post]. The SNP is a formally pro-monarchy party.
The influential 79 Group were Republican though, weren’t they? and Salmond was a leading figure in the 79 Group.
That was a long time ago (it ceased in 1982). Rather longer ago than, say, Ms Truss and her republicanism. He certainly changed his tune in recent decades.
I understand that Alba is explicitly republican…?
If you mean by explicitly that some of its noisy online supporters go on about it rather than being an official policy, I guess so. The influence that a party polling less than 3% and with no elected (on an Alba ticket) reps has should not be underestimated..
A bit surprised that outlets like the Guardian are still running acres of Royal coverage at the top of their front pages. Sure, the Telegraph and BBC you’d expect. But it’s not like there isn’t any actual news happening at the moment.
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Redwood: 'Look Liz, when I was talking about cutting fat, I didn't mean cut the anti-fat campaigns!'
This is where deregulation always hits the rocks.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A political party ignores consumers at its peril.
Nobody is going to suffer from lack of the Government telling them to eat less. It's a huge waste of money.
Isn't there an argument for some public information at least? Many are incredibly ignorance about food science. I recall a conversation not long ago with someone justifying a lot of fried food who said it wasn't particularly high fat. He denied, and as far as I know still does, that oil is a form of fat.
Comments
Reublican for US Senator
Updated 5m ago
2% REPORTED (including partial returns from six towns including capital Concord & biggest Manchester)
Donald Bolduc (MAGA but not endorsed by Trump)
1,017 37.7%
Chuck Morse (establishment GOP endorsed by Gov. Sununu)
873 32.3%
Kevin Smith (former town manager of Londonderry - NH not NI)
358 13.3%
SSI - my gut is rumbling that General Bolduc prevails, in part because the Smith vote is not inconsequential AND is mostly coming out of Morse's hide methinks.
Republican GOP Governor - just 3% reported but Ashley Kalus is getting 85% of it and is clearly gonna win the nomination.
Democratic GOP Governor - NYT says Gov. "Daniel McKee, the former lieutenant governor, is seeking his first full term after replacing Gina Raimondo, who left to serve in the Biden administration. He faces four challengers in the Democratic primary."
with 15% reported
Helena Foulkes
7,185 33.7%
Daniel McKee*
6,690 31.4%
Nellie Gorbea
5,142 24.1%
Total reported
21,296
SSI - no votes reported yet from Bedford which is suburb of Manchester
Karoline Leavitt
1,282 32.6%
Matt Mowers
1,064 27.0%
Gail Huff Brown
688 17.5%
Total reported
3,934
Leavitt is former Trump administration official (PR) and so is Mowers (State Dept) but Leavitt has been out-Trumping him and is leading him in early results.
Incumbent Chris Pappas is unopposed for Democratic nomination in this key swing district.
"It seems like you’re saying to the people of NH that if you are elected, & are serving in 2024, when certification comes before the Senate again, you wouldn’t just talk the talk—you would walk the walk. Is that accurate?"
BOLDUC: "Oh, absolutely it’s accurate."
https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/1569901756733087745
Effectively a pledge to try to overturn the election of any Democratic president.
A key pattern I have found in studying QAnon is how adherents shift their perception of good and evil over time. E.G. A conspiracy theory circulating in the ecosystem at the moment is that Trump, Xi Ji Ping, Putin and Kim Jong-Un are working together to take down the cabal
https://twitter.com/_MAArgentino/status/1569844737229594625
a destroyed school, bodies buried on the edge of town, and a “torture chamber” interrogation room point to Russia’s violent rule. “It was all a nightmare, it couldn’t have been worse.”
https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1569842989379514368
Among other career highlights…
Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/ken-starr-jeffrey-epstein-book
Ken Starr, the lawyer who hounded Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, waged a “scorched-earth” legal campaign to persuade federal prosecutors to drop a sex-trafficking case against the billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein relating to the abuse of multiple underaged girls, according to a new book.
In Perversion of Justice the Miami Herald reporter Julie K Brown writes about Starr’s role in securing the secret 2008 sweetheart deal that granted Epstein effective immunity from federal prosecution. The author, who is credited with blowing open the cover-up, calls Starr a “fixer” who “used his political connections in the White House to get the Justice Department to review Epstein’s case”.…
Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh was a protege.
A thread on the recently deceased prince among lawyers.
https://twitter.com/revolvingdoorDC/status/1569801194519904256
Texas delays publication of maternal death data until after midterms
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-delays-publication-of-maternal-death-data-17439477.php
Texas health officials have missed a key window to complete the state’s first major updated count of pregnancy related deaths in nearly a decade, saying the findings will now be released next summer, most likely after the Legislature’s biennial session.
The delay, disclosed earlier this month by the Department of State Health Services, means lawmakers won’t likely be able to use the analysis, covering deaths from 2019, until the 2025 legislative cycle. The most recent state-level data available is nine years old.…
Worth a read.
https://twitter.com/markhertling/status/1569704142167506944?s=21&t=SFbqevVknhmgRObMEnxj9g
But if anything it reveals the complete and total awe in which our armed forces are held; despite the austerity, cuts and failures of the past two decades.
If this Telegram map is to be believed, the Russians have completely abandoned Kharkiv and the land north of Luhansk (i.e. almost everything gained in the battle of Donbas).
And are sizing up to protect Donetsk at all cost. Will be interesting to see if Ukraine attempt a grand encirclement or settle down for the winter with these gains.
I was pleasantly surprised by Moscow too when I was there. I expected it to be interesting, but was surprised at its beauty. One think about the imminent collapse of Putins regime is that my planned tour of Russia might be back on sooner than I thought.
Inflation: August figures from @ONS:
CPI 9.9%, down from 10.1%.
RPI 12.3%, unchanged from July.
CPIH which no-one uses (except Ofwat) 8.6%, down from 8.8%
Next month's CPI is the one used to increase benefits and pensions in April
Rate of inflation falling in US too: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/dow-jones-plunges-amid-news-of-us-inflation-rates/ar-AA11MdyP?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=74e20a3362b7492aba14f56202cb71e6
The Supreme Court blocking the Dems attempts at carefully considered Congressional District Boundadry adjustment whilst waving through various foul gerrymandering attempts by the GOP means that anything sub 3% lead for the Dems is a clear GOP win for me.
I had no idea, for instance, that the UK looms so large in the American subconscious. The NYT is not an outlier, it turns out, more a bellwether
The American relationship to the UK is strikingly, complexly filial. Child to parent. Sometimes patronising - “silly old person that talks to bees” - yet simultaneously awed, despite itself
And that’s just the USA
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1569710981420388359
You’ve written a paragraph on “unwritten constitutions” and used it to take a swipe.
But I didn’t say “unwritten constitution”. I specifically wrote that we don’t have a CODIFIED constitution.
Of cause we have a constitution - Blackwood, Dicey, Bagehot, Erskine May, precedent and tradition all form part of it. It’s wonderfully flexible and more or less works most of the time
It’s been a while since we’ve had a homocidal maniac in charge.
Say “hi” to Vlad for me
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-62897436
Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape
Exclusive: Health officials ‘aghast’ as review launched of measures to deter people from eating junk food
Excellent, we are starting to get the Ukrainian analysis of the Kharkiv operation (actually linked Kherson-Kharkiv operations), and its important to pay alot of attention. The Ukrainian position has been often overlooked in western reporting (to its great detriment).
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1569943481312858113
Seems an utterly human reaction at a very emotional and stressful time.
You know worst case scenario, somebody's going to get stung and it will be funny.
And it's just possible they might both get stung to death.
We are just living up to that stereotype, and that plays well to expectations.
GO TELL THE BEES
Then do it again 2 days later. No pattern here.
Unrelated Jimmy Carr joke: a woman came up to me and said You are fattist. I replied No, you are fattest.
There are three big stakeholder groups in modern capitalism: business owners, labour, and the consumer. Both main parties sometimes give the impression of ignoring the third group and obsessing about the other two. It’s a bit 19th century.
Most regulation is in place to protect the consumer. Sometimes this goes too far - the annoying data consent pop ups on the internet being one example - but most of the time it is pretty popular.
By and large a deregulated market means crapper food, dirtier air and water, less wildlife, more food poisoning, flakier infrastructure, riskier financial services, more risk of being taken for a ride by cowboys and more likelihood your personal data will be sold to the highest and most unscrupulous bidder.
At its best deregulation makes things cheaper. The best examples of that in the last couple of decades have been in telecoms and energy. But of course we are now seeing the flip side of deregulated energy markets.
A political party ignores consumers at its peril.
I think that we can very reasonably question the content of that strategy, but we certainly should have a strategy for the country's main public health issue.
Whether he's linked to the SNP is a different question
Royalty:
Makes sense not to scare royalists away when it isn't really the key issue for the party.
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/new-survey-reveals-how-many-aussies-want-to-cut-ties-with-british-monarchy/news-story/73e0c52dc803458d8fb279a35e99e9ea
Secondly obesity costs us as a country vast amounts in healthcare spending and lost productivity. Nobody’s suggesting government healthy eating campaigns are a silver bullet but we need to start, as has already been commented on, fighting against the normalisation of obesity. It’s not normal, it’s a fatal preventable disease like lung cancer from smoking.
Often the problem is delays from pharmacy, discharge arrangements for District Nurses and other unglamorous stuff like that.
Thank you. It was a good idea.
My mum got OBE ed by Charles 20 years ago presumably under this rule. Imagine being asked to have an honour conferred on you by pedo boi.
James III of Scotland died in 1488 - well over a century before the Dutch established themselves on the tip of Manhattan. There was no James III of England or Great Britain, except in the minds of the Old Pretender's supporters - but James Francis Edward, the son of James II of England, was never appointed Duke of York.
New York was named after James, a younger son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria: appointed Duke of York at birth in 1633 and granted much of the American East Coast in 1664 by his older brother Charles II. On the death of Charles in 1685, the then Duke of York assumed the throne as James II of England and James VII of Scotland. James II then lost the throne in 1688, but descendants living in Catholic Europe claimed the throne until 1807. Off topic, the most bizarre relic of the century of Pretension is the chapel housing the tomb of Henry Benedict Stuart, known in the Vatican as Cardinal Duke of York, in Rome's Santa Maria in Trastevere. Almost surreally, the chapel's entrance is crowned with Henry Stuart's coat of arms as cardinal - essentially the British monarch's - though no foreign power supported his claims to the throne
In this instance, the statement doesn't ring any bells, but that isn't too out of kilter with the voting population. The figures for the support of monarchy aren't that great in Scotland (and were taken in QE2's time, the ones here, in 2021 or 2022, sources below). Only 45% of voters in Scotland want to keep the monarchy anyway, which is pretty remarkable in the context of what has been said ad libitum in recent days. And if one takes out the UK link by forcing a question on what people would prefer after independence, only 54% of the declared No to indyref2 voters would want the momarchy, and 24% DK. That really does surprise me.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/12/scottish-crowds-turn-out-for-the-queen-but-support-for-the-monarchy-less-clear
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/scots-split-whether-monarchy-should-23752436
We need polling in the Carribean realms. A lot of their governments get tempted to fire from the hip - I suspect it's not a slam dunk in Antigua or even Jamaica.