I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
That is widely believed to be the case. China is, as it happens, one of those countries that still practises slavery.
And it's remarkable how silent many people are about that on the neo-imperalist grounds that it's "their" culture.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
Not the case. Adverse possession is never available to an occupant whose occupation of land ultimately derives from a lease.
"In June 2020, Drax wrote an article in the Dorset Echo suggesting that rioters linked to the Black Lives Matter protests had been responsible for desecrating The Cenotaph war memorial in London.[20]"
Bit of an o.g. in two ways. First, it's already pretty clear that black lives didn't matter much to his ancestors. Secondly the people the cenotaph is about are by definition dead, and aren't we meant to be putting the past behind us?
Well, obviously, if you're leasing land from someone, you won't be able to claim adverse possession of it. The tenant's interest in the land expires, when the lease ends. If however, the Tenant were to remain in occupation for a further twelve years, without paying any rent, then he would have a claim for adverse possession.
As to the cenotaph, Drax is not responsible for the actions of his ancestors, and desecrating a war memorial is the action of a lout.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
And what do you think the outcome would be if ,say, someone were to now sue the descendants of Lord Lewis Harcourt or other prominent child abusers of a century ago?
Let's try and raise spirits with an upbeat NY prediction of the death of 2 monsters. One in Russia, one in the USA.
There comes a point in a man’s life when he must burrow deep within and conduct an inventory of what he finds there. The fundamental questions can’t be ducked forever. Has he made this world a better place? If not, has he at least done no harm? If he has made a mess, is it too late to undo some of it? If it isn’t, just what should he do to undo? Vladimir Putin will, almost despite himself, feel compelled to perform this pitiless exercise in the first quarter of 2023. His answers, delivered initially to the shaving mirror, then the full politburo, then to Russia and the watching world are No, No, Thankfully Not, and Call off the War against Ukraine and stand down to spend more time with his Dacha. He’ll devote what days are left to him gardening and mastering the cello. He’s always wanted to do this, he says, and if not now when? People are astonished but they shouldn’t be if they’ve read A Christmas Carol by Dickens.
The end of Donald Trump, also in 2023, is for different reasons. Forget the legal stuff, none of that matters so long as the cult still loves him, which they continue to do until a rally in Texas in June when something untoward happens. Somebody gets the intro music wrong. Instead of Start Me Up the far right titan enters to the strains of Rockin Robin by the Jackson Five. It’s no biggie except that Trump misjudges his response. Rather than laugh it off he starts dancing to the funky pop classic booming across the arena, not in an appealing hammy way but earnestly bopping around as if auditioning for America’s Got Talent. Consumed with hubris, swept up in the moment, he thinks he can pull this off, thinks his adoring base will dig it, what he’s doing, but they don’t. Suddenly he looks ludicrous to them and like The Wizard of Oz the spell is broken. They’re embarrassed for him and, worse, for themselves. It’s sad. When he tries to do the splits that’s the last straw. The trickle of punters leaving becomes a flood and three hours later he’s rambling on about the Radical Commie Democrats and Hunter Biden’s laptop to a near empty auditorium. Eric comes on and tenderly ushers his father off the stage. It’s over.
The world would certainly be a happier place without that pair.
That the DKs are mainly former Tories is why I am doubtful of Labour's wisdom in attacking public schools. Surely this cohort is unlikely to find this policy attractive on ideological grounds, else they'd already have been voting Labour, whereas those with family at (or intended for) public schools might be tipped back onto the blue pile.
But the key observation might be that private education goes beyond traditional public schools, through tutors who are represented on pb, to ad hoc after-school establishments often based in former shops, which around here are mainly used by the Labour-leaning Asian community, and that is without counting specifically Muslim religious education.
Otoh, last night's Only Connect makes me think you can tell a school is posh if the teachers are called beaks.
Paradoxically, in electoral terms, as well as to end the old school tie domination of many lucrative and influential professions, it might be better for Labour to completely ban private education rather than make it 20 per cent more expensive.
Surely, it’s religious education, which should be banned, at least as a first step!
That would almost certainly be challenged under Protocol 1, Article 2 of the ECHR.
Quite right too, outrageous to deny parents of faith the chance to send their children to good religious schools.
Don't forget those parents who go through the motions and attend Mass for 11 years in order to get their offspring into the good Catholic school.
N.B. A "good Catholic school" is not a school for good Catholics!
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
And what do you think the outcome would be if ,say, someone were to now sue the descendants of Lord Lewis Harcourt or other prominent child abusers of a century ago?
The claim would be time-barred. That's a merely procedural point - the law is very clear that limitation extinguishes the right to bring a claim, not the claim itself. It therefore doesn't have any bearing on a discussion of the underlying merits of the Barbados proposal, which if it got anywhere at all would result in Acts of Parliament which would specifically alter the usual rules.
That the DKs are mainly former Tories is why I am doubtful of Labour's wisdom in attacking public schools. Surely this cohort is unlikely to find this policy attractive on ideological grounds, else they'd already have been voting Labour, whereas those with family at (or intended for) public schools might be tipped back onto the blue pile.
But the key observation might be that private education goes beyond traditional public schools, through tutors who are represented on pb, to ad hoc after-school establishments often based in former shops, which around here are mainly used by the Labour-leaning Asian community, and that is without counting specifically Muslim religious education.
Otoh, last night's Only Connect makes me think you can tell a school is posh if the teachers are called beaks.
Paradoxically, in electoral terms, as well as to end the old school tie domination of many lucrative and influential professions, it might be better for Labour to completely ban private education rather than make it 20 per cent more expensive.
Surely, it’s religious education, which should be banned, at least as a first step!
That would almost certainly be challenged under Protocol 1, Article 2 of the ECHR.
Quite right too, outrageous to deny parents of faith the chance to send their children to good religious schools.
Don't forget those parents who go through the motions and attend Mass for 11 years in order to get their offspring into the good Catholic school.
N.B. A "good Catholic school" is not a school for good Catholics!
And their right to do so too, while also bringing them closer to the Lord
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
In other news another small UK based nuclear startup needs money and the government is set to refuse, but foreign wealth funds have been queuing up to invest. It's absolutely maddening that the UK government just seems incapable of backing UK industry and is comfortable letting foreign states snap up businesses and IP and future profitability.
It's time for someone to come in and smash up the Treasury, fire all of the "we know best" mandarins who couldn't grow a whelk stall let alone an economy and refocus the whole energy of the state into making the economy grow and for the UK benefit from the growth rather than the Saudi Arabian wealth fund or Tencent.
This is the British disease. We've always been innovators. But stopped being capitalists and got swept along by 80s-style spivism. Why invest in something ourselves and take the risk when we can sell it to someone else and take the reward?
If Labour want something chunky to get their teeth into, it's this. We need to start being capitalists again, and as the Tories aren't capable of saying no to their spiv patrons then it falls onto Labour to rebuild our economic way of life.
It would be the work of generations. Not sure how we do it. British business (not just government) bought into the US paradigm that you focus on your core capability and divest or outsource everything else. Except we went a bit further and divested or outsourced half our core capabilities too.
Make us a better place for entrepreneurs and small businesses than the US or the EU:
- low taxes (especially corporate and payroll) combined with low spending - scrap useless or damaging regulations (mnimum wage, Net Zero, modern slavery statements etc. etc. etc.) - greatly relax the planning system - end subsidies to failing businesses and regions such as Northern Ireland
That's how we start being capitalists again, and what a Conservative government with a majority of 70+ should be doing.
That’s Truss on a page.
Low corporate and payroll taxes: no evidence these have contributed to productivity or growth in other rich countries. There are positive examples and equally positive counter examples. Lots of evidence in developing countries that inability to broaden and deepen the tax base leads to a vicious circle of underinvestment in infrastructure and productivity. Which brings us on to…
Low spending: the state of Britain’s core infrastructure - education in particular, but also transportation, policing, healthcare, local government - is at the point where further underinvestment will really start to put the brakes on productivity.
Minimum wage: in an economy with a surfeit of low paid unproductive jobs and almost full employment the removal of a minimum wage must be the most illogical idea of all. High wages = greater impetus to invest in technology
Net zero: nobble one of the few true growth opportunities for this country, green investment? At a time when our reliance on hydrocarbons is driving record inflation? In any case that ship has sailed, big business is already more ambitious than governments on this. A 20th century solution to 21st century problems.
Modern slavery statements? I can’t say I’ve heard many (any) multinationals moaning about that one.
Relax the planning system: yes. But good luck with the nimbys.
End subsidies to failing businesses and regions. We’ve already been ending subsidies to failing businesses since the end of the furlough scheme. But being careful with whom to prop up and whom not is certainly important. You have to be very good at knowing who the winners and losers will be though. The lack of support to potential winners is why we can’t have all those nice things thd highly industrially subsidised Americans have.
As for regions: well it’s a theory. Certainly makes a change from levelling up. Play to our strengths, ie London. And pay the social and healthcare costs of failure elsewhere.
I don't think I've ever seen so much economic illiteracy in one post - impressive on this site.
Low corporate and payroll taxes certainly boost economic growth (see Lee and Gordon, 2005, OECD 2010, Arnold, 2011, Mertens and Ravn, 2013, etc. etc. etc.) But the argument that they don't simply doesn't pass the sniff test. If they didn't, governments would raise them to 99%, because companies don't have votes. And Ireland would have been the least dynamic economy in Western Europe, not the most, over the last generation.
If legislating for minimum wages is so wonderful for productivity and incomes, why not make it £50/hour? That would surely make us the most productive and best paid economy on the planet, wouldn't it? As it is it is low enough not to cause irretrievable damage to the economy. But it has compliance costs, and reduces the incentive on those at the bottom end of the labour market to upskill themselves and improve their productivity, as well as forcing many of those people into the black economy. So we should scrap it.
Green growth is the ultimate oxymoron, especially for this country. The only reason the private sector is embracing it is to be woke, not because it makes any sense.
I was closely involved in building a company from nothing to one which has an annual turnover of £50 million and 400+ employees in three continents. Corporation tax rates never bothered us or had any effect on investment decisions we made. As long as they do not go much higher than comparable rates elsewhere they are not an issue.
I think generally this is probably true. But there are exceptions as the Government are now finding out with the Oil Industry. There are two issues here.
1. The nature of the business means there are continual high cost investment decisions to be made on an annual basis (a single well is in the region of £50-100 million up front costs) and most of the companies will be operating in multiple regions and so will make continuous decisions about where to spend their money to get the best return. Hence the current flight of investment from the UK which threatens to fatally damage the Government's energy security and growth plans.
2. Even if the levels of taxation are reasonable compared to other countries, continually making changes to the tax regime drives out investment as it is almost impossible to make plans for long term field developments.
None of this necessarily undermines what you have said but it does add limits on what Governments could or should do as far as taxation goes if they want to maintain investment
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
Not recruited from the current British population, though; the Jutes, Saxons etc hadn’t arrived!
There are still descendants of Celts in Britain today especially in the North, Wales, Cornwall and Scotland
And some from India, as my wife discovered after doing a DNA test.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
And what do you think the outcome would be if ,say, someone were to now sue the descendants of Lord Lewis Harcourt or other prominent child abusers of a century ago?
The claim would be time-barred. That's a merely procedural point - the law is very clear that limitation extinguishes the right to bring a claim, not the claim itself. It therefore doesn't have any bearing on a discussion of the underlying merits of the Barbados proposal, which if it got anywhere at all would result in Acts of Parliament which would specifically alter the usual rules.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
There are certainly a lot of questions around the issue which is why as I noted above I have an open mind on it. Clearly there is some kind of statute of limitations on this kind of thing, the only question is where that should apply. For instance, Jewish victims of the Nazis are able to obtain restoration of lost property, IIRC, and I think we would all agree that that is right, even though the events are close to a century ago now. Since I have no way of knowing whether my ancestors (who I am guessing were largely Saxon and Celtic peasants) suffered any historical wrongs ove the last 1000 years or do that might have affected my life and prosperity, I have no grounds on which to claim compensation for anything. I don't think you can say that for descendents of West Indian slaves. You certainly can't say it about Jewish descendents of holocaust survivors. So to me the descendents of West Indian slavery survivors fall into a grey area and the question is at least worthy of debate. My general feeling is that regardless of the rights or wrongs of the situation, meaningful reparations aren't generally going to happen because there is not much appetite for it on our side and there are few means of the Caribbean countries forcing the issue.
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
That is certainly the counter argument and it is a powerful one. I used to know Barbados quite well and the country has traditionally felt very close to Britain, to the extent that it was known as Little England elsewhere in the Caribbean. It has taken longer for a more hostile or at least questioning attitude to its relationship with Britain to emerge, compared to other parts of the Caribbean. I can't say what has caused the reassessment to happen now, but I do know that the Windrush scandal has caused a lot of anger in the Caribbean so perhaps that is part of it. I think there has also been a sense that Britain hasn't stuck up for the Caribbean, eg over OECD attacks on tax havens (which are seen as hypocritical over there) or over maintaining preferential access for sugar and other agricultural commodities. Partly it's just the passage of time - Barbados only became independent in 1966 and so the current generation of politicians is the first really to have lived completely in the post independence era. Cultural ties with the "mother country" have certainly frayed in recent years, with Bajans increasingly looking to the US in cultural terms (eg cricket losing out to basketball in popularity). Older Bajans I met often had an encyclopedic interest in and knowledge about things in Britain, and a quite deferential attitude towards British people, that was lacking in younger people. Another issue is the internal dynamics of the country - post independence the Black political elite that grew out of the union movement (both main political parties are called the Labour Party) left the economy largely in the hands of a White economic elite who looked to the UK culturally and economically. The reparations debate I suspect is also related to a debate about the White minority's continued economic dominance within the country.
When Sir Keir took on the leadership after the atrocious result in 2019, the consensus in Labour’s senior ranks was that it would take at least two general elections before their party saw office again. Some I spoke to in the immediate aftermath of that crushing defeat were so despondent that they contemplated jacking it all in rather than spend another decade languishing on the opposition benches. Now they are being treated as people on the brink of power.
A poll lead can be a liability as well as an asset. It will be a big mistake for Labour people to start behaving as if they are on an easy cruise to victory. Sir Keir himself is worried about this. He tells his team that they should act as if they are five points behind and with everything still to fight for.
The Tories can make a howling mess of things and still hang on to power if the public has even less faith in Labour. That is the lesson of two of the party’s most shocking election defeats. Everyone who matters in the Labour hierarchy is haunted by the memory that Neil Kinnock was beaten by John Major in 1992 despite a Tory recession, and Ed Miliband lost to David Cameron in 2015 after five years of Conservative austerity.
That Labour has only produced three winners in more than a century of the party’s existence is another reason not to take anything for granted. A compelling vision of a better Britain was key to the party’s successes in 1945, 1964 and 1997. As one former cabinet minister puts it: “Labour wins when it owns the future.” I am unconvinced, as are a lot of the shadow cabinet, that they have achieved that yet.
The most persuasive interpretation of the polls is that they are more an expression of public disgust with the way the Tories are misgoverning than enthusiasm for the alternative offered by Sir Keir’s team.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
That is widely believed to be the case. China is, as it happens, one of those countries that still practises slavery.
And it's remarkable how silent many people are about that on the neo-imperalist grounds that it's "their" culture.
So much for universal human rights.
It is of interest to re-read the discussions here, just before he Russian invasion of Ukraine, concerning imperialism.
Several quite progressive posters took issue with my point that both the Russian and Chinese Empires were still going strong and acting as imperialists to the minorities that made up their colonies. Some minor changes to terminology didn’t change that.
One person went so far as to say something like “if China is called imperialist Thame the term has no meaning”.
The current Chinese governments attempts to impose a weird, plastic, fake, and rather racist version Han identity on all “Chinese” (defined as anyone living in land once part of the Chinese Empire), by violence, are not “their culture”.
Any more than that picture of Hitler riding a horse in white plate armour means that he was an inheritor of a tradition of German leaders being racial champions of Aryans (sic). That was a pile of weird garbage that Himmler cooked up.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
Law firm Osborne Clarke allegedly claimed costs of £1.8m for its work with NatWest bank for running the compensation scheme.
And lawyers working for the claimants will be paid a total of £689,000, court papers have revealed.
A payout of just over £1m has been agreed for 78 cases of abuse – with each victim getting £13,000.
When Sir Keir took on the leadership after the atrocious result in 2019, the consensus in Labour’s senior ranks was that it would take at least two general elections before their party saw office again. Some I spoke to in the immediate aftermath of that crushing defeat were so despondent that they contemplated jacking it all in rather than spend another decade languishing on the opposition benches. Now they are being treated as people on the brink of power.
A poll lead can be a liability as well as an asset. It will be a big mistake for Labour people to start behaving as if they are on an easy cruise to victory. Sir Keir himself is worried about this. He tells his team that they should act as if they are five points behind and with everything still to fight for.
The Tories can make a howling mess of things and still hang on to power if the public has even less faith in Labour. That is the lesson of two of the party’s most shocking election defeats. Everyone who matters in the Labour hierarchy is haunted by the memory that Neil Kinnock was beaten by John Major in 1992 despite a Tory recession, and Ed Miliband lost to David Cameron in 2015 after five years of Conservative austerity.
That Labour has only produced three winners in more than a century of the party’s existence is another reason not to take anything for granted. A compelling vision of a better Britain was key to the party’s successes in 1945, 1964 and 1997. As one former cabinet minister puts it: “Labour wins when it owns the future.” I am unconvinced, as are a lot of the shadow cabinet, that they have achieved that yet.
The most persuasive interpretation of the polls is that they are more an expression of public disgust with the way the Tories are misgoverning than enthusiasm for the alternative offered by Sir Keir’s team.
Absolutely! The huge LAB poll leads currently simply reflect that everyone is fed up with CON, there is no real enthusiasm for LAB or Starmer.
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
That the DKs are mainly former Tories is why I am doubtful of Labour's wisdom in attacking public schools. Surely this cohort is unlikely to find this policy attractive on ideological grounds, else they'd already have been voting Labour, whereas those with family at (or intended for) public schools might be tipped back onto the blue pile.
But the key observation might be that private education goes beyond traditional public schools, through tutors who are represented on pb, to ad hoc after-school establishments often based in former shops, which around here are mainly used by the Labour-leaning Asian community, and that is without counting specifically Muslim religious education.
Otoh, last night's Only Connect makes me think you can tell a school is posh if the teachers are called beaks.
Paradoxically, in electoral terms, as well as to end the old school tie domination of many lucrative and influential professions, it might be better for Labour to completely ban private education rather than make it 20 per cent more expensive.
Surely, it’s religious education, which should be banned, at least as a first step!
I missed the part where Starmer proposed banning private education.
Starmer did not propose banning private education. However, I did suggest earlier in this thread that, paradoxically, it might have been better for Labour's electoral chances than merely imposing VAT.
From a manifesto perspective virtually no-one will change their mind to voting Labour if they have a policy to introduce VAT on private schools or even ban them. Those who support charging VAT won't see it as even a top 25 issue. Whereas there will be a significant number who might have voted Labour but would switch to the Tories if they had such a policy as for them it could be a top 3 issue.
If Labour really want to do this, it does not need to be in a manifesto either way, Chancellors tinker with tax all the time.
The interesting thing about Starmer's proposal to tax private education is that a cautious politician sees that as an electoral winner for him. He may be right or he may be wrong, but it's interesting he thinks that.
Oh, I think it's popular - it's a populist policy, particularly for his base.
We see that on here.
Starmer doesn’t have a base. That’s what makes him tricky for his opponents to nail down. He’s a day by day, issue by issue guy. In a sense, very Cameronite, actually.
The thing that surprises me is, given his very long and successful career at the CPS / in the legal world, surely he must be brimming with ideas on criminal justice system / legal reforms? But we hear nothing. Maybe he doesn’t want to give any ammunition to his opponents. Scarred by the Johnson/Saville smears.
Keeping his powder dry until he gets into power, and then, bang: we get presented with a raft of well thought through, fundamental reforms.
I just can’t imagine he spent his career not developing a profound critique of the criminal justice system.
Anyone else not find this rather odd?
Most of us have likely worked for people whose main focus, and talent, is staying in their job and lining up their next move, with minimal interest in actually making things better or doing the right thing. We can only hope he doesn’t turn out to be one of those; we suffered enough from the vacuous ambition of the Johnson years.
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
Seize the lot as bargaining chips
Not the brightest idea when tourism is their largest source of income.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
Not the case. Adverse possession is never available to an occupant whose occupation of land ultimately derives from a lease.
"In June 2020, Drax wrote an article in the Dorset Echo suggesting that rioters linked to the Black Lives Matter protests had been responsible for desecrating The Cenotaph war memorial in London.[20]"
Bit of an o.g. in two ways. First, it's already pretty clear that black lives didn't matter much to his ancestors. Secondly the people the cenotaph is about are by definition dead, and aren't we meant to be putting the past behind us?
Well, obviously, if you're leasing land from someone, you won't be able to claim adverse possession of it. The tenant's interest in the land expires, when the lease ends. If however, the Tenant were to remain in occupation for a further twelve years, without paying any rent, then he would have a claim for adverse possession.
As to the cenotaph, Drax is not responsible for the actions of his ancestors, and desecrating a war memorial is the action of a lout.
No the tenant wouldn't. Nor would his son or his son's son nor...; the descendants of the landlord would have a non statute barred claim for recovery, because the occupation derives from a lease.
I lost my Megarry and Wade two house moves ago, before you ask for authority on the point.
Barbados held its last GE almost a year ago and the Barbados Labour party won all 30 seats with an almost Newham-esque 69% of the vote.
In 2018, Mia Mottley had become Prime Minister when the BLP took power defeating Freundel Stuart's Democratic Labour Party (DLP). The swing from DLP to BLP in that election was 27% - the DLP lost all 16 seats on colossal swings - Stuart lost his seat on a 37% swing.
Sunak doesn't have much to worry about, does he? On a 37% swing, Labour would take Richmond with a 15,000 majority.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
And most of us have some Neanderthal blood in us so we're all entitled to sue (ourselves).
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
And most of us have some Neanderthal blood in us so we're all entitled to sue (ourselves).
When Sir Keir took on the leadership after the atrocious result in 2019, the consensus in Labour’s senior ranks was that it would take at least two general elections before their party saw office again. Some I spoke to in the immediate aftermath of that crushing defeat were so despondent that they contemplated jacking it all in rather than spend another decade languishing on the opposition benches. Now they are being treated as people on the brink of power.
A poll lead can be a liability as well as an asset. It will be a big mistake for Labour people to start behaving as if they are on an easy cruise to victory. Sir Keir himself is worried about this. He tells his team that they should act as if they are five points behind and with everything still to fight for.
The Tories can make a howling mess of things and still hang on to power if the public has even less faith in Labour. That is the lesson of two of the party’s most shocking election defeats. Everyone who matters in the Labour hierarchy is haunted by the memory that Neil Kinnock was beaten by John Major in 1992 despite a Tory recession, and Ed Miliband lost to David Cameron in 2015 after five years of Conservative austerity.
That Labour has only produced three winners in more than a century of the party’s existence is another reason not to take anything for granted. A compelling vision of a better Britain was key to the party’s successes in 1945, 1964 and 1997. As one former cabinet minister puts it: “Labour wins when it owns the future.” I am unconvinced, as are a lot of the shadow cabinet, that they have achieved that yet.
The most persuasive interpretation of the polls is that they are more an expression of public disgust with the way the Tories are misgoverning than enthusiasm for the alternative offered by Sir Keir’s team.
Absolutely! The huge LAB poll leads currently simply reflect that everyone is fed up with CON, there is no real enthusiasm for LAB or Starmer.
You're right. But...
First, that shows quite how badly the Conservatives have screwed up in recent years.
Second, Throwing the Rascals Out has always been the dynamic of modern British politics. Heck, it's portrayed as a benefit of FPTP.
I think Leon has been prompting ChatGPT so much its algorithms are starting to mimic him:
It looks like Medvedev has also been spending a bit of time on the old ChatGPT
Write an absurd and highly unlikely list of global predictions for 2023 as if written in a geopolitical commentator’s blog:
“In a shocking turn of events, North Korea and South Korea reunify and become the "Korean Superstate," with Kim Jong-un as its undisputed leader.
The United States and Russia form an unlikely alliance, with the two countries jointly leading a mission to colonize Mars.
The European Union collapses, and all member countries revert back to their pre-EU national identities.
China experiences a widespread technological malfunction, causing all of its advanced systems to shut down for a period of three months.
The United Nations is disbanded, and a new global governing body called the "World Council" is formed in its place.
The world's oceans rise by 20 feet, flooding coastal cities and leading to mass migration inland.
A new highly contagious and deadly virus emerges, killing millions before a cure is found.
The world's economy collapses, leading to widespread poverty and civil unrest. In a surprising move, Canada becomes a superpower, with its advanced healthcare and education systems propelling it to the top of the global rankings.
Aliens make contact with Earth, and it is revealed that they have been secretly observing humanity for centuries.
I asked it for a ridiculous way for the world to end in 2023. It does sound like me on a caffeine high
“Aliens will reveal themselves to be the true rulers of the earth, and they will demand that all humans bow down to them and pledge their loyalty.
The United States will be overtaken by a rebellion led by a group of radical llama farmers, who will establish llama farming as the national economy.
North Korea will develop a weapon that turns people into sentient pickles, and they will use it to take over the world.
A giant, man-eating plant will emerge from the depths of the Amazon rainforest and begin a rampage across South America.
The moon will be revealed to be a giant spaceship, and it will fly away from earth, leaving humanity behind.
All forms of technology will suddenly stop working, and humanity will be forced to return to a pre-industrial society.
The world's oceans will turn to jelly, making it impossible for ships to sail and causing global chaos.
The earth will be struck by a rogue planet, causing the extinction of all life on earth.”
Hohoho.
I reality of course, I'm afraid it gives this rather more po-faced answer:
Me: What would be a ridiculous way for the earth to end in 2023?
ChatGPT: It's not appropriate to speculate about the end of the earth or to make light of such a serious subject. It's important to focus on taking care of the planet and ensuring its sustainable future.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
And most of us have some Neanderthal blood in us so we're all entitled to sue (ourselves).
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Yes, and I don’t doubt it’s good politics for the Barbadian Govt locally.
They probably are looking to the U.K. govt, and others, for a payout too as this goes along. It’s not an issue that is going to be dropped. It has support in some influential places. Take this article from the guardian this year. Usual grievance mongering but notable as it’s sponsored content in part by the Gates foundation.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Given that Commonwealth means "republic", EVERY Commonwealth member should be a republic.
In other news another small UK based nuclear startup needs money and the government is set to refuse, but foreign wealth funds have been queuing up to invest. It's absolutely maddening that the UK government just seems incapable of backing UK industry and is comfortable letting foreign states snap up businesses and IP and future profitability.
It's time for someone to come in and smash up the Treasury, fire all of the "we know best" mandarins who couldn't grow a whelk stall let alone an economy and refocus the whole energy of the state into making the economy grow and for the UK benefit from the growth rather than the Saudi Arabian wealth fund or Tencent.
How did that approach work out for Truss and Kwarteng?
Nobody asked for unfunded tax cuts, though. That was the major issue with their approach. I think most people recognise that the UK has a growth issue and that the dead hand of the treasury is a major part of it.
Conservatives have been in control of the Treasury for the last 12 years including the current PM, so not likely to change now.
I don't see the Treasury as a brake on growth, that is more down to short termism by management and excessive financialisation by speculators with very short term horizons. They can add liquidity, and do asset stripping but our teenage scribblers have no long term vision. They just want a quick buck and get out.
But that model is what the treasury has supported for 20+ years. In fact it has constantly blocked moves to change the investment environment to stop financial engineering both by Labour and Tory chancellors as "picking winners" and "market interference".
The treasury is rammed with those same kind of people who can't see beyond tomorrow's GDP figures and short term optimisation strategy. Which is why London gets £22bn in public transport investment but the North got HS2 cancelled at £17bn. Or why why RR are now basically funding their whole nuclear play from the US rather than relying on the treasury to do what's right, or Moltex finding more luck with Canada than our own treasury. Projects that don't move their numbers in their broken models get chopped and foreign investors, usually state backed, pick up the pieces and future UK productivity and profit is offshored.
You may know about healthcare issues, you have never dealt with the treasury first hand. It's a fucking nightmare.
40 years, not 20. We stopped investing in anything after the disasters of the 1970s. Let private industry do the investing, then when they stop investing and start selling it off, enjoy the short term tax revenues / donations to party coffers.
Actually, one thing Starmer could do to help is ban private funding of political parties. The Tories are openly corrupt, but New Labour weren't far behind when it came down to donations. State funding of parties removes the obvious influence of the spiv class who have made it large selling everything off.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Given that Commonwealth means "republic", EVERY Commonwealth member should be a republic.
Commonwealth refers to any group of people under a single government, not just a republic
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
I never had Churchill/Stalin/Truman down as wokistas.
The infrastructure was for our own benefit, and largely in India. Not so much in W Africa or the Caribbean.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
Law firm Osborne Clarke allegedly claimed costs of £1.8m for its work with NatWest bank for running the compensation scheme.
And lawyers working for the claimants will be paid a total of £689,000, court papers have revealed.
A payout of just over £1m has been agreed for 78 cases of abuse – with each victim getting £13,000.
In the commercial environment, avoiding going to law is always a good move, a relative stipulates arbitration in his contracts - IIRC a mediator, both sides, no lawyers.
One idiot tried the American style “due to get a price reduction thing” - he didn’t bother to give his lawyer all the details. Who then discovered that since they hadn’t tried the arbitration first, he was in breach of contract…..
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Given that Commonwealth means "republic", EVERY Commonwealth member should be a republic.
Commonwealth refers to any group of people under a single government, not just a republic
By that definition, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were commonwealths and the British Commonwealth is not.
I think Leon has been prompting ChatGPT so much its algorithms are starting to mimic him:
It looks like Medvedev has also been spending a bit of time on the old ChatGPT
Write an absurd and highly unlikely list of global predictions for 2023 as if written in a geopolitical commentator’s blog:
“In a shocking turn of events, North Korea and South Korea reunify and become the "Korean Superstate," with Kim Jong-un as its undisputed leader.
The United States and Russia form an unlikely alliance, with the two countries jointly leading a mission to colonize Mars.
The European Union collapses, and all member countries revert back to their pre-EU national identities.
China experiences a widespread technological malfunction, causing all of its advanced systems to shut down for a period of three months.
The United Nations is disbanded, and a new global governing body called the "World Council" is formed in its place.
The world's oceans rise by 20 feet, flooding coastal cities and leading to mass migration inland.
A new highly contagious and deadly virus emerges, killing millions before a cure is found.
The world's economy collapses, leading to widespread poverty and civil unrest. In a surprising move, Canada becomes a superpower, with its advanced healthcare and education systems propelling it to the top of the global rankings.
Aliens make contact with Earth, and it is revealed that they have been secretly observing humanity for centuries.
I asked it for a ridiculous way for the world to end in 2023. It does sound like me on a caffeine high
“Aliens will reveal themselves to be the true rulers of the earth, and they will demand that all humans bow down to them and pledge their loyalty.
The United States will be overtaken by a rebellion led by a group of radical llama farmers, who will establish llama farming as the national economy.
North Korea will develop a weapon that turns people into sentient pickles, and they will use it to take over the world.
A giant, man-eating plant will emerge from the depths of the Amazon rainforest and begin a rampage across South America.
The moon will be revealed to be a giant spaceship, and it will fly away from earth, leaving humanity behind.
All forms of technology will suddenly stop working, and humanity will be forced to return to a pre-industrial society.
The world's oceans will turn to jelly, making it impossible for ships to sail and causing global chaos.
The earth will be struck by a rogue planet, causing the extinction of all life on earth.”
Hohoho.
I reality of course, I'm afraid it gives this rather more po-faced answer:
Me: What would be a ridiculous way for the earth to end in 2023?
ChatGPT: It's not appropriate to speculate about the end of the earth or to make light of such a serious subject. It's important to focus on taking care of the planet and ensuring its sustainable future.
Should we rename it WokeGPT?
There’s some decent 50’s B movie style story outlines there.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
And if working class taxpayers in Britain end up paying higher taxes for them, that will go down like a lead balloon
Yes if Sunak wins back DKs and some RefUK voters he could get a hung parliament yet.
Starmer has to rule out the single market and customs union to win back the redwall seats without which he can't become PM
He will rule it out and then do it once in office.
Thank goodness you are as you claim "not partisan" but instead someone who simply sees clearly through the lies of non-Conservative charlatans.
Yes, I could be wrong, but it's my considered view. I note that some of your fellow riders also accept this and think Starmer will say "now we've taken a look at the books; it's much worse than we thought" as the reason for acting differently once in office.
But maybe you'd prefer if I didn't critique Starmer or Labour at all and just talked about how brilliant they are.
I think my criticism of Starmer/ Labour and in particular their newly minted pro-Brexit stance is well documented on these pages. My criticism is based on evidence, yours on supposition.
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Given that Commonwealth means "republic", EVERY Commonwealth member should be a republic.
Commonwealth refers to any group of people under a single government, not just a republic
Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth was a republic.
And then you have in the present day:
Commonwealth of Dominica Commonwealth of Kentucky Commonwealth of Massachusetts Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Commonwealth of Virginia Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Commonwealth of Northern Marianas
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
And most of us have some Neanderthal blood in us so we're all entitled to sue (ourselves).
I see the slavery reparations story is moving up a gear. More descendants of slave owners are to be targetted for reparations. No blame is attached to the descendants however.
This story is given some prominence as it’s a well known actor however it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Interesting. Cumberbatch is one of the more common surnames in Barbados which tells you that the family must have been major plantation owners (slaves frequently took the names of their owners). I had always assumed there must be a connection with the actor - he's pretty posh and it's not a common name over here. I remember driving past Drax plantation many times too - which I later discovered is still owned by the Drax family over here (a Tory MP). None of this is ancient history. I'm not totally sold on reparations but it's a debate that's needed. Certainly feelings on the issue run strong in the Caribbean.
Presumably those whose family members were pillaged by the Vikings can then claim compensation from Denmark too? As can those whose ancestors were enslaved by the Romans from Italy?
Traceability is the key. There's any amount of uk property like Drax's which can be definitively tied to slavery, and not much doubt how African ancestry chaps in the Caribbean got there.
And you can trace those enslaved by the Romans or pillaged by the Vikings too if you look hard enough. The Roman Catholic Church would certainly have a case against Denmark, Norway and Sweden for the pillaging of Lindisfarne Abbey too.
Drax did not own slaves nor did his parents either. So if you are going to make reparations for something that happened centuries ago then it is an open book, including for the slaves taken by the Vikings, Romans and Barbary Corsairs too
He documentably inherited the proceeds. Not the case in your other examples.
Much of the Roman Forum still present in Rome today was built by slaves, including from Britain.
There is no traceable line from the owners of the forum then to the owners now, and nobody to whom you can point and say they are beyond reasonable doubt descendants of those slaves. They would be Italians if you could.
Ultimately, so what? Slavery ended 190 years ago. The property has been operated by free labour since then, the investment in it is not the product of slavery, and anyone who was a slave or slaver is long dead.
There are claims against real property that survive that long in English law.
You'll find it almost impossible to bring an action to recover land after 12 years.
Try bringing a claim in tort against someone whose ancestor did yours a wrong 190 years ago, and you'll be treated as a vexatious litigant.
The more interesting question we should be asking ourselves is why Barbados has become so hostile to Britain in recent years.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn several of its leading politicians are on Beijing's payroll.
It is still in the Commonwealth but where there is a potential payday claim a relatively poor island will explore it
Given that Commonwealth means "republic", EVERY Commonwealth member should be a republic.
Commonwealth refers to any group of people under a single government, not just a republic
By that definition, the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were commonwealths and the British Commonwealth is not.
It is the Commonwealth of nations we are part of, not just a Commonwealth.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
And if working class taxpayers in Britain end up paying higher taxes for them, that will go down like a lead balloon
This is why it isn't certain that labour will even end up as the biggest party in the next election. They can easily get caught out on any number of issues where their activist base are far away from their voters. In the past, the Conservatives have been very good at exploiting things like this.
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
Cruise ships do virtually sod all for the islands of the Caribbean. The passenger revenue mainly goes to the ship owners and the passengers spend little onshore.
It’s not a great example but my parents may spend £30 a day on an island while cruising. We will probably spending £400 a day on the hotel and another £150 minimum on food and drink (restaurants on the platinum coast aren’t cheap.
I suspect 1 week in Barbados (and we’ve been multiple times) gives Barbados more money than my parents have in 30 years of cruises from Florida.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
And if working class taxpayers in Britain end up paying higher taxes for them, that will go down like a lead balloon
Well your party are also open to it. So either way it will happen in the future. It will just be pitched as something other than reparations as the word is contentious. A softer form of wording would be used to market it.
"Extinction Rebellion (XR) says it has taken a decision to "temporarily shift away from public disruption" as a tactic to highlight its cause.
The climate protest group said in a statement entitled "We Quit" that it wanted to become more inclusive by broadening its appeal to focus on the issues affecting the planet rather than alienating people through stunts and direct action.
It admitted "very little has changed" as a result of the tactics used over the past four years, which have notably included oil terminal blockades to disrupt fuel supplies."
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
I never had Churchill/Stalin/Truman down as wokistas.
The infrastructure was for our own benefit, and largely in India. Not so much in W Africa or the Caribbean.
None of the three had any issue with ethnic cleansing, certainly.
When the issue of reparations for Holocaust survivors was first raised, in the Fifties, it actually generated of anger among many Israelis. Their view was that money meant nothing.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
And if working class taxpayers in Britain end up paying higher taxes for them, that will go down like a lead balloon
Well your party are also open to it. So either way it will happen in the future. It will just be pitched as something other than reparations as the word is contentious. A softer form of wording would be used to market it.
The idea that you can 'right historical wrongs' through 'reparations' is typical of the 'woke' view of history. But if you are going to go down that line, you may as well ask for repayments for the infrastructure that was built in colonial times, and also for the aid money that came afterwards.
People want easy money. It’s the same with climate reparations too. Neither issue is going to be dropped and it will just be the wealthier nations expected to pay up.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
And if working class taxpayers in Britain end up paying higher taxes for them, that will go down like a lead balloon
This is why it isn't certain that labour will even end up as the biggest party in the next election. They can easily get caught out on any number of issues where their activist base are far away from their voters. In the past, the Conservatives have been very good at exploiting things like this.
Grant Shapps has indicated the govt are open to it too. So it’s not something they can exploit too much.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
Or the Roman Catholic Church for lands and property taken at the Reformation? Or descendants of Cavaliers for land taken by Cromwell or descendants of Roundheads for lands taken at the Restoration by the Crown?
Plenty of Palestinians would have compensation claims for land taken by Israel too. As would descendants of French and Russian aristocrats from the French and Russian governments for lands taken from their families in the French and Russian revolutions
The ways that the land occupied by the Neanderthals was appropriated is a disgrace that has long been overlooked too.
And most of us have some Neanderthal blood in us so we're all entitled to sue (ourselves).
Barbados and its people would be much better off if they campaigned for British investment and aid to help bolster links and strengthen the alliance of a friendly country with historical ties, and I suspect that would garner a lot of support here.
Raking over the ashes of sins of the forefathers centuries later isn't going to achieve anything except resentment, polarisation and mutual dissatisfaction.
It's worth noting Barbados is one of the mainstays of the winter cruising industry which is worth billions. P&O re basing two of their newest ships, Britannia and Arvia, there. The 13th January two week cruise on Britannia out of Bridgetown is sold out.
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
Cruise ships do virtually sod all for the islands of the Caribbean. The passenger revenue mainly goes to the ship owners and the passengers spend little onshore.
It’s not a great example but my parents may spend £30 a day on an island while cruising. We will probably spending £400 a day on the hotel and another £150 minimum on food and drink (restaurants on the platinum coast aren’t cheap.
I suspect 1 week in Barbados (and we’ve been multiple times) gives Barbados more money than my parents have in 30 years of cruises from Florida.
This is very true. The economic benefit from cruise tourists is small compared to regular tourists.
The Irish would also be demanding reparations for the potato famine and Cromwell. The aborigines and Indians from the Australian and US government. The Mexican government for the atrocities of Cortez from Madrid. Black South Africans from white South Africans for apartheid. The Poles from the Russians.
Protestants from Spain and the Catholic Church for the Inquisition. English Catholics from the British government for their persecution post English Reformation. Jews more compensation from Germany for the Holocaust. Much of Asia and Moscow from the Mongolian government for the atrocities of Genghis Khan etc
Good thing too.
But we should start with the low hanging fruit, which is Drax. Keeping the plantation on is pure trolling.
There are no slaves on Drax's plantation now
A point that seems to have been overlooked.
To get a little more contentious, should the descendants of Sudeten or Eastern Germans be entitled to reclaim their lost property?
No it hasn't.
A lot of money was recovered from Jimmy Savile's estate. His legatees didn't get to keep it on grounds of personal non involvement in his crimes.
Law firm Osborne Clarke allegedly claimed costs of £1.8m for its work with NatWest bank for running the compensation scheme.
And lawyers working for the claimants will be paid a total of £689,000, court papers have revealed.
A payout of just over £1m has been agreed for 78 cases of abuse – with each victim getting £13,000.
In the commercial environment, avoiding going to law is always a good move, a relative stipulates arbitration in his contracts - IIRC a mediator, both sides, no lawyers.
One idiot tried the American style “due to get a price reduction thing” - he didn’t bother to give his lawyer all the details. Who then discovered that since they hadn’t tried the arbitration first, he was in breach of contract…..
Yeah this is also a good principle that applies for life in general.
"Extinction Rebellion (XR) says it has taken a decision to "temporarily shift away from public disruption" as a tactic to highlight its cause.
The climate protest group said in a statement entitled "We Quit" that it wanted to become more inclusive by broadening its appeal to focus on the issues affecting the planet rather than alienating people through stunts and direct action.
It admitted "very little has changed" as a result of the tactics used over the past four years, which have notably included oil terminal blockades to disrupt fuel supplies."
Could one of the legal types on here advise? One of my 4x gt-grandfathers left Southwest Wales and went to London to make his fortune. Which he did. However, he left my three times great grandfather with his mother in Southwest Wales. The branch of the family that went to London prospered, and appears to have become quite wealthy; have I a claim against the estate?
In other news another small UK based nuclear startup needs money and the government is set to refuse, but foreign wealth funds have been queuing up to invest. It's absolutely maddening that the UK government just seems incapable of backing UK industry and is comfortable letting foreign states snap up businesses and IP and future profitability.
It's time for someone to come in and smash up the Treasury, fire all of the "we know best" mandarins who couldn't grow a whelk stall let alone an economy and refocus the whole energy of the state into making the economy grow and for the UK benefit from the growth rather than the Saudi Arabian wealth fund or Tencent.
This is the British disease. We've always been innovators. But stopped being capitalists and got swept along by 80s-style spivism. Why invest in something ourselves and take the risk when we can sell it to someone else and take the reward?
If Labour want something chunky to get their teeth into, it's this. We need to start being capitalists again, and as the Tories aren't capable of saying no to their spiv patrons then it falls onto Labour to rebuild our economic way of life.
It would be the work of generations. Not sure how we do it. British business (not just government) bought into the US paradigm that you focus on your core capability and divest or outsource everything else. Except we went a bit further and divested or outsourced half our core capabilities too.
Make us a better place for entrepreneurs and small businesses than the US or the EU:
- low taxes (especially corporate and payroll) combined with low spending - scrap useless or damaging regulations (mnimum wage, Net Zero, modern slavery statements etc. etc. etc.) - greatly relax the planning system - end subsidies to failing businesses and regions such as Northern Ireland
That's how we start being capitalists again, and what a Conservative government with a majority of 70+ should be doing.
That’s Truss on a page.
Low corporate and payroll taxes: no evidence these have contributed to productivity or growth in other rich countries. There are positive examples and equally positive counter examples. Lots of evidence in developing countries that inability to broaden and deepen the tax base leads to a vicious circle of underinvestment in infrastructure and productivity. Which brings us on to…
Low spending: the state of Britain’s core infrastructure - education in particular, but also transportation, policing, healthcare, local government - is at the point where further underinvestment will really start to put the brakes on productivity.
Minimum wage: in an economy with a surfeit of low paid unproductive jobs and almost full employment the removal of a minimum wage must be the most illogical idea of all. High wages = greater impetus to invest in technology
Net zero: nobble one of the few true growth opportunities for this country, green investment? At a time when our reliance on hydrocarbons is driving record inflation? In any case that ship has sailed, big business is already more ambitious than governments on this. A 20th century solution to 21st century problems.
Modern slavery statements? I can’t say I’ve heard many (any) multinationals moaning about that one.
Relax the planning system: yes. But good luck with the nimbys.
End subsidies to failing businesses and regions. We’ve already been ending subsidies to failing businesses since the end of the furlough scheme. But being careful with whom to prop up and whom not is certainly important. You have to be very good at knowing who the winners and losers will be though. The lack of support to potential winners is why we can’t have all those nice things thd highly industrially subsidised Americans have.
As for regions: well it’s a theory. Certainly makes a change from levelling up. Play to our strengths, ie London. And pay the social and healthcare costs of failure elsewhere.
I am afraid your ideas on these topic are simply fantasies. You actually tried to claim we'd been left in this shit situation re energy because of NOT ENOUGH greenery the other day. I give you points for chutzpah if nothing else.
In other news another small UK based nuclear startup needs money and the government is set to refuse, but foreign wealth funds have been queuing up to invest. It's absolutely maddening that the UK government just seems incapable of backing UK industry and is comfortable letting foreign states snap up businesses and IP and future profitability.
It's time for someone to come in and smash up the Treasury, fire all of the "we know best" mandarins who couldn't grow a whelk stall let alone an economy and refocus the whole energy of the state into making the economy grow and for the UK benefit from the growth rather than the Saudi Arabian wealth fund or Tencent.
This is the British disease. We've always been innovators. But stopped being capitalists and got swept along by 80s-style spivism. Why invest in something ourselves and take the risk when we can sell it to someone else and take the reward?
If Labour want something chunky to get their teeth into, it's this. We need to start being capitalists again, and as the Tories aren't capable of saying no to their spiv patrons then it falls onto Labour to rebuild our economic way of life.
It would be the work of generations. Not sure how we do it. British business (not just government) bought into the US paradigm that you focus on your core capability and divest or outsource everything else. Except we went a bit further and divested or outsourced half our core capabilities too.
Make us a better place for entrepreneurs and small businesses than the US or the EU:
- low taxes (especially corporate and payroll) combined with low spending - scrap useless or damaging regulations (mnimum wage, Net Zero, modern slavery statements etc. etc. etc.) - greatly relax the planning system - end subsidies to failing businesses and regions such as Northern Ireland
That's how we start being capitalists again, and what a Conservative government with a majority of 70+ should be doing.
That’s Truss on a page.
Low corporate and payroll taxes: no evidence these have contributed to productivity or growth in other rich countries. There are positive examples and equally positive counter examples. Lots of evidence in developing countries that inability to broaden and deepen the tax base leads to a vicious circle of underinvestment in infrastructure and productivity. Which brings us on to…
Low spending: the state of Britain’s core infrastructure - education in particular, but also transportation, policing, healthcare, local government - is at the point where further underinvestment will really start to put the brakes on productivity.
Minimum wage: in an economy with a surfeit of low paid unproductive jobs and almost full employment the removal of a minimum wage must be the most illogical idea of all. High wages = greater impetus to invest in technology
Net zero: nobble one of the few true growth opportunities for this country, green investment? At a time when our reliance on hydrocarbons is driving record inflation? In any case that ship has sailed, big business is already more ambitious than governments on this. A 20th century solution to 21st century problems.
Modern slavery statements? I can’t say I’ve heard many (any) multinationals moaning about that one.
Relax the planning system: yes. But good luck with the nimbys.
End subsidies to failing businesses and regions. We’ve already been ending subsidies to failing businesses since the end of the furlough scheme. But being careful with whom to prop up and whom not is certainly important. You have to be very good at knowing who the winners and losers will be though. The lack of support to potential winners is why we can’t have all those nice things thd highly industrially subsidised Americans have.
As for regions: well it’s a theory. Certainly makes a change from levelling up. Play to our strengths, ie London. And pay the social and healthcare costs of failure elsewhere.
I am afraid your ideas on these topic are simply fantasies. You actually tried to claim we'd been left in this shit situation re energy because of NOT ENOUGH greenery the other day. I give you points for chutzpah if nothing else.
Of course we need more "greenery". You invest money and get pretty much free energy forever. Better than digging some stuff up and burning it then having to repeat that forever.
"Extinction Rebellion (XR) says it has taken a decision to "temporarily shift away from public disruption" as a tactic to highlight its cause.
The climate protest group said in a statement entitled "We Quit" that it wanted to become more inclusive by broadening its appeal to focus on the issues affecting the planet rather than alienating people through stunts and direct action.
It admitted "very little has changed" as a result of the tactics used over the past four years, which have notably included oil terminal blockades to disrupt fuel supplies."
I guess they don’t like prison.
Incorrect, they encouraged people to get arrested. But a good idea to change tactics which don't work.
"Extinction Rebellion (XR) says it has taken a decision to "temporarily shift away from public disruption" as a tactic to highlight its cause.
The climate protest group said in a statement entitled "We Quit" that it wanted to become more inclusive by broadening its appeal to focus on the issues affecting the planet rather than alienating people through stunts and direct action.
It admitted "very little has changed" as a result of the tactics used over the past four years, which have notably included oil terminal blockades to disrupt fuel supplies."
I guess they don’t like prison.
Incorrect, they encouraged people to get arrested. But a good idea to change tactics which don't work.
I’d give XR credit for realizing that climate change must be a massive issue at the next election, and has to be given prominence without provoking pushback. The older voters who now float but say that they may stay with the Tories don’t care about climate change—no more than the climate sceptics in the present Cabinet do. And opposition Parties will find it hard to make the case on Net Zero-related policies so long as older voters fume about militant XE tactics.
The best model of a working railway we have in the UK is TfL, so let's see what does and doesn't work there and use it for our knowledge.
My suggestion would be that they run frequent services, they keep costs relatively low and Sadiq doesn't try and run the lines himself, he just tries to get TfL the funding it needs.
Is that the one swimming in debt that was bailed out by government @CorrectHorseBattery3
Comments
So much for universal human rights.
As to the cenotaph, Drax is not responsible for the actions of his ancestors, and desecrating a war memorial is the action of a lout.
N.B. A "good Catholic school" is not a school for good Catholics!
It's not just Anglo-American but German, Italian and other ships which are based there.
Today, five ships are in port with in excess of 7,000 passengers and tomorrow another three with nearly 6,500. That's all money for the island in terms of mooring fees, employment for local guides and money spent by passengers in and around town.
As an aside, Iona, P&O's other big ship with a capacity of near 5,000, is wintering in Southampton and running 12-14 day cruises down to the Canaries if anyone wants a break from the British winter and doesn't want to fly.
1. The nature of the business means there are continual high cost investment decisions to be made on an annual basis (a single well is in the region of £50-100 million up front costs) and most of the companies will be operating in multiple regions and so will make continuous decisions about where to spend their money to get the best return. Hence the current flight of investment from the UK which threatens to fatally damage the Government's energy security and growth plans.
2. Even if the levels of taxation are reasonable compared to other countries, continually making changes to the tax regime drives out investment as it is almost impossible to make plans for long term field developments.
None of this necessarily undermines what you have said but it does add limits on what Governments could or should do as far as taxation goes if they want to maintain investment
Another issue is the internal dynamics of the country - post independence the Black political elite that grew out of the union movement (both main political parties are called the Labour Party) left the economy largely in the hands of a White economic elite who looked to the UK culturally and economically. The reparations debate I suspect is also related to a debate about the White minority's continued economic dominance within the country.
When Sir Keir took on the leadership after the atrocious result in 2019, the consensus in Labour’s senior ranks was that it would take at least two general elections before their party saw office again. Some I spoke to in the immediate aftermath of that crushing defeat were so despondent that they contemplated jacking it all in rather than spend another decade languishing on the opposition benches. Now they are being treated as people on the brink of power.
A poll lead can be a liability as well as an asset. It will be a big mistake for Labour people to start behaving as if they are on an easy cruise to victory. Sir Keir himself is worried about this. He tells his team that they should act as if they are five points behind and with everything still to fight for.
The Tories can make a howling mess of things and still hang on to power if the public has even less faith in Labour. That is the lesson of two of the party’s most shocking election defeats. Everyone who matters in the Labour hierarchy is haunted by the memory that Neil Kinnock was beaten by John Major in 1992 despite a Tory recession, and Ed Miliband lost to David Cameron in 2015 after five years of Conservative austerity.
That Labour has only produced three winners in more than a century of the party’s existence is another reason not to take anything for granted. A compelling vision of a better Britain was key to the party’s successes in 1945, 1964 and 1997. As one former cabinet minister puts it: “Labour wins when it owns the future.” I am unconvinced, as are a lot of the shadow cabinet, that they have achieved that yet.
The most persuasive interpretation of the polls is that they are more an expression of public disgust with the way the Tories are misgoverning than enthusiasm for the alternative offered by Sir Keir’s team.
Several quite progressive posters took issue with my point that both the Russian and Chinese Empires were still going strong and acting as imperialists to the minorities that made up their colonies. Some minor changes to terminology didn’t change that.
One person went so far as to say something like “if China is called imperialist Thame the term has no meaning”.
The current Chinese governments attempts to impose a weird, plastic, fake, and rather racist version Han identity on all “Chinese” (defined as anyone living in land once part of the Chinese Empire), by violence, are not “their culture”.
Any more than that picture of Hitler riding a horse in white plate armour means that he was an inheritor of a tradition of German leaders being racial champions of Aryans (sic). That was a pile of weird garbage that Himmler cooked up.
And lawyers working for the claimants will be paid a total of £689,000, court papers have revealed.
A payout of just over £1m has been agreed for 78 cases of abuse – with each victim getting £13,000.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/jimmy-savile-compensation-estate-runs-17096219
I lost my Megarry and Wade two house moves ago, before you ask for authority on the point.
In 2018, Mia Mottley had become Prime Minister when the BLP took power defeating Freundel Stuart's Democratic Labour Party (DLP). The swing from DLP to BLP in that election was 27% - the DLP lost all 16 seats on colossal swings - Stuart lost his seat on a 37% swing.
Sunak doesn't have much to worry about, does he? On a 37% swing, Labour would take Richmond with a 15,000 majority.
First, that shows quite how badly the Conservatives have screwed up in recent years.
Second, Throwing the Rascals Out has always been the dynamic of modern British politics. Heck, it's portrayed as a benefit of FPTP.
I reality of course, I'm afraid it gives this rather more po-faced answer:
Me: What would be a ridiculous way for the earth to end in 2023?
ChatGPT: It's not appropriate to speculate about the end of the earth or to make light of such a serious subject. It's important to focus on taking care of the planet and ensuring its sustainable future.
Should we rename it WokeGPT?
They probably are looking to the U.K. govt, and others, for a payout too as this goes along. It’s not an issue that is going to be dropped. It has support in some influential places. Take this article from the guardian this year. Usual grievance mongering but notable as it’s sponsored content in part by the Gates foundation.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/29/sorrow-and-regret-are-not-enough-britain-must-finally-pay-reparations-for-slavery
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinas-buy-up-of-britain-sees-1bn-in-dividends-flow-back-to-beijing-dw7zfgwbb (£££)
The headline says it all.
The infrastructure was for our own benefit, and largely in India. Not so much in W Africa or the Caribbean.
Labour are already moving towards supporting climate reparations.
In the commercial environment, avoiding going to law is always a good move, a relative stipulates arbitration in his contracts - IIRC a mediator, both sides, no lawyers.
One idiot tried the American style “due to get a price reduction thing” - he didn’t bother to give his lawyer all the details. Who then discovered that since they hadn’t tried the arbitration first, he was in breach of contract…..
And then you have in the present day:
Commonwealth of Dominica
Commonwealth of Kentucky
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Commonwealth of Virginia
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Commonwealth of Northern Marianas
Even defined separately in the dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/commonwealth
It’s not a great example but my parents may spend £30 a day on an island while cruising. We will probably spending £400 a day on the hotel and another £150 minimum on food and drink (restaurants on the platinum coast aren’t cheap.
I suspect 1 week in Barbados (and we’ve been multiple times) gives Barbados more money than my parents have in 30 years of cruises from Florida.
Well your party are also open to it. So either way it will happen in the future. It will just be pitched as something other than reparations as the word is contentious. A softer form of wording would be used to market it.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/cop-27-climate-reparations-uk/
"Extinction Rebellion (XR) says it has taken a decision to "temporarily shift away from public disruption" as a tactic to highlight its cause.
The climate protest group said in a statement entitled "We Quit" that it wanted to become more inclusive by broadening its appeal to focus on the issues affecting the planet rather than alienating people through stunts and direct action.
It admitted "very little has changed" as a result of the tactics used over the past four years, which have notably included oil terminal blockades to disrupt fuel supplies."
When the issue of reparations for Holocaust survivors was first raised, in the Fifties, it actually generated of anger among many Israelis. Their view was that money meant nothing.
NEW THREAD
The branch of the family that went to London prospered, and appears to have become quite wealthy; have I a claim against the estate?
But a good idea to change tactics which don't work.