Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
Note also that cotton manufacturing was by quite some way Britain's largest industry in the first half of the 19th Century.
While it's perfectly true to say that industrialisation could technically have happened without slavery, that is not what happened. US cotton production rose 20 fold in that same period, largely in order to supply British manufacturing. That was entirely on the back of plantation slavery.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads, the gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
So the French had no input when it came to making up this post Brexit rule, heaven forbid the EU might want to punish the UK for leaving...?
It’s not a post-Brexit rule. It’s how third country citizens were always treated on entry to the EU. It’s just that we decided to become third country citizens.
It really is a post Brexit punishment rule when a bunch of OAPs on an well organised and booked holiday from the UK on a coach tour have to go through this to go on their holiday to the EU, come on this is really petty. And I say this as someone who campaigned and voted to remain in the EU.
We created the situation. We asked for this to happen. We also failed totally to plan for it.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
So the French had no input when it came to making up this post Brexit rule, heaven forbid the EU might want to punish the UK for leaving...?
It’s not a post-Brexit rule. It’s how third country citizens were always treated on entry to the EU. It’s just that we decided to become third country citizens.
It really is a post Brexit punishment rule when a bunch of OAPs on an well organised and booked holiday from the UK on a coach tour have to go through this to go on their holiday to the EU, come on this is really petty. And I say this as someone who campaigned and voted to remain in the EU.
The irony is, said coach load of OAPs probably voted in the majority for Brexit.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
You can turn a decent profit by driving people to perform hard, unskilled work, under threat of extremely painful, but non-lethal punishments. Especially if you can quickly replace those who become too ill or exhausted to work.
But, you couldn’t run a modern economy like that, however much some employers would like to.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
He’s inviting someone, not the Tories but a right-wing campaign group, to make references to Jimmy Savile in the election campaign. If Labour wants to be in government, they need to be projecting a positive message rather than being down in the gutter.
You can easily imagine that poster with Savile filling half of it, Starmer the other half:
"Not prosecuted"
"Not prosecuting"
You forgot the Tory who gave Mr Savile the keys to the hospital.
Except, they aren't asking to be your Prime Minister in 2024.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
He’s inviting someone, not the Tories but a right-wing campaign group, to make references to Jimmy Savile in the election campaign. If Labour wants to be in government, they need to be projecting a positive message rather than being down in the gutter.
You can easily imagine that poster with Savile filling half of it, Starmer the other half:
"Not prosecuted"
"Not prosecuting"
You can, but that's likely to happen anyway if Conservative outriders get desperate enough.
Sadly, Queensbury Rules went out of the window a while back.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
So the French had no input when it came to making up this post Brexit rule, heaven forbid the EU might want to punish the UK for leaving...?
It’s not a post-Brexit rule. It’s how third country citizens were always treated on entry to the EU. It’s just that we decided to become third country citizens.
And we could do the same to EU citizens but have chosen not to. What does that say about each party?
The French applying the rules rigourously (and us not so much). It is what you and your fellow (delayed) travellers asked for.
Some of us on here hypothecated that the entry and exit to and from Great Britain would be far from frictionless, but you countered with "Project Fear". We got what we paid for.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Why what?
It speaks for itself doesn't it? Waving a coach through takes seconds. 60 people getting off a coach, queuing up, each having their passport looked at and stamped, then each getting back on the coach combined with a bit of wandering around and chatting, finding your passport, putting on coat, taking off coat and getting settled takes time.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
He’s inviting someone, not the Tories but a right-wing campaign group, to make references to Jimmy Savile in the election campaign. If Labour wants to be in government, they need to be projecting a positive message rather than being down in the gutter.
You can easily imagine that poster with Savile filling half of it, Starmer the other half:
"Not prosecuted"
"Not prosecuting"
You forgot the Tory who gave Mr Savile the keys to the hospital.
Except, they aren't asking to be your Prime Minister in 2024.
Fail. Try harder.
ANd for that matter consider the Royal and the Tory PM who helped legitimise Mr Savile. How many photos are there of them actually with Mr Savile? How do PBTories react when they are reproduced here on PB? I don't think there are any photos of SKS and Mr Savile.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
Logging on and yet another tedious brexit discussion
We have left the EU and no amount of to and froing is going to change that anytime soon so adapt your travel plans accordingly
Before we finally concluded our extensive worldwide travels over the last 20 years we were so used to passport controls and accepted it as part of our travel arrangements
Of course a closer relationship with the EU would benefit everyone, and to be fair both Sunak and Starmer recognise this, but for now it is what it is
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
There was a strong ideological commitment to slavery, across the South. The owners, only a small minority, benefitted greatly. But, a much wider group, who served in the slave patrols, got a great deal of satisfaction from seeing the slaves held down.
Logging on and yet another tedious brexit discussion
We have left the EU and no amount of to and froing is going to change that anytime soon so adapt your travel plans accordingly
Before we finally concluded our extensive worldwide travels over the last 20 years we were so used to passport controls and accepted it as part of our travel arrangements
Of course a closer relationship with the EU would benefit everyone, and to be fair both Sunak and Starmer recognise this, but for now it is what it is
That's true. Like in the old days we took anything from two weeks to three months to sail across the Atlantic.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
Felix has popped down the shops, seen a few hundred people in a city of 200,000+ and called the cost of living crises over. Talk about confirmation bias.
I hear Selfridges and Harrods are pretty busy too.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway.
It also doesn't explain why other countries couldn't follow the same path - to turn it on it's head, would Egypt, Trinidad or Bangladesh have been able to industrialise and become rapidly wealthy had they been permitted to enslave Britons? How come China has managed to do so in the last 30 years so effectively without it (their exploitation of the Uyghurs only really being present in the last 8-9 years) ? How about India doing so now?
What we have here is a false causal link. Just because something was also happening elsewhere in the world at the time - which was rapidly abolished, and well before the industrial revolution really took off - doesn't mean it must have been its cause.
The rest is hand-wringing and discomfort about how we feel today about ourselves and race relations, which is why we're trying to back fit the evidence.
Another imponderable is what might Africa have looked like if they had taken to manufacturing goods. Instead, they took to manufacturing slaves, a product which the Europeans were (shamefully) happy to buy. Which in turn led to millions more of Africa's fittest young men especially being taken into slavery.
(Although if Africa had gone down the road of implementing industrialisation, South Africa's 35 billion tons of coal would have made it the pre-eminent economic power on the continent, followed by Mozambique and Zimbabwe.)
Could the industrial revolution have occurred in Africa?
Surely, there's a mesh of cause and effect that includes a key thread running from: the fertile crescent to ancient Greece > Rome > the Renaissance > the Enlightenment > scientific method, and on to industrialisation.
You can add in a lot of other factors including: Christianity giving Rome a persistent influence on Europe which connected ancient Rome to the Renaissance, the presence of coal and iron reserves in Britain, and yes the slave trade providing abundant raw materials for the cotton trade.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
Note also that cotton manufacturing was by quite some way Britain's largest industry in the first half of the 19th Century.
While it's perfectly true to say that industrialisation could technically have happened without slavery, that is not what happened. US cotton production rose 20 fold in that same period, largely in order to supply British manufacturing. That was entirely on the back of plantation slavery.
But then, industrialisation killed the slavery system. The US South simply could not compete logistically with the North, once it came to a fight.
I’d say that a huge driver of industrialisation in the UK was the war with Napoleon. The UK’s production of armaments was simply in a different league to the rest of Europe.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Yep. I'll be using the tunnel myself week after next, and look forward to another early morning detour around the back lanes of East Kent.
Good luck. They are talking about 4 hour delays this morning as if that was a good thing. 4 hours is now positive! I haven't done the tunnel for a long time. Very frequent when my kids were young, pre brexit. It was drive on drive off, although i did have two major hold ups which were a real pain, but at least one of those was less than 4 hours. What was a major hold up has now become the norm.
Re Portugal, which keeps being brought up as not a problem - 3 hours queuing at Lisbon. I posted here from the queue.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway.
It also doesn't explain why other countries couldn't follow the same path - to turn it on it's head, would Egypt, Trinidad or Bangladesh have been able to industrialise and become rapidly wealthy had they been permitted to enslave Britons? How come China has managed to do so in the last 30 years so effectively without it (their exploitation of the Uyghurs only really being present in the last 8-9 years) ? How about India doing so now?
What we have here is a false causal link. Just because something was also happening elsewhere in the world at the time - which was rapidly abolished, and well before the industrial revolution really took off - doesn't mean it must have been its cause.
The rest is hand-wringing and discomfort about how we feel today about ourselves and race relations, which is why we're trying to back fit the evidence.
Another imponderable is what might Africa have looked like if they had taken to manufacturing goods. Instead, they took to manufacturing slaves, a product which the Europeans were (shamefully) happy to buy. Which in turn led to millions more of Africa's fittest young men especially being taken into slavery.
(Although if Africa had gone down the road of implementing industrialisation, South Africa's 35 billion tons of coal would have made it the pre-eminent economic power on the continent, followed by Mozambique and Zimbabwe.)
Could the industrial revolution have occurred in Africa?
Surely, there's a mesh of cause and effect that includes a key thread running from: the fertile crescent to ancient Greece > Rome > the Renaissance > the Enlightenment > scientific method, and on to industrialisation.
You can add in a lot of other factors including: Christianity giving Rome a persistent influence on Europe which connected ancient Rome to the Renaissance, the presence of coal and iron reserves in Britain, and yes the slave trade providing abundant raw materials for the cotton trade.
But the key thread still holds does it not?
IMHO, the Industrial Revolution could have taken place in Alexandria, in Hellenistic times. They had most of the most of the technology in place.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Yep. I'll be using the tunnel myself week after next, and look forward to another early morning detour around the back lanes of East Kent.
Good luck. They are talking about 4 hour delays this morning as if that was a good thing. 4 hours is now positive! I haven't done the tunnel for a long time. Very frequent when my kids were young, pre brexit. It was drive on drive off, although i did have two major hold ups which were a real pain, but at least one of those was less than 4 hours. What was a major hold up has now become the norm.
Re Portugal, which keeps being brought up as not a problem - 3 hours queuing at Lisbon. I posted here from the queue.
Lisbon has always been a bit of a nightmare because of the number of flights coming in from, and going to, Brazil and Lusophone Africa.
If you can find ports of entry to the EU that handle a relatively low number of non-EU flights/sailings, you should usually be relatively OK outside of the school holidays.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
He’s inviting someone, not the Tories but a right-wing campaign group, to make references to Jimmy Savile in the election campaign. If Labour wants to be in government, they need to be projecting a positive message rather than being down in the gutter.
You can easily imagine that poster with Savile filling half of it, Starmer the other half:
"Not prosecuted"
"Not prosecuting"
Johnson was widely condemned from his own side for the Savile slur. Not by me on here, I hasten to add. At the time I thought it clever, if cynical cut and thrust politics from BigDog.
On reflection Johnson was wrong, I was wrong and the Labour Party have made an enormous gutter politics error with this ad, and I don't often agree with John McDonnell.
Removal of the ad and a direct apology for the offence caused to Sunak wouldn't be the end of the world for Starmer. Maybe in a parallel universe that might happen.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Yep. I'll be using the tunnel myself week after next, and look forward to another early morning detour around the back lanes of East Kent.
Good luck. They are talking about 4 hour delays this morning as if that was a good thing. 4 hours is now positive! I haven't done the tunnel for a long time. Very frequent when my kids were young, pre brexit. It was drive on drive off, although i did have two major hold ups which were a real pain, but at least one of those was less than 4 hours. What was a major hold up has now become the norm.
Re Portugal, which keeps being brought up as not a problem - 3 hours queuing at Lisbon. I posted here from the queue.
Lisbon has always been a bit of a nightmare because of the number of flights coming in from, and going to, Brazil and Lusophone Africa.
If you can find ports of entry to the EU that handle a relatively low number of non-EU flights/sailings, you should usually be relatively OK outside of the school holidays.
Last autumn I discovered the joys of Lisbon Terminal 2. A shed on the edge of the airport. Top tip, if you fly there take a proper carrier.
Mr. F, aye, the Greeks did, and it's an interesting counter-factual.
Mr. Pointer, yep, no downsides politically to ignoring the main feature* that led to us voting to leave and moving in the opposite direction with no referendum.
The customs union is crackers if we're outside the EU. Even countries in it can suffer when a dal is pro-EU but bad for a specific nation.
*And yes, this didn't matter to me at all. But it did to many others.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
The so-called 'Cost of Living Crisis' is clearly a left-wing fiction, hence why the Tories are riding so high in the polls.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
If you are disappointed after your experience, try taking the coach back to Spain.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
How delightful. I guess not many intercontinental a380s fly into Newcastle.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
yep and I have had some straightforward flights to Spain and Portugal, but you try doing it when a bloody great plane comes in from the USA or worse 2 and you are queuing with a 1000 yanks at Lisbon while the EU channel remains empty.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
How delightful. I guess not many intercontinental a380s fly into Newcastle.
I have no idea what on earth that means - not unusual with your posts of course .
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
How delightful. I guess not many intercontinental a380s fly into Newcastle.
I have no idea what on earth that means - not unusual with your posts of course .
Enormous double decker jumbo jet. Lots of people on it.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
yep and I have had some straightforward flights to Spain and Portugal, but you try doing it when a bloody great plane comes in from the USA or worse 2 and you are queuing with a 1000 yanks at Lisbon while the EU channel remains empty.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
How delightful. I guess not many intercontinental a380s fly into Newcastle.
I have no idea what on earth that means - not unusual with your posts of course .
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
People's cost of living experience depends a lot on how much they are paying for rent/mortgage, and that varies a lot.
So some people are struggling horribly, but others are sitting / shopping pretty.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
The so-called 'Cost of Living Crisis' is clearly a left-wing fiction, hence why the Tories are riding so high in the polls.
Nobody's feeling the pinch, no, not at all.
Finally I've got through to a dyed In the wool leftie. You're very welcome!😭
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
Beginning? I'd have thought it was an integral part of the system. When the public no doubt in error choose the other side at an election its because they didn't understand, not because they are fools etc.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
The divide in the country is stark. Those with money are finding it goes less far than it did, but screw it. Those without money are deeply and truly fucked.
Easy to wander round a city you aren't from and say "no poverty here".
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
You can turn a decent profit by driving people to perform hard, unskilled work, under threat of extremely painful, but non-lethal punishments. Especially if you can quickly replace those who become too ill or exhausted to work.
But, you couldn’t run a modern economy like that, however much some employers would like to.
The modern version is to silence people into complying with compulsory Wokery under fear of losing their careers and their reputations if they challenge it.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
People's cost of living experience depends a lot on how much they are paying for rent/mortgage, and that varies a lot.
So some people are struggling horribly, but others are sitting / shopping pretty.
Very true. Personally I've never been more comfortable despite price rises, yet I fail to show my gratitude to the government.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
You were using a UK passport and going through e-gates ? Not sure of the relevance if so.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Possibly. But the attempt failed last time and the atmosphere is not great for the Tories - they wont get away with what they could if it was neck and neck.
Mr. F, aye, the Greeks did, and it's an interesting counter-factual.
Mr. Pointer, yep, no downsides politically to ignoring the main feature* that led to us voting to leave and moving in the opposite direction with no referendum.
The customs union is crackers if we're outside the EU. Even countries in it can suffer when a dal is pro-EU but bad for a specific nation.
*And yes, this didn't matter to me at all. But it did to many others.
There may indeed be downsides politically, which is no doubt why Starmer is running scared of my proposal, but at least it would be an honest approach and, if included in the Labour manifesto and Labour win a majority, no one could deny them the right to do it.
As it is, I suspect we will see a grubby back-room fudge that gets us to the same place after a Labour victory.
Since the Europhobes are largely a spent force the fudge will no doubt stick.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
The stream of court cases from years ago that are trickling through the news just reinforces the sense that the Tories have let the criminal justice system fall apart from consistent under-funding.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Possibly. But the attempt failed last time and the atmosphere is not great for the Tories - they wont get away with what they could if it was neck and neck.
Agreed. However last time was an attack by the Tories: if the stuff in Labour's attack reflects on Starmer's time as DPP, it may have more effect.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
I'm wondering if there are any big festivals coming up that might explain shopping in the North-East. Or have ydoethur's radical mates closed the schools so kids have to eat at home, perhaps?
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
On my packed flight into Newcastle from Spain I was through passport control, baggage claim and security scan of my case in less than 10 minutes. It was so quick I was waiting another 20 minutes before my sister got there to pick me up!
yep and I have had some straightforward flights to Spain and Portugal, but you try doing it when a bloody great plane comes in from the USA or worse 2 and you are queuing with a 1000 yanks at Lisbon while the EU channel remains empty.
I'll check on my return to Alicante next week.
Felix, you don't seem to be understanding the issue that Jonathan and I have both highlighted independently of one another (particularly as you didn't understand his post). I flew in and out of Alicante last summer for a wedding. No problem. No queues. Very straightforward.
If you fly into a major European airport (so one taking intercontinental large planes) and land at the same time as one or more from the USA or elsewhere in the world you are likely going to be held up for hours, whereas before you waltz through the EU gate. I mean it is simple common sense.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
Its not exactly a tragedy if people are faced with a bit a travel bureaucracy. Sure it's annoying if they didn't before, but people do tend to lay it on a bit thick.
It is an issue if people who supported that which led to the bureacracy whinge about it, but that's separate to how big a deal the checks actually are.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
You'd like a bit of border theatre, I'd have thought? Adds gravitas to a nation.
I'm not at all keen on Labour's attack ad on Sunak, but some context is useful.
Week after week, saddos like me who watch PMQs will note Sunak crowbarring in attacks on Starmer/Labour for being "soft on crime", "opposed to longer sentences", "opposed to our legislative initiatives to get tough on crime", and "in the pocket of lefty lawyers and judges". And, of course, Braverman repeats these themes ad infinitum. So it's not entirely surprising that Labour is hitting back. Being seen as "soft on crime" is a potential GE weak point for Labour. That's politics.
Clearly crime is a big issue with focus groups currently. Even the Lib Dems, never known for being tough on the issue, had Ed Davey banging on about it on GMB this week.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Criticism of the elite by an Oxbridge-educated professor of philosophy. It's always good to have that outside view.
Do we not see a lot of elite criticisms from within the elite already? Rich, privileged people attacking the rich and privileged, the stereotypical public school well connected toff opposed to the Establishment?
Some of Goodwin-esque new elite stuff is, naturally, taken too far because of political axes to grind. But that someone is of the elite in one sense does not preclude that they might be validly critical of another aspect of that elite. Parliament and the media are full of the buggers.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
You'd like a bit of border theatre, I'd have thought? Adds gravitas to a nation.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
You dismiss it casually, but the lack of any discernible Brexit benefit doesn’t stack up well with the queues, costs and empty shelves.
Also, their biggest shout for a load of seats at the moment, is in Scotland. They should absolutely be highlighting @DavidL’s case from the other day where, thanks to specific changes made by the incumbent government, a convicted child rapist just walked free from court.
Lol. No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads. The gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
Have we had a written judgement with reasons for sentencing from the judge, by the way?
Not as far as I know. Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
That is even more disgusting than the case up your way. What the hell is wrong with these judges?
Is it that judges aren't following the guidelines, or that the guidelines are (at least in part) stupid?
And of it's the second- why?
The tenor of the times? Seven years there was a kind of rough consensus on 'progressiveness' (which included trans issues) which may have resulted in over zealous or starry eyed application of enlightened values. A few disgusting politicians and tabloid campaigns later and that's all been put into reverse gear.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Criticism of the elite by an Oxbridge-educated professor of philosophy. It's always good to have that outside view.
Do we not see a lot of elite criticisms from within the elite already? Rich, privileged people attacking the rich and privileged, the stereotypical public school well connected toff opposed to the Establishment?
Some of Goodwin-esque new elite stuff is, naturally, taken too far because of political axes to grind. But that someone is of the elite in one sense does not preclude that they might be validly critical of another aspect of that elite. Parliament and the media are full of the buggers.
No one ever went poor on the spreads selling the number of opinions strongly held by public school toffs.....
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Criticism of the elite by an Oxbridge-educated professor of philosophy. It's always good to have that outside view.
Do we not see a lot of elite criticisms from within the elite already? Rich, privileged people attacking the rich and privileged, the stereotypical public school well connected toff opposed to the Establishment?
Some of Goodwin-esque new elite stuff is, naturally, taken too far because of political axes to grind. But that someone is of the elite in one sense does not preclude that they might be validly critical of another aspect of that elite. Parliament and the media are full of the buggers.
Though some of the time, it's about people who see themselves as elite, are the elite by any rational measure, and still find themselves being done down by eliter elites.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Clearly crime is a big issue with focus groups currently. Even the Lib Dems, never known for being tough on the issue, had Ed Davey banging on about it on GMB this week.
I'm not at all keen on Labour's attack ad on Sunak, but some context is useful.
Week after week, saddos like me who watch PMQs will note Sunak crowbarring in attacks on Starmer/Labour for being "soft on crime", "opposed to longer sentences", "opposed to our legislative initiatives to get tough on crime", and "in the pocket of lefty lawyers and judges". And, of course, Braverman repeats these themes ad infinitum. So it's not entirely surprising that Labour is hitting back. Being seen as "soft on crime" is a potential GE weak point for Labour. That's politics.
Sure, counterattacks are politics. But people overshoot with attacks and counterattacks all the time, that is also politics.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
You'd like a bit of border theatre, I'd have thought? Adds gravitas to a nation.
You would have thought that for international wheeler dealers, time would equal money. I am but a peasant serf and the time wasted frustrates the heck out of me.
Although I suppose as one stands in the long, long queue one has more time to post on PB.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Why what?
It speaks for itself doesn't it? Waving a coach through takes seconds. 60 people getting off a coach, queuing up, each having their passport looked at and stamped, then each getting back on the coach combined with a bit of wandering around and chatting, finding your passport, putting on coat, taking off coat and getting settled takes time.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
Its not exactly a tragedy if people are faced with a bit a travel bureaucracy. Sure it's annoying if they didn't before, but people do tend to lay it on a bit thick.
It is an issue if people who supported that which led to the bureacracy whinge about it, but that's separate to how big a deal the checks actually are.
For a weeks holiday it may not make much difference.
A long weekend however, where you fly out Friday night maybe arriving at 8 and expecting a decent night out sounds much less appealing if there is a 30% chance you are stuck in queue til 10.
Also people are missing more connections because of the variability in queuing times.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
🤷 I’ve got stamped in Lisbon also. Everywhere in Europe post Brexit.
I love it. I used to ask for a stamp when I was travelling in 2003-2004 as a student, way before Brexit was even a thing, because I didn't like not collecting souvenirs of where I went.
It's a good thing.
Try arriving in Frankfurt just after an A380 and tell me then it’s a good thing. It’s a monumental pain in the arse. Brexit is a fantasia of red tape.
Going through passport control doesn't bother me. Sorry.
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
You dismiss it casually, but the lack of any discernible Brexit benefit doesn’t stack up well with the queues, costs and empty shelves.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
It is a load of bollox, fecks sake everybody will owe everybody a fortune gievn we were all from slaves at on epoint apart from a handful of barstewards. Whey are teh African countries who sold the slaves not chipping in, total woke snowflake crap. Who is looking after descendents of non African slaves, total crap yet again.
On the Labour Party advert: the Labour Party doesn’t need to emulate the worst excesses of Blairite authoritarianism and “we’re tougher than you” posturing to demonstrate competence. I fear they are too readily embracing that.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Brexit rules require the stamps, not the French. No Brexit, no stamps.
If it's Brexit rules, why do they apply in France but not Portugal?
It's the EU-wide enforcement of the 90/180 day system that limits visits from non-EU countries. At many border points the checking is still done by manual stamp and manual checking, but at some point it will all be electronic which should speed things considerably.
Interesting that R4 Today programme is reporting that the French border control at the channel is fully staffed and the delays are entirely due to coaches passengers having to leave the coach and then reload to have their passports individually inspected and stamped rather than coaches being waved through. So the argument that passport inspection adds little time and it is the French being French appears nonsense.
Why?
Why what?
It speaks for itself doesn't it? Waving a coach through takes seconds. 60 people getting off a coach, queuing up, each having their passport looked at and stamped, then each getting back on the coach combined with a bit of wandering around and chatting, finding your passport, putting on coat, taking off coat and getting settled takes time.
Blindingly obvious isn't it.
Moral of the story. Don't go by coach.
Try putting that slogan on the side of a luxury bus.
Comments
While it's perfectly true to say that industrialisation could technically have happened without slavery, that is not what happened.
US cotton production rose 20 fold in that same period, largely in order to supply British manufacturing.
That was entirely on the back of plantation slavery.
No point in projecting a positive message in Scotland, lads, the gutter is the only language them Jocks understand.
It's a good thing.
But, you couldn’t run a modern economy like that, however much some employers would like to.
Fail. Try harder.
Sadly, Queensbury Rules went out of the window a while back.
Some of us on here hypothecated that the entry and exit to and from Great Britain would be far from frictionless, but you countered with "Project Fear". We got what we paid for.
It speaks for itself doesn't it? Waving a coach through takes seconds. 60 people getting off a coach, queuing up, each having their passport looked at and stamped, then each getting back on the coach combined with a bit of wandering around and chatting, finding your passport, putting on coat, taking off coat and getting settled takes time.
Blindingly obvious isn't it.
of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
Logging on and yet another tedious brexit discussion
We have left the EU and no amount of to and froing is going to change that anytime soon so adapt your travel plans accordingly
Before we finally concluded our extensive worldwide travels over the last 20 years we were so used to passport controls and accepted it as part of our travel arrangements
Of course a closer relationship with the EU would benefit everyone, and to be fair both Sunak and Starmer recognise this, but for now it is what it is
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
Looks like the evil SNP have infiltrated the English legal system.
https://twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1643634305187422209?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
I hear Selfridges and Harrods are pretty busy too.
Surely, there's a mesh of cause and effect that includes a key thread running from: the fertile crescent to ancient Greece > Rome > the Renaissance > the Enlightenment > scientific method, and on to industrialisation.
You can add in a lot of other factors including: Christianity giving Rome a persistent influence on Europe which connected ancient Rome to the Renaissance, the presence of coal and iron reserves in Britain, and yes the slave trade providing abundant raw materials for the cotton trade.
But the key thread still holds does it not?
I’d say that a huge driver of industrialisation in the UK was the war with Napoleon. The UK’s production of armaments was simply in a different league to the rest of Europe.
Re Portugal, which keeps being brought up as not a problem - 3 hours queuing at Lisbon. I posted here from the queue.
And of it's the second- why?
If you can find ports of entry to the EU that handle a relatively low number of non-EU flights/sailings, you should usually be relatively OK outside of the school holidays.
They probably won't, sadly.
On reflection Johnson was wrong, I was wrong and the Labour Party have made an enormous gutter politics error with this ad, and I don't often agree with John McDonnell.
Removal of the ad and a direct apology for the offence caused to Sunak wouldn't be the end of the world for Starmer. Maybe in a parallel universe that might happen.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/07/rare-freshwater-pearl-mussels-to-be-released-at-secret-welsh-site
Mr. F, aye, the Greeks did, and it's an interesting counter-factual.
Mr. Pointer, yep, no downsides politically to ignoring the main feature* that led to us voting to leave and moving in the opposite direction with no referendum.
The customs union is crackers if we're outside the EU. Even countries in it can suffer when a dal is pro-EU but bad for a specific nation.
*And yes, this didn't matter to me at all. But it did to many others.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
https://unherd.com/2023/04/the-fantasy-of-britains-liberal-elite/
Rats and sinking ships come to mind. But is the same leadership that he lauded throughout the leadership race?
Nobody's feeling the pinch, no, not at all.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
So some people are struggling horribly, but others are sitting / shopping pretty.
Easy to wander round a city you aren't from and say "no poverty here".
It does if they haven't staffed the desks properly. But I don't have a problem with borders and border security.
As it is, I suspect we will see a grubby back-room fudge that gets us to the same place after a Labour victory.
Since the Europhobes are largely a spent force the fudge will no doubt stick.
I fear he and Labour are on to a sticky wicket with this one. At the end of the day nobody can out-nasty the Nasty Party...
Good morning PB.
If you fly into a major European airport (so one taking intercontinental large planes) and land at the same time as one or more from the USA or elsewhere in the world you are likely going to be held up for hours, whereas before you waltz through the EU gate. I mean it is simple common sense.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/04/05/uaes-jewish-community-prepares-to-welcome-thousands-for-passover-celebrations/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_Family_House
https://twitter.com/scotnational/status/1644250406305021952?
The “woman’s ambassador” is Dylan Mulvaney.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6324030665112
It is an issue if people who supported that which led to the bureacracy whinge about it, but that's separate to how big a deal the checks actually are.
Yes. I feel it today. The sadness, the sadness. Ah well.
Week after week, saddos like me who watch PMQs will note Sunak crowbarring in attacks on Starmer/Labour for being "soft on crime", "opposed to longer sentences", "opposed to our legislative initiatives to get tough on crime", and "in the pocket of lefty lawyers and judges". And, of course, Braverman repeats these themes ad infinitum. So it's not entirely surprising that Labour is hitting back. Being seen as "soft on crime" is a potential GE weak point for Labour. That's politics.
Some of Goodwin-esque new elite stuff is, naturally, taken too far because of political axes to grind. But that someone is of the elite in one sense does not preclude that they might be validly critical of another aspect of that elite. Parliament and the media are full of the buggers.
Two priests are driving along a road when they see a police roadblock.
The priests stop the car and the driver rolls down his window. The police officer bends down and the priest asks “what’s happening officer?”
The officer replies “we’re looking for a couple of child molesters.”
The priest looks at his colleague and then to the officer and cries out “we’ll do it.”
Seven years there was a kind of rough consensus on 'progressiveness' (which included trans issues) which may have resulted in over zealous or starry eyed application of enlightened values. A few disgusting politicians and tabloid campaigns later and that's all been put into reverse gear.
See Boris Johnson before 2016.
Will certainly stay unread, as far as I'm concerned.
Although I suppose as one stands in the long, long queue one has more time to post on PB.
You're only allowed to campaign for gun control in the south if you're white.
A long weekend however, where you fly out Friday night maybe arriving at 8 and expecting a decent night out sounds much less appealing if there is a 30% chance you are stuck in queue til 10.
Also people are missing more connections because of the variability in queuing times.